Issuu

A PUBLICATION OF HUMANITIES NORTH DAKOTA

04.19

2ECOND THOUGHT

the

SENSE OF PLACE issue

CONTENTS

FICTION 02 Forty Minutes By Bradley Paul Edin 06 Seedlings By Jennifer Robinette

NONFICTION 10 How It Comes Back By Tayo Basquiat 16 En Plein Air By Ken Rogers 20 Never Fully Dressed By Kayla Schmidt POETRY 24 The See Far Place By Denise Lajimodiere

16 26 “I told the students that they were at the age when they might begin to choose places that would sustain them the rest of their lives, that places were more reliable than human beings, and often much longer-lasting, and I asked them where they felt at home.” ― REBECCA SOLNIT, The Faraway Nearby

26 Home at Dusk By David R. Solheim 28 (Im)migration By Jennifer Hernandez 30 In Heaven There Is No Beer By Taylor Brorby 32 What Will Become of the Farm? By Matthew Nies 36 Annual Report

BRENNA DAUGHERTY GERHARDT

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

STORIES TO TELL Every year I look forward to our Sense of Place issue. I love reading, but it’s rare to come across a book set in North Dakota, or from an author with a deep connection to this place. There are stories here that can’t possibly be told from anywhere else—a priceless, yet neglected, resource. I like to think that somewhere within our borders the next Louise Erdrich, Susan Power, or Leif Enger is dreaming up a novel that will bring another North Dakota story to the world. There are so many untold. Within these pages is a small sampling of what is possible.

ON SECOND THOUGHT is published by Humanities North Dakota. To subscribe, please contact us: 800.338.6543 info@humanitiesnd.org humanitiesnd.org Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this magazine do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities or Humanities North Dakota.

COVER ARTWORK Max Patzner, The Traveler Digital Photograph, 2012

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FORTY MINUTES by Bradley Paul Edin

om Sherwin resists the temptation that after twenty years still beguiles him, to press the button which would allow him another nine minutes of sleep. Instead he stops the alarm. He turns back

the bedcovers gently and as gently removes himself from bed. He means to be considerate both of his sleeping wife and of his unpredictable back. Diane does not awaken. She would appreciate his care, but twenty years have trained her to sleep through his nocturnal ramblings, and she is oblivious to it. Tom fumbles more than usual as he pulls on his jeans and buttons them. He and the ewes are midway into the second week of lambing, and his broken nights are beginning to tell on him. He thinks for the hundredth time that his fumbling is the foolish price he pays for still wearing Levis with a button fly. As he pulls on a sweatshirt, conveniently button free, he acknowledges that in the daylight he will again judge the price commensurate with the pleasure. His jeans still make him feel young, and dealing with the fly still imparts a fragrance of desire and potential consummation. The perfume is weak now, but it lingers. He goes to the back hall, where the chore clothes hang. Tom puts on his scarf, coveralls, boots, cap, and gloves, and goes into the night. The dog joins him. He trusts the

dog will detect a mountain lion before he does and warn him somehow. Everyone knows that by the time you realize a lion is stalking you, it is too late to do anything. This seems a useful bit of information to take to heart, although he wonders how one could possibly verify it. The moon is just past full, and the encrusted snow, flecked with black, returns its already reflected light. The night glows. It would be a good night to ski. He and Diane used to ski on moonlit nights, before the children came. Each became a devotee of cross-country skiing in college, and mastered the then necessary techniques of pinetarring and waxing and scraping, applying klister when appropriate or—as Diane did—refusing to use the sticky uncooperative compound regardless of the temperature. Waxless skis, pragmatic but somehow heartless, replaced their old Bonnas when the children were old enough to join them on the trails Tom would cut in their woods, and now the old skis, their lignin edges chipped through long use, are carefully stored in the attic of the shop. Diane has suggested using them decoratively, over the fireplace or on the front porch. He puts her off, and secretly yearns for the smell of a propane torch and bubbling pine tar. Tom thinks of Easter. “First Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox”: this is a fact his fourth-grade teacher once communicated to him and his classmates. He supposes this datum is no longer imparted

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Only one thing was he passionate about: simple living.

by the Miss Nogoseks of the world, that it has gone the way of penmanship—and Swix colors. The equinox has not come yet; the world will have to wait for another full moon to experience again the thrill of resurrection. Tom excludes the dog when he lets himself into the barn. He tells her to look for mountain lions, knowing she will instead find deer to bark at in the hay yard. He is wide awake now; the lambing barn is just far enough from the house to make a man wide awake. It occurs to him that he should thank God to be wide awake so often. So many of his neighbors are always slumbering. _____________________________ Tom Sherwin never expected to be a farmer. He was never sure what he had expected. He had grown up solidly middle class and thoughtlessly urban. He had many aptitudes, but few passions, and neither medicine nor law nor ministry nor business nor academia nor engineering attracted him. In his family these were the legitimate aspirations, but they were not his. Indeed, he had never even expected to marry. Only one thing was he passionate about: simple living. College in the seventies had been full of simple living for those who had ears to hear and eyes to see. In the cafeteria with fellow heretics (he was majoring in economics, which, by the time he graduated, he decided truly was a dismal science) he excoriated the priests of Keynesian orthodoxy who were their professors, and extolled Schumacher’s Small Is Beautiful and Heilbroner’s Inquiry into the Human Prospect. These men gave language to what Tom thought he had always known and feared and been set apart by. Like Tom, they did not believe the only limit in life is death. Halfway through his college years, Tom’s father’s business suffered several reversals. Lloyd Sherwin survived his financial troubles, as people generally do; in his case he and his self-respect were saved by the timely death of a maiden aunt. But the eighteen months of broken but, to the son, 4

strangely not disillusioned spirit led Tom’s father to admit to himself that he hated what he did for a living. He began to retire some years before his retirement became official. Tom, who judged his father a victim, was the real sufferer. The events, private and public, of those years undermined Tom’s hopes for justice, fair play, loyalty. Playing by the rules, as he supposed his father had done (many years later he would realize his father’s situation, like everything else, was not so simple), ran headlong into the limits he saw everywhere. Tom got his B.A., but the only thing he really carried with him from his undergraduate days was his devotion to simple living. He fell into newspaper work, which still remained a vocational option for the unambitious. Diane and he met in church. They were both attending the annual conference of the Seed Savers Exchange in Iowa, and had separately escaped the endless numbing talk of genetic conservation and the evils of factory agriculture by finding an early church service. The congregation was one of those that leave visitors who choose to stay for coffee to their own devices, and Tom and Diane found themselves thrown together by default after worship. They were both thirty-five years old. In spite of Tom’s lack of ambition, his reportage was in demand and he contributed often to various progressive magazines. Diane wanted children. One year after they met they moved to her home place in southwestern Minnesota, and married a couple of years later. Throughout their twenty years together they had been devoted to each other, and for at least a few years believed they were in love. Maybe they still were, though when Tom thought about it he knew he could not say. He remained unambitious, a man of inertia or, as a eulogist might say, content. About one thing did he remain passionate, simple living, though of course the simple living had become complicated living in their efforts to keep it simple. The free-ranging chickens, the produce in the root cellar, the homemade bread from home-milled flour, the mason jars filled with summer’s bounty all only happened because of

careful time management and endless work. Tom appreciated this, and appreciated his wife’s willingness not simply to humor his passion, but to help him indulge it. But Diane did not share Tom’s enthusiasm. The only thing she was passionate about was the farm, this farm where she had grown up and was now raising her family. Long before he proposed to Diane, Tom knew she was more devoted to the farm than to him. Her parents were good about them, and pretended to accept their not being married, though when their daughter and her partner regularized their relationship in the sanctuary of Ringsaker Lutheran Church, Paul and Caroline’s relief was plain. Tom’s father-in-law had been a good mentor, teaching him about pigs and sheep and gracious about allowing experiments and tolerating mistakes begotten of inexperience. The older man was taken aback at first by Tom’s fascination with the old ways, his not being in love with Big Iron, his interest in organic farming and direct marketing and biodynamics. But their partnership worked. The place had always been a stock farm, Tom took to husbandry, and Diane loved promoting and selling their lambs and hogs to people in the Cities who could afford to pay premium prices for their food. All went well, and when the children came, what could go wrong? Little had. Diane’s parents were dead now, resting in the Ringsaker cemetery. The last of their children would, within a few years, be gone. Tom doubted any would come back; simple living had required so much effort. _____________________________ Tom turns the barn lights on. All but two ewes are resting in the straw, sleeping, dozing, chewing their cuds. Some lambs sleep on their mamas’ backs. The oldest lambs are already acting like adolescents, hanging out together, keeping one another warm, only seeking their mothers when they are hungry. Tom is filled with joy as he looks at his eighty ewes and considers that the only people who see such sights are

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those who get up at three in the morning. He checks the two ewes that are standing. One, who has lambed, is cleaning her baby off and murmuring, occasionally pawing it with a foreleg to assure herself it is alive. The other ewe is having trouble; Tom sees one leg projecting from the birth canal and sees exhaustion in the ewe’s eyes. He debates washing up, but decides he is clean enough and that neither the ewe nor her lamb can wait. He pushes up the right sleeve of his coverall and reaches his left arm around the ewe’s neck. She does not protest; she has done all she can and failed, and she collapses. Tom pushes the exposed leg back into the ewe, with his right hand embraces a head, finds a second leg bent backward, pushes the head back, pulls both legs forward, eases the head through, and pulls the lamb out. He wipes its mouth and nose clean and places it in front of its mother. He reaches in again; there is a second lamb. Soon it is out too. The activity has revived the tired ewe, and she is on her feet, licking, murmuring, pawing. A few minutes more, and ewes and lambs are penned in their jugs. The lambs’ navels have been iodined and colostrum is in their bellies. Tom has given little thought to any of it, except the general wonder of new life, which for him remains remarkable. At the barn door his dog waits, and together they walk to the house. When, Tom wonders, did it become so easy? Not routine; routine it has never become. But easy, certainly. He washes his hands and arms, and puts on his pajamas. Forty minutes have passed since he went out to check sheep. He sets the alarm for six a.m. and gets back into bed. l

BRADLEY PAUL EDIN is a Lutheran pastor who has served parishes in North Dakota for the past thirty-five years. A native of Jamestown, he lives on the family farm south of Valley City. Currently he is pastor of four congregations in southeastern Barnes County.

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The kitchen floor was his place of solitude, a place where he could think and not be bothered.

SEEDLINGS by Jennifer Robinette

e says he remembers lying on the kitchen floor as a kid, staring up at the white textured ceiling, the coolness of the tiles seeping through his T-shirt. His mother

would step over him on her way to the refrigerator, phone to her ear. He lay there so often that she barely noticed him, which was perfect. The kitchen floor was his place of solitude, a place where he could think and not be bothered. Somehow he was invisible there, immune to his older brother’s misdirected rage and his parents’ arguing. Words like “family meetings,” “group counseling,” and “divorce” could not touch him there. He tells me this as we lie side by side in a corner of our own kitchen floor, bellies and knees pressed against the dirty linoleum. We are propped up on our elbows, peering down at our rows of peat pots, arranged close together to give the illusion of a tiny plot of earth. We planted the seeds a few days ago, and some are already beginning to sprout, mint-green and fragile, barely visible, pushing up from the artificial soil. They all look the same now, but in a few days they will already have begun to distinguish themselves. And in two months, when it should be warm enough to transplant them to our backyard, they will become what the labels on their packages, each now resting on the floor next to its proper row, proclaim them to be: lettuce, tomato, cucumber, larkspur, morning glory, and gourd. For now, though, it’s spring break, and six inches of snow cover the ground outside. From my position on the floor, I can see dusk out our front window. The bare, black tree branches criss-cross endlessly in front of the faux-Victorian 6

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house across the street, a white monstrosity with oval windows. In the top right one looms a life-sized figure of Jesus or Mary or some saint—it’s impossible to tell from our apartment. Ben stops talking about his childhood to point out a seedling we haven’t noticed yet. The wonder in his voice is the reason why I love him. All the same, I wish he hadn’t changed the subject. He rarely talks about his past. Me, that’s all I talk about. If this annoys him, he never says so. __________________________ When Ben asked me to marry him last summer, it wasn’t anything like how I thought it would be. He bought the ring cheap at a strip mall where I was getting my hair trimmed and then dropped enough hints about it afterward that the proposal itself came as no surprise. But I wasn’t expecting the time and place that he picked. I thought he would ask me at sunset, maybe, on the shores of Lake Superior, during our vacation. I would be barefoot, wearing a flowing summer skirt and a filmy flowered blouse. He wouldn’t get down on one knee or anything cliché, but he would get a little mistyeyed, just enough that I would know how deeply he cares for me. Here’s what actually happened: he was too excited to wait until our vacation and asked me here in North Dakota one Saturday while we were camping at Turtle River. He was making French toast for me on the camp stove while I sat outside our tent and squinted into the late morning sun at the bright water. Tiny frogs hopped on the riverbank, rustling the grass and leaving small indentations in the mud with their webbed feet. I was wearing a tank top with no bra and damp denim shorts that reeked of river water. We were talking and laughing, pleasantly hungover from the night before. “I guess I’ll be making you breakfast thirty years from now,” he said. “What happens thirty years from now?” “We’ll be married.” I laughed. “It’s going to take that long?” “No, I mean—you will marry me, won’t you?” “Are you asking me now?” He went into the tent and came out with a ring box. “I’ve been carrying it with me everywhere for two weeks.” He looked sheepish as he handed me the box. “Do you want it?” “Yes,” I said without opening it. He took my hands and kissed me. He tasted like stale beer and cigarettes. When the kiss was over I looked closely at his face, which was covered with three-day-old stubble. “You’re smiling,” I said, and smiled too. “Well, yeah. I’m happy.” 7

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__________________________ The middle of April and still freezing. We had to pot some of the plants so they would have room to grow. We also moved them from the floor to the table so they could be closer to the natural light from the kitchen windows. One of the morning glories is starting to climb up the Venetian blind cord, wrapping its slender green body in tight little circles like a coiled spring. Ben is gone most of the time—class all day, practice and rehearsal all night. He usually comes home late at night, kisses me on the forehead, and falls asleep on the couch. When he starts to snore, I move to the bedroom to finish my work and sleep in the bed. We see each other for a few bewildered minutes in the morning before we each drive off to our separate university buildings. We’re both graduate students, but I’m the kind that reads and writes in a solitary fashion, while he’s the kind that collaborates and interacts with his peers. Ben plays percussion. He has these amazing hands—tough, calloused palms and thin, supple wrists. Long, practiced, steady fingers. When I tell Ben that I’m lonely, he says we should get a dog. I point out that we haven’t had sex since the day we saw the first seedlings. It’s late at night, so he yawns. “I didn’t know that you kept track.” “I don’t, exactly. I just remember that day really well.” He moves closer to me on the couch and puts his arm around me in a loose sort of way. “It’s not always going to be like this.” “I’ll be thirty in July, Ben.” He stares into space as if he’s thinking about that, but I know he’s just bored. We’ve had this conversation before. Finally he sighs and says, “We should just elope.” “How would that change anything? We’d still be in debt. We’d still be here. In a rented apartment in the middle of this wasteland.” “You’ve been reading too much theory.” “And I’m whining. I know. You don’t have to tell me.” “I wasn’t going to say that.” “And you’re too tired to talk about this right now.” “I was going to say that, actually.” “Goodnight, Ben.” __________________________ I used to date this guy Henry. A complete fake, but for awhile he had me convinced. He would speak in poetry when we made love, stuff too silly to repeat, but during the height of orgasm it seemed divinely inspired, or, as I wrote in my journal at the time, “like the breath of heaven.” Outside of the bedroom, Henry was your typical bad boyfriend, lusting after other women, always breaking up with me and taking me back whenever he needed money, or advice, or an ego boost. I remember thinking, if this is passion, I don’t want it. I’ve been thinking about Henry a lot lately. Mostly at night, dreaming about him. __________________________ Ben says I should go out more. A few women from my postcolonial literature class have organized a “girl’s night” at a bar called Rustlers. The email says to “wear your best ‘boob shirt,’” so I do, but when I meet the others in the parking lot at 9:30 they are all dressed in fashionable yet conservative blouses. “How’s Ben?” asks one of them—Brenda. She’s several years older than me, a petite mother of three curly-haired boys. “I don’t know—maybe you should ask someone who’s seen him lately.” I laugh, but she shifts her gaze uncomfortably. 8

At the door, a tall guy wearing a cowboy hat asks for my ID. As he hands it back to me, he stares at my cleavage and says, “Weren’t you my English teacher?” “Oh, yeah.” I smile and cross my arms over my chest. “Mike, right?” “Yeah. Take it easy.” “For sure.” We sit at a corner table, and they talk about their husbands and kids and pets and houses and chiropractors and yoga classes. I order drink after drink and am appalled by how sober I remain. The music starts, club music with a loud, thumping bass that vibrates through the floor and gives me an excuse not to listen to them anymore. Someone, maybe me, suggests that we go out to the dance floor. We dance in a tight circle. The songs are all from seven or eight years ago, and I lose myself in them the way I can still lose myself in that time. Each song is associated with a different person: a former lover, a friend who died, a cousin I don’t see much anymore. I’m seeing myself with these people, living in these images, when suddenly I’m aware of a beefy, sweaty, much-younger-than-me guy dancing on the outskirts of our circle, trying to maneuver into my area. I leave the circle and go back to the table. Only then do I take stock of my situation—tangled hair, breath coming in gasps, a river of sweat cascading between my breasts. The women I came with are still dancing, doing the Electric Slide, wiggling their asses. I choke a little on my rum and Coke, get up, and run past my student out the door. After vomiting behind the building, I pull out my phone and call Ben. It’s midnight and he’s still practicing, but his voice is appropriately concerned when he promises to come pick me up. I wait out in the parking lot for ten minutes before my ears start to go numb from the wind. Then I sit in my car for an hour with the heat on full

blast, listening to Rachmaninov on public radio. As soon as Ben arrives, I start crying. He apologizes, something about having to put equipment away. Sobbing, I tell him I want to go home. “That’s where we’re going.” “That’s not what I mean.” “Well, what then?” But I don’t know what to say. __________________________ Every Sunday while I was growing up, my parents would have the same fight. Dad wanted eggs and Mom wouldn’t make them, wouldn’t let him make them either, because she had read in a magazine that they were high in cholesterol. After Mass they would scream at each other for two hours, each one accusing the other of being mentally ill. Then they would lock themselves in their bedroom for a long bout of makeup sex, and we wouldn’t see them again until dinner. I hated Sundays. Every time my parents fought I was scared they would get a divorce. Now I know better—my parents lived for Sundays. Sundays kept their marriage alive. Ben always makes us eggs on Sunday mornings. After eating we nap until four in the afternoon. Then he wakes up and goes to the music building until two or three in the morning. I’ve stopped waiting up for him. __________________________ The semester is over, but Ben is still busy with ensembles and music camps and drum corps. I take long walks, battling the fierce wind at each step, and read a book per day. My doctoral exams are scheduled for next spring. The plants on the kitchen table have grown out of control, with tomato and morning glory beginning to flower and

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Finally, after consulting the frost advisory, we decide to take a chance. trail their vines along the floor, or climb up the Venetian blind cords almost to the ceiling. We planned to transplant them in early May, but the temperatures keep falling below freezing at night. Finally, after consulting the frost advisory, we decide to take a chance. We purchase tools and soil at the garden center and spend the late-May afternoon in our backyard, digging, carrying, and transplanting. Soon we are sweating, despite the chill in the air. The wind is high as usual and stinks like the potatoprocessing plant a few blocks away, but the sun warms our backs as we work. We don’t talk much, but our synchronous movements, our breaths panting in a kind of jagged rhythm, and our common purpose make me feel closer to Ben than I have in months. I wonder if he feels this, too, but I know from experience that vocalizing the feeling will destroy it, so I don’t ask. Soon we are finished, and it is time to think about dinner. Ben has a rare free evening, and I know that after dinner we will shower and have sex. As I help Ben gather up the tools and take them to the shed, I glance back at our garden and silently pray there will be no more frost. l

JENNIFER ROBINETTE’s fiction has appeared in Silk Road Review, The Red Clay Review, TINGE Magazine, Glassworks, The Lindenwood Review, ellipsis…, Longshot Island, and Fiction International. Two of her stories have received Pushcart Prize nominations. She lived in Grand Forks for seven years while earning her doctorate in creative writing from the University of North Dakota. 9

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HOW IT COMES BACK

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by Tayo Basquiat

I graduated class valedictorian. My speech was about becoming a plumber, just like my dad. My dad was not a plumber. I brought birthday pennies. The plastic church bank clanked and Sunday school kids counted one-twothree-four-five-six and then clapped. I was seven. I gave myself arm hickies.

I filled a box with rags so our garage kitty, Kizzy, could be warm. One morning, Kizzy filled the box with kittens. The next morning it was full of bloody rags and dead kittens.

I finished reading Charlotte’s Web. I hid myself behind the classroom’s gray vinyl curtains and cried. I stopped killing spiders.

I called a girl “hippopotamus” and she cried. She wasn’t fat or grey-colored and her teeth were normal-looking, but she was wearing a hippopotamus shirt.

I had a secret friend who sent little gifts and notes signed “Your Secret Friend, D L,” and I thought this meant Dean and Leah, two church people. It was actually my mom and sister. I didn’t know my mom had a name.

I watched a Colgate toothpaste commercial featuring a white chalk stick dipped into red liquid and then snapped in half, revealing a red ring around a white center. So I stole Miss Einerson’s chalk, dipped it in Kool-Aid and ate it.

I learned during Sunday school that the world’s end was near. Four horsemen would come, bringing plagues and death. Bad boys and girls would go to hell. I asked Mom if I could go to hell. She said sure.

I lived in a trashcan like Oscar the Grouch. The floor’s curved sides were like a racetrack. I raced my Matchbox cars and ran my little plastic horses around and around. I squatted inside and popped my head up occasionally, yelling “Scram!”

I wrote Santa a nice, flattering Christmas letter, but Santa got confused and gave Monte next door my Millennium Falcon. I got some other kid’s gunslinger figures. I caught a brown-and-black-striped woolly caterpillar and gave him a caterkeeper home. Later, when the monarch seemed stuck, I helped break open the cocoon. It died.

I came home from school and saw my house on the curb. I lifted the lid. Empty. Wrong house. I collected Nesquik barcodes because I wanted a Quik Bunny mug. His ears were the handles, his big head held the chocolate milk. I dipped my toast and studied his face. Then I bit his nose until all the red paint was gone. 11

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I practiced pedaling fast while wearing my green blankie tied around my neck. E.T. might need another ride home.

I played with my sister’s Bubblecut brunette Barbie. She always wanted a long blond-haired Barbie because they are prettier. I bit her Barbie’s nose off. My sister cried and I gave her the nose bit back. And some tape. I played cards with my oldest sister sometimes when she took a long poop. I held the bag and Dad filled it with hedge clippings. He yelled a lot. Holding the bag is very hard. I started playing the clarinet because my sisters both played clarinet so that was the instrument laying around. I played the M.A.S.H. theme song over and over again. One day all my reeds went missing. I sang the Lite Brite and Inchworm jingles repeatedly as Christmas present hints. I didn’t get either one. I drew Garfield and horses. Stacy drew hot rods and monsters. There was a fierce competition worth a $5 prize for the best fire-prevention poster. We both lost to a girl who drew really good cigarettes. I rolled baking soda in paper, lit the end and said, “Suck and blow.” This is how my friends and I became smokers. I was watching television when Reagan got shot. I heard Mom tell Dad, “Remember that 12

hitchhiker we picked up and put in the trunk? Maybe we should stop and let him out.” Dad pulled over and popped the trunk. I watched Mom come back with a box. Inside was a Baby Tender Love doll and a car trip “medical kit” Mom made me. Inside her old Valium bottles were red hots, others contained the round, multi-colored cookie sprinkles that looked like the insides of Mom’s Contac capsules. I smoked candy cigarettes like a doctor during Baby Tender Love’s exams. I wanted the colorfully beaded safety pins all the girls were making. The girls traded the pins and put them on their shoelaces’ straight-bars and that made the girls “friends forever.” After everyone changed into their snow boots and went out for recess, I dawdled in the coatroom and started stealing friends. I worried our school principal wouldn’t get the TV antennae adjusted. He said, “Get ready boys and girls for the first teacher in space!” The picture was fuzzy but we all knew she didn’t make it. I saw Trina lean over the railing. She leaned too far, fell and smashed her head on the cement below. We didn’t get gym (crab ball!) that day. I pretended I took drugs, acting like the ABC Afterschool Special druggies. Sewing needle track marks, drooling, and corner-slumping, all party performance props. I ran off a friend’s

second story balcony screaming “the bugs, the bugs!” and that scared me straight. I ate popcorn while watching Escape to Witch Mountain. My sister and her boyfriend were stuck babysitting me. My stomach felt funny, my sister fed me Pepto-Bismol, and said, “Go to bed.” Pink popcorn vomit, stained light blue sheets, and one mad sister. I sat next to my sister on the kitchen linoleum, not on the carpet, where we could still see the TV and watch Dallas. We each got half a root beer pop and five large Old Dutch ripple chips. My sister sucked them to make them last. I threw Monte the baseball. Kari walked by. She yelled “Hey poopy heads!” and then walked into the power-line pole. Blood rushed into her eye from the gash on her forehead. I said, “Geez, Kari, there’s a pole.” She said, “Shut up, poopy head.” I prayed the “Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep” prayer every night without ever worrying about dying. I was a North Dakota Centennial Band member. So were ninety-nine other kids. We marched in the Rose Bowl parade. Exotic California. We wore brown pants and baby blue jackets with gold piping and ropes, colors signifying soil, sky, and wheat. All summer we practiced for “The Turn,” the big TV corner turn, so everyone back home

would see us and be proud. We made the corner while the network ran commercials. I called Sean a dildo. A teacher heard. The principal asked where I’d heard that word. I told him about Jungle Jim and Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom and how all the dildos were extinct. I told my first grade class about what I did that summer after Kari told them about her family’s Disneyland trip. I said I saw a unicorn. The teacher said unicorns didn’t exist. I said that one did. She said no, not that one either. I caught a fly ball but my finger hit the pocket before the baseball. My finger swelled and turned purple. Inside the kitchen, women were helping Mom make open-faced Cheez Whiz and green olive slice sandwiches for my sister’s wedding. My sister stopped making sandwiches and took me for X-rays. As we waited she said, “It better be broken.” I watched America Held Hostage count the days while Dad said President Carter was “about as effective as a pile of pudding.” I thought his accent was like pudding. Butterscotch. I hated canned peas. When Mom put them in the smallest square on my Melmac plate one night I said, “Get these goddamn peas out from under my nose.” Mom glared at Dad, and Dad ate his peas. I waited behind my mom as she paid for our groceries at the Red Owl. The man behind us reached over and put his rough hand down my shirt. I saw Jesus floating on a cloud one day. He looked like his pictures all over our church. This is how I knew he was real.

I used my sister’s orange figure skates on Monday for gym class. Monday night I sprayed them black like boys’ skates. By Wednesday, the black chipped away and I had speckled Halloween-colored skates. I rode my sister’s purple bike with a white banana seat. The handlebar ends had plastic streamers. I cut them off. Still not a BMX. I played with Monte in my kiddie pool. We watched the water bounce a brown turd along the blue bottom. We chased it until he stepped on it. Mom wanted to know who pooped in the pool. I said, “Jesus.” I got on the school bus in my new snowsuit. It was slippery against the frigid vinyl seats and at the first turn, I slid into the aisle. Everyone behind me laughed. I turned around and said, “Shut up!”

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I said, “You broke my marble,” and punched him. We lost all our marbles to the principal. I waited at the kitchen table for mom to finish the dishes. She’d go to the bathroom, get a squirt of lotion and come back to the table, her wedding ring between her lips, rubbing the lotion on her hands. We’d play Crazy 8s until Little House on the Prairie came on. I went to the little store in Park River called Northside. It smelled like mildew. An ancient lady ran the store and they had a penny candy case full of Bazooka, Tootsie Rolls, Lemonheads, bubble gum cigarettes, Laffy Taffy, and Necco Wafers. A reach-in cooler held glass bottles of Coca Cola that slid out after you deposited a quarter in the slot. This is how my teeth got full of mercury.

I rode with Monte in Kenny’s El Camino’s bed as our dads dumped lawn clippings at the sand pit. There, we took turns shooting .22s at beer cans, our cheeks stuffed with Big League Chew.

I was a ghost for Halloween every year except the year I was a pirate and the year I was a hobo and the year I was Raggedy Andy and the year I was the Tin Man and the year I was Dracula and the year I was a hanged outlaw. The costumes worked at school but for trick-or-treating I had to wear a winter jacket or snowsuit and so Mom would throw the sheet over the top of me and I was a ghost. Again.

I drew notebooks full of Garfield the cat. First day, fourth grade, I wore my Garfield outfit: Garfield patches on pockets of purple pants, a white and purple plaid shirt with Garfield patches on the collar, and a purple clip-on tie, orange Garfield hanging on the end. Hard to survive that outfit.

I held my own summer and winter Olympics, matching the television version. Bicycle time trials, high hurdles, long jump, skeleton. Hockey against the Russians. I was Nadia Comaneci and nailed my floor routine. She’s the only non-American that won in my Olympics. And the only girl.

I played marbles at noon recess, Sheldon’s silver boulder vs. my red cat-eye boulder. When he hit mine on the second throw, a disc-shaped chunk broke off. His was a steel ball bearing.

I played Little League baseball two summers. The second summer a rich potato farmer bought all four teams T-shirts: blue with white “Dodgers” lettering, orange with black “Astros,”

I broke all Dad’s cigarettes, leaving them piled behind his TV chair, and ran outside. He bought another pack.

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I picked school cereal, two boxes, the sugar cereals like Lucky Charms and Sugar Pops. The only time Mom allowed that kind of cereal was to make summer’s end and school’s beginning not so horrible. green with yellow “A’s,” and red with blue “Cubs.” I was an Astro. Orange like Pokey my stuffed horse, orange like our Datsun, orange like Mom’s favorite pop. My favorite shirt.

I didn’t take the required shower after gym class in seventh grade. I’d just splash water on my hair. Then coach started standing at the shower and it was either shower or fail gym.

I wore a white T-shirt my sister painted: a black guy wearing bell bottoms and a jean jacket and clogs. He had a fro. The shirt read, “Boogie on down!”

I heard from my sister that one of her classmates freaked out on acid or something at a party and scratched his eyes out.

I practiced dressing for school. I put on the new clothes and then put them away again. Mom said, “Now remember what matches.”

I gave a demonstration on gun safety for a 4H competition. I kept the muzzle pointed up at the ceiling. The judge disqualified me, saying that someone could have been on the roof. I asked if I should have pointed it down instead and he said no, there could have been someone in the basement. “Hallway?” “Definitely people out there.” “Where should I point it?” He said, “Leave.”

I watched Bozo’s grand prize game on WGN Chicago station once when we got cable. A lucky kid would throw ping-pong balls into buckets to win prizes. I practiced with a line of Folgers coffee cans. I had nightmares where clowns chased me after I missed the bucket. I said hello to the minister that walked by our house on his way home from church each day. He and his son Danny lived two houses down. Danny played drums and spent time in a mental institution. I was watching an Atlanta Braves baseball game on TBS when I saw a police car and ambulance park in front of Danny’s house. A crowd of neighbors gathered outside. I watched through the window: two white-sheeted gurneys put inside the ambulance.

I was scared of the promotional commercial for K-tel’s Pure Power featuring Kiss and Alice Cooper. Mom said they were Satanists. I sent away for the album Fonzie’s Favorites because of the advertised standup leather jacket that came with it. I didn’t get a leather jacket. The back of the album jacket had a cardboard flap to punch out so that the album with a picture of Fonzie in his leather jacket could stand up like a picture frame. I was in the backseat of the big brown Oldsmobile when we all heard popping

sounds from the trunk. It was so hot the cases of Coors beer Mom and Dad could only buy in Colorado exploded halfway through Kansas. I grew a tumor on my knee. A doctor cut it out, and I spent six weeks on crutches. They took the stitches out too early and now I have a scar that looks like a big paramecium. This is how I remembered “paramecium” in seventh grade biology. I rode in Jess’s ’76 Dodge Spirit cruising the loop when the train-crossing lights came on. She said, “Should I go?” I said, “Yeah, those lights are always on.” Halfway across I looked out my window and there was the train. I sang the dressing song every morning, just like Mr. Rogers, shouting the “OneTwo” part when I put on my shoes. I looked into the camera at all the boys and girls. I stared at my mom’s hair smashed beneath the tin foil and plastic used to set her dye job. I had a glass of milk in my hand. She turned to me and said, “Boo!” and I threw my glass of milk in her face. I slept soundly with Pokey, my orange stuffed horse, and my green blankie and woke with eyelashes pasted together. I remember one recurring dream of standing at the top stair and something coming up toward me from the basement and me falling up and away. l

Born to its northeastern flatlands and eventually living near its western badlands, TAYO BASQUIAT recently left his North Dakota home for the University of Wyoming, where he’ll complete a master of fine arts degree in creative writing in May.

AMERICAN

DREAM g a m e c h a n g e r n d . c o m

Unlike other nations, America does not define itself by race, religion, or language, but upon a set of ideals expressed in our founding documents and perpetuated by the idea of the American Dream. The 2019 GameChanger ideas festival will explore whether we as a nation are living up to our ideals and the promise of a better, richer, happier life for every citizen.

ideas festival

OCTOBER 5, 2019 BISMARCK, ND gamechangernd.com

SENSE OF PLACE |

EN PLEIN AIR by Ken Rogers

story about regret, risking failure, humility, and satisfaction:

Sunrises set up North Dakota landscapes. Deep colors. Soft lines. A brush-filled draw cuts across the hillside from left to right. It angles into a barbwire fence that divides a field from pasture. Shale and sandstone outcroppings and a litter of glacial granite break up the prairie. A small stand of cottonwoods catches the soft yellow light, throwing shadow across the tall grass. Working out of the back of my Jeep, using a paint box and easel, I’m making art. A simple sketch. Then, with a brush and oils, paint in the shapes and shadows. Work the details swiftly as the light changes. It’s an impression. North Dakota rocks me. Growing up in North Dakota was grand. And my long life here has been sometimes satisfying and always rich. If there’s a regret for me, it is that I came to art on the far arc of this circle of life. I wish it had happened sooner. Growing up in a small western North Dakota town, art pretty much did not exist. There was music, the stuff of marching band, polka and waltz. But no visual art. No symphony. No dance.

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West River Tree Row. By Ken Rogers, from the artist’s collection. Oil on canvas. The pictured shelter belt and field is just southwest of Richardton, ND.

In the third grade, a teacher had us put blank sheets of paper on our desks with pencils at the ready. She then put a classical music album on a small phonograph. We were to translate the sounds to lines on the paper. Whirls and loops. Jags and blips and runs. I loved it, but I didn’t realize it was art. Instead we had science and math. Numbers and formulas. A sampling of history and literature. We were insulated, socially and politically, from the world. We were told we were getting a good education, and we aped that praise. Until later, when it became clear, regretfully, it could have been much better or at least different. As a result, I did not learn the basics of drawing until late. Any ideas I had about composition were intuitive. And when it comes to color, I was and remain nearly clueless. But this circle, too, has come round upon itself. In preparing articles and publications on the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial for the Bismarck Tribune, art began to 18

take up my life. The “go to” artworks for illustrating stories about the expedition were the paintings of Karl Bodmer, who was drafted by German Prince Maximilian of Weid as an artist to accompany him to the Upper Missouri nearly thirty years after the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Look at the Swiss artist’s landscape paintings today and a person can “see” the land as it was, as it can still sometimes be found. His prints are real and romantic. His artwork goes well beyond what photography can do, at least in my mind. There was an understanding between Bodmer and the geology and topography of the Upper Missouri country. It came to me that I could take a “good” photograph of a landscape without understanding that landscape. Without spending time with that landscape. Without being attentive. Just push the button. Not so with charcoal, pencil, or brush. The process of making art demands more. That means a greater understanding of the land— drainage, slope . . .

I decided to pick up watercolors and follow Bodmer’s lead. The learning curve was steep. I didn’t have the language, background, or the skills. What I did not know was nearly overwhelming. But making art felt right. And it was then that I began to feel those regrets. Always believing that if there was a book about how to do something, I could read it and then do it—within reason. If I was patient and slogged through the material, I could teach myself. I could be self-taught, I thought. In the beginning, my making art was a struggle. The process was engaging and enjoyable, but the result was not. My paintings were primitive. Rustic. And I became very discouraged. Also, I discovered that I had to be willing to fail. It was painful at times. People looked at my work and would get nervous smiles or make vague comments, such as “I wish I could do that.” Really. The most obvious problem was my lack of drawing skill. As words and grammar are to literature, drawing is to the visual arts. It’s the basic language of painting, sculpting, and printmaking. No matter how much I went out sketching, the rate of improvement seemed too slow. I needed to draw better to make any real progress. I took one of those two-day weekend drawing classes. It quickly became clear that there were all kinds of simple rules, formulas, and what not that could improve anyone’s drawing skills. I had to ask for help. I went back to college, taking daytime drawing classes at Bismarck State College, where most of my peers were still in their teens. Humbling, it was. But I wanted the knowledge and the skill the instructors and classes brought. It was shades of Nell Painter’s Old in Art School, although I do not get why she needed the degrees and diplomas when gaining skill and knowledge was what it was all about. Also, I discovered that what I was doing, sketching out in the field, had a name: en plein air. It’s French for painting out of doors. And like taking up golf or some other hobby, there was all kinds of stuff to buy. My first and favorite plein air paint box, made of wood, has leather straps. It was ten by thirteen by five inches, and mounts on top a typical camera tripod. Open the lid, there’s room for thin nine-by-twelve-inch painting panels and a palette. Below a sliding top shelf, there are smaller spaces for paint, linseed oil, turpentine, rags, pencil, and a tiny sketch pad. The rule of thumb is to spend two hours, from start to finish, capturing an outdoor scene. It’s challenging on so many levels. Problem-solving to the max. I still live in the same western North Dakota county that I grew up in— Morton County. That I do not regret. I can still do numbers like I was taught in school. But my life has changed. I spend more time studying the landscape. My drawing and painting have gotten better. As for the results, there are good days and not-so-good days. I’ve discovered the process is more important. Much of my time in good weather is spent driving gravel roads—scouting places to paint—with a thermos of tea, a bag lunch, and a North Dakota atlas along for the ride. I’m just waiting to pull over and paint. l

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The process of making art demands more.

KEN ROGERS has lived in western North Dakota for more than fifty years. His “working life” was spent as a journalist. He and his wife, Debi, live in Mandan. 19

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NEVER FULLY DRESSED AN EXPOSÉ ON BEING EXPOSED by Kayla Schmidt

You either come from a naked family or an all-dressed family. That was my roommate’s claim, at least. There were five girls sharing the house, which had limited bathroom space, and it was clear some were more comfortable with their bodies than others. “I’m sorry what does that mean?” asked one of the girls as she stood at the gas range, pushing bacon around in a pan, clearly not worried about the proximity of leaping hot grease to her bare midriff. She had the tendency to wear cropped tops regardless of the weather, or and especially if one of us brought a male friend over. Very sheer tops with very black bras underneath. “Well some people grow up in families where nudity in the home is just fine. They like walk around undressed, and that’s just the norm. Other families never see one another until they’re fully clothed. What kind of families do you come from?” The kind of family I come from is my dad leaping out from behind the china cabinet in his long underwear proclaiming, “Power Ranger White!” None of the actual Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers had waffle-fabric suits with holes in the waistband. This did not bother him. My dad has his own bathroom on the opposite side of the house. It’s got a pocket door and an automatic fan that turns on with the light. The toilet paper holder is shaped like a fishing reel. In the morning on the way to his bathroom, he has to pass in front of the giant dining room windows wearing his Fruit of the Looms while my mom hisses, “The neighbors will see you.” But no matter if he’s in long johns or mowing the lawn without a shirt, he never goes anywhere without his mid-calf white socks. I won’t waste any descriptive language on them—you know the type. Surely we aren’t a naked family if the tallest member is never seen barefoot? Dad-socks must cover enough square-footage of flesh to place us solidly in the classier side of the clothed spectrum? 20

The girls shared the larger bathroom. All four of us: myself, two sisters, and our mom. If we saw her undressed, it was usually due to the fact that she was trying to get all of us ready. Often she’d get distracted in the midst of putting pants on to fix one of my sister’s French braids while the dog followed her around, licking lotion off her bare legs. My mom was very conscious that we should see all body shapes as beautiful and that the female form is nothing to be ashamed of. This is in contrast to my grandmother, who provided advice such as, “Don’t get old, your body will look like shit.” Sometimes my dad would go on fishing trips and all us girls would get to spread a blanket on the living room floor and watch movies. Mom would bring out popcorn and milkshakes on a tray and would only set it down once the blanket was spread nice and flat. We discovered that if you really drug your hand across the pilled fibers of the comforter to remove all the wrinkles and then ran over to the TV screen and got your nose real close, close enough to see the tiny squares that made the picture, you’d get a shock just big enough that each sister standing on either side could see the tiny bolt of electricity leap from the screen to your face. Wonder of wonders. We were allowed to watch the scene in Titanic where Jack draws a portrait of Rose. At one point Mom suddenly paused the VHS tape, facing us very somberly, which we thought was odd, because nothing was sinking at that point in the plot. The front case of the second VHS tape already showed the ship half submerged, so it wasn’t like she was going to tell us anything we didn’t already know. Any movie that had two tapes included a disaster. That’s what we learned from Fiddler on the Roof. “Now, I think you girls are very grown up. This next part shows body parts, but it’s okay because it’s art, okay girls?” We weren’t allowed to watch the steamy make-out car scene. I don’t know why a handprint on a fogged window was deemed inappropriate but thousands of people slowly freezing to death was still okay by Mom’s standards. We snuck a lot of popcorn to the dog while Mom cried and the ship split in two. “Consent” wasn’t a really big buzzword as my sisters and I grew up. We of course knew to be wary of strangers, but the boundaries of our bodily selves in our own home was wholly dependent on space, the existence and lack of it. The bathroom had a lock, but it was only for emergencies. If someone had to brush their teeth and you drank too many Capri Sun packets, well you should have synced your schedules better. I have a twin sister so privacy has probably always been an implicit sacrifice for me. There was no room in utero for secrets and no spare countertop space in the bathroom growing up. “Okay, but are we weird for just hanging out in our pajamas on the weekends even when we have guests?” I asked my little sister. “I think we just might be casual. I mean Mom grew up with only sisters. We’ve all been in different sports and in sororities and stuff. You just have to get over it in those situations.” She shifted so I could grab a shirt off the door hook.

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The kind of family I come from is my dad leaping out from behind the china cabinet in his long underwear proclaiming, “Power Ranger White!” 21

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“But in all my shared apartments I never went out of my room half-dressed unless I was super sure everyone was gone.” “Accidents happen. It only takes someone seeing you flee down the hall in a towel to know that you took a chance. How’s this look?” This conversation was happening in a department store dressing room, where we opted to share a stall. It’s economical and saves a lot of opening and closing doors to compare outfits. “You look great, but what about the toilet seat cover?” I asked. Erica didn’t know what I meant. A few weeks ago I’d stopped by our parents’ for a visit. As I adjusted my hair in the bathroom mirror, I registered something was off. Like in a dream when you’re in your house, but all of a sudden the oven is situated on the opposite wall or you decide to try a new cream cheese flavor on a bagel and your taste buds don’t recognize what’s happening at first. The toilet seat cover was gone. My dad might not wear pants when he lets the dog out, but I have never, not once, seen the toilet lid bare and out in the open. I don’t know where the trend for fuzzy, elastic-banded toilet covers came from. We’ve always had one, and they’ve always matched the rug. It’s like a complete ensemble. My mom’s bathroom could share the dressing room stall with my sister and me. “Does this bring out the blue in my shower curtain? Do you think this makes my tank look big?” We used to play with the toilet seat covers when they came out of the dryer, tossing them in the air and spinning them on the tips of our fingers. They were hot, like a pizza. Or a French beret that had been sitting in le soleil. In the early ’90s it was peach. By the 2000s we’d swapped for powder blue. At the time it was last seen, it was a stylish yet subtle tan. Purchased at Bed Bath and Beyond, in the bath section I believe. This wasn’t the Kmart layaway toilet cover of my past. In fact, as a housewarming gift for my first solo apartment, my mom bought me a toilet seat cover with a matching rug. It’s our version of a “Home Sweet Home” needlepoint. “The last one shrank in the wash and we just haven’t found a new one that fits the curves right,” my mom told me with nonchalance. It’s almost as if she didn’t realize how shocking this was. It was alright for my sister to lie out in the backyard with her shirt rolled up to expose her midriff 22

I have never, not once, seen the toilet lid bare and out in the open.

to the sun (which heats up many things, like French berets or Midwesterners seeking a tan)—that was porcelain skin. This was actual porcelain. A bare surface that I find shocking is not a glimpse of spine (too many scoliosis checks in childhood for that), it’s an exposed chest: cedar must always have a doily on top. It’s a sturdy leg without a tablecloth, however crooked placed on top. A handle isn’t loved unless someone hangs their coat on it. Mooning is when the evening light exposes countertops full of phone bills and books and a man in not-so-tighty-whities tiptoeing in front of the expanse of dining room windows. And now, la lune will only ever shine on the naked surface of the bathroom toilet seat. There’s a difference between familial nudity—where the space you occupy is the dominant factor, not your state of undress—and the nudity we’re familiar with through the media—where the aesthetic of the body is the main focus. Rose wasn’t prancing around her stately room on the Titanic in a silky robe trying to floss while finishing writing a grocery list. She had a special occasion for which she had to disrobe. In our house, occasionally the robe is occupied by the dog for a napping spot so you just get on with it. I live alone now, which means I have all the privacy I could want. I overcompensate, probably. I don’t even try to wear socks in the house. So maybe call first before you stop by. But if it’s furniture dressing you’re looking for, I’ve got you covered. l

KAYLA SCHMIDT grew up in Minot, North Dakota, where she earned her bachelor of arts degree in English at Minot State University. In 2015 she received her master of arts degree in creative nonfiction and biography at the University of East Anglia in England. She’s now a content creator for the Bismarck Beacon, a volunteer with 1 Million Cups, and goes by “Rhubarbarian” when she’s playing for the BisMan Bombshellz roller derby team. Find more at kaylaschmidt.com.

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SENSE OF PLACE |

THE SEE FAR PLACE by Denise Lajimodiere

In all places either remarkable by their position, or by the gearings of the savages, they shall take care to plant high crosses, as it were to take possession of those places in the name of the Catholic religion. — Msgr. J. O. Plessis (instructions given to missionary priests)

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On the highest butte in the Turtle Mountains a tall cross has been planted. The Ojibwe call the butte Atacaamaabiwin, the place from which to see far. Scouts watched over plains to the south flat as a stretched and staked buffalo hide, waiting for nadowessi and when spotted sounded an alarm by lighting a fire signaling others deep in the hills, brush and tree covered backs of turtle’s carapace. Butte St Paul named by Reverend George A. Belcourt, January 25, 1850 when he was caught in a blizzard and hunkered down by the butte. The steep, rocky path lined with swollen chokecherries, winds its way to the top. Aroma of sage and sweet grass waft from freshly cut fields below. A tall stone and cement cairn emerge, a defiant red cloth covers the high cross, Sun Dance sage crowns tied to four corners, eagle plumes dance in the rising heat as many eyed dragonflies keep watch, vigilant.

DENISE LAJIMODIERE is an enrolled citizen of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, Belcourt, North Dakota. She is a poet, scholar, dancer, and an Ojibwe birch bark biting artist. She recently retired as an associate professor at North Dakota State University and resides on the Turtle Mountain Reservation.

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HOME AT DUSK by David R. Solheim

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In the long grass in the ditch

Two glowing eyes blink And fly off in different directions. I am startled back to childhood Campouts when lightning bugs Dotted the night like shooting stars. They flash their mating code. Like my remembered dreams: Phosphorescence floating, Luminescence on the windshield, Evening star on the western horizon. I drift among flickering flames.

Born in Elgin, DAVID R. SOLHEIM is a North Dakota native and was the North Dakota Centennial Poet. He is an emeritus professor of English for Dickinson State University; an emeritus associate poet laureate of ND; and a member of Bismarck High School Alumni Hall of Fame.

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by Jennifer Hernandez

I never asked how you felt

as we walked through the cemetery in my parents’ small hometown, a graveyard full of Andersons and Nelsons, Linderholms and Moes. We buried my uncle that morning, the first of his generation to go. He’d driven you across the border from Juarez to El Paso when I went into labor with our first son.

(IM)MIGRATION

Died in January in Texas, but the ground was frozen solid back home in North Dakota, so they kept him in cold storage until spring thaw. Nothing ironic there. Decades have passed since the summers that I rode my bike from my grandparents’ house to the city park, the swimming pool, the Dairy Bar. Such freedom. My parents had been high school sweethearts, married young. Didn’t work out so well. I found you, my husband, in another country.

On the way into town along the highway there’s a World War Two plane mounted as a memorial to those small town boys who left to fight a war across the ocean and never came back. Pine trees grow tall along the perimeter fence, a buffer against the relentless prairie wind. Canada geese fly overhead with their lusty honks, heading north.

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JENNIFER HERNANDEZ spent her formative years in North Dakota, graduating from Minnesota State University-Moorhead with a degree in English. She then meandered from Japan to Wisconsin to Mexico, until settling in the Minneapolis area where she teaches immigrant youth and writes poetry as well as flash and creative nonfiction. Recent publications appear in Talking Stick, Radical Teacher, and Write Like You’re Alive (Zoetic Press).

SENSE OF PLACE |

for Monsadius Hatzenbihler

A hot June day, but you’re swaddled in sheets—

towel for a bib, wrapped around your neck. You can’t keep water down anymore the aunts tell me. Instead, a sponge on a stick, colored like a cherry sucker, brings cool relief to the cave of your mouth. Light slips between the slits of blinds and I touch your soft, weathered hands—supple, up and down the fingers move as I tell you I’m here. In and out whistles your breath as I talk about trout—rainbows and browns heavy with a late spring sulfur hatch. When I ask you How do you feel? you breathe—Just like an eight-pound trout. We hold hands as I pull-out my phone— and then that old familiar voice crinkles across the airwaves: It’s so nice to have you with us tonight—wunnerful, wunnerful, wunnerful. I close my eyes and see circles— you and Grandma, long buried, turning and turning around the floor. You steal a grin as the two of you hop to the polka. Now, in hospice, we listen, you and me, as Mr. Welk waves his baton. And then it’s our turn to sing. Your eyes snap open and your cheeks slide back like curtains. In heaven, there is no beer, that’s why we drink it here. And when we’re gone from here— my voice breaks, my eyes turn to wells of water as you sing—all our friends will be drinking all our beer. Our hands, twined together, bob in time to the beat as you drift and whistle, wunnerful, wunnerful, wunnerful.

IN HEAVEN THERE IS NO BEER by Taylor Brorby

TAYLOR BRORBY is the author of Crude: Poems, Coming Alive: Action and Civil Disobedience, and the forthcoming memoir Coal and Oil: A Fossil Fuel Baby’s Environmental Education. His work explores the Bakken oil boom and the history of North Dakota. A native of Center, he teaches at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in New York.

SENSE OF PLACE |

Obsidian night stippled white by distant Stars—while wind rustles hidden trees And I listen like a boy again, filling With prairie breaths and five generations Of dreams—obscures the rich sod into which Delve the farm roots my German-Russian Kin sowed one hundred thirty years Ago. Growing up a farm boy taught Me how to build and furrow straight, to caretake— Witness to life and death—impressive lessons I draw from even now in city life. My folks continue the agrarian legacy And talk to us about the farm’s future when We visit.

MATTHEW NIES was raised on a farm in rural North Dakota. He currently lives in Maryland and works for Senator John Hoeven. Nies attended the University of Jamestown, and his poetry has appeared in the University of Jamestown’s literary journal Plainsong.

SENSE OF PLACE |

WHAT WILL BECOME OF THE FARM? by Matthew Nies

RESTORING OUR

Our country is more divided than ever. The majority of our citizens cannot pass a basic civics test. Faith in our institutions remains at an all-time low. It is necessary for us as citizens to restore our democracy. Humanities North Dakota (HND) is here to help. Since 1973, HND has brought people together to engage with and debate ideas that move our country forward. We might explore whether the American Dream is still (or was ever) possible, or whether our criminal justice system is working, or we might debate the ethics of genetic engineering. We don’t push a political agenda or even reaching consensus. We seek deeper understanding: of each other, of the complexities of our history, of the current issues facing our nation, and of the possible solutions that are brought to the table by some of our most innovative thinkers. From high school classrooms where students are learning about their rights and responsibilities as citizens through our We the People curriculum to adults gathering in libraries and pubs to debate the pros and cons of immigration, Humanities North Dakota is joining people together to become the thoughtful and informed citizens our democracy needs to thrive.

Join us as we strive for a more perfect union.

Donate and become a member of Humanities North Dakota today! humanitiesnd.org

north dakota we the people summer institute May 29-31, 2019 Bismarck, ND

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WE THE PEOPLE: THE CITIZEN AND THE CONSTITUTION is a comprehensive instructional program to help students understand the history and principles of our constitutional government. The program focuses on the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights and fosters civic competence and responsibility among high school students. The Center for Civic Education and Humanities North Dakota are offering a summer institute that provides rigorous training to educators as they work with constitutional scholars and mentor teachers. Participants

attend lectures and sessions dedicated to teaching methods appropriate to the We The People curriculum. Educators from across the state of North Dakota are eligible to participate. One or two graduate credits will be available. Participants will receive at no cost: - A mileage stipend - Lodging and meals - A selection of constitutional materials - A classroom set of textbooks or other materials for the classroom

FIND OUT MORE AT HUMANITIESND.ORG

“Understanding how government works is the essence of power. To be a strong citizen, you need to know how the structures of our government work and how to operate within them.” —Stefanie Sanford, chief of global policy, College Board

2018 Humanities North Dakota Annual Report

ANNUAL REPORT |

HUMANITIES N O R T H D A K O TA

HUMANITIES N O R T H D A K O TA we have ways of making you think

During the 2018 fiscal year, Humanities North Dakota (HND) supported over 250 public humanities programs across North Dakota. These educational and cultural opportunities fulfilled our mission to bring people together to engage with and debate ideas that move our country forward.

2018 Program Highlights We the People: Educating the Next Generation of Voters in Polarizing Times Americans are becoming less familiar with our country’s origins and less informed about critical issues facing our democracy. A recent study conducted by the Woodrow Wilson Foundation revealed that the vast majority of Americans cannot pass a basic civics test. HND believes it has a crucial role to play in addressing this challenge by spearheading a statewide initiative to teach new generations of American students our history and founding principles, as well as their rights and responsibilities as citizens, through the We the People: The Citizen and the Constitution program. We the People is a comprehensive instructional program offering teachers in-depth training with constitutional scholars from around the nation, in addition to classroom sets of textbooks and ongoing support.

GameChanger Ideas Festival: Engaging with Ideas that Can Move Our Democracy Forward Our nation’s history has been a great adventure in ideas. Our Founding Fathers believed in the importance and the power of the humanities to change people’s lives. The GameChanger ideas festival was created to continue this proud tradition and provides people opportunities to engage with life-changing ideas, because democracy demands wisdom and vision in its citizens. Each year we take a look at a critical issue challenging our nation and bring some of the most innovative thinkers in the world to our ideas stage to spark conversation, debate, and civic engagement.

Think & Drink: Civic Engagement for Adult Audiences We’ve all had deep discussions with our friends while we’re out at night—why not add a couple of experts to the mix and take it up a notch? That’s the idea behind Think & Drink, a happy-hour series that 38

sparks provocative conversations about big ideas. The program invites participants (21+) to participate in a facilitated public conversation with public intellectuals who have expertise in the subject at hand. The idea isn’t to create consensus but, rather, to foster an open interplay of viewpoints and perspectives, because we are all in this experiment called democracy together.

On Second Thought Magazine: Mixing Local and National Voices On Second Thought magazine serves as a catalyst for important conversations around the issues and challenges we face today. Through thought-provoking essays, fiction, and poetry, we give voice to both North Dakota writers and to nationally recognized thinkers. Taking a humanities approach to problem solving, we provide thoughtful and informed analysis that gives readers a better understanding of the past, a better analysis of the present, and a better vision for the future.

Read North Dakota: Telling Our Stories Read North Dakota is a website dedicated to books by North Dakotans, those about the state and its people, and brief biographical sketches of North Dakota–born authors.

Think Outside: Conversations and Connection with Our Natural Environment Think Outside seeks to connect people with both ideas and the beauty of our natural landscape. Through guided discussions around campfires during the evenings and outdoor adventures during the day, we hope to build a community of adventurers who come to know both themselves and the beauty of the Peace Garden State.

Grants: Partnering with Schools, Museums, Libraries, and Other Educational Nonprofits

ANNUAL REPORT |

Financial Summary

for the Year Ending October 31, 2018 REVENUE AND OTHER SUPPORT

Each year HND supports lifelong learning in communities across North Dakota through our grant program.

Featured Grants UND Writers Conference Since its founding, HND has been a major sponsor of the largest literary conference in North Dakota. Exposing readers to the nation’s most talked about books and authors, and inspiring a new generation of readers and writers right here in North Dakota, the University of North Dakota Writers Conference brings big ideas to Grand Forks.

Prairie Talks This speaker series connects people with ideas in Rugby. From a Minneapolis improv comedy troupe that helped scholars explain and debate campaign finance reform to living history presentations that bring World War I to life, great conversations are happening in the heart of America.

Dunn County Writers

$677,565 National Endowment for the Humanities $41,848

State Grants

$30,000 Corporate & Foundation Grants $14,315

Program Income

$36,478 Gifts $119 Interest $800,325 Total Revenues and Other Support

EXPENSES

Dunn County Writers’ mission is to build community around the cultural arts and to preserve a written legacy of the people of rural, western North Dakota. With support from HND, the group brings in authors to host writing workshops and organizes public readings and panel discussions on topics of interest to the region.

Mr. History HND sponsors Mr. History presentations in every fourth-grade classroom in Fargo. Steve Stark’s illustrated history presentations are a fun and engaging way for students to learn about local and national history.

Lakota Summer Institute This intensive summer institute preserves the Lakota language. From beginners to fluent speakers, the Lakota Summer Institute offers a wide range of educational opportunities for those interested in learning about the language and culture of the Lakota people.

$417,254 Council Conducted Programs $118,224 Grants $70,464 Fundraising $187,452 General Management & Program Support $793,394 Total Expenses 39

HUMANITIES NORTH DAKOTA WELCOMES NEW BOARD MEMBERS

JOAN LOCKEN, OAKES Joan Locken was born and raised in North Dakota. After living and making her home in other parts of the country, she came back to her beloved home state where she enjoys the smell of freshly turned soil, the open skies, and the fresh smell of rain. She graduated from North Dakota State University with a bachelor of science degree in child development and family studies. She is retired from the JCPenney Company and is devoted to the humanities through her community involvement. She enjoys reading, cooking and entertaining, the arts, and gardening. She and her husband, David Locken, have six children and fourteen grandchildren.

“I look forward to exploring with HND the opportunities for learning and growing in this everchanging world.”

PATTY CORWIN, FARGO Patty Corwin teaches sociology at North Dakota State University where she is a pioneer in teaching online classes. She is one of the early instructors to encourage students to volunteer in the community, which later became known as service learning. She taught at Great Falls College-Montana State University and United Tribes Technical College in Bismarck, North Dakota. She was a police detective with the Fargo Police Department and is a motivational speaker and corporate consultant. Patty and her husband, Lou Emerson, live in Fargo and have four children and six grandchildren.

“I am happy to join HND to explore ways the humanities contribute to well being and the greater good.”

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2ECOND THOUGHT www.humanitiesnd.org

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We have ways of making you think. HND Board of Directors CHAIR Elizabeth Sund, Minot VICE CHAIR Ann Crews Melton, Bismarck Bethany Andreasen, Minot Mark Clemons, Watford City Patty Corwin, Fargo Marilyn Foss, Bismarck John S. Heinen, Dickinson Eric L. Johnson, Grand Forks Leslie W. Peltier, Belcourt Carol Kapaun Ratchenski, Fargo Joan Locken, Oakes Ken Schmierer, Ellendale Iris Swedlund, Velva Sarah Vogel, Bismarck

Staff Brenna Daugherty Gerhardt, Executive Director Kenneth Glass, Associate Director Kayla Schmidt, Program Coordinator

Humanities North Dakota is a partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities. The humanities inspire our vision of a thoughtful, respectful, actively engaged society that will be able to meet the challenge of sustaining our democracy across the many divisions of modern society and deal responsibly with the shared challenges we currently face as members of an interdependent world.

800-338-6543 info@humanitiesnd.org

humanitiesnd.org

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BISMARCK, ND PERMIT NO. 433

AMERICAN

DREAM ideas festival

OCTOBER 5, 2019

BISMARCK, ND

Find out more at gamechangernd.com