Thursday, March 26, 2020
No surprise, I drink bottled beer. Joe drinks wine. Our friends enjoy various beverages, some in glass, some in aluminum or plastic. It doesn’t take too long for accumulations to develop after a month, so recycling becomes necessary. Because Roseau County stopped recycling glass a few years ago, we go to Pennington County, Thief River Falls specifically, to recycle, calling the event “A Bottle Run.”
So it was, after Joe’s yearly St. Patrick’s Day party, we became two more coronavirus flouters among the probable hundreds across northwestern Minnesota, who, because of no known cases here as of the 19th of March, decided, then undecided, then decided, then hesitated, then decided to go on a bottle run anyway and severly limit our interaction with other people.
Joe and his wife had planned to drive to a family wedding in Boston, leaving here on March 21, and being gone a month, touring the east coast as far as South Carolina. But the coronavirus put a stop to that, and the wedding, postponing both until possibly September, so kept the travellers homebound for the most part; ‘home’ being the upper tier counties of Minnesota and eastern North Dakota that is, until the noose of travel restrictions tighten for all of us.
I was eager to go on an extended bottle run to Thief River Falls and beyond well before the coronavirus became so important in all our lives. I hoped Joe would consent to an early morning-get-home-loosely-by-dark roadtrip to ease my wanderlust. Coincidentally, Joe’s wife was beginning to recognize his deteriorating mental acuity was a result of their wedding trip cancellation and thought it good for him to go on a bottle run too, even if it was with me.
Neither of us were sick; though I have asthma as an underlying health issue. I take medication daily to thwart implications of normal stuff. I very much understand the glaring threat of the respiratory element of the virus, having awoken on a ventilator in 1990 because of pneumonia; my immediate sensation of panic in that situation is one of my most readily cognitive memories.
However, Joe has a strong constitution, though as reports bear out around the world, even healthy people can be affected. He has a one-day-a-week ‘essential’ job as a bus driver in Roseau, so he comes into contact with numerous people. He watches for anyone obviously ill, though virus carriers may not show outward symptoms. March 18, Wednesday, he had just one rider, four times; a regular customer who goes to the hospital on a daily basis, besides his normal intake of passersby at the bus garage, the Holiday station for coffee, and a stop at the grocery store.
“Do you have a particular destination in mind?” he asked me. “If you don’t, I was thinking Milton. I saw a video about a mountain biker who had ridden the hills around there and I wanted to check them out.”
I answered Joe, “Milton? We’ve been there two or three times. It’s not far from Osnabruck. I was thinkin’ Edinburg, maybe. I don’t think you’ve been there. It’s south of Milton about twenty or twenty-five miles. It’s where Orlin, his son Chris, and I went in 2006 to help that community build a sodhouse for their 125th anniversary.”
Those extra twenty-five miles or so to Milton on a nice, sunny, sixty-degree spring day, as would likely be forecast in the coming weeks, would be a dream trip. The rural highways would be awash with snowmelt. The snowbanks would be releasing their pent-up moisture into ditches, creeks and rivers. Crows, eagles, and vultures would be lifting from roadkill carcasses in the ditches uncovered by the sun. But that wasn’t to be the weather conditions of March 19th, 2020. Sure, we might drive with our windows down, but it’d only be because we are looking for the lines of the road on both sides of the car.
It was my turn to drive this trip. Before we left I looked at the weather forecast on three different sites, and they all agreed it was going to be a lousy day to drive anywhere, especially to North Dakota; even the governor of Minnesota and fifty-three other states were telling us to stay home.
I wasn’t eager to brave conditions unnecessarily, although I’ve driven in some pretty bad weather these past 52 years. In white-out conditions, with the wind blowing and visibility at zero, I’ve wished I had never started out. A person learns they can neither stop nor back-up, and must just keep moving until they can safely turn off, ever vigilant as to if you’re in the right lane, and not in the wrong one as I’ve experienced a few times, similar to flying an airplane in fog and not believing the altimeter or the gyroscope, the latter said to be the most important, for it tells you if you’re right side up or upside down.
I’ve re-learned to concentrate wholly on the road despite someone wanting to share a picture on their iPhone. I’ve been warned not to pay attention to the weird things happening outside or inside the car. I’ve learned to ignore anything that would lure my attention away from keeping my hands on the wheel, the wheels on the road, observing weather conditions, driving appropriately; and watching out for other guy; and these are only a minuscule part of what my wife of almost 12-years has enlightened me these past eleven.
“STEVEN! KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE ROAD!”
I don’t take anything for granted when I drive on long trips in the winter. My trip preparedness experience goads me into over-load, so for our trip -- after our last adventure when Joe drove -- I had loaded two aluminum snow shovels; a thirty-foot long pull strap, a clevis and pin, two wool blankets, my cold weather gear including goggles and facemask, bottled water, and a thermos of strong coffee.
Since we weren’t stopping at Johnnie’s Cafe in TRF to eat breakfast nor using the drive-up window at Arby’s for lunch, Joe had made a lunch of homemade rye bread and venison sausage; dessert was chocolate truffles and genuine Irish shortbread cookies that they would’ve taken on their roadtrip to Boston. Plus he packed his knee-high cold weather Muck boots, his ever-present BSU bookbag that contains who knows what and a Delorme roadmap of North Dakota. We were ready to go. Maybe.
So I was greatly relieved to wake up Thursday morning to apparently low wind speeds and sunny skies, for I knew we’d be taking the Subaru, and not the 4x4 truck. My bevy of bottles were loaded. Jackie’s collection of olive oil bottles and glass jars were in the car too. The coffee had been made. I had eaten breakfast and done my chores. I made double-sure I had my wallet; proof of insurance for the car, inhaler, pocket knife, a couple good writing pens. I had the cellphone and its charger, couldn’t forget them. The thermos too, check. I was good to go. I hugged the little woman, gave her a peck goodbye, and out the door I went, knowing that beyond our protection of trees and brush, the tabletop-flat expanse of northwestern Minnesota and eastern North Dakota awaited us in all its intensity.
Shortly arriving at Joe’s, I loaded his large box of bottles, road map, and Muck boots into the car, and awaited him coming from the house. He looked chipper, not the least bit apprehensive. He carried his Yeti coffee mug that’s so big it doesn’t fit into the tiny cup holders of my car, yet very neatly snuggles deep into his crotch he is quick to point out. “Yet another well-engineered Yeti design element I discovered these cold winter mornings when you don’t have heated seats, and you don’t,” he may have said, cheerfully.
It’s probably better that the most energetic talker of the morning be the passenger, as the driver has a host of responsibilities to attend, like road speed, weather conditions, -- or deer bursting from the woods or a ditch, and running onto the road unexpectedly.
I then demonstrated, twice, why the driver shouldn’t talk so much while driving; first, by driving past a turn to the south we should’ve taken. Joe noticed it right off as it’s often him that forgets the turn, not me. Second, along the double-wide section of County Road 48, past the old radar tower, lots of fresh deer tracks stipple the gravel as they bound across the road from one bur oak grove to the other.
“Did you see that deer just now?” Joe asked. “The wife worries that you may not see them. ”
“What deer?” I said, looking straight ahead. “I’m too busy watching the road to worry about some stinkin’ deer. Did it jump us?”
“You serious? You didn’t see it?,” he answered. “I told her you were a good driver.”
“Yeah, I saw . . .,” I said, nodding in the general direction. “. . . its tail disappearing into the trees there, right? Did it really run in front of us just now?”
“I knew you saw it!” he laughed, not quite sure to believe me or not.
Turning down ‘The Bobcat Trail,’ we see we’re the first vehicle down it since it snowed. It’s a pretty little minimum maintenance road cut through a high sand ridge of bur oak and pine where deer are sheltered from the elements and quite abundant. I drive slow and watch out for them because they don’t watch out for us. Where the narrow westerly road turns abruptly south below the gravel pit toward Marshall County Highway 6, is where we saw a bobcat cross the road ahead of us many years ago. It can be deep with snow or muddy, but that day the Subaru drove right through, its high clearance, good winter tires, and all-wheel drive made easy work of it.
Arriving in Thief River Falls we noticed more than a few coronavirus flouters out and about, (the bastards). Of course, TRF is a fair metropolis compared to Wannaska; a virtual oasis college town of restaurants, fast food joints, bowling emporiums, martial arts centers, tractor supply and implement dealers, electrical parts packaging and recreational vehicle manufacturing centers, boasting a 2020 population of 8300. Noting the absence of normal traffic, we sped through the parking lot adjoining the recycling area, quickly dumped our glass in the dumpsters and got out of there before anyone could breathe on us, then thoroughly washed our hands with sanitizer afterward and headed west on Highway 1 into the blurry unknown.
Joe had a route on his phone set up and referred to it aloud every few miles so I knew what to look for but somewhere along the way, we missed the turn-off and stayed on Highway 1, coming into Warren with egg on our faces.
“Warren? This is Warren already?” Joe said, looking down at his phone, then back up. “Have we gone through Argyle?”
“Nope, we didn’t go through Argyle,” I said positively. “Aren’t we north of it?”
This perplexed Joe until he realized that Argyle is west of Warren; that Warren was before Argyle. I should’ve known too, but it had been a long time since I had traveled that way and I plainly just forgot. It really didn’t matter. That’s the way it is when you get to be our ages, when your circle of travel becomes smaller; when you don’t take all the road trips you used to do, those long lazy trips going nowhere in particular; just driving, thinking, dreaming, taking a few pictures.
Did I mention the wind? The blowing snow across the roads? The highways that were ice-packed and rutted? The snow-white fields and field edges that were blackened by soil blowing in gales from across the highway, and carried for miles on wind no longer slowed by windbreaks planted after the dust bowl era, that now had been bulldozed down. “Snirt” they call it, a mix of snow and dirt, that I swear impregnates the melting road ice in North Dakota and churns it into frozen concrete that sticks to the bottom of vehicles, like it did the Subaru, forming large heavy masses hanging on its mudflaps and wheelwells that grind against tires. I had to use the clevis I had packed along, to break the ice chunks from the wheel wells so the front wheels could easily turn and not make growling noises.
Entering Edinburg from the southeast was different for me, but when we turned into town by the city park, I recognized the place in front of the Polar Communications building where we had built the sodhouse. No trace remains. Edinburg was home to Joe Holm, a farmer who Orlin had worked for when he was younger. One of the reasons Joe, his wife, and Joe’s brother got along so well with Orlin was that Orlin spoke fluent Norwegian, a language his dad always spoke to him as he grew up. The Holms enjoyed talking to Orlin in Norwegian as so few people used the old world language in conversation at that time.
We drove down almost every street and alley in Edinburg, stopping at last in front of the Edinburg Community Center, its post office, and the American Legion Davidson Post 156. Across the street was the Edinburg General Store, and upon its west wall, next to the Fireside Lounge, was a large mural depicting the ox cart trails that was commissioned by Bernice Flanagan, the General Store owner in 2007, or so, prior to our Minnesota Sesquicentennial walk from Pembina to St. Paul with Ostbys and Pum, their Holstein ox. Viewing the detail of the mural closely, we all saw the striking resemblance of one of the prominent ox drivers depicted, to our friend Tom Thronsedt of Jamestown, ND, who was on the walk with us. I saw that his caricature has survived the ravages of the natural elements all these years, better than the rest of the painting.
Joe and I ate our lunch on Main Street, the sun shining warmly into the car as local coronavirus flouters went in and out of the post office and the market, casting sideways glances at us.
On our way north to Milton, we met occasional farm traffic, pickups mostly, pulling stock trailers. Snowmobiles were out in force too; some raced along ditches taunting the coronavirus to catch them; others were secured on trailers behind trucks going someplace else. Outdoor activities hadn’t slowed down because of the virus.
At one point south of Milton, I thought Joe was off his rocker choosing this particular gravel road as it was through a hilly area (yes, this is North Dakota) and the road shoulders were ill-defined. We safely kept up the speed, it being a well-traveled road, but the wind erased anything definitive until we ascended a hummock and a railroad crossing suddenly appeared, just as Joe was expecting. We could barely make out some grain elevators in the distance. “There’s Milton,” he said.
I’ve long thought of Milton as an oasis in a desert, nothing you’d write home about necessarily, but Joe had found a video some Brazilian workers had made of their stay in Milton one summer while employed for an area farmer. They said they were far from home. They were having a barbecue and beer in a backyard there and telling their family in Brazil all about it.
Orlin Ostby has history in Milton too; I know you’re getting tired of reading that; (the man’s been everywhere, man) and since it’s a stone’s throw from Osnabrock, it was a town he and I had visited the same trip we had built the sodhouse in Edinburg. I had traveled to Milton since then, discovering the John Wayne Memorial on Main in an old Hartz Store front, that I am sad to say is no longer standing. It’s completely gone to local memory, passing as just another relic left to the winds of North Dakota.
Adieu Milton! Leaving the flat expanse that is but the beginning of the vast northern plains, on a lip of a deep wooded canyon on the northern edge of town, we head homeward, our wanderlust momentarily satisfied. Here roads were icier, rougher; sometimes solid across the lane creating conditions of instability. My attentions were there as Joe sat quietly, tapping out a message to one of his family on his phone, the sounds of the icy road and jostling of the wind becoming almost rhythmic.
Availability of gasoline had become an issue. I was down to a quarter tank, so we planned on stopping in Drayton to fill up. As the tank filled I chipped ice from under the wheelwells using the clevis again, kicking the mudflaps to break the chunks free. The cold wind blew the exhaust from all the running engines there toward Grand Forks. A man at an opposite pump leaned against his pickup as he filled it, a black stocking cap firm over his ears and forehead, his coveralls zipped up to his chin. I smiled at him when we looked at one another, and said “Hey, it’s the first day of spring!” He laughed, “Don’t I know it!”
Arriving home, about seventy miles later, we parted company at Joe’s as he unloaded his empty bottle box, grabbed his BSU bookbag, made sure he had his phone, its cord, his Yeti crotch warmer, and his Muck boots. He gave me the leftover genuine Irish shortbread for my wife, and told me thanks for the safe trip. I thanked him for his superb navigational skills and conversation; he closed the car door and off I went; home; thankfully, where the trees are.
No surprise, I drink bottled beer. Joe drinks wine. Our friends enjoy various beverages, some in glass, some in aluminum or plastic. It doesn’t take too long for accumulations to develop after a month, so recycling becomes necessary. Because Roseau County stopped recycling glass a few years ago, we go to Pennington County, Thief River Falls specifically, to recycle, calling the event “A Bottle Run.”
So it was, after Joe’s yearly St. Patrick’s Day party, we became two more coronavirus flouters among the probable hundreds across northwestern Minnesota, who, because of no known cases here as of the 19th of March, decided, then undecided, then decided, then hesitated, then decided to go on a bottle run anyway and severly limit our interaction with other people.
Joe and his wife had planned to drive to a family wedding in Boston, leaving here on March 21, and being gone a month, touring the east coast as far as South Carolina. But the coronavirus put a stop to that, and the wedding, postponing both until possibly September, so kept the travellers homebound for the most part; ‘home’ being the upper tier counties of Minnesota and eastern North Dakota that is, until the noose of travel restrictions tighten for all of us.
I was eager to go on an extended bottle run to Thief River Falls and beyond well before the coronavirus became so important in all our lives. I hoped Joe would consent to an early morning-get-home-loosely-by-dark roadtrip to ease my wanderlust. Coincidentally, Joe’s wife was beginning to recognize his deteriorating mental acuity was a result of their wedding trip cancellation and thought it good for him to go on a bottle run too, even if it was with me.
Neither of us were sick; though I have asthma as an underlying health issue. I take medication daily to thwart implications of normal stuff. I very much understand the glaring threat of the respiratory element of the virus, having awoken on a ventilator in 1990 because of pneumonia; my immediate sensation of panic in that situation is one of my most readily cognitive memories.
However, Joe has a strong constitution, though as reports bear out around the world, even healthy people can be affected. He has a one-day-a-week ‘essential’ job as a bus driver in Roseau, so he comes into contact with numerous people. He watches for anyone obviously ill, though virus carriers may not show outward symptoms. March 18, Wednesday, he had just one rider, four times; a regular customer who goes to the hospital on a daily basis, besides his normal intake of passersby at the bus garage, the Holiday station for coffee, and a stop at the grocery store.
“Do you have a particular destination in mind?” he asked me. “If you don’t, I was thinking Milton. I saw a video about a mountain biker who had ridden the hills around there and I wanted to check them out.”
I answered Joe, “Milton? We’ve been there two or three times. It’s not far from Osnabruck. I was thinkin’ Edinburg, maybe. I don’t think you’ve been there. It’s south of Milton about twenty or twenty-five miles. It’s where Orlin, his son Chris, and I went in 2006 to help that community build a sodhouse for their 125th anniversary.”
 | |
| The community of Edinburg, North Dakota built this sodhouse for their 125th anniversary in 2007. Orlin Ostby of Thief River Falls, his son Chris Ostby, and I volunteered too. Orlin donated the tamarack poles for the rafters. |
Those extra twenty-five miles or so to Milton on a nice, sunny, sixty-degree spring day, as would likely be forecast in the coming weeks, would be a dream trip. The rural highways would be awash with snowmelt. The snowbanks would be releasing their pent-up moisture into ditches, creeks and rivers. Crows, eagles, and vultures would be lifting from roadkill carcasses in the ditches uncovered by the sun. But that wasn’t to be the weather conditions of March 19th, 2020. Sure, we might drive with our windows down, but it’d only be because we are looking for the lines of the road on both sides of the car.
It was my turn to drive this trip. Before we left I looked at the weather forecast on three different sites, and they all agreed it was going to be a lousy day to drive anywhere, especially to North Dakota; even the governor of Minnesota and fifty-three other states were telling us to stay home.
I wasn’t eager to brave conditions unnecessarily, although I’ve driven in some pretty bad weather these past 52 years. In white-out conditions, with the wind blowing and visibility at zero, I’ve wished I had never started out. A person learns they can neither stop nor back-up, and must just keep moving until they can safely turn off, ever vigilant as to if you’re in the right lane, and not in the wrong one as I’ve experienced a few times, similar to flying an airplane in fog and not believing the altimeter or the gyroscope, the latter said to be the most important, for it tells you if you’re right side up or upside down.
I’ve re-learned to concentrate wholly on the road despite someone wanting to share a picture on their iPhone. I’ve been warned not to pay attention to the weird things happening outside or inside the car. I’ve learned to ignore anything that would lure my attention away from keeping my hands on the wheel, the wheels on the road, observing weather conditions, driving appropriately; and watching out for other guy; and these are only a minuscule part of what my wife of almost 12-years has enlightened me these past eleven.
“STEVEN! KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE ROAD!”
I don’t take anything for granted when I drive on long trips in the winter. My trip preparedness experience goads me into over-load, so for our trip -- after our last adventure when Joe drove -- I had loaded two aluminum snow shovels; a thirty-foot long pull strap, a clevis and pin, two wool blankets, my cold weather gear including goggles and facemask, bottled water, and a thermos of strong coffee.
Since we weren’t stopping at Johnnie’s Cafe in TRF to eat breakfast nor using the drive-up window at Arby’s for lunch, Joe had made a lunch of homemade rye bread and venison sausage; dessert was chocolate truffles and genuine Irish shortbread cookies that they would’ve taken on their roadtrip to Boston. Plus he packed his knee-high cold weather Muck boots, his ever-present BSU bookbag that contains who knows what and a Delorme roadmap of North Dakota. We were ready to go. Maybe.
So I was greatly relieved to wake up Thursday morning to apparently low wind speeds and sunny skies, for I knew we’d be taking the Subaru, and not the 4x4 truck. My bevy of bottles were loaded. Jackie’s collection of olive oil bottles and glass jars were in the car too. The coffee had been made. I had eaten breakfast and done my chores. I made double-sure I had my wallet; proof of insurance for the car, inhaler, pocket knife, a couple good writing pens. I had the cellphone and its charger, couldn’t forget them. The thermos too, check. I was good to go. I hugged the little woman, gave her a peck goodbye, and out the door I went, knowing that beyond our protection of trees and brush, the tabletop-flat expanse of northwestern Minnesota and eastern North Dakota awaited us in all its intensity.
Shortly arriving at Joe’s, I loaded his large box of bottles, road map, and Muck boots into the car, and awaited him coming from the house. He looked chipper, not the least bit apprehensive. He carried his Yeti coffee mug that’s so big it doesn’t fit into the tiny cup holders of my car, yet very neatly snuggles deep into his crotch he is quick to point out. “Yet another well-engineered Yeti design element I discovered these cold winter mornings when you don’t have heated seats, and you don’t,” he may have said, cheerfully.
It’s probably better that the most energetic talker of the morning be the passenger, as the driver has a host of responsibilities to attend, like road speed, weather conditions, -- or deer bursting from the woods or a ditch, and running onto the road unexpectedly.
I then demonstrated, twice, why the driver shouldn’t talk so much while driving; first, by driving past a turn to the south we should’ve taken. Joe noticed it right off as it’s often him that forgets the turn, not me. Second, along the double-wide section of County Road 48, past the old radar tower, lots of fresh deer tracks stipple the gravel as they bound across the road from one bur oak grove to the other.
“Did you see that deer just now?” Joe asked. “The wife worries that you may not see them. ”
“What deer?” I said, looking straight ahead. “I’m too busy watching the road to worry about some stinkin’ deer. Did it jump us?”
“You serious? You didn’t see it?,” he answered. “I told her you were a good driver.”
“Yeah, I saw . . .,” I said, nodding in the general direction. “. . . its tail disappearing into the trees there, right? Did it really run in front of us just now?”
“I knew you saw it!” he laughed, not quite sure to believe me or not.
Turning down ‘The Bobcat Trail,’ we see we’re the first vehicle down it since it snowed. It’s a pretty little minimum maintenance road cut through a high sand ridge of bur oak and pine where deer are sheltered from the elements and quite abundant. I drive slow and watch out for them because they don’t watch out for us. Where the narrow westerly road turns abruptly south below the gravel pit toward Marshall County Highway 6, is where we saw a bobcat cross the road ahead of us many years ago. It can be deep with snow or muddy, but that day the Subaru drove right through, its high clearance, good winter tires, and all-wheel drive made easy work of it.
Arriving in Thief River Falls we noticed more than a few coronavirus flouters out and about, (the bastards). Of course, TRF is a fair metropolis compared to Wannaska; a virtual oasis college town of restaurants, fast food joints, bowling emporiums, martial arts centers, tractor supply and implement dealers, electrical parts packaging and recreational vehicle manufacturing centers, boasting a 2020 population of 8300. Noting the absence of normal traffic, we sped through the parking lot adjoining the recycling area, quickly dumped our glass in the dumpsters and got out of there before anyone could breathe on us, then thoroughly washed our hands with sanitizer afterward and headed west on Highway 1 into the blurry unknown.
Joe had a route on his phone set up and referred to it aloud every few miles so I knew what to look for but somewhere along the way, we missed the turn-off and stayed on Highway 1, coming into Warren with egg on our faces.
“Warren? This is Warren already?” Joe said, looking down at his phone, then back up. “Have we gone through Argyle?”
“Nope, we didn’t go through Argyle,” I said positively. “Aren’t we north of it?”
This perplexed Joe until he realized that Argyle is west of Warren; that Warren was before Argyle. I should’ve known too, but it had been a long time since I had traveled that way and I plainly just forgot. It really didn’t matter. That’s the way it is when you get to be our ages, when your circle of travel becomes smaller; when you don’t take all the road trips you used to do, those long lazy trips going nowhere in particular; just driving, thinking, dreaming, taking a few pictures.
Did I mention the wind? The blowing snow across the roads? The highways that were ice-packed and rutted? The snow-white fields and field edges that were blackened by soil blowing in gales from across the highway, and carried for miles on wind no longer slowed by windbreaks planted after the dust bowl era, that now had been bulldozed down. “Snirt” they call it, a mix of snow and dirt, that I swear impregnates the melting road ice in North Dakota and churns it into frozen concrete that sticks to the bottom of vehicles, like it did the Subaru, forming large heavy masses hanging on its mudflaps and wheelwells that grind against tires. I had to use the clevis I had packed along, to break the ice chunks from the wheel wells so the front wheels could easily turn and not make growling noises.
 |
| Pisek, North Dakota was one of the little towns along the way. Pisek was founded in 1882 by Bohemian settlers who had come from the town of Pisek in the modern Czech Republic. 2017 population was 108. |
 |
| The Pisek school is no longer used for such, but still looks in pretty good shape. |
Entering Edinburg from the southeast was different for me, but when we turned into town by the city park, I recognized the place in front of the Polar Communications building where we had built the sodhouse. No trace remains. Edinburg was home to Joe Holm, a farmer who Orlin had worked for when he was younger. One of the reasons Joe, his wife, and Joe’s brother got along so well with Orlin was that Orlin spoke fluent Norwegian, a language his dad always spoke to him as he grew up. The Holms enjoyed talking to Orlin in Norwegian as so few people used the old world language in conversation at that time.
We drove down almost every street and alley in Edinburg, stopping at last in front of the Edinburg Community Center, its post office, and the American Legion Davidson Post 156. Across the street was the Edinburg General Store, and upon its west wall, next to the Fireside Lounge, was a large mural depicting the ox cart trails that was commissioned by Bernice Flanagan, the General Store owner in 2007, or so, prior to our Minnesota Sesquicentennial walk from Pembina to St. Paul with Ostbys and Pum, their Holstein ox. Viewing the detail of the mural closely, we all saw the striking resemblance of one of the prominent ox drivers depicted, to our friend Tom Thronsedt of Jamestown, ND, who was on the walk with us. I saw that his caricature has survived the ravages of the natural elements all these years, better than the rest of the painting.
 | |
| The Edinburg Mural above and the ox cart driver that looks like Tom commissioned by Bernice Flanagan |
Joe and I ate our lunch on Main Street, the sun shining warmly into the car as local coronavirus flouters went in and out of the post office and the market, casting sideways glances at us.
On our way north to Milton, we met occasional farm traffic, pickups mostly, pulling stock trailers. Snowmobiles were out in force too; some raced along ditches taunting the coronavirus to catch them; others were secured on trailers behind trucks going someplace else. Outdoor activities hadn’t slowed down because of the virus.
At one point south of Milton, I thought Joe was off his rocker choosing this particular gravel road as it was through a hilly area (yes, this is North Dakota) and the road shoulders were ill-defined. We safely kept up the speed, it being a well-traveled road, but the wind erased anything definitive until we ascended a hummock and a railroad crossing suddenly appeared, just as Joe was expecting. We could barely make out some grain elevators in the distance. “There’s Milton,” he said.
I’ve long thought of Milton as an oasis in a desert, nothing you’d write home about necessarily, but Joe had found a video some Brazilian workers had made of their stay in Milton one summer while employed for an area farmer. They said they were far from home. They were having a barbecue and beer in a backyard there and telling their family in Brazil all about it.
Orlin Ostby has history in Milton too; I know you’re getting tired of reading that; (the man’s been everywhere, man) and since it’s a stone’s throw from Osnabrock, it was a town he and I had visited the same trip we had built the sodhouse in Edinburg. I had traveled to Milton since then, discovering the John Wayne Memorial on Main in an old Hartz Store front, that I am sad to say is no longer standing. It’s completely gone to local memory, passing as just another relic left to the winds of North Dakota.
Adieu Milton! Leaving the flat expanse that is but the beginning of the vast northern plains, on a lip of a deep wooded canyon on the northern edge of town, we head homeward, our wanderlust momentarily satisfied. Here roads were icier, rougher; sometimes solid across the lane creating conditions of instability. My attentions were there as Joe sat quietly, tapping out a message to one of his family on his phone, the sounds of the icy road and jostling of the wind becoming almost rhythmic.
Availability of gasoline had become an issue. I was down to a quarter tank, so we planned on stopping in Drayton to fill up. As the tank filled I chipped ice from under the wheelwells using the clevis again, kicking the mudflaps to break the chunks free. The cold wind blew the exhaust from all the running engines there toward Grand Forks. A man at an opposite pump leaned against his pickup as he filled it, a black stocking cap firm over his ears and forehead, his coveralls zipped up to his chin. I smiled at him when we looked at one another, and said “Hey, it’s the first day of spring!” He laughed, “Don’t I know it!”
Arriving home, about seventy miles later, we parted company at Joe’s as he unloaded his empty bottle box, grabbed his BSU bookbag, made sure he had his phone, its cord, his Yeti crotch warmer, and his Muck boots. He gave me the leftover genuine Irish shortbread for my wife, and told me thanks for the safe trip. I thanked him for his superb navigational skills and conversation; he closed the car door and off I went; home; thankfully, where the trees are.
A fine account of a fine jaunt.
ReplyDeleteIt's worth repeating. The two of you on a road trip are just like Mother Nature's work across the eons of natural selection. Daniel Dennett describes your like-minded processes like this: "Shameless, with all the time in the world."
ReplyDeleteHappy birthday Chairman Joe!
Ah, that the fairer sex ever be a participant of a bottle run. Alas, 'twill never be, and thus I mourn. JP Savage
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