Originally published in the High Plains Reader in 2001
In the wee hours of Christmas morning, with all the presents opened, wrapping stuffed into huge, black trash bags, all the “some assembly required” chores completed, and as my relatives gently slumber, I confront the Curse of Christmas Present.
My bride breathes softly, deeply, contentedly at my side. No doubt she’s dreaming of the cool gifts she tore into and the warmth of family and feast to come on the 'morrow.
As for me, I lie there in agony, stomach and intestines twisted like red and green ribbons. Over and over I ask myself, what in the world I to do with that all-in-one handyman set from Uncle Buck, the orange-and-pink-striped tube socks from Aunt Agnes, the around-the-world tea sampler from Cousin Carey? I’m a coffee man, for God’s sake. Wide eyed and frightened, I confront grim reality — I'm stuck with them.
Unwanted, useless gifts. They come out of nowhere, from relatives I wouldn't dream of inquiring as to where they scrounged up such items, let alone come right out and ask for receipts. I see these people only once every couple of years; the $3.99 socks are not worth the insult and hurt feelings.
Still… I can't use the darn things, either. I could donate them, I suppose, but that seems like adding insult to injury to the lives of the less fortunate. I could throw them away, but there’s enough Ebenezer in my blood to recoil from the thought of tossing something with value, how little it might be. If something can be purchased, I pathetically reason, surely it can be returned, possibly even replaced with something useful or desirable.
Through the maze of options twist my sleepless thoughts on Noel morn. My wife murmurs, readjusts a little. In the twilight, I see she actually has the hint of a smile at the corners of her pretty mouth. And why not? She got a diamond necklace. As for me, I resolve to enter into that newest and most frightening Christmas tradition. Like the running of the bulls, it has elements of danger and, at times it, too, resembles a stampede.
The Returning of the Gifts.
Oh, sure. We gripe about the bustle of the malls and shops during those last few precious and precarious days before The Bearded One arrives, but we know the post-St. Nick urban warfare will be much, much more harrowing. Long lines. Screaming kids. Frustrated, glaring parents. Occasionally short-tempered clerks. Few receipts. Little courtesy. Less common sense. It's brutal.
Most stores, even the huge chains, do their best even as they watch holiday profit margins plunge like The Fat Man’s swoosh down a chimney. They establish special return lines, schedule extra customer-service help, and direct employees to scan receiptless items to determine whether those items were, in fact, purchased there.
Without too much trouble most of the fake-leather gloves and foot massagers, even those hideous holiday sweatshirts adorned with bon-bons and trinkets hanging every which way, go back. More often than not they’re taken with a smile, despite the long lines of snot-nosed whiners and sunken-eyed moms. I know this and, fluffing my pillow, take some comfort there.
There is a catch, however, and it gnaws at me like The Grinch's pup on a bone. If I can't find the store where an item was purchased, it's mine forever. Reclining in that peaceful house on that silent night, I see my sorry Christmas story unfold.
In store after store, cashiers will scan my items and shake their heads. "Sorry," they'll say, "we don't carry those." I'll lower my head and mumble, "Thanks anyway," before trudging out to yet another ice-covered parking lot, determined to try one more store, knowing my fate will be the same. Others heading in with the same hopeful thoughts I harbored less than half an hour before will look at me as we pass. Their confidence will crumble ever so slightly. Deep down they know, like I do, that the gift return can be as elusive as a Minnesota Lutheran church lady dodging queries about her recipe for Jell-O Surprise.
My bride rolls over, sighs. On the verge of coming to terms with my predicament, I remember I’ve been stuck with ultimate Curse of Christmas Present terror: The Christmas CD. You've seen these nasty things. They have titles like "Anne Murray's Most-Loved Holiday Hits" or "The Chipmunks Christmas.” Most of them are by washed-up artists trying to stage a comeback on Santa’s coattails.
I try soothing myself with the old standard, "It's the thought that counts.” But, as they say in the corporate back rooms of the businesses where I’d like to return the gifts, that is a non-starter.
Forget it, I tell myself, get some sleep. At least the game on tomorrow will be a perfect excuse for avoiding conversations with Buck, Agnes and Carey. I slip my headphones on and press play.
Croon on, Ms. Murray, croon on.
Showing posts with label High Plains Reader. Show all posts
Showing posts with label High Plains Reader. Show all posts
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Blue Skies & North Dakota Slams
Originally published in the High Plains Reader, 1999
Many a codger has been heard of an afternoon here in North Dakota praising the extreme weather. “Keeps the riffraff out,” Old Boy says, motioning over his cup of scalding black coffee through the window of the local café.
Outside rages a blizzard with howling winds and wind chills of 60 below, or there’s a hailstorm with golf ball-size hail, or the shimmering effects of 110-degree heat with 95 percent humidity. In the latter case, Old Boy motions over his iced tea.
Maybe only we stalwart few (around 600,000 of us) of German and Norwegian descent, with sturdy constitutions, are – what? – determined enough to live through what we do year after year and hang around for yet another round. Perhaps we’re a bit “touched,” as they say of those who aren’t bright enough to come in out of the rain, but for one reason or another we’re here to stay. It’s quiet, a little slower, we still help our neighbors and know them by their first names. We like it this way.
Sure, it takes a thick skin, and maybe a thicker skull, to live here. But, lately, the North Dakota digs have found their way under that skin and started to itch. We aren’t known for complaining much, but, geez, sometimes an itch needs scratching.
We know what you all think and say about us. Foreigners (like Minnesotans trying to be funny or New Yorkers who really don’t know any better) ask how we get around out here. “Do you ride your own horse, or do you drive a team and buggy?”
It’s enough to get us steamed. Before we get there, though, we step back and have a look at the evidence. Then, despite the chaffing on our thick hides, we have to admit how crazy living here must seem.
Take the winter-spring of 1996-97, when North Dakota frequently made national news. Evening after evening, Americans watching the national news saw horrific images of one blizzard after another, sheets of snow so white and blinding that they got up and pounded the sides of their sets, thinking something was wrong with the reception. Then came the ice storms. More snow. More ice. And then, the water started to rise.
In the valley on our state’s eastern border, the Red River of the North flooded to a magnitude the likes of which haven’t been seen around her for more than a century, and there were problems from one end of the state to the other. Again, the awesome images went out night after night – cows drowning in sloughs, weary residents tossing sandbags, downtown Grand Forks looking like a post-war recovery zone after the waters flushed out the entire city and electrical shortage blazes that obliterated downtown buildings and spewed black smoke into the prairie sky.
Advertisers and popular media have not done anything to quash the misconceptions in the pasts few years.
Not long ago, a TV ad for Walgreen’s stated its big sellers in Fargo, N.D., were cold and cough medicines, “…even in summer.” The voiceover accompanied an image of a man shoveling three feet of snow off the roof of his log cabin on a sunny, blue-sky day. Snow in summer? A log cabin? Give us a break.
In his novel, “Skin Tight,” Carl Hiaasen described one of his many way-out-there, wild, weirdo, south Florida characters this way: “His parents had belonged to a religious sect that believed in bigamy, vegetarianism, UFOs and not paying federal income taxes; his mother, father and three of their respective spouses were killed by the FBI during a bloody ten-day siege at the post office outside Grand Forks, North Dakota.”
Of course.
Writers for the X-Files get rid of nasty characters by dumping them in missile silos in – where else – NoDak.
In a recent issue of Entertainment Weekly, in the “Hot Sheet” segment, the magazine said this: “Northwest Airlines strike, North Dakota is without major air service. Tens of tourists are stranded.”
And then, of course, the big daddy of them all, Fargo by the Coen Brothers. The entire film is fun at North Dakotans’ expense. There are multiple other examples from the world of cinema, but you get the picture.
The digs are everywhere. We here on the plains must remain vigilant to ensure they don’t lead to more ridiculous suggestions from East Coast professor types who suggest the Dakotas are worthless ground and push the notion of turning North Dakota back over to the wild, roaming Bison. Buffalo Commons, indeed.
Just once, I’d like to see the folks from ABC’s World News Tonight do a story on our state when it isn’t in crisis. Come on out and shoot a panoramic piece when it’s actually nice outside. Capture perfectly sane, happy people enjoying 75-degree, blue sky weather. Given the way our state and the people who live here have been portrayed lately, it would certainly be newsworthy. Just imagine it… “And there you have it, Peter, a sunny, enjoyable day in North Dakota. Now back to you…”
Maybe I’ll give Mr. Jennings a call and invite him out…
Aw, heck, forget it. What they don’t know won’t hurt us. Besides, maybe I should quit spending so much time watching TV and movies and reading popular novels. But, hey, what else is there to do? It’s frigid out here in the winter.
Pass the sugar for my coffee, will you Old Boy? Thanks.
Many a codger has been heard of an afternoon here in North Dakota praising the extreme weather. “Keeps the riffraff out,” Old Boy says, motioning over his cup of scalding black coffee through the window of the local café.
Outside rages a blizzard with howling winds and wind chills of 60 below, or there’s a hailstorm with golf ball-size hail, or the shimmering effects of 110-degree heat with 95 percent humidity. In the latter case, Old Boy motions over his iced tea.
Maybe only we stalwart few (around 600,000 of us) of German and Norwegian descent, with sturdy constitutions, are – what? – determined enough to live through what we do year after year and hang around for yet another round. Perhaps we’re a bit “touched,” as they say of those who aren’t bright enough to come in out of the rain, but for one reason or another we’re here to stay. It’s quiet, a little slower, we still help our neighbors and know them by their first names. We like it this way.
Sure, it takes a thick skin, and maybe a thicker skull, to live here. But, lately, the North Dakota digs have found their way under that skin and started to itch. We aren’t known for complaining much, but, geez, sometimes an itch needs scratching.
We know what you all think and say about us. Foreigners (like Minnesotans trying to be funny or New Yorkers who really don’t know any better) ask how we get around out here. “Do you ride your own horse, or do you drive a team and buggy?”
It’s enough to get us steamed. Before we get there, though, we step back and have a look at the evidence. Then, despite the chaffing on our thick hides, we have to admit how crazy living here must seem.
Take the winter-spring of 1996-97, when North Dakota frequently made national news. Evening after evening, Americans watching the national news saw horrific images of one blizzard after another, sheets of snow so white and blinding that they got up and pounded the sides of their sets, thinking something was wrong with the reception. Then came the ice storms. More snow. More ice. And then, the water started to rise.
In the valley on our state’s eastern border, the Red River of the North flooded to a magnitude the likes of which haven’t been seen around her for more than a century, and there were problems from one end of the state to the other. Again, the awesome images went out night after night – cows drowning in sloughs, weary residents tossing sandbags, downtown Grand Forks looking like a post-war recovery zone after the waters flushed out the entire city and electrical shortage blazes that obliterated downtown buildings and spewed black smoke into the prairie sky.
Advertisers and popular media have not done anything to quash the misconceptions in the pasts few years.
Not long ago, a TV ad for Walgreen’s stated its big sellers in Fargo, N.D., were cold and cough medicines, “…even in summer.” The voiceover accompanied an image of a man shoveling three feet of snow off the roof of his log cabin on a sunny, blue-sky day. Snow in summer? A log cabin? Give us a break.
In his novel, “Skin Tight,” Carl Hiaasen described one of his many way-out-there, wild, weirdo, south Florida characters this way: “His parents had belonged to a religious sect that believed in bigamy, vegetarianism, UFOs and not paying federal income taxes; his mother, father and three of their respective spouses were killed by the FBI during a bloody ten-day siege at the post office outside Grand Forks, North Dakota.”
Of course.
Writers for the X-Files get rid of nasty characters by dumping them in missile silos in – where else – NoDak.
In a recent issue of Entertainment Weekly, in the “Hot Sheet” segment, the magazine said this: “Northwest Airlines strike, North Dakota is without major air service. Tens of tourists are stranded.”
And then, of course, the big daddy of them all, Fargo by the Coen Brothers. The entire film is fun at North Dakotans’ expense. There are multiple other examples from the world of cinema, but you get the picture.
The digs are everywhere. We here on the plains must remain vigilant to ensure they don’t lead to more ridiculous suggestions from East Coast professor types who suggest the Dakotas are worthless ground and push the notion of turning North Dakota back over to the wild, roaming Bison. Buffalo Commons, indeed.
Just once, I’d like to see the folks from ABC’s World News Tonight do a story on our state when it isn’t in crisis. Come on out and shoot a panoramic piece when it’s actually nice outside. Capture perfectly sane, happy people enjoying 75-degree, blue sky weather. Given the way our state and the people who live here have been portrayed lately, it would certainly be newsworthy. Just imagine it… “And there you have it, Peter, a sunny, enjoyable day in North Dakota. Now back to you…”
Maybe I’ll give Mr. Jennings a call and invite him out…
Aw, heck, forget it. What they don’t know won’t hurt us. Besides, maybe I should quit spending so much time watching TV and movies and reading popular novels. But, hey, what else is there to do? It’s frigid out here in the winter.
Pass the sugar for my coffee, will you Old Boy? Thanks.
The Big Attraction
Originally published in the High Plains Reader, Dec. 3, 1998
Not long ago, National Public Radio did a piece about a free spirit who has created a mobile desktop publishing office and taken his show on the road. In the tradition of John Steinbeck and his faithful companion, Charley, this gentleman is traveling across the country, meeting folks and printing their stories.
Being a savvy fellow, he’s realized he can’t compete with the high-quality community magazines or ritzy marketing publications produced for most urban attractions. He sticks to rural tales. What keeps his business rolling – literally – are pieces about unique Mom & Pop operations, greasy spoons and, of course, that quintessential small-town economic development tool, The Big Attraction.
Back in the good ol’ days, everyone had to keep up with the Joneses, whoever they were, with their ludicrously plain surname, suburban home with a white picket fence, two-and-a-half kids and a dog in the backyard.
The Joneses were reaping the benefits of stability and prosperity. They had two weeks a year to kill and cash to spend, so they took grand vacations to brag about over the picket fence or around the office coffee pot. They piled into their American-made, boat-sized autos and hit the newly created Interstate highway system, stopping at newly created national parks during the day and staying at urban-center motor inns at night.
All that lovely cash was flowing right past rural America like an underpaid bus driver skipping stops. Bold action was in order. Enterprising business owners and chamber of commerce leaders pondered and pondered. Finally, an idea took shape.
The Big Attraction was born.
Americans like big things. To draw them off the Interstate, the town fathers knew, it would take the biggest darn…whatever…that could possibly be tied – historically, geographically or by any other long stretch of the imagination – to their quiet burghs. They went to work.
Big Attractions constructed of materials from concrete to fiberglass rose from the rolling hills and majestic prairies like so many Phoenixes from the desert. There are myriad examples of this ingenious initiative right in our own back yard.
In Jamestown, N.D., the largest buffalo in the world towers over the prairie. On any given summer day, flustered parents try to explain to five-year-olds the reasons for the enormous genitals dangling between the beast’s hindquarters.
An enormous Paul Bunyan sits in an amusement center in Brainerd, Minn. Kiddies can crawl up on his lap for a snapshot. Out in the parking lot stands his trusty blue ox. Our forests might falter, but the legend lives on, Babe.
The world’s largest rooster pheasant struts across the roof of a restaurant In Huron, S.D. According to the Huron Chamber, the eatery is privately owned but the rooster belongs to the entire city.
In New Salem, N.D., the gateway between milking country and rugged west, stands the world’s largest Holstein.
In Pelican Rapids, Minn., a huge pelican would be wading the shores of the Pelican River, if only it could walk.
On the edge of Bottineau, N.D., at the foot of the sloping Turtle Mountains in an expansive valley carved thousands of years ago by slow-moving glaciers, is an incredible achievement conceived, presumably, to draw winter sports enthusiasts. Right next to a field where golden wheat sways in the breeze, a huge, bright green and yellow fiberglass turtle wearing a crash helmet straddles a massive fiberglass snowmobile. Its brother, a massive iron turtle on all fours built of old tire rims painted green is just down the road near Dunseith, N.D. They can be seen for miles and miles, but don’t detract from the natural scenery one bit. Honest.
The world’s largest turkey gobbles away in Frazee, Minn.
Last year in Wahpeton, N.D., city leaders created the grandest fish story ever when they landed “The Wahpper” on the banks of the Red River. This world’s largest catfish, constructed of fiberglass, is 40 feet long and 8 feet tall, weighs approximately 5,000 pounds, and towers between 16 and 20 feet over the frightened children forced to examine it.
Trumping them all is the “Enchanted Highway” in western North Dakota. This 33-mile stretch of road between Gladstone and Regent features 10 colossal sculptures, like a 70-foot-tall rooster pheasant with a hen and three chicks.
The suits knew what they were doing, all right. They realized the value of the spectacle. No one was going to pull the wool of the world’s largest sheep over their eyes, nosireee.
And now, one uniquely American enterprise is giving rise to another. The Big Attraction is fodder for the mobile magazine.
As he’s already learned, our traveling publisher is better off finding food for thought out amongst us country folk, where we say farming is everyone’s bread and butter, where The Big Attraction stands tall, and where we can still chuckle at ourselves.
So I extend you a hearty invitation to the Dakotas and Minnesota, mister modern-day Steinbeck. We'll treat you right and show you all the sights. Besides, if we have another bad crop, we’re going to need all the free, economic-development-generating publicity we can get.
Not long ago, National Public Radio did a piece about a free spirit who has created a mobile desktop publishing office and taken his show on the road. In the tradition of John Steinbeck and his faithful companion, Charley, this gentleman is traveling across the country, meeting folks and printing their stories.
Being a savvy fellow, he’s realized he can’t compete with the high-quality community magazines or ritzy marketing publications produced for most urban attractions. He sticks to rural tales. What keeps his business rolling – literally – are pieces about unique Mom & Pop operations, greasy spoons and, of course, that quintessential small-town economic development tool, The Big Attraction.
Back in the good ol’ days, everyone had to keep up with the Joneses, whoever they were, with their ludicrously plain surname, suburban home with a white picket fence, two-and-a-half kids and a dog in the backyard.
The Joneses were reaping the benefits of stability and prosperity. They had two weeks a year to kill and cash to spend, so they took grand vacations to brag about over the picket fence or around the office coffee pot. They piled into their American-made, boat-sized autos and hit the newly created Interstate highway system, stopping at newly created national parks during the day and staying at urban-center motor inns at night.
All that lovely cash was flowing right past rural America like an underpaid bus driver skipping stops. Bold action was in order. Enterprising business owners and chamber of commerce leaders pondered and pondered. Finally, an idea took shape.
The Big Attraction was born.
Americans like big things. To draw them off the Interstate, the town fathers knew, it would take the biggest darn…whatever…that could possibly be tied – historically, geographically or by any other long stretch of the imagination – to their quiet burghs. They went to work.
Big Attractions constructed of materials from concrete to fiberglass rose from the rolling hills and majestic prairies like so many Phoenixes from the desert. There are myriad examples of this ingenious initiative right in our own back yard.
In Jamestown, N.D., the largest buffalo in the world towers over the prairie. On any given summer day, flustered parents try to explain to five-year-olds the reasons for the enormous genitals dangling between the beast’s hindquarters.
An enormous Paul Bunyan sits in an amusement center in Brainerd, Minn. Kiddies can crawl up on his lap for a snapshot. Out in the parking lot stands his trusty blue ox. Our forests might falter, but the legend lives on, Babe.
The world’s largest rooster pheasant struts across the roof of a restaurant In Huron, S.D. According to the Huron Chamber, the eatery is privately owned but the rooster belongs to the entire city.
In New Salem, N.D., the gateway between milking country and rugged west, stands the world’s largest Holstein.
In Pelican Rapids, Minn., a huge pelican would be wading the shores of the Pelican River, if only it could walk.
On the edge of Bottineau, N.D., at the foot of the sloping Turtle Mountains in an expansive valley carved thousands of years ago by slow-moving glaciers, is an incredible achievement conceived, presumably, to draw winter sports enthusiasts. Right next to a field where golden wheat sways in the breeze, a huge, bright green and yellow fiberglass turtle wearing a crash helmet straddles a massive fiberglass snowmobile. Its brother, a massive iron turtle on all fours built of old tire rims painted green is just down the road near Dunseith, N.D. They can be seen for miles and miles, but don’t detract from the natural scenery one bit. Honest.
The world’s largest turkey gobbles away in Frazee, Minn.
Last year in Wahpeton, N.D., city leaders created the grandest fish story ever when they landed “The Wahpper” on the banks of the Red River. This world’s largest catfish, constructed of fiberglass, is 40 feet long and 8 feet tall, weighs approximately 5,000 pounds, and towers between 16 and 20 feet over the frightened children forced to examine it.
Trumping them all is the “Enchanted Highway” in western North Dakota. This 33-mile stretch of road between Gladstone and Regent features 10 colossal sculptures, like a 70-foot-tall rooster pheasant with a hen and three chicks.
The suits knew what they were doing, all right. They realized the value of the spectacle. No one was going to pull the wool of the world’s largest sheep over their eyes, nosireee.
And now, one uniquely American enterprise is giving rise to another. The Big Attraction is fodder for the mobile magazine.
As he’s already learned, our traveling publisher is better off finding food for thought out amongst us country folk, where we say farming is everyone’s bread and butter, where The Big Attraction stands tall, and where we can still chuckle at ourselves.
So I extend you a hearty invitation to the Dakotas and Minnesota, mister modern-day Steinbeck. We'll treat you right and show you all the sights. Besides, if we have another bad crop, we’re going to need all the free, economic-development-generating publicity we can get.
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