by jphilo | Mar 25, 2013 | Reflections on the Past
The other day, II had lunch with a friend who’s a junior in high school. On the way to our favorite Chinese restaurant, we drove by the former site of Bryant Elementary School. It used to look like this:
Now it looks like this:
We both commented about how weird it was for the building where we had many good memories (I used to teach there) obliterated.
The conversation made me think of what’s happened to the other workplaces in my past. Sky Ranch for Boys, where Hiram and I worked from the late 70s through the early 80s closed a few years back. Several of those buildings have been bought and moved to different locations–a rather disconcerting thought.
One of the tan and brown buildings where I taught in Camp Crook from 1980–1985 has been replaced with a new grey building. Which needed to be done, But if they chose to replace only one building, couldn’t they have chosen the one I taught in for the least number of years?
Also, my Grace Community Church Director of Discipleship and Assimilation digs–back in the days when the church rented downtown office space in the basement of the Livery–is now the kitchen of The Good News Room Coffee Shop. The owners have done a bang-up job with the space and decor, but it’s strange to order a cup of coffee and think, “Hmmm, right there where the sink is? That’s where my desk used to be.
All these changes take some getting used to, but I’m adjusting. Except for one thing. Considering the track record of my former workplaces and the fact that these days I work from home, do you think it would be wise for us to up our homeowner’s insurance?
by jphilo | Aug 20, 2012 | Current Events
The Little Missouri winding through Teddy Roosevelt’s Elkhorn Ranch in North Dakota.
On August 7 during Morning Edition, National Public Radio ran a story about Theodore Roosevelt and the Little Missouri River. The story titled Roosevelt’s Badlands Ranch Faces Potential Threat gave the history of TR’s connection to the North Dakota Badlands and the Little Missouri. But the bulk of the article was an expose about how the North Dakota oil boom is threatening the wide open spaces of TR’s historic Elkhorn Ranch.
My grasp on the details is shaky because when I first listened to the piece and during each subsequent reading of it, the same questions pop into my head. Can this really be the same Little Missouri that meandered through Harding County and past Camp Crook, the town where Hiram and I lived and worked for seven years after we graduated from college? How did I miss the historical connection?
The answer, of course, is that we were young and ignorant when we moved there. Plus, we lived in Harding County, South Dakota, about 150 miles south of TR’s ranch. And once Allen was born, our lives got…complicated. Even so, I can’t reconcile our South Dakota Little Missouri and the surrounding countryside with the concerns about TR’s North Dakota Little Missouri and the land around it.
Because Little Missouri country was wide open in TR’s day, it was wide open when we lived there from 1978-1985, and it’s still wide open today. If you’re wondering how wide open it is, consider this.
We drove 90 miles to the hospital the night our son was born.
The first 55 miles of the trip were gravel back then.
They’re still gravel today.
And it’s not too far from the Mcfarthest Spot.
If you need more convincing, here are a few pictures I took during trips to Harding County in 2007 and 2010.
State Highway 20 west of Camp Crook, three miles from the Montana border. This is about a mile from the Little Missouri.
Custer National Forest, about five miles from the Little Missouri. The view reaches well into Montana, about forty miles.
One of the horses on our friends’ ranch which is along the Little Missouri.
This country is big.
Wide open.
Huge.
No wonder I can’t wrap my head around the worries articulated in the NPR story. Not that they aren’t legitimate or newsworthy. They are. But there’s also a lot a land in them thar hills, and in my opinion, the story downplayed that fact to emphasize others.
There. I got that off my chest and feel much better. Except for one thing. Now I’m homesick for Harding County and all my friends there. I want to go to visit. But it’s a long way to drive.
About a thousand miles.
And the last fifty-five miles are still gravel.
On second thought, maybe I’ll wait to visit next summer.
by jphilo | May 26, 2011 | Current Events
The weather’s been in the news lately, garnering almost as much attention as Oprah’s farewell.
The tornado devastation in Joplin, Missouri.
Followed by more tornadoes in Oklahoma City.
Preceded by the tornadoes in Birmingham, Alabama and other southeastern states.
Not to mention the annual watch on the Red River near Fargo, North Dakota.
The watch on the Mississippi River as the swelling waters head south.
And the floods in a bunch of little towns in southeastern Montana.
Say what? You haven’t heard about the last one?
Well, it did make NPR’s national news broadcast over the weekend. But, it’s not in a high population area (unless you’re counting antelope and jack rabbits), and its annihilation scale won’t reach that of Joplin, Missouri (for which I am thankful), so the reporters have been busy there. And with Oprah, of course.
But at our house, the Little Missouri flood on the South Dakota/Montana border where we used to live, is big news. People have been evacuated. Officials were worried the bridge into Camp Crook would give out. There was talk of cutting the road to keep that from happening.
The flood pictures I’ve seen don’t do the situation justice. Most of the time, the Little Missouri is a tame, winding river. A sorry excuse for a river, really. When we lived there, its sluggish flow and scummy side pools made it good for nothing except breeding mosquitos, which it did with a vengeance. And that was in the wet years.
To see more pictures and even a short video, visit the Harding County FaceBook page. If you aren’t on FaceBook, sorry! They haven’t posted the video on YouTube. If you are on FaceBook, would you do me a favor? Pass the link along to your friends. Maybe it’ll go viral, and Camp Crook, South Dakota and the Little Missouri River will the talk of cyberspace.
Maybe even bigger than Oprah.
Not gonna happen you say? Well, in the early 1980s no one thought a young woman with an unusual name would become a talk show maven, a media mogul, and a first name phenomenon, now did they?
So go ahead. Pass it on. This could be the start of something big!
by jphilo | Nov 18, 2010 | Uncategorized
McFarthest spot in the United States? Or the annual and well-attended Sheep Shearing School held in those parts? Or my recent selfish thoughts about the paving project that may change the remote area where we used to live?
Well, the effects of the road project is chump change compared to what will happen if companies confirm a major oil field find that stretches across region where South Dakota, North Dakota and Montana meet. Even way back in 1978-1985, when we lived out there, rumors flew about an oil field far below millions of acres of range land and tall grass prairie. But everybody thought it would happen someday far in the future.
According to a recent Sioux Falls TV news report, someday could be now – or in the near future. The possibility leaves me with mixed feelings, but I thoroughly enjoyed the TV clip. The video footage captures the wide open spaces better than still photos. And the shots of what the newscaster call “the tiny town of Buffalo” made me giggle, since we lived in even tinier Camp Crook 23 miles further west. Who knows what adjectives the newscaster would have used to describe that hamlet?
But weirdest of all is a dream I had a couple weeks ago. In the dream, oil was discovered north of Camp Crook. A hundred workers came to town, houses were built, roads were paved, and businesses sprang up overnight. The school popped at the seams and more teachers were hired, one of whom was yours truly. I woke up in a cold sweat.
Prophetic dreams are not my forte, so even with the news report, I don’t put much stock my imaginings. For now, I’m content to view and review the TV story about a place where we used to live. Sure beats driving 600 miles to get there!
by jphilo | Oct 26, 2010 | Current Events
My old stomping grounds, way too close to the McFarthest Spot for comfort, is inching closer to civilization every year. A Facebook friend posted this article from the Billings Gazette about a road project in the southeast corner of Montana. After decades of effort, the last 17 miles of Montana state highway 323 were blacktopped this fall.
The people who live there are ecstatic, as the article makes clear. But my feelings were ambivalent when I first skimmed the article. I realized I didn’t want the quaint corner of the world where Hiram and I lived for seven years, where Allen was born, to change so dramatically. I wanted it to remain exactly the same. No changes. No progress. No easier life for friends who still live in the remotest corner of the south 48 states. How selfish is that?
Pretty selfish.
A more careful reading of the article calmed me down. Highway 323 wasn’t the road I thought had been paved, but a good distance west of Camp Crook, South Dakota where we lived. (Camp Crook was 3 miles east of the Montana border and 20 miles south of the North Dakota border, in case you wondered.) So progress isn’t nipping at its heels with the immediacy I imagined. So I breathed easier. How selfish is that?
Pretty selfish.
Funny how the progress I wished for when we lived there – paved roads, more people, easier access to civilization – saddens me now. But isn’t that human nature? Always wishing for a better future and idealizing the the hardships others wrestle daily, the hardships I left behind several decades ago? How selfish is that?
Pretty selfish.
So instead of wishing for the future, I’ll try to wrap my head around the present: a paved road all the way from Alzada to Ekalaka (don’t you love those names?) before my next trip out west. Can’t wait to see it!
