A mile or two west of Dickinson, ND, and the cell and wi-fi connection gadgets are barely operable. I found if you stand on a rock you bring a signal in. But mostly I go into town now and then for smokes and supplies, find some high ground to make calls, search the state website.
Along the way I met some long-time residents, their dialect full of 'd's' in place of 'th's' and a way of speaking like old Scandinavians in Minnesota, yet oddly westernized, as though any moment they might burst into cowboy song.
Like lots of older folks they seemed starved for conversation, for someone just to listen.
This old fella come up and asked me where it was I was from, what my plans were and, mostly without prompting, talked about how the town had changed with the oil boom - real estate prices through the roof, old-timers selling out and leaving, and 'wasn't all the traffic just awful'? I commented on the trusting nature of the town's people, and for a minute he seemed to brighten some.
I forget what else it was he said . . .
prairie rose-
a barn swallow suspended
in ceaseless wind
;;;
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6 comments:
This is great, plus the one you sent me. Keep 'em coming. Traces of Steinbeck, yet it's all Willie. Contact NPR, PRI.
No shit? Huh. Yeah, when I stop the romp through the Dust Bowl of the New Millenium, maybe. Or settle down some. This may be the only place in America where a blue-collar guy can make a go of it again. it ain't easy though. Lots of pikers, con-men, charlatans, gougers and cruisers, all mingling with the Great Unwashed Masses of America, every one of 'em full of hope and desperation, chasin' that worthless little piece of green paper with Dead Presidents on 'em. They flow like water, slip through your fingers in an instant, like tryin' to grab a northern pike out of the Little Missouri as it flows through the prairie and badlands. Look quick and hold on tight or its gone. Watch out for the teeth though. They're sharp, and if you miss it'll cut you bad.
I ain't never seen nothin' like it. Who's PRI?
The dust bowl of the new millennium or gold rush? more first hand accounts and photos
North Dakota is one of the landscapes I'd like to visit. I once drove up the center of Wyoming. Big sky and unpopulated. I wonder if they're similar
Your haiku is great ... yeah ... I read on. And your writing is really good!
Oh ... PRI "Public Radio International." Your writing is so good that someone besides a "few" blog readers ought to see it.
No it's not. it's plagarism = "Mack the Knife"
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