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Last Wednesday, October 11, was National Fossil Day, and the Carter County Museum celebrated by inviting classes from Carter County High School. Students from the math, science, and agriculture classes spent time at the museum learning about fossil collections – following a lab plan set up by Chioko Hammel, Sharon Carroll, and Seth Whitney. This collaboration helps highlight the comprehensive nature of the collections here – not only do we have dinosaurs, but we also have an...
Hello, I’m tired of warnings. I mean I am really tired of warnings. The seat belt warning comes on every time I get in the pickup. I do fasten my seat belt. I don’t need a warning. The stove warns me when the burner is hot. I learned as a child not to touch hot stuff. I’ve scars to prove it. All of my pills warn me not to operate heavy equipment after I take the pills. I don’t have any heavy equipment. My mother warned me as a child to carry the scissors pointed down, and don’t run. I don’t carry scissors and I don’t run to t...
Hello, I get thousands of calls a week about my column. Well, not really. I get hundreds. Okay, I get a call every once in awhile. Maybe two a year. But they are calls. And I get thousands of letters. Okay. I got two. My favorite was a lady from California that wrote me a nice letter. Now, I don’t know many people from California. A couple ranchers and a team roper are about all I can recall. But somehow this lady got my column. In this letter she was a little critical. Well, very critical. She said, “If you were my hus...
Growing up in Ekalaka and Carter County, I always had a lot of chores to do. I first milked a cow and retained the milk, at the age of 4 and that was pretty much my job from then on. We always had a milk cow and sometimes more than one. One time my Dad brought home some goats and I had to milk them. That didn't last long because they were hard to milk and none of us liked the milk. We even had a cow at our first house, in Ekalaka. we kept her in Chapman's pasture. Often, I had to pump water for her from a very hard to pump...
When I was buying magazine subscriptions for my Grandsons, I purchased a year of National Geographic for Kids. Did I want the magazine subscription for adults? Sure, why not? First I received three back issues. This month’s magazine features Jane Goodall’s picture, taken when she was 29. She’s 83 today; you do the math. Magazines languish forever in doctor’s offices. I first saw Jane Goodall’s picture on the front of National Geographic when I was nearly 20. That would have been 1970, when I had a physical before starting...
Hello, One thing I have noticed, is that, like a fine wine, I’m getting better with age. Most people are like that. Well, maybe not most people, just athletes. Like me. I’m becoming better at football than I was over a half century ago. I don’t play fantasy football. But I could. I don’t bet on football games. But I could. I sit in my recliner and know what the coach should call. Never mind that as a 155-pound offensive lineman in high school, I didn’t call many plays. This dawned on me yesterday as I was hauling a load of c...
When I was thinking about retiring, the Prairie Singer told me not to do that. Her ideas and mine were rarely the same, but she said it was all right to “shake things up” (her words, not mine) every once in a while. Thinking of you, Celia. There have been numerous statements of agreement for retaliating against athletes who choose to kneel during the National Anthem. Is it disrespect for the flag? Is it disrespect for our beliefs? Or is it recognizing the ease of taking black lives without punishment? Are we black? Do we kno...
Hello, Last fall I had a chance to revisit the old Smith Camp on Fort Berthold. It was one of the first cow camps in that part of the country. I think the Keogh’s were among the first to make it kind of a headquarters on the reservation. But I’m sure there were ranchers before them. For the better part of a century, it was a camp where you could put your horse in a barn, go into a log cabin and get a cup of hot coffee, or find shelter from a storm. It lies just below the Kennedy Hills, about 15 miles northeast of the Los...
It’s that time of year… time to get your flu shot! Influenza is a highly contagious respiratory illness caused by the influenza virus. Respiratory means it’s an issue with the lungs and breathing. Influenza (often called the flu) symptoms can be mild or severe. Symptoms start abruptly, not gradually. Some symptoms a person infected with the influenza virus could experience are fever, cough, sore throat, runny nose, severe body or muscle aches, headache, and extreme fatigue. Some people may experience vomiting and diarr...
When we first bought the Eagle, we had to drive the paper “paste-ups” to the printer. The pages were photographed, then cleaning up the negatives, then making plates and printing. This was before computers. The process never went fast enough. When papers had been printed, in early afternoons on Wednesdays, I would drive them home from Bowman. We raced to put on labels and deliver papers to the post office, and to Emerson Pharmacy in downtown Ekalaka. Everyone was eager to see the weekly newspaper. The mail took longer, especi...
Hello, I know we have all been concerned with the fires that roared across Montana and other western states. I had the opportunity to witness some of the devastation first hand on Friday. On Friday morning, in a nice rain, I drove down to Bowman and met a friend to go to a horse sale in Great Falls. It was raining nice at home. And from here to Bowman and then northwest to Great Falls, we never shut the wipers off! 525 miles with the wipers on in western North Dakota and eastern Montana. That may happen only once in a...
The first day of our Canning Season was September 1, 2017. The head cook (and only cook) began boiling seven quart jars in the large water bath. He cut generously donated cucumbers into long spears, and little rings. We have our own dill, so you probably guessed the kind of pickles he made. I love dill spears; they “crunch” when you bite them. The dill in our garden is a volunteer from a crop we planted years ago. They are a weed if they grow where you don’t want them, and Brice pulls them out and pitches them in the pile...
Hello, As I write this, hurricane Irma is winding down. Still pounding northern Florida and up into Georgia, but it appears the worst is over. I understand most of the areas shut down operations when the wind reaches 45 mph. That is right. 45 mph. I know the winds are dangerous, but if we shut down emergency services when the wind reached 45, there would be no use having ambulance or fire trucks in Harding County! I have several friends who live in Florida. Mostly in the Ft. Myers and Naples area. They often kid me about...
Texas and Louisiana have received too much wind and rain, as much as 51 inches from hurricane Harvey. It left whole flooded communities that are now trying to move back, clean up, and begin reconstruction. Another hurricane, Irma, flattened the Virgin Islands, Bahamas and then did heavy damage in Florida. The Eagle used to have a subscriber in the Virgin Islands; is she still there? Did flood waters leave mold, bacteria, or dangerous substances requiring masks and suits to protect skin — the kind of suits used for handling h...
Labor Day 1986 was not a long weekend for Brice or me. We rationalized that by saying, Agnes Quam, our employee, was Labor, and Brice and I were Management. With no mail, there was no news except what came in on Saturday. We worked on other things. The year 1987 found us at home, with our daughter, enjoying an extra day off! People who labor in factories deserve a three day weekend. Do people involved in telephone solicitation, or Internet solicitation get an extra day off? I doubt it, especially if they’re in India, or s...
Hello, The Dakotas are a good place to live. Oh, we may have a drought. We may have to fight ice and snow for a few months of the year. The wind may blow from the northwest for days at a time. We do get an occasional flood along the Red, the Mouse, Heart, or Beaver Creek. But when we have a flood, most of the time we pile up some sand bags, or maybe have to evacuate a relatively small number of people, let the water recede, then move back in and clean up. Minot, Grand Forks, and Fargo have been hit hardest, but the end is...
Where did August go? I’m sorry, August got away from me, and I didn’t get an article in the paper. However, now you will be fortunate enough to read two articles from me this month! The kids are back in school, and with the start of school comes school sports! I’m so excited, because my daughter is in the 5th grade this year, and starts volleyball. So, I’ve got my car fueled up and my running shoes on to keep up with her! However, along with school sports, inevitably also come concussions. You may have heard in the past th...
Hello, When I served in the legislature, I had a friend that used idioms to often explain things. Now for those of you who don’t know what an idiom is, don’t feel bad. I had to ask Shirley. He would often say things like, “I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer” or “I’m not the brightest bulb in the closet”. Sometimes he would get a little mixed up as many legislators do. He may have said, “I’m not the sharpest knife in the closet”. But we always knew what he meant. What brought this thought on this morning is something...
August 21, 2017, showed the sky get darker, and the sun falling behind the shadow of the moon in partial or total darkness. Viewers were wearing special glasses, or looking through a pin-hole camera that shows the image of the shadow of the moon over the sun. Carter County saw it in 90% totality. In February of 1979, I witnessed the same thing in Billings. It was my first day at the Vo-Tech, studying drafting. We left the classroom and witnessed the solar eclipse on the sidewalk. My father-in-law journeyed north to take...
I was looking forward to the Firemen’s Barbecue, an annual event that brings people together from near and far. Brice sees one man who graduated a few years ahead of him, but looks younger! He always introduces himself to me; he doesn’t need to, I’d recognize him anywhere! I see people at the Firemen’s Barbecue once a year. They remember me, and I remember them, but not always their names. A more informed person fills in the blanks. I was to be at the table selling VFW Aux. quilt raffle tickets, but I was late. I travel in a...
Hello, By the time you read this, the eclipse will have passed. Hopefully you did not stare at the sun for two and a half hours so you can still read. They are issuing warnings to not stare directly into the sun or it can damage your eyes. Really. They have to tell people not to stare into the sun or it will hurt your eyes. Some people are making a killing on this. They are selling sunglasses for dogs. Sun glasses for dogs! I know my dog isn’t very smart at all. He will chase birds that he will never catch. He will try to d...
Hello, We did it again. I mean we went to the Bike Rally in South Dakota. You may remember, years ago, when Shirley and I took the Honda Super 90 to the rally. We didn’t make it all the way. Shirley’s sweat pants got tangled up in the chain going down the hill to the Lost Bridge. Probably was just as well. And then one time we went through Sturgis on the way to a rodeo when we had the grand kids along. I think that was the time we were sitting at a light in Sturgis and a motorcycle pulled up alongside us. The motorcycle mam...
I had to do a lot of chores when I was a kid and teenager in Ekalaka. Despite that, my favorite thing to do was to explore the hills and forest behind and around our home. Sometimes I went with other boys from town and sometimes I even went alone. It was believed then, that at the age of ten a boy could have a .22 rifle, usually a single shot, and I had one at that age. I saved up my money until we could send away for it in the catalog, Sears, I guess. It was a Stevens as I recall. I usually took it with me. Gun safety was in...
We have been gone to Idaho to visit our daughter Arlene and family, so there no articles. I want to (must) share a couple of experiences that I had on the way to Twin Falls and my time there. On the journey there, we stopped in Idaho Falls, Idaho to take a break and to put drops in Phyl’s eyes. The restaurant is just off the interstate and we had eaten breakfast there a couple of times. We ordered and the waitress served our small order. She returned shortly to give more coffee and said to us “I see by your license plates tha...
My husband had just edited my Bright Idea for August 11 and sent it to the Eagle when a flock of grackles descended on our front yard and began pecking. We knew it would be only minutes before they moved to our heavily fruited Harrelson apple tree. The apples aren’t ready to pick until late September, but already show red on a side, especially apples on top, exposed to more sun. They’re also the largest, especially if only single apples cling to a branch. These birds were on apples everywhere on the tree. Our small Fro...
