Thirty Eight Miles of Dakota

Yuri Meets Little Red Riding Hood

“Where ya from?” Elizabeth asked. The man responded with a big grin, “New York” he said. His smile revealed a mouth full of unnaturally white teeth obviously having received a great deal of expensive dental work. “What beautiful teeth you have.” threw in Wendy. Another big smile was her reward. “Yes, they are beautiful,” I agreed. It was a slow day in the gift shop where we catered to tourists and we were entertaining ourselves the way we often did when bored, we chatted up the customers, especially the good looking male friendly ones. Our colonial dress probably encouraged them and us. When you wear a costume, it seems less personal. You take on a character. We worked in a restored Colonial Tavern, we called ourselves “wenches” and gave tours, served lunch, and sold lots of tourist type souvenirs. This is the stuff that nobody really needs, but can’t resist buying because it’s cute, unique, sentimental, etc. Actually we cater to almost every human being’s need to consume and tourists are the great, materialistic, consumers of the world. This man had a strong accent, black curly hair, olive skin and a distinct non US male look about him. He was too pretty, his tee shirt was tucked in, his haircut too good and as I mentioned earlier, his teeth way to white. He also had a rather odd slogan on his shirt. It read "The worst president ever."

Elizabeth headed upstairs to start the next tour, Wendy took off to escort the latest bus full of school children safely to lunch and I was left alone with the man. I messed around behind the cash register for awhile and then went out to cruise the aisles a bit. As I came back to the cash register I noticed he was standing near the door apparently killing time. So having always been a politically curious person, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to inquire about the tee shirt. “So who is it?" I queried? Again the smile, followed by a rapid stream of heavily accented English, the gist of which seemed to be that this president was totally inept, had had no serious administrative experience, and was or had been doing a very bad job. I gradually gathered that it was our current president, Obama, he was talking about, so again I asked, “Well what did you think of George Bush? “ Again a gush of words accompanied by the grin and a great deal of praise and so again I queried? “ Where did you say you were from?” “Behind the iron curtain.” he replied, "I am from the Evil Empire." This, I assumed, to mean Russia. I remembered that Reagan had called Russia “The Evil Empire,” so I responded, “You seem to like Republicans?” And I began to realize I was feeling offended, and that I was taking the criticism of our current president personally. I felt some judgments coming forth, What did he know about American presidents? What did he know about democracy? So again, I opened my big mouth and said “So what president do you like?” “President Reagan, he replied, and then began to list the bad presidents, “Carter, Johnson, and Clinton." So again I began to try to reconcile what a former communist would have against our most socialistic presidents and then the light came on. He was a capitalist in all his materialistic glory, he was a tourist! He believed in consumption. So I shut my mouth and didn’t say, “Well you can go into the fried chicken buffet and eat until your arteries shut down and you need to throw yourself on the mercy of our brand new health reform bill, you can run up your credit card on unnecessary junk, go broke and expect our bankruptcy laws to protect you from financial ruin, you could buy a house you can‘t afford and expect our government to rescue you from your mortgage, or you could just go back to Russia and shut the fuck up.” Instead, I swished my long red colonial cape with the red hood and muttered to myself, “What long white teeth, compliments of the American Dental Association, you have, grandmother.”

The Ice Princess

Her legs were shaky and the brisk wind gave no help. The sky was brilliant blue and everything else white. The big North Dakota sky was clear and very cold. She skated round and round on the small frozen slough. What a treat in this semi desert, a tiny ice rink. Any small amount of water left standing in the fields here was taken advantage of as fully as possible and this one fortunately had lasted long enough to freeze over. The ducks nested in it in the spring time, the cattle drank of it in the summer, muskrats built houses in the middle in the winter and hibernated there., The kids thought these sloughs, fresh water ponds were heaven. They had never been to a beach and the only river was about ten miles away. So on the sloughs in summer they built rafts and had pirate fights. Most sank, but were great fun until they did. One winter when she was about twelve or thirteen, she found an old pair of skates. She had never skated before, but that didn’t discourage her. Down to the pond she marched, put on the skates and proceeded to make her wobbly way around the small rather grassy frozen circle.

As she skated round and round gaining strength and speed, her mind began to drift. It was extremely peaceful, her legs stopped shaking, the ice became soft and smooth. She could lift her arms and just sail around. She became an Ice Princess, like Sonja. In the thirties and forties, a very beautiful young women from Norway named Sonja Henie won the Olympic Gold medal for figure skating, several times. She became an international celebrity. She gave ice shows all over the world and eventually ended up in Hollywood making movies. She was every little girl’s dream like the present day Peggy Fleming or Michelle Kwan. But there was also a difference. Because Henie was a rich celebrity, she was able to travel in very elite circles, including Germany when Hitler was still in power. At one of the performances she performed in there, she was seen to give the Nazi salute to Der Furer. And after one Olympic games she was reported to have had tea with him at Berchtesgaden. This did not endear her to the those who were suffering under Nazi occupation and dominance. The North Dakota skater didn’t know any of this of course. To her Sonja was simply a gorgeous, graceful movie star who wore sequined outfits and had golden hair and big blue eyes. The pond skater was a big footed clumsy long legged rather gawky adolescent decidedly lacking in grace or coordination. She had wild dark curly hair that never behaved itself and olive skin and brown eyes. Her clothing was hand me downs that never fit too well, a shabby wool coat with sleeves too short, one of her brother’s old earflap caps on her head and big brown rubber looking mittens with considerable wrist exposed between mitten and coat sleeve. She was not a sight to behold.

As she continued to skate on the white glittering pond, deeply immersed in the fantasy, something physical began to happen. She began to lose her vision. At first the view simply narrowed and then more and more became a tunnel. Then nausea started manifesting in her stomach and the headache began. All intensified as she staggered off the pond, barely able to get the skates off and walk home, where she collapsed on the sofa and gave over to her mother’s ministrations and sleep. She was unable to explain where she had been and what she had been doing, but the skates were obvious. It was the last time the migraine hit her with such force. She continued to grow and mature and never suffered from then again. Why wasn’t she able to have this beautiful fantasy without suffering. What was wrong with being Sonja Henie? It took many years and World War II, to figure that out.

Skip and The Jack Rabbits

"In the morning,
The jack-rabbit sang to the Arkansaw
He carolled in caracoles
On the feat sandbars."

The yelping never seized in the cold clear afternoon. The sky was gray and held the smell of snow, a thin layer of which already covered the ground. Far to the south in the flat fallow fields, we could occasionally glimpse a black blur wheeling and turning through the thin grass.

In Dakota we had many wild animals, very shy, big eyed deer, gophers that liked to dig tunnels in our cow pasture. And although we never heard or saw wolves, coyotes were plentiful and would entertain us at night with their yipping and howling. A skunk occasionally wandered through, badgers, and once even a wolverine. It was rather small but very fierce and my mother worried that it would attack our dog ,Skip. He was a large black and white border collie and made it his job to defend us from any and all invaders. He barked mightily at the wolverine who seemed totally unthreatened and continued to poke about our gasoline barrels as though he were looking for a fill up. Eventually one or the other must have given up because Skip came out unscathed and the wolverine disappeared.

Skipper also like to chase jack rabbits. There are five different specie of them which are all found in central and western North America. Which one Skip was after, was hard to tell. They are speedy and capable of reaching 40 miles an hour, and their hind legs can propel them on leaps of more than ten feet. They use these leaps and a zigzag running style to evade their many predators. Skip was one of the predators and he hadn't a snowball's chance in hell of ever catching one, unless of course if it was old or ill, or both. He either didn't care or just never figured it out. The hares (as they are properly known) turn white in the winter and were hard to see, but Skip could smell them out and they would give him an exhausting chase all over the fields. Sometimes we would call t him and try to get him to come home, but it was though he was on ad drug. He never heard us or he wasn't about to interrupt his passionate pursuit. He had to chase the prey. To my knowledge, he never caught one, but he never stopped trying. Later if we were out walking in the snow, we would find winding tracks or rabbit and dog covering most of a quarter section. He would come home finally in the evening totally done in and lie in front of the big coal stove sleeping and recovering for the next day. Every now and then he would give little yelps in his sleep and his feet would start moving. We knew even in his dreams his favorite thing to do was chasing jack rabbits.

I know people like Skip, they like to chase their dream and probably prefer not to catch it, for then, what would they have to dream about.