Humanities North Dakota Magazine: the IN GOOD HUMOR issue

A PUBLICATION FOR HUMANITIES ND MEMBERS

ON

11.20

2ECOND THOUGHT MAGAZINE

the IN

GOOD HUMOR issue

CONTENTS EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR NOTE 01 Laughing Through Tears

By Brenna Daugherty Gerhardt

FICTION 02 Dr. Atwood

By Will Beachy

08 Old School

By Doreen Rosevold

22 02

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The Wine at Cana: The Modest Water Saw Its G-d and Blushed

By Kurt J. Peterson

16 Romance on Ice

By Laurie Eynon 22 Independence Eve

By Christine Seifert 30 The Smoke Bomb Conspiracy of

Lefsechip County

By Trygve Hammer POETRY 42 Penny for Thought

16 30

By BIGnick

44 Croak

By BIGnick

ADVISORY COMMITTEE Margaret Barnhart Kim Crowley David Fettig David Haberman Mark Holman Wollom Jensen Nita Ritzke Rebecca Rozelle-Stone Jane Schreck ShaunAnne Tangney

HUMANITIES NORTH DAKOTA is published by Humanities North Dakota.

COVER ARTWORK Cartoons by Trygve Olson

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.

LAUGHING THROUGH TEARS

BRENNA DAUGHERTY GERHARDT

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

After direct contact with an infected person at work, my husband recently took a COVID-19 test for the first time.

When he came home, and I asked him how it went, he said, “It made me laugh and cry at the same time. The nurse shoved a long Q-tip up both my nostrils for what seemed like an eternity, and I found it so uncomfortable and bizarre that I couldn’t stop giggling as tears poured out my eyes.” I’m sharing this story with you because the fact that laughter can be a coping mechanism for uncomfortable absurdity and pain is exactly why we chose to compile Humanities North Dakota’s first-ever humor issue during a pandemic and election season.

I hope the short stories and poems in these pages, many written by North Dakota authors, give you a brief respite from 2020. We’ve all earned it.

turn your gray matter into what matters

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DR. ATWOOD

by Will Beachy

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n the back seat with my brothers, I was just happy to be on a trip—a rare vacation from the farm, where there were always chores to be done— milking the cows every morning and evening, feeding the hogs, and filling the racks with hay for the cattle. The job of cleaning out the cow stable, or

worse, the hog house, was a chore reserved for Saturdays when we weren’t in school. This Saturday was different; we were all piled into our red ’57 Plymouth, headed for Dr. Atwood’s office, 80 miles away. We had made this trip many times over the years. Dr. Atwood was a chiropractor, and it seemed my parents trusted him more than they trusted our town’s medical doctor. Dr. Atwood worked outside of the medical community’s accepted standards, which was probably why my parents were drawn to him. They believed he had knowledge about conditions medical doctors were not trained to recognize; for example, the dangers of cooking with aluminum pots and pans, or eating from Melmac dishes. Dr. Atwood was clear; aluminum could get into your system—the worst place for it to get into—and Melmac could accumulate in your nerves, accounting for a multitude of ailments, ranging from general malaise to malignant tumors.

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Dr. Atwood was no ordinary chiropractor; he treated a broad range of maladies with his spinal manipulations, mysterious machines, and natural organic food supplements. His patients tended to trust his expertise with an almost religious fervor. Of course, the medical establishment criticized Dr. Atwood’s methods, but it was easy to see why. Pure and simple, the American Medical Association (AMA) wanted to have the monopoly on medicine. Not only that, medical doctors prescribed synthetic drugs to their patients. There wasn’t anything worse than synthetic; even the word had a sinister sound.

But as I grew older, I became skeptical about Dr. Atwood’s legitimacy. As a junior in High School I felt I knew some things about science, and I had observed some things Dr. Atwood did that did not seem rational.

More importantly, I didn’t want my classmates to know my parents took me to a chiropractor. It was widely known that Amish folks in our community were regulars with Dr. Atwood, and the last thing I wanted was to be associated with the Amish, even though that association was an indelible part of my identity. Although my parents left the Amish church soon after I was born, they retained the commonly held view among Amish people that public schools were a corrupting influence. For that reason, they had sent us to a private country school, heavily populated

by Amish kids. After the 10th grade, my parents allowed me to attend public high school, which at once terrified and excited me. I longed for the sophistication and worldliness of my classmates.

I did not openly share my skepticism about Dr. Atwood with my parents, especially not with Dad. His trust in Dr. Atwood was not to be questioned. Several of our neighbors gave testimonies supporting Dr. Atwood’s ability to heal chronic ailments untouched by conventional medicine. One woman believed he had eradicated her cancer. I knew it would not be wise for me to suggest that our trusted family friends were dupes, or worse, insinuate that Dad was one. After all, Dr. Atwood had made it clear that he was a devout Christian, pretty

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much a clincher that he was not a fraud as far as Dad was concerned.

Now, on the outskirts of Bloomington, we were arriving at Dr. Atwood’s office, which didn’t look much like a doctor’s office at all; it looked more like a regular family residence. Its big screened-in front porch served as a waiting room. The thing I liked about it in my younger years was the ample supply of Western-themed comic books, such as The Lone Ranger, Roy Rodgers, Gunsmoke, and the like. Dad did not allow us to have comic books at home, but he somehow overlooked this prohibition at Dr. Atwood’s. Even now, I still liked to look through comic books.

Dr. Atwood’s initial routine was to give me an “adjustment” on his exam table, a mauling kind of manual manipulation that brought me to a place between bliss and pain. Part of the adjustment included cracking my spine and neck; this he would accomplish by distracting me with a question, and while I was thinking up a response he would startle me with a short vigorous thrust that yielded a satisfying, cracking pop. Then it was time for a session with the mysterious Machine in Dr. Atwood’s office. Dr. Atwood’s nurse, Joanne, would show me to a dressing room where I removed my shirt and put on a gown.

The Machine was essentially a large desk with a hutchlike structure on top, covered with a bewildering array of dials and switches. Embedded in the horizontal surface of the desk was a small rectangle of glass, next to which was a small shaker of baby powder. A black cable protruded from the side of desk and was attached to a metal brasscolored loose mesh. I remember the chill of the mesh on my skin when Dr. Atwood positioned it under my smock.

When everything was properly hooked up, Dr. Atwood would sit back in his chair, sprinkle baby powder on the glass rectangle, and rub it with two fingers, simultaneously turning dials and snapping switches. This process would continue for a few minutes, accompanied by the rhythmic squeaking sound of rubbed powder and clicks of turned dials. Occasionally, Dr. Atwood would pause with a

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seemingly puzzled “Hmmm,” and then continue to rub the powdered glass. Finally he would sit back, wipe the powder from his fingers with a tissue, clasp his hands, and pronounce the verdict: “Do you use aluminum cookware? Your boy’s spleen is loaded with aluminum!”

The question was asked with incredulity. It did not take many such proclamations for our house to be free of aluminum cookware. The good news was that aluminum could be cleared from the spleen with a week of treatments every day, which consisted of attachment to a much smaller bedside version of the Machine for 30-minute sessions; this smaller machine had only one dial and a glowing red indicator light. These sessions took place in a small cubicle with a drawn curtain. I could read several comic books in 30 minutes.

It wasn’t only aluminum the Machine could eradicate. It could rid victims of dyes, plastics, chocolate, and excessive sugar, among other undesirable substances. It seemed to me the tastier a thing was the more likely its detection and banishment. Some items were impractical to ban, such as bread, butter, eggs, and milk. These could, however, be brought in to Dr. Atwood’s office where they could be “neutralized” by a special Neutralizer, a device that rendered the offending substances harmless. The Neutralizer could handle even bulky items. For example, my parents, apparently at wit’s end in dealing with the stubbornness and disobedience of my youngest sister, brought her in to be neutralized. Perhaps fortunately, the neutralizer was no match for her, and she emerged from it with her qualities intact.

Now, today, Dr. Atwood performed my usual manual “adjustment,” after which he attached me to the big Machine. He rubbed the powdered glass and turned several dials, but then prematurely, it seemed, stopped and frowned. He wiped the powder from

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I had already thought Dr. Atwood’s practice was dubious, but now the frail thread connecting it to even the faintest bit of logic in my mind came apart forever.

his fingers, sprinkled more on the glass rectangle, and resumed the process. Again he stopped, this time with an air of finality. He leaned back in his chair and with great solemnity pronounced, “This boy has TB in four sections of the heart!”

This declaration sounded pretty serious to me, but somehow did not unduly alarm me. I felt completely fine—no aches, no discomfort of any kind. Nevertheless, I figured something horrible was lurking in the background, waiting to declare itself. My parents looked bewildered and shocked.

Thinking back, surely there must have been a kernel of skepticism in my parents; they knew tuberculosis did not randomly infect a person without exposure to someone with the disease. But my parents did not question Dr. Atwood that day. The good news was that Dr. Atwood could get rid of “TB,” never mind its pervasive residence in four chambers of my heart. It would require two weeks of treatment, five days a week for an hour each day. In the meantime, I was not to engage in any strenuous activity, or lift anything heavy. This precaution was a silver lining

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in the cloud of my diagnosis; no chores for me perhaps?

At least nothing strenuous! It did not occur to me right then that this limitation would obviously translate into no participation in the sports I loved—no basketball, no baseball, no football. Further, I would have to explain my frailty to my high school PE teacher, a gruff, intimidating man with little sympathy for weaklings. Plus, I would suffer the indignity of being seen as a wimp in the eyes of my classmates.

Now, after I was dressed and ready to leave with my parents, Dr. Atwood suddenly remembered he had forgotten to prescribe an important supplemental herb that would add to the effectiveness of my treatments. He, of course, had the supplement on hand and pulled a bottle off the shelf. But there was complication.

“Oh-oh,” he said, “I need to check to see if these pills ‘agree’ with him. We’ll need to hook him back up to the Machine.”

Agree with the workings of my “system,” of course. But since I had already put on my shirt, Dr. Atwood took an astounding shortcut. He wrote my name on a piece of

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paper and clipped it to the same wire that had earlier been attached to the mesh on my chest. Then he placed the bottle of pills in a recessed cup next to the glass rectangle on the Machine. He shook some baby powder on the glass, rubbed it, and turned a few dials. After a few seconds he stopped and looked up, delighted.

“It agrees with him—he’s good to go!”

I had already thought Dr. Atwood’s practice was dubious, but now the frail thread connecting it to even the faintest bit of logic in my mind came apart forever. Here was proof of his quackery. I looked at Dad and saw a trace of astonishment, but he said nothing. I have to believe, however, that Dad’s trust in Dr. Atwood was shaken that day. Nevertheless, for the next week I was allowed to forgo farm chores and hard work—and I savored every moment. At the same time, I couldn’t help feeling a bit foolish, especially when I had to tell the PE coach my story. But after a week, my parents apparently thought enough was enough, and I was soon conscripted back into the routine of farm work. The “TB” never did progress. l

WILL BEACHEY is an emeritus professor of the Respiratory Therapy Department from 1990 - 2015 at the University of Mary in Bismarck, ND. Now retired, he’s trying his hand at writing in an altogether different vein - in this case, a story based on a childhood memory while growing up on a farm in central Illinois. Will lives with his wonderful wife, Ruth, in Hudson, WI.

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OLD SCHOOL

by Doreen Rosevold

I

t was hard to imagine her career would end the way it did. There was no beauty or excitement in her life, but Miss Bowman was an icon as a history and English teacher for generations. When parents spoke of their fear of her to their first-born children who were about to enter high school, their voices cracked and their bottom lips quivered. For

generations of parents there was no time to warn about drugs, strangers and unprotected sex; Miss Bowman was the immediate threat.

As children often do, they dismissed their parents’ dire warnings as “lame”.

Those children entered the doors of the high school with heightened egos and swagger, confident they could bring down even the most veteran teacher.

By evening on the first day of school, the children’s heads were bowed in defeat. The parents did not even have to ask why. They knew. Miss Bowman had given her “welcome back to school speech”.

As a physical presence, Miss Bowman was undistinguished. The menace in her good eye (the one that pointed in your direction, while the other eye checked out the other side of the room) was

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“That wasn’t supposed to be in there!” she shouted as the orthopedics propelled her toward the projector and the slide show came to a sudden halt. not immediately obvious. She peered into the navel of most high school boys when they were standing. But as she took the stage at the front of a seated classroom, she seemed to grow. Her silver front tooth gleamed in the slanted sun from the classroom windows. Without a hiccup in her lecture, one hand constantly reached inside her dress to retrieve an errant bra or slip strap. It was mesmerizing to watch her search and search, adjust and adjust.

Her fashion sense incorporated both reserve and utility. The lace-up, buckskin-colored orthopedic shoes gave good traction as she moved toward a snoring student or near a desk where a covert note was being passed. The professional garment of choice was a cotton dress with a belt slashing an otherwise indistinguishable waistline—a waistline that showed evidence of having endured night after night of looking at every… last… word… and… punctuation mark… of… every… last… student… leaving little time nor energy for physical movement.

After just a few moments in Miss Bowman’s classroom, even the boys who spent their weekends drinking pilfered beer and smoking through a blue haze around a campfire, came to recognize the signs of an immediate threat and were afraid. If there was even a subtle hint of unruliness in the air, Miss Bowman’s eyes immediately searched both sides of the room at the same time and her tightly permed hair retracted toward her scalp even more. Her nostrils flared and the voluminous deep breathing could be heard into the back row. (Farm kids likened it to an enraged bull.

City kids thought it mimicked a train whistle.) In quick succession, her left hand reached in one more time to fix her strap and her right hand found a wooden ruler.

With her right eye focused on the offender, she leaned forward and the orthopedics did not fail her in a quick and immediate response. The room echoed when the wooden ruler was brought down hard on a wooden desk.

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For generations, Miss Bowman never changed physically or pedagogically. Grandparents who had her in school quaked at the memory of her classroom.

Parent-teacher conferences were canceled by many parents, too weak to relive their youth. Younger brothers and sisters resisted getting older and asked to be held back in elementary school, hoping that Miss Bowman would miraculously retire.

But the fear of others did not change the routine in the World History and English classrooms. They remained the same from the early fifties into the new millennium with few exceptions. A routine that consisted of coming into the classroom on time, being met at the door by someone with the bearing of a prison guard and then sitting immediately without speaking to anyone.

After the flat, razor sound of a worn-out buzzer echoed in the classroom, another routine began. It consisted of placing the daily homework assignment in the top-right corner of the desk while Miss Bowman walked row by row to look at it. Sorry were the students who tried to fake their answers or hide the fact that they had not completed their homework. There were no excuses, only punishment. No one wanted his desk to be thwacked, to be verbally humiliated or have to spend extra hours after school in the harsh presence of the underwear-adjusting, all-seeing, precious-metal toothed, dragon-breathing teacher.

But every decade or so, there was a divine intervention. One was when a class was shown a slide show of Miss Bowman’s summer travels. There, on a Greek Island, donning a purple swim suit, Miss Bowman stood by the side of a swimming pool in all her glory.

“That wasn’t supposed to be in there!” she shouted as the orthopedics propelled her toward the projector and the slide show came to a sudden halt. But it was too late.

In the dark and sudden quiet, her students found the image of the purple swimsuit was burned into their eyes.

They could never un-see it. None ever looked at a purple

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table grape again without thinking of Miss Bowman.

Another divine intervention was when Miss Bowman was walking down the hallway, her usual frugality obvious in her lack of nylon stockings. With her worn handbag slung over her elbow, she was conversing with another teacher, when suddenly the elastic gave way on her underpants. Just like that, the white cotton, pillowcase sized bloomers fell between her feet.

A normal human being would have tripped on this unexpected ligature or been paralyzed by embarrassment, but not Miss Bowman. Without missing a step, she pointed the toe of one orthopedic shoe into the heap of fabric, gave it a kick up, caught the flying flag of white cotton in one hand and smoothly put it into her handbag without missing a step or halting the conversation.

Toward the end of her teaching career something happened though. Maybe she was getting tired. Maybe the new breed of students was more creative and less fearful. Whatever the cause, news of the classroom hijinks on one particular day rippled through generations of former students and caused a smile even in the most empathetic of them.

It happened like this: Miss Bowman was giving a lecture in World History.

She was working up quite a passion on the dissolution of World War II and the building of the Berlin Wall. Above the green chalkboard was a large collection of colorful, oil cloth roll-down maps. Each map had a metal loop in the center that served as the handle to pull it down.

On this day as on so many others, Miss Bowman used her trusty long wooden pole with a hook on the end, to reach the highest map in the collection-- a map of Europe.

Someone must have done their homework that day.

Someone knew that the class lecture would be on East and West Germany. Someone must have suspected that the visual aid of a map would be part of the class.

As Miss Bowman’s chest heaved up and down with

excitement and her voice became more animated at the memory of a divided Germany, she pulled down the map without even looking at it, so sure she was of her geographic prowess. She smacked the pulldown stick against the open map emphasizing “East Germany” and “West Germany” without taking either of her eyes off the students.

Her eyebrows raised and her face turned purple with rage as the students broke into uncontrolled laughter.

Some even fell on the floor and rolled, so great was their surprise and joy. Her nostrils flared and her silver tooth gleamed as the extra spittle washed over it. “Stop this right now!” She said before she noticed that all of their eyes were looking at the map. She turned quickly to see what was causing this disrespect in her classroom.

And there, spread across the entire face of Europe… was a large poster of a Playboy Bunny centerfold. Miss Bowman had not been pointing to East and West Germany after all, but to a universal mountain range that was of much more interest to every 16-year-old boy in the class.

Miss Bowman retired that year. Maybe it was her new uncertainty about geography. Maybe she ran out of underwear with good elastic. Maybe her slip strap had been irretrievably lost at last. Who knows?

The replacement teacher was beautiful, used a lot of technology in her classroom and was kind and empathetic to her students. Rumor is that the students haven’t learned a thing. l

DOREEN ROSEVOLD is a life-long resident and educator in North Dakota. Doreen is a regular columnist for the Farm & Ranch Guide Magazine and the author of Farmwife Diary: A Shared Experience.

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THE WINE AT CANA: THE MODEST WATER SAW ITS G-D AND BLUSHED

by Kurt J. Peterson 12

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“Woman, what have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come,” said Jesus.

“Don’t you ‘woman’ me!” cried Mary. “A Son of Man must always concern himself with his mother.”

The newly-minted Para-Apostle Mortar tasted the wine that the head steward had proclaimed the best wine saved for last and he cried out, “Sacrebleu! (Holy Mackerel!) Exquisite! Chateau LaTour ’61, n’est pas?! (Isn’t that right.)”

And the steward, who heard Mortar’s identification of the rare vintage, replied, “Oui, monsieur, c’est cela! (Yes, sir. That’s it exactly!)”

You’ve got the makings of a great bartender. It’d give you a chance to sharpen your people skills. The rest we can train you for.

The servant who had served Mortar leant over and told him, “Better than that. A few short moments ago it was but water.

Monsieur Jesu turned the water into the wine.”

“You don’t say.” said the Mortar.

“Yes, I do say. In vino veritas! (In wine is truth.)” replied the servant.

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“But wait! You can’t serve it immediately! First, the wine must breathe!” cried Mortar, “And the…” He broke off mid-word when it was obvious that no one was listening to him.

Mortar then worked his way over to where Jesus was sitting and he said, “Jesu, my man, À votre santé. (To your health). And he clinked glasses with Jesus. “If my palate’s not mistaken that’s a genuine Chateau LaTour ’61. How did you do it?”

“De rien, (it’s nothing) Mortar, de rien.” said Jesus deprecatingly, “it was a favor to my mother.” “‘De rien’, he says. Can you, ah, do this ‘nothing’ again?” questioned Mortar earnestly, “Maybe a little bit of the bubbly this time, a nice Beaujolais or even a little aqua vite, or…”

“Say that again.” said Jesus quickly.

“Say what, bubbly, Beaujolais, aqua vite?” said Mortar.

“Yes, that. Aqua vite. The water of life. Water… life.

Life water. Life water. Living water. My man, you’re a genius, I think you’re on to something. Let me write that down. Tuck it away for future reference.” said Jesus with a thoughtful look. Jesus pulled out his notebook and quickly scribbled a few words then returned the notebook to his satchel.

“Never mind that!” exclaimed Mortar. “Bigg, I mean B-I-G-G bigg idea! We could open up a little wine bistro and with your ‘logistical capabilities’, shall we say, we could keep the overhead real low. I do the cooking and you keep the bar! You’ve got the makings of a great bartender. It’d give you a chance to sharpen your people skills. The rest we can train you for. Maybe we can get Matthew to keep the books for us. Martha can wait tables.” Mortar put one arm around Jesus’ shoulder and with the other made a wide, sweeping gesture as if to conjure in the air an image of this instant dream. “We could call it ‘M & J: A Little Wine” “Whoa, Mortar, slow down.” Jesus said, “My head is spinning and it’s not the wine! We’ll talk about it later.

C’mon let’s go to the Cigar Club tent. Bring your glass.

By the way, did you hear about the man who sat on a grape? It gave out a little whine/wine!” l

Cartoons by Trygve Olson TrygveOlson.com North Dakota native, KURT J. PETERSON, was raised in Bismarck, and after acquiring the necessary education, he ran away and joined the US Army. He served in the Military Intelligence branch as a Russian linguist.

Following the Army, Kurt returned to Mandan and after several jobs, landed in a teaching career, and he began to write. He is now retired from all work and devotes much of his time to working with other writers as well as continuing to write on a variety of topics.

Excerpted from Q: The Very First Gospel by Kurt J. Peterson, published December 2019 by Kurt J. Peterson Copyright © 2019 by Kurt J. Peterson 15

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ROMANCE ON ICE

by Laurie Eynon

“It’s so small,” said Samantha disapprovingly, as she surveyed the cabin that would be their shipboard home for the Alaskan Inside Passage Cruise.

“We won’t be in the room much,” teased David. “We’ll be dining on salmon and sliding on glaciers!” He inwardly reprimanded himself for not booking the priciest suite.

Samantha opened the closet. “Where am I going to put my shoes?”

“We’ll figure it out, Sammy,” said David. “C’mon. It’s our first vacation together.”

Samantha took a deep breath and smiled at him seductively. “Yes, it is,” she cooed. “And we will be the king and queen of the ship! And stop calling me ‘Sammy.’

Makes me sound like a boy.”

David smirked. “No one would ever mistake you for a boy, Sammy…er, Samantha,” She laughed. “Come here, you. Help me unpack.”

David obliged. Sure, she was “high maintenance,” but she was the most gorgeous woman that he had ever dated.

Her dark blond hair streaked with golden highlights framed a face that boasted wide green eyes and flawless skin. She was wearing a tight white fuzzy sweater belted at the waist, accentuating her shapely proportions.

David was not naïve. He understood that money was a large part of her attraction to him. She had flirted outrageously with him at an awards party when his computer game, Ice Race, was honored as “Game of the Year.” Women had barely noticed him before Ice Race made him wealthy. Now this beautiful creature was on his arm. Could a pleasant-looking but nearly 40, slightly paunchy, balding computer geek get any luckier?

He’d only been dating Samantha a few weeks now, but he wanted to impress her. And this was a trip he’d wanted to take for a long time. After all, it was the Alaskan dogsled

race, the Iditarod, that inspired his wildly successful computer game.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Samantha wore an ice blue cocktail dress their first night aboard the ship. She paused and made her entrance into the dining hall. At their table, she did the introductions.

“David is the genius behind the computer game, Ice Age,” she said as she raised a glass of white wine to her lips.

“Umm, Ice Race,” corrected David, sheepishly.

Samantha’s smile tightened almost imperceptibly.

“Oh, our grandchildren love Ice Race,” said a couple seated next to them. “We’re the Albertsons. From Fresno.

This is our sixth cruise!”

“It’s my first. I’m so excited!” said a fresh-faced young woman in a bulky sweater and khaki pants named Jessica.

“Call me Jessie. I’m a teacher. Fourth grade. I saved all year for this trip!”

The other folks at their table were equally friendly and excited, though all except the teacher were probably over fifty. David noticed more than one person sneak a peek at Samantha’s décolletage.

So,” said Mrs. Albertson to Samantha, “What do you do, dear?”

He’d only been dating Samantha a few weeks now, but he wanted to impress her. And this was a trip he’d wanted to take for a long time.

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“I’m a model,” said Samantha with a brilliant smile.

“She’s been in several catalogues,” said David. Samantha interrupted quickly. “I now mostly work for high-end designers.”

David knew she hadn’t had a booking lately, but he let it go.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • “Well!” said Samantha, when they returned to their cabin. “Those people! Like that teacher! Imagine wearing khaki pants to dinner on a cruise. I just thought maybe we’d meet some, well, higher-class people.”

“Regular people take cruises,” said David.

That night, a storm raged, making the seas rough and choppy. Samantha tossed and moaned in the bed.

“Did you bring that seasick medicine?” she asked David.

“I’m miserable!”

As David crossed to the bathroom, he stopped by the window and opened the curtains a bit to witness the gale.

“Yikes,” laughed David. “Maybe we’re on The Poseidon Adventure!” Just then, a streak of lightning split the sky followed by a crack of thunder.

Samantha screamed. “Are you trying to scare me to death?”

David found the pills. She swallowed a few and fell into a restless sleep, moving her arms and legs wildly.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • The next morning at breakfast, everyone was talking about the storm.

“It was awful,” whined Samantha. “All that tossing about.

I couldn’t sleep.”

“I thought it was a great adventure!” exclaimed Jessie.

“I threw on my sweater and went on deck. The waves were magnificent—dark and mysterious!”

Mr. Albertson chimed in. “I was telling the wife here that maybe it was The Poseidon Adventure again!” They all laughed—except Samantha.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • The atmosphere at the docks in Skagway was festive.

Eager tourists poured off the ship for this excursion.

Samantha turned up her nose at much of the

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merchandise in the native shops. He considered buying some Alaska t-shirts from a vendor, but Samantha pronounced them as tacky. Then, she found a pair of exquisite diamond earrings in a pricey shop. David bought them for her, grateful to see her face light up. At dinner that evening, everyone admired Samantha’s new earrings.

“You are so lucky,” said Jessie. I’ve never had real diamonds in my life!” She was wearing one of the “tacky” sweatshirts from the marketplace. It had an Alaskan Brown Bear on it. Her cheeks were rosy from the brisk weather and bright sunshine.

“See what I got for my students!” said Jessie as she pulled totems and artifacts from her bag. “I’m going to do a geography unit on Alaska!”

The items were passed around as Jessie regaled everyone with stories about her fourth-graders. Samantha fondled her earrings irritably.

“I bet the kids love you,” said David as he listened to Jessie. “I wish I’d had a teacher like you.”

Samantha drained her wine glass. “Dance with me,” she said as she grabbed David’s arm and nearly dragged him onto the dance floor.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • At their next port-of-call, Ketchikan, they signed up for a group hike along a rugged trail through an old-growth forest.

But Samantha had worn the wrong shoes, stylish red leather boots with stacked heels and pointy toes, appropriate perhaps for a mall outing.

“Ouch! I can feel blisters,” she grumbled after about ten minutes into the three-hour excursion. “I had no idea we’d have to walk so much.”

Their guide muttered something about this outing being called a “hike.” A few hikers muffled laughs.

Samantha reddened. “Let’s go back to the ship, David” said Samantha. “These are $800 boots!

David surprised himself with a sudden, “No!” Irritated, Samantha agreed to let one of the guides escort her, as she hobbled away clutching his arm.

David fell in step with Jessie, who was wearing thick wool socks and sensible hiking boots. Her unruly blond hair ventured out haphazardly from a red wool cap, and her freckled face was flushed with exertion and excitement. They laughed as she stumbled over a root and

A Series of Virtual Events About Critical Issues Facing Our Democracy

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| IN GOOD HUMOR |

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| IN GOOD HUMOR |

grabbed David’s arm. They chatted amiably and learned they were both originally Midwesterners and had both attended Stanford several years apart.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Juneau was to be the highlight of the cruise for David.

At this port-of-call, a helicopter would fly them over several glaciers to a dogsledding camp where they would actually partake in a short ride.

Samantha balked.

“Let’s stay on board and relax. It sounds as awful as that hike,” she said.

“But…..you know how fascinated I am with the Iditarod,” said David. “I mean…it’s my game.”

She pouted. “Oh, that race thing.”

David was having a hard time retaining his composure.

He suddenly had a vision of her behind the panting sled dogs, kicking them with her red pointy-toed boots.

“You can stay on board if you want,” he said. “I’m going.”

“David,” she said shrilly. “Don’t you dare! What would I do all day?” There was a silence between them for a few moments.

Then, in an abrupt change of demeanor, she gave him her most seductive smile. “C’mon, baby,” she purred. “Let’s just stay here. For me?”

David just stared.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Folks shouted to each other over the noise of the whirring blades as they boarded the chopper headed for the dog-sledding camp.

“Mind if I sit here?” David shouted to Jessie.

“David!” she said. “Where’s Samantha?”

“It’s just me,” he said as he sat down.

“Did you see the cameras?” she asked. “A team is here to film this excursion. One of the hosts on the Travel Channel is coming along. We might be on TV!” David laughed aloud.

“What’s so funny?” asked Jessie.

“Oh, nothing,” said David. “It’s just that Samantha would have scaled a glacier for a chance to be in front of a camera.”

“She wouldn’t have gotten far in those red boots,” Jessie retorted, and then immediately apologized.

David was chuckling. “Don’t apologize,” he said. “She’s gone, by the way. For good.” He recalled the shouting match which ended in Samantha demanding to go home.

“Whatever you want,” he sighed. He hoped the concierge had found appropriate flights for her. He had shelled out plenty of money.

Jessie’s face reddened. She looked out the window.

“Wow! This is great! My students won’t believe I went on a dogsled ride with the creator of Ice Race!”

“Maybe I could come to your classroom and talk to them,” offered David.

Jessie beamed. “Oh, I’d love that…I mean, they’d love that.”

As the chopper took off, twirling above the frozen landscape, Jessie shouted in delight. “I’ve never done anything like this before!”

“Me neither,” said David. “We’d better stick together.”

He decided he was done with high-maintenance women. l

LAURIE EYNON is a writer living in Indianapolis who has recently retired from her job as a hospital chaplain in Atlanta, where she was a frequent contributor to the Atlanta Journal Constitution as well as other publications.

Her move back to the Midwest was precipitated by the many family members and friends who live there and a genuine desire to be back where she belongs. In another life, she would like to be a stand-up comic.

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| IN GOOD HUMOR |

INDEPENDENCE EVE

by Christine Seifert

T

he car smelled like vomit and everyone had a sunburn. And to top it all off, they were very late to dinner. It was her mother’s special July 3rd dinner, a celebration to kick off the holiday weekend. Earlier in the afternoon, the boys had begged to stop at the water park, so Blair pulled the Highlander into the parking lot just like that. “Okay,” he said, “let’s do it.” The boys practically peed themselves, they were so excited.

“Do you mind?” Blair asked her when they were already getting out of the car, the boys dancing from foot to foot, doubledaring each other to go down even the steepest of slides head- first.

“Well, what can I say now? I’m not going to be the bad guy and say no,” Annabeth answered. She didn’t care one bit that they were going to miss supper at the lake house. It was one less meal with her mother to endure. She wanted to go to the 22

| IN GOOD HUMOR |

water park; she loved water parks. She just didn’t want to go with the boys.

After forking over an amount of money that Annabeth couldn’t bear to think about, they spent most of the afternoon standing in lines. The plastic slides were too hot, the wading pools too crowded, the lifeguards crabby.

Snacks were fought over by the boys and then only halfeaten. And just when the park started to clear out a bit, when people started to leave for dinner, Rusty puked up Cheetos in one of the pools and they got kicked out.

Once in the car, wet and irritable, Rusty described the consistency of the puke to Carter who then barfed on the back of Annabeth’s seat. She sat on the rear bumper while Blair cleaned it all up.

They had two hours of driving left now, but everyone was quiet and that made everything better.

“Look how sweet they are,” Blair told Annabeth. He was looking at the boys in the rearview mirror and let the Outlander wander over the line.

“Watch it,” she said, but then laid a hand on his thigh to soften her tone. She’d been snapping a lot at Blair, and it wasn’t his fault. Blair was faultless. He’s a saint, her mother always said. She couldn’t argue.

The truth was that Annabeth found the boys sweet only when she was feeling guilty about how much she resented them. When awake, they were loud, often ungrateful, prickly, hard to please, and boundlessly—endlessly— bored. They were like little kings who needed a troupe of jesters—except each jester was only interesting once and only for about three minutes. Asleep, they did look cute, but no more or less so than a basket of sleeping kittens or a pod of dolphins.

“You think we’ll get any privacy?” Blair asked. He raised his eyebrows twice, a gesture that she used to find sexy.

“Not at the lake house we won’t. There’s no way I’m having”—she looked to the backseat and lowered her voice—“sex anywhere in that house, not with the fifty people or so my mother has invited to stay for this gala.”

Her mother had begun calling her Fourth of July gathering a “gala” in March when she first called Annabeth to

discuss plans. “Should we hire a pyrotechnics specialist?”

“Should we require everyone to wear red, white, and blue?” “Should we use miniature U.S. constitutions as table favors?” Annabeth couldn’t fathom what in the world had made her mother suddenly start caring about the Fourth of July. But when she asked, her mother huffily told her, “Independence Day has always been my favorite holiday.

You know that.”

Blair reached one arm over her shoulder and placed a warm hand on her bare neck where she had gotten too much sun. “You know, if you just relaxed a little bit and stopped worrying, you might enjoy a nice holiday with your family. I for one am pumped. And the boys are too.”

Most of the time she willed herself to forget that Blair was the sort of person who used phrases like I for one am pumped. She felt a ripple of revulsion travel through her guts so quickly and so deeply that she actually gagged.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Just too much sun.”

Blair pulled his hand back and into position on the steering wheel. “Uncle Bernard is coming,” Annabeth said.

“Really?” Blair said. “Huh, I thought he was dead.”

“That’s just how he smells.”

“Be nice,” Blair told her. He was joking, but not really.

Blair was generally appalled at her behavior around her family. There was no use explaining to him how being with her parents transformed her into a person that was both her and not her at the same time. She was Hydra, a beast who could not be contained. She reverted back to fourteen-year-old Annabeth—temperamental, rude, impatient, angry, confused, sad. And the more often she reverted, the harder it was to get back to the real her.

“We can’t count on privacy in the house,” Blair said, “but there are lots of places around the lake.” He put his hand on top of hers. “There’s the boathouse, the boat, the woods, this car even.” He looked hopeful.

“Keep your eyes on the road,” she told him. But she was starting to remember what it was about Blair that made her love him in the first place. He had a way of making the burden of life feel lighter, like it maybe wasn’t a burden 23

| IN GOOD HUMOR |

after all, but a delightful adventure. “We’ll see,” she added. pop conversation. It was a line she’d heard Shannon use on “We’ll see about the boathouse.” If she was being honest, her when she’d dropped the boys and found Annabeth in she would prefer to sit on a sofa in a semi-comatose state the kitchen eating an entire sleeve of Oreos. Carter guiltily and watch paint dry. Thinking about reproduction was set down a package of Hostess Snoballs he had been about as sexy as thinking about a gutted fish or a pile of holding like a baby hamster. rotting garbage.

When Blair finally returned from the bathroom, he Blair brought her hand to his lips. “I think this is what picked up Rusty in one arm and hugged Carter with the we need. A little holiday. That’s all.” other. “How about a treat? We’re on vacation this week Ten miles from the lake, Rusty had to go to the after all.” bathroom and insisted he couldn’t wait. He refused to pee She probably imagined it, but she could have sworn that on the side of the road like a normal five-year-old, so Blair after they cheered, the boys looked at her with contempt. happily announced that it was a good time for everyone to Blair was always the fun one. stretch their legs. He pulled into the Holiday station.

While the boys began studying every item in the store “My mother will have supper on the table,” Annabeth anew, she brought a bottle of water to the counter (willfully pointed out. resisting the knowledge that single-use “Since when are you in a hurry to get bottles were terrible for the environment) there?” Blair said and pinched her butt. and asked for a lottery ticket.

The simple She sighed and texted her parents. Twenty “Cute kids,” the clerk said. She was an response, the minutes or so. Sorry. Got waylaid. older woman with frizzy grey hair pulled No rush. Just be safe. She knew that was into a wispy ponytail. She wore a faded preferable her father and not her mother. red polo shirt and had a bouquet of white response, would Inside the store, while Blair used the whiskers on her upper lip. Annabeth bathroom himself, Rusty and Carter have been to say blamed her mother for making her notice touched everything they saw. “Can I have details about total strangers. Her thank you, collect such this, please?” Rusty asked. He held up mother believed unattractive women were mosquito repellent. She shook her head. her change, and an affront to the world and that she alone “Then how about this?” Carter asked. He was called upon to notice them, judge leave. held up a flask with a map of the state them, and then later comment upon these of Minnesota on it. “No flasks,” she said, unfortunate women under the guise of then regretted her wording because she had inadvertently deep sympathy. implied that non-flask products were just fine. Rusty and “Thanks,” Annabeth said. “They can be a handful.”

Carter were sharp kids. You couldn’t be too careful. “No “I’m sure. But you’re lucky your husband is such a good anything, whatever it is,” she amended. dad.”

“This?” Carter asked. It was a postcard of Paul Bunyan.

The simple response, the preferable response, would “I want to give it to Norman.” have been to say thank you, collect her change, and leave.

She almost said yes to that because her father would Instead, she felt a pressure rising inside of her, starting have been charmed by the fact that Carter had thought to at her belly, and growing all the way up through her bring a gift. But if she said yes, then Rusty would whine esophagus until it sputtered out of her mouth: “He’s not about the mosquito repellent. And they’d both want candy their dad.” and pop. They always wanted candy and pop, probably “Oh,” the woman said. She did not seem concerned or because their mother, Shannon, was a health nut who interested in knowing more. She had a half-smile on her told anyone who would listen about her latest diet, her face as she watched Rusty and Carter pick up each candy latest yoga routine, her latest decision to subsist entirely bar, examine it like it was a uranium sample, and then put on carrots that she grew in her own backyard and watered it back down again while Blair waited patiently. with artisanal rainwater and her own waste.

Annabeth looked at her watch. Twenty minutes had “Sugar is toxic,” she told the boys to head off the candy/ already passed since she’d texted her parents. Her mother

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| IN GOOD HUMOR |

would be tight-lipped and stiff-shouldered. She’d pretend she wasn’t angry, but it would be there in the room for the rest of the evening and Annabeth would know. The thought of her mother and an entire three-day gala made Annabeth feel mean again.

“He’s not their father,” she repeated. “They are the children of his ex-wife. Shannon. They got divorced after she cheated on him. Shannon remarried and had the boys with her second husband, Howard. And since I’m apparently barren and cannot give him the children he so desperately wants, he’s forced to pretend those boys are his sons. Modern family, you know.”

The pressure inside of her didn’t abate. She had to keep going. “We’re all going on vacation together. To the lake house that my mother thinks is rightfully hers, but it actually belongs to my aunt. I won’t even get into that whole relationship between my mother and my aunt. You don’t have enough time for that.” Annabeth paused to examine the clerk’s face. She had the same look one might have upon seeing the same horse fly in church for the fifth or sixth time. “It’s a Fourth of July gala to celebrate freedom, yet everyone in the family is required to come.

How free is that?” She laughed in a way that sounded like a grunt. Still the clerk said nothing.

Annabeth leaned across the counter until she was inches from the clerk’s face. She could see the fine whiskers moving in time with the fan oscillating across the counter.

“To be perfectly honest with you, I’m not barren,” she said in almost a whisper. “I just don’t want children.” Annabeth jabbed a finger into her purse. “I have birth control pills in here. Birth control pills that I take in secret.” Annabeth leaned in even closer, so close that clerk was practically bending backward to get away from Annabeth’s hot breath.

“My husband doesn’t have a clue.”

Annabeth finally moved back a respectable distance and crossed her arms, a defensive posture, ready for whatever judgment the clerk was going to heap upon her for being such a terrible person. She deserved it, frankly. It was worse than having an affair. An affair could be ended, confessed, forgiven. But to deny this man children was simply unforgiveable.

Oh, how this felt like confession, like Father Monarch was on the other side of the counter, listening and toting up a hefty penance for her. The sheer relief of saying it all out loud made Annabeth feel weak—and ravenously hungry. She was a newborn baby, fresh in the world, a

beautiful new chance, ready to embrace the redemption which she was about to receive.

The clerk’s face remained impassive. “Huh,” she said. She narrowed her eyes, rubbed one finger over her top lip.

Annabeth waited patiently. This woman was what her mother would call salt of the earth. She probably had no use for book clubs or wine-of-the-month deliveries or golf carts or an all-inclusive stay at a Caribbean Sandals resort with couple-friends she didn’t even like. This woman with the whiskers probably had a small garden. A friend named Madge. An afghan. Diabetes. Thrift store curtains.

A Reader’s Digest subscription. Miller Lite in bottles in the fridge. A collection of Hummel figurines displayed on top of a bookcase. Wisdom.

Finally, the woman spoke. “Lady,” she began, and Annabeth felt the sin seeping out of her pores, the voice of God traveling from somewhere beyond into the rich, smoky throat of the be-whiskered woman. Forgiveness on tap. “I could give a rat’s ass if you climbed up on this counter here and stripped down to your undershorts and tap-danced while singing ‘The Stars and Stripes’ while holding a sparkler in your behind.”

“Oh,” Annabeth said. *** They were late for supper. Annabeth’s mother tsked and shook her head as they arrived.

“Hello, darling,” she said when Annabeth got out of the car. “You’re late for the kick-off to the gala. I’ve made a beautiful duck cassoulet that’s getting cold. What’s the matter? You look terrible. Are you ill? Go wash your face and put on a little lipstick. You’ll feel better when you see how I’ve decorated the lake house. The theme is ‘Let Freedom Ring.’ It’s very clever. You’re just going to love it.

And I’ve saved the back bedroom for you and Blair. Just think: You’ll be bringing your own children here for years to come. Maybe next year,” she said eagerly. “Maybe you’ll have a baby by then.”

Annabeth did as she was told. l CHRISTINE SEIFERT is a North Dakota native and the author of four books. Her writing has also appeared in a number of publications, including The Atavist, Bitch, Bitterroot, Bookmarks, and Inside Higher Ed, among others. She currently lives in Salt Lake City, UT, where she’s a professor at Westminster College.

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N OF A PUBLICATIO DAKOTA

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ON

GHT ON 2ECOND THOU HUMANITIES NORTH

A PUBLICATION OF HUMANITIES NORTH DAKOTA

ON

2ECOND THOUGHT

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2ECOND THOU GH A PUBLIC HUMANITIES NORTHATION OF DAKOTA

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| IN GOOD HUMOR |

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O

n the first day in May when temperatures reached what anyone’s mom would consider shorts and t-shirt weather, five middle school kids sat on an eight-by-eight-foot plywood platform under the rafters of the Severn family garage in Grain Belt, North Dakota, and compared notes on what they had discovered while stuck at home in the spring of COVID-19.

Rakish and rake-thin Curtis Severn had found, in that very garage, three boxes of Playboy magazines dating from the late 70’s to the mid 90’s. He studied them furiously and

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arranged them in order of excellence under his bed, where his mother discovered them. They weren’t there anymore.

Byron Chaudry—dark haired, dark complected, and probably the only kid in town wearing a collared shirt that day—found a loaded handgun in his father’s nightstand and a Bible—King James version, Catholic edition, with a soft black cover and thin gilded pages— under his mother’s side of the bed. Scandalous, seeing how his parents were pacifist Muslims. He read the entire Bible like a spy perusing top-secret documents inside an enemy headquarters, sitting with his back against the bed

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THE SMOKE-BOMB CONSPIRACY OF LEFSECHIP COUNTY

by Trygve Hammer

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It flash-boomed like a small grenade.

Winston staggered back with a dark spot in the center of his vision, ringing in his ears, and an acrid but sweet burning in his nose.

and returning the Good Book, with its attached ribbon bookmark exactly as he had found it, at the slightest indication that one of his parents had come home from work.

Helena Krum would disclose only that she had found excellent blackmail material on her two older sisters. She would probably need it, she said, because they were angry at her for noticing—out loud, in front of their parents— when her soon-to-graduate sister had returned from a long walk with her shirt misbuttoned, an orphan button hole at the top and an orphan button at the bottom.

Eighth-grade Winston Weide, studiously neat next to his rumpled sixth-grade brother Jack, was slow on his natural turn to share. The curve of Helena’s neck, from the bottom of her blonde bob to the shoulder strap of her white sundress had stolen his attention, and there was that small warm spot where her bare knee touched his. He barely noticed when Jack announced that the Weide boys hadn’t found a darn thing.

“Smoke bombs!” Winston said. “I found a rolled-up, crinkly paper bag of old smoke bombs. They’re stashed in the back of the bottom drawer in our China cabinet.”

“What?” asked Jack. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because you would’ve lit the whole bag on fire.”

Jack pouted and Curtis said, “Go get ‘em, Win. Let’s play some hot potato.”

Even as he lowered the makeshift two-by-four ladder and climbed down, Winston thought it was a bad idea, based mostly on the fact that Curtis had come up with it.

But the others were excited to kick around some smoke bombs, so he crossed the hedge, slipped in the back door, and was relieved to hear his mother involved in an online meeting. He was also relieved that the bag was even older and more dried out than he remembered, so the

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smoke bombs were most likely long forgotten. By the time he returned to the open bay door and found his friends standing in a loose circle on the garage floor, Winston thought lighting some smoke bombs might not be such a bad idea after all.

He took his place between Helena and Byron, pulled a faded red smoke bomb out of the bag, and set it at his feet.

Curtis, who could be counted on for matches more reliably than a Boy Scout working on his arson merit badge, tossed him a pack from Castro’s Car Cigar Bar in Little Havana, South Dakota. Winston lit a match, sparked the fuse, and waited to kick the little red ball as soon as it began spewing smoke.

It didn’t smoke. It flash-boomed like a small grenade.

Winston staggered back with a dark spot in the center of his vision, ringing in his ears, and an acrid but sweet burning in his nose. Helena gripped his upper arm with both hands and he tried to flex his bicep without giving away the effort to do so.

Byron had cleared out of the garage. He walked back in wide-eyed and brushing something invisible off of his shirt. “That is not what I was expecting,” he said.

Jack just let out a long “Hooooo!” and high-fived with Curtis, who testified that he’d never seen a more awesome firework malfunction.

The spot in Winston’s vision dissolved, the ringing in his ears subsided, and Helena released her grip on his pathetic bicep. “There must have been something wrong with that one,” he said. “Maybe that’s what happens when they get really old.”

“I think we should test the next one outside,” Helena said. “That was way too loud.”

“Okay; everyone stay back for this one.” Winston drew another faded smoke bomb from the paper bag and

| IN GOOD HUMOR |

walked to the center of the driveway. He set it on the ground and struck a match. The fuse flared, Winston retreated, seconds ticked and the smoke bomb exploded just as violently as the first one had. All that remained was a burn mark on the broken concrete, and the kids gathered around it.

“This is so much better than I thought it would be,” Curtis said.

His mother stepped out of the house in a long pink t-shirt with a sleep mask pushed up on her forehead and her dirty-blonde hair piled on one side of her head. “Holy Hell!” she said. “It sounds like someone’s lighting cherry bombs out here.”

Five pairs of eyes exchanged looks that said two words: cherry bombs!

“Pretty sure that was Cody throwing something from his pickup, Mom,” Curtis lied.

“The Sheriff ’s kid?” Ms. Severn looked skyward with a clenched jaw and shook her head. “I swear I’m gonna strangle that kid before he can reproduce.” Then she turned and padded back into the house.

The sheriff ’s kid was actually burning along the undulating gravel hills of Lefsechip County Road 13, along with some of his own home-school discoveries, in a dark blue 1984 Ford F-150 with a purposely damaged muffler.

High school senior Cody Johansen had a bag of weed, an unregistered pistol, and a thermos of vodka under his seat, a set of handcuffs in his glove compartment, and three sticks of dynamite in the F-150’s mounted toolbox. The dynamite, weed, and pistol were from two locked trunks with poorly hidden keys in his father’s basement man cave.

Apparently, an effective sheriff needed a lot of crimefighting contraband. The vodka had been lifted from the Sheriff ’s Department holiday party, where no one was in

charge of securing the bar. The handcuffs had just been in the pickup for as long as Cody could remember.

He made a rolling stop and turned, in a cloud of dust, with stock-car noise and a spit of gravel, onto the highway that led back to town. He was engaged in a fantasy of hot pursuit in his practically guaranteed future as the county’s fourth straight Sheriff Johansen. His great grandfather Lars had started the enterprise and initiated the practice of hiring deputies who would never be capable of mounting an effective election campaign against an incumbent sheriff. That had worked well enough for Grandpa Oscar, and then Cody’s father had added the regular “discovery” of large marijuana patches or bundles of drugs on election years.

What the current Sheriff Johansen hadn’t foreseen, and now his second greatest pet peeve after his slowing metabolism and growing appetite, was the ridiculous name change from Barley County to Lefsechip County on his watch. It had all been part of a marketing ploy by the giant Crispee snack company to introduce their new Lefse Chip product in a heavily Norwegian market. The county was renamed for a period of not less than five years, and the county seat changed its name from Grain Belt to Crispee. In return, Crispee Corp. paid for upgrades to schools and bars throughout the county.

To make matters worse, the annoyingly good-natured Ole Olafson, who was opposed to the project but couldn’t resist a good joke, was president of the Crispee School Board at the time. He campaigned and cajoled, and the next thing you knew all of the Crispee sports teams were competing as the Wayfarers. Opposing basketball coaches claimed it was apt, considering how often Crispee players strolled down the lane without bothering to dribble.

Things took a darker turn when the volleyball girls

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Winston and Helena lagged slightly behind the others through the alley as they walked toward the railroad tracks, which Curtis claimed was the best place to blow stuff up.

traveled to Towner to take on the Towner-GranvilleUpham Titans. Waiting for them in the locker room was a gift basket full of chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla wafers and a note that read, “Please enjoy these crispy wafers.

If only you could be so sweet—or so light.” Infuriated, the Wayfarers ate the wafers down to the last crumb and vowed to destroy the evil Lady Titans. Unfortunately, the wafer sugar-high lasted for only one set, and the thirsty, fatigued, and defeated Wafarers dragged themselves to the bus without bothering to shower.

Five years later, the town was quick to drop its shameful corporate moniker, and the sports teams returned to competing as the Grain Belt Brewers. Ole Olafson was then on the County Commission. He campaigned, once again successfully, to keep the Lefsechip name. After all, he argued, there was barely any barley grown in the county anymore, and the sheriff ’s girth proved that free Lefse Chips in county offices hadn’t been as unpopular as some had claimed. So Cody Johansen’s father continued to patrol in vehicles with a department logo that featured potatoes and a rolling pin instead of stately sheaves of bearded barley.

Winston and Helena lagged slightly behind the others through the alley as they walked toward the railroad tracks, which Curtis claimed was the best place to blow stuff up. Winston had the bag of cherry bombs in one hand, while the hand on Helena’s side remained free for her to grab if she stumbled or a chasm opened in the earth beneath her cute strappy sandals—her description, not his— and painted toenails.

Helena moved so close that their forearms touched and whispered, “I don’t think Curtis’s mom was wearing anything under that t-shirt.”

“I didn’t notice,” Winston said. He didn’t think it was cool to observe the way a thin t-shirt clung to the curves of a hot mom’s body, or even to acknowledge that your friend had a hot mom.

“Oh, bull,” Helena said. “She had you more dazed than that first cherry bomb.”

“No, I—” Cody Johansen’s pickup fishtailed into the alley and skidded to a halt in front of the group. Cody jumped out, left the door open, and put himself between his vehicle and his targets. He was in his usual uniform: a trucker hat, cowboy boots, and a t-shirt and jeans that looked as if they 35

| IN GOOD HUMOR |

had been snatched away from overly possessive mountain lions “Where you going, Injun?” he asked Byron. “Taking your friends to a powwow?” He hopped around in poor imitation of a Native American dance, modulating his whoops by tapping four fingers over his mouth.

Winston’s heart pounded and his legs turned to lead, but Helena seemed unfazed. “You’re an idiot,” she said, pointing at Cody. “Byron’s from Pakistan. He’s not any kind of Indian.”

“Well, if it isn’t Helena Handbasket.” Cody smirked at his own lame joke and then frowned as his audience failed to react. “Looks like you’ve got more balls than all of these boys put together.” He looked straight at Winston. “I think Weide might pee his pants. What’s in the bag, Wimpy?”

“Cherry . . . tomatoes,” Winston said, relieved that his body had loosened enough to say anything. He wasn’t looking directly at Cody, and so he was the first to notice that the pickup was backing away, gaining an inch or two per second in velocity with each passing second. It set Winston to laughing.

“You think something’s funny?” Cody stepped toward him. “I’ll punch the funny right out of you.”

Winston pointed. “Your pickup.”

The F-150 had rolled about thirty feet and was beginning to turn so that the tailgate took aim at the dumpster behind the hardware store and the open driver’s side door arced away from Cody, who sprinted after it so fast that the trucker hat flipped off his head and sat facing them in the alley. Byron snatched the hat and they all ran past Cody as the bulky dumpster clunked a fresh dent in the tailgate and the driver’s side door swung closed in front of him.

They ran to the railroad tracks, and then another quarter

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mile down them to where there was no street access and no houses nearby. They sat in the middle of the tracks and gasped from exertion and laughter. They laughed about the pickup, they laughed about the dumpster, they laughed about Helena’s scolding and Winston’s laughing. They laughed hard at what a cherry bomb did to the trucker hat and even harder at the results of the hat versus two cherry bombs twisted together by their fuses. With each retelling, the story got funnier and the players more heroic, and Winston grew more certain that no one had noticed how frozen he had been in his fear.

“You know,” Byron said, “we don’t have a hair on our butts if we don’t blow up Cody’s bird feeder.”

“Yeah, as if you have a hair on your butt, Byron,” Curtis said. “Let’s do it.”

“We can’t do it now,” Jack said, and Winston was relieved at his little brother’s atypical caution.

“You’re right,” Helena replied. “If we’re going to blow stuff up in the sheriff ’s backyard, we should do it in the dark.”

“Let’s do it tonight, then. It will be dark enough by eleven-thirty.” Winston couldn’t believe the words coming out of his own mouth. He hoped one of the others would veto the idea, but the plan just gained momentum. Helena announced that Winston could light the cherry bombs in the bird feeder, but she was going to light one on the Johansen’s deck because she was the only one who hadn’t lit one yet. Everyone was sure they could be at the pile of tires in the implement lot that bordered the Johansen’s yard by 11:45 that night. Winston advised everyone to stuff their beds in case a parent peeked in to check on them.

Winston and Jack prepped their beds and crawled out their bedroom window at 11:30. They slid to the edge of the roof and dropped quietly first to the shed and then

| IN GOOD HUMOR |

Once Helena’s fuses were burning and she was halfway down the stairs, Winston would light his fuses and they would both flee.

to the driveway. They retrieved the cherry bombs from behind the trash bin and the ten million candlepower spotlight from its charging station in the garage and arrived at the implement lot to find Curtis, whose mother was out bartending, already waiting. He had a one-gallon ice cream pail that he wanted placed over the cherry bombs on the deck and a handful of wire twist ties which, they discovered, could hold four cherry bomb fuses together. Helena arrived next, still in her sundress and cute strappy sandals. She had taken her sisters’ usual escape route through the attached garage, and she thought the ice cream pail was a wonderful idea. Byron arrived at 11:45 on the dot, cell phone time. He was the only one who had locked a door behind him as he left. His parents were early-to-bed, early-to-rise people.

The Johansen house was on a corner of Main Street just beyond where the road curved out of sight from the business district. It was built into the edge of a depression left long ago by some retreating glacier, so the backyard sat well below street level. A sliding glass door from the basement opened to one end of a concrete patio in the sunken backyard, and a set of wooden stairs at the other end of the patio led up to the deck. At the center of the yard were an apple tree, a lilac bush, and several Adirondack chairs. From a branch of the apple tree hung a bird feeder Cody Johansen had constructed in shop class and used mostly as a bait station to draw targets for his bb gun. The entire yard was shrouded by a ring of bushes and brambles, both evergreen and deciduous, that offered privacy from casual observation and concealment for spying kids. All of the boys had hidden in the bushes on bright summer days to watch Cody’s older sisters (Could they even be from the same gene pool?) sunning themselves in barely-there, two-piece swimsuits.

The plan was simple: Helena would take a bundle of four twist-tied cherry bombs, a book of matches, and the ice cream pail up the stairs to the deck while Winston set his cherry bomb bundle in the bird feeder. Once Helena’s fuses were burning and she was halfway down the stairs, Winston would light his fuses and they would both flee back to the tree line to observe the aftermath. The other three boys would spread out to watch the action and look for trouble, and they would all meet back in the implement lot when it was over.

Winston crawled out of the foliage and immediately realized that he had greatly underestimated the darkness of the enclosed yard. Even Helena’s white sundress disappeared a second after she passed him, and he had to follow the flowery scent and grope his way to the lilac bush like a zombie. He was glad he had held on to the spotlight, because he might need it to make a quick escape.

As he made his way around the lilac to the apple tree, his eyes adjusted just enough to see some shapes in the dark.

He set his cherry bombs in the bird feeder and looked for Helena.

She was a mere wisp of white until she got halfway up the stairs and into some ambient light from the street. At the same moment, big Sheriff Johansen, guided by the flashlight on his cell phone, stepped gingerly onto the concrete patio in flip-flops, baggy sweatpants cut off just below the knee, and a sleeveless Crispee Wayfarers football jersey. He slid the patio door closed and followed the beam of light from his phone into the yard. Two beer bottles dangled by their necks between the fingers of his meaty fist.

Winston backed slowly behind the lilac bush as the sheriff lumbered toward him and halted at an Adirondack chair. Two beers clunked down and then the sheriff ’s

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| IN GOOD HUMOR |

face glowed orange and round as he lit a cigarette that slanted down from his scowl. The phone light went out, a beer bottle hissed open, and the glowing cigarette moved toward the apple tree and paused. The sheriff sighed, and there followed the unmistakable sound of urine splashing on the ground.

Then, on the deck, Helena’s dress reflected the light of a freshly struck match.

She didn’t know.

Sheriff Johansen didn’t notice.

Winston felt cold concrete hardening around him.

Another match flamed on the deck. Fuses sparked then separated when they burned below the wire tie, and the wobbling cherry bombs cast dance-club lights under the ice cream pail. Helena stood transfixed, her hands on her face.

Winston dug deep. He wouldn’t freeze. He shouted, “No!” but it came out as a strangled, “Naaagh!” It was enough to break the squeezing fear.

The sheriff ’s face turned to the sound and ten million candlepower of white light blasted through his dilated pupils. Cherry bombs ba-da-da-bammed on the deck and the sheriff spun that direction while reaching for a nonexistent holster on his hip. Untied sweatpants piled around his ankles and he fell flat on his face. Only the beer bottle remained upright. Bound and blinded, the sheriff arched his back and bellowed. He groped for his sweatpants with his non-beer hand and his great white buttocks leaped about like clumsy baby seals racing up a steep beach.

Winston killed the spotlight, struck a match, lit the bird-feeder cherry bombs and ran for cover. Lights came on in the house and squashed the shadows just enough for him to spot a cute pair of strappy sandals disappearing into the brush. He followed them and low-crawled into concealment just as the bird feeder exploded.

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A floodlight came on and Mrs. Johansen emerged through the sliding door on the deck screaming into her phone: “Sheriff Johansen’s been shot! He’s in the backyard!

Please hurry!”

It was time to clear out. Winston ran back to the rendezvous point and the others were already there.

Without a word, they followed him from shadow to shadow and alley to alley until they reached the railroad tracks and turned to the Main Street overpass.

Sirens wailed and whooped from every direction. Two Sheriff ’s Department vehicles turned off of the highway and raced through the underpass. Their flickering blue lights bounced along the store fronts ahead of and behind them. Then came two State Patrol vehicles, converging from opposite directions on the highway. They turned into town and emerged from the underpass as close as linked railcars. Just up the block, the Grain Belt Community Ambulance turned off of second avenue and followed in the wake of the State Patrol.

Then the sirens died and the town settled into postmidnight, small-town silence.

“We should probably go home,” Jack said. “I don’t know if I’ve ever felt this tired.”

“Me too,” said Byron, “but this was the best night of my life.” He turned to walk off, then stopped and said, “I think I hear Cody Johansen’s pickup.”

Sure enough, the locally infamous F-150 was approaching the turn lane to make a left off of the highway and drive right underneath them. Cody was so uncharacteristically cautious at the wheel that, as Winston and Helena stood at the overpass rail to watch him emerge, Curtis was able to reach between them and lob two lit bundles of four cherry bombs directly into the box of his truck.

Sirens wailed and whooped from every direction. Two Sheriff’s Department vehicles turned off of the highway and raced through the underpass.

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| IN GOOD HUMOR |

Cody’s conservatism disappeared at the first detonation.

The engine roared and the F-150 shot out of view around the main street curve but seemed to come to a halt with a rubbery squawk and a metallic crunch.

Winston picked up the bag of cherry bombs, hugged Helena like it was his job, and said, “Let’s go home.”

Lights showed inside the Weide house when the boys got home, but they climbed in their window and found their stuffed beds undisturbed. Jack went directly to bed, but Winston got into his pajamas and wandered downstairs to feign surprise that his parents were awake.

His mom said her boys must sleep like the dead, and his dad said that the rumor was that the Johansen kid had crashed into a State Patrol car with some trouble on his breath and worse in his pickup.

When Winston returned to his room, a group text from Helena asked if everyone was okay. Byron’s parents slept through it all. Curtis’s mom wasn’t home yet. Winston replied that he and Jack were fine and Cody was in trouble.

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Helena texted that the bed-stuffing idea was genius and that her sisters had accidentally provided cover for her by getting caught sneaking in just before she got to the house.

As the older Krum girls were scolded in the basement rec room—so the yelling wouldn’t wake their sweet little sister—Helena had tip-toed to her room.

They said their goodnights.

Then a personal text from Helena: “Next time you should kiss me.” l

TRYGVE HAMMER is a retired Marine and 7-12 science educator who lives in Velva, ND. He never experienced middle-school romance, but he did once discover that the bag of smoke bombs he found in the dining room were, indeed, cherry bombs. He is also a candidate for the North Dakota State House of Representatives, where he would represent, among others, the Evil Lady Titans of TGU.

| IN GOOD HUMOR |

NEVER STOP LEARNING BECAUSE LIFE NEVER STOPS TEACHING We the People: The Citizen and the Constitution High School Curriculum We the People: The Citizen and the Constitution is an innovative course that explores the history and principles of the United States government.

We the People Adult Civics Education Working with our state’s civic teachers, Humanities North Dakota is bringing the comprehensive course on the history and principles of the US Government to adults. The We the People Adult Civics Course will take you from the philosophical and historical foundations of the U.S. political system to the challenges American constitutional democracy faces in the 21st century. Offered online and in-person.

GameChanger Ideas Festival An annual gathering of lifelong learners where curiosity and discussion take center stage, the GameChanger Ideas Festival invites some of the most provocative and inspiring thinkers in the world to share their ideas with you! Join us for this exciting day of learning to re-energize your mind and make new friends.

Think & Drink HND Think & Drink events bring curious people together at local pubs to connect, question, and learn through moderated scholar presentations and engaging conversation.

One Book One ND A shared experience of reading among a wide spectrum of North Dakotans featuring best-selling authors in a 90-minute virtual experience with the author of the month. Attendees are encouraged to participate in Q&A with the author.

Chautauqua & Chat A 90-minute virtual performance by living history presenters in an environment of learning, culture, and entertainment. Attendees have the opportunity to ask questions of historical figures such as Frederick Douglass, Sacagawea, Carl Jung and others.

Brave Conversations Brave Conversations bring people together to engage with ideas outside of the formal settings of lecture halls and professional meetings. These conversations may include interviews, panel discussions, or lectures with an emphasis on exploring diverse perspectives and challenging questions with people in an informal, relaxed setting. These events are offered in-person and virtually.

GameChanger Book Discussions HND GameChanger book discussions are facilitator-led, but group-driven conversations about impactful books written by upcoming GameChanger Ideas Festival speakers offering attendees a sense of community and personal enrichment. These events are offered in-person and virtually.

Page Turner An entertaining and inspiring hour with North Dakota authors reading excerpts from recently published or soon-to-be-released books.

Read ND An archive of North Dakota’s authors and their works as well as resources, news and events, and more. From fiction to nonfiction to poetry, visit ReadND.org and find your next favorite book.

Public University HND takes lifelong learning to a deeper level by offering 6 - 8 week courses in a variety of subjects.

Classes are offered in-person and virtually.

Learn more at HumanitiesND.org

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| IN GOOD HUMOR |

And here it is Once again I come in shame Dragging my feet towards you Closer…and…closer I’ve never been smooth Even now I realize the mud I’ve stomped Caking your soft-tiled floor There you stand And upon your gentle face A bright expectant flame wilds your eyes The door closes behind me with a thud Echoing my pounding chest And then, you see me Your lips turn a smile and I know there’s no back Only forward, onward To my fate I must go Pondering a knight’s glorious entrance How he would boldly storm right up To you and brandish his rugged sword But me with no blade in sight And armor made of mere cotton/polyester Cower, tremble as this vision dissolves I find myself standing before you When you ask me what I came for I think constricting thoughts That close my throat I don’t have what she wants I’m wasting her time But it’s too late and I press on I look at your cheery face And place on the counter A Ziploc bag spilling 106 pennies all Surly enough your smile quivers, drops Eyes fade becoming disinterested and irritated As you count coin after frustrating coin Seemingly more numerous than pebbles on a beach My cheeks redden, mouth dry As embarrassment takes the whole of me “One cheeseburger, please….”

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| IN GOOD HUMOR |

PENNY FOR THOUGHT

by BIGnick

BIGnick is a poet, published author of “Kaleidoscope Nights” and the Vice President of the BisMan Writers Guild in Bismarck, ND. His drive to stir up interest in poetry, make it more accessible, and encourage his fellow poets, keeps him fervently writing, reading, and performing. You can visit him at BIGnickPoetry.com or Facebook@BIGnickPoetry.

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| IN GOOD HUMOR |

CROAK

by BIGnick

Lie to me Say that I’m your prince And I’ll dress like it Kiss my lips and I’ll bite my tongue Swallow my pride Because bitter words tend to choke like a lump in the throat I don’t care for the mundane Fantasy is a more entertaining place to squat Swamp or castle, it’s all magical It’s hard to hold on so don’t let me slip, princess Kiss me even if it makes you green Like a pack of cigarettes We’ll just parade around in a daymare disguised as young love Take me, warts and all A blindfold tying us together Just know in the coming years I will be nowhere near when you finally croak With half your treasures we gathered together And a dragon we never raised right I’ll pretend like this isn’t a lie If you pretend you didn’t see me eat a fly

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HUMANITIES NORTH DAKOTA WELCOMES PRAIRIE ROSE SEMINOLE TO ITS BOARD OF DIRECTORS

PRAIRIE ROSE SEMINOLE, GARRISON Humanities North Dakota welcomes Prairie Rose Seminole from Garrison, ND to its Board of Directors.

Prairie Rose has a passion for community and civic engagement. She brings experience serving on a diverse range of boards such as the Fargo Film Festival, Native American Voices, Fargo Human Relations Committee, Center for Interfaith Projects, among many more. She has been a part of efforts, institutions, and organizations that have seeded, supported, and strengthened public history, cultural heritage, civic education, and community engagement on local, state, and national levels. Prairie Rose grew up in North Dakota and is an enrolled member of the Three Affiliated Tribes of ND on the Fort Berthold reservation. According to Executive Director Brenna Gerhardt, “We are honored to have Prairie Rose join our team.

Her expertise and drive are invaluable assets.”

Board of Directors & Staff HND Board of Directors

Staff

CHAIR Sarah Vogel, Bismarck

VICE CHAIR Marilynn Foss, Bismarck

Lyle Best, Watford City Dina Butcher, Bismarck Dennis Cooley, Fargo Patty Corwin, Fargo Eric Johnson, Grand Forks Joan Locken, Oakes Ann Crews Melton, Bismarck Leslie Peltier, Belcourt Jessica Rockeman, Richardton Prairie Rose Seminole, Garrison Barb Solberg, Minot Linda Steve, Dickinson Amy Stromsodt, Larimore

Brenna Daugherty Gerhardt, Executive Director Kenneth Glass, Associate Director Sue Skalicky, Program Coordinator George Welder, Communications and Membership Officer We believe that when people engage with the humanities they develop deep convictions and the moral courage to live them out.

It’s easy to find a gym to keep your body healthy, but what about your brain? At Humanities North Dakota, we create events and programs that are like group fitness for your mind. Join the exercise of ideas and turn your gray matter into what matters.

800-338-6543 info@humanitiesnd.org

humanitiesnd.org

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HUMANITIES NORTH DAKOTA 418 E. Broadway, Suite 8 Bismarck, ND 58501

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PAID

BISMARCK, ND PERMIT NO. 433

It’s easy to find a gym to keep your body healthy, but what about your brain?

Humanities North Dakota creates events that are like group fitness for your mind. Join the exercise of ideas and turn your gray matter into what matters.