We're letting ourselves get more and more involved in our businesses and the problem of making a living or as 20 years ago. We didn't worry about that then otherwise like a my day like this. Okay bunker say let's go fishing or hunting. Let's go honey. Okay. Well we go now, you know, I've got this I've got that we're beginning to get too much of this frenzied haste that they have in the cities to make a living twenty years ago. That wasn't so we weren't quite as interested in the dollar. That's Auto merklein who lives in Mark North Dakota population 1368 hearing other residents will be heard talking about the sense of community there the importance of the land and place in this program called our hometown. This is one in the series which explorers of values and character of life in small towns that is produced with funds provided by the North Dakota committee for the Humanities and public issues is produced by Minnesota Public Radio Station kccm. The interviewer is John ydstie. I have a group of people at the house. Now, you've got a plan a month ahead because this guy is going there or is involved over here something like that. We don't have that ease of communication of getting together that they have the Advent of of the highways and wonderful cars we have to drive right now the ease of it all are crab has gotten to be a very common thing or as 20 years ago. You took an airplane trip by they practice had the ticker tape parade for you on this Main Street. Social life very very definite. I think it's the people that cuss. You are you don't take time anymore keep on another important? No, I guess not, but I just try to put it back to when TV started around 2 people don't care about each other. I found this in Europe now, you know, I'm even back at you because even if you don't understand the language, you know and yet, you know this feeling this warm feeling and in smaller towns, we have a lot more hair than couldn't care less We really should have some Recreation. I just sometimes I think we should have more Recreation from Grown Ups 2. It's not that we should have workshops or meetings Hobbies go out of Saturday night was the time your husband's are going to have time and the wife stays at home, but the to keep the kids off the street you need regulations for the younger kids and To keep the adults happy you should have something for them to Anne Boleyn can fill everyone's life. You know, there are just some people that don't want to bowl. And so well, there are lot of bridge clubs going on with this is the women a lot of book, you know study clubs going on, but that's the women. So the men's Recreation is usually go down to the nearest bar sit and talk to you no talk until 1 in the morning have Horseshoe in the summer time and enjoy that It's almost a religion. It's just for summer winter. There's nothing I think now it's going back to get a town baseball team together. Let's let's go back and I think there will be a Revival because I think things to people are the younger generation now the kids who drifted off who were the long-haired several years ago. I need to start looking back to this community and probably that's where a lot of these kids would like to go back to some of this community Spirit type thing. We see if you would Auction Sales now. He's the young couple and couple years ago. You would say that they were hippies T, but now you seem in a sale and they know what they're doing. They know the values. And the reading driving so I don't you see. Tori Mansfield are there living kind of together with their a bunch? I don't know they're living together and maybe it's legit and They seem real happy. They meet there at 7:30 in the morning for the coffee and it's just something to civil matter of everybody's a friend and you all you can walk into the hotel and if there's an empty seat in anyone's Booth you almost feel welcome to spend any Booth along the line because you have friends and every booth and it's a good feeling. OSF Captain long wherever I went but as far as that goes, but it's more like at home here. What's the dumbest idea ever? Some of them do it. Yeah. Maybe I'm more of an extrovert but all the time we've seen stranger sitting in the hotel in and we've got up and join them and ask him if they were moving tomorrow at or what they were doing here. And we really met some nice people. Just you see them sitting in the hotel and when you're traveling. Around the road a lot. It's pretty lonely. It's in the motel. And if you've ever done it yourself, it's easy to understand the loneliness and in the hotel because we thought maybe they'd like to get to know someone or teachers move to town and you see them alone with her family for days on and then get digital happy to just get to know someone in and find out a little bit about your town and this happens. I think in a small town people will recognize that you're strange and they'll soon learn to roll is in. APC in a nice suit agency. Well, there's an insurance salesman. There's an insurance salesman. They do I size people on. Yeah, when some one strange Rock standing outside his mouth. You're getting used to the long hair but the long hair and a spoon all the times. I know they would have to call Ryanair compensate when she check this guy out and maybe Claremont of town because they would have been more suspicious than they are now. So I can hear because I sit in the hotel all afternoon. You should have seen me rake leaves. That's really Hardy. Stephanie Moore I still like you They had a had a piece and we decided just to know where this one neighbor they both have but there was one right here by the fence and these leaves always flew in the neighbor's yard and the next few days, although he said that crazy guy ain't never make that please. You just never thought he got everybody upset, you know even said he's going to sue him. So he says I'm going to show you, you know, when you bend over there, please tattoo back and he's only did you read that. He was already the reading let him have it. Oh, yeah. And I think I'm slipping. because it's the first time I've ever missed any Republican or any political meeting ever and everything been I'm very interested. Am I a Republican? I I really don't know if I should be a republican but I I don't know now we are all. Democrat or Republican I think the party is important to me if he's a good man. There's a good man in Loves Park. What is Republic? And we are all going to be wives. I love the planes. I've loved the planes and I suppose that's because I was born and raised in the plains. I don't miss the trees at all. I love to see trees. I think they're beautiful. We just came back from a trip from me and it was out of this world. But a lot of people say when they come out here and they should but my gosh You Can See For Miles and there's nothing else to me. There's a lot and I can still see for miles and I love that. I love thee the feeling of openness that we have here the few times we did live in the big cities during this. That I was with the US Department of Agriculture. It was very very odd, but you did a lot of times you didn't know your next-door neighbor. He didn't want anything to do with you or maybe he was a kind of person you didn't want anything to do with him. You don't help in a large city. You don't help your neighbor like you do in a small town like small towns are noted for helping each other more in the big city, and I can understand why because you know everybody in a small town and in a big city, I'll bet you can go into any big city almost and the average person cannot tell you Very much. About the people that live in his block. He might know two or three of them well, What do you want know all of them? And also after the fact that people are moving all the time of the big cities much more than you are in a small town in a small town. They say I while you're stuck here what maybe I am but I love being stuck here and I'll never move away from what is it like to go on Cinco plow into the soil. Do you get a special feeling or is it mostly just a job that you have to do? There's just one thing that came to mind when we were in Fargo and he was with production credit Every Spring. We had to go out as soon as the farmer started so he could smell soil now. He may not feel that he gets excited. But that one tractor around here start before he's out there and he just it just almost killed him. And I know it's a special feeling Tranquility. Like he said maybe it is just getting out of the house. I don't know who's ever was it just like you take the professional Gambler and you let him walk into a door of a casino somewhere and he can see all the tables working in front of him. You couldn't pull a mother for now. Thank a farmer has the same thing. As you know, that the hours you're going to put in the investment. You're going to put it in the money. You've got seven at stake there and you can lose it all I don't take much more than 5-10 minutes and you can lose the whole works and you won't have a thing for your years work. And if it was just your work involved wouldn't be so bad, but you got up. File of expense are not only that you've got an awful lot of people in your community that you're taking right along with you because if your creditors don't go with you. You wouldn't be around another year and I'm sure you could hurt a lot of people give away under so he's got the Cannonball river running through Mott. It carries more water. From the West to the east into the Missouri River than any other river in North Dakota. And we have the curse of having floods you on salon on the count of that especially in what we called Westmont, but have no water shortage. And in summer of the town is now filled with trees and Shrubbery, but mainly we have beautiful ons right today the 15th. We still got beautiful petunias in our yard and if I could get a lily blue me and it just a few days ago here in October that I cut the last roses in my yard. I'm at the people I didn't you can anyway, there are a lot of people who love the land. I think all these Farmers here. They're not farming it just to make money there their they're also farming because they love the land in other words. There are people who Who tore up their roots in the old country because there was no chance to plant their roots are for their families to plant them. My mother's father was considered pretty well-to-do man in Germany when he and his tribe finally came over to this country. My mother was about 18 years old when she came over here from Germany, but he only had 15 Acres which was considered a large acreage in Germany and maybe six or eight children. Well, those people that the prospect of going someplace where they could get a quarter of land or where there was land to be obtained not acre parcels. I would rather they were the Germans who for a while that lived in Russia until persecutions that say or Injustice in and Russia finally drove them out or whether they're their prospects there a chance of future growth in in Germany and Austria-Hungary was so limited that they were coming over here but droves then the same thing is true of of Norway. I've I've been in Norway and visited there and those little acreage is on the side of the mountains why those people love the land and they came over here and they're faithful their loyal. I mean that they have no loyalty to the Old Country anymore. Because they have so much to be thankful for here. They don't have brains enough to realize that they're lucky to be living in the greatest land of opportunity in the world and particularly those who have traveled a little bit frenchtons you and World War II, which was a war against Germany again. You never heard of a person from this area or any Area North go to that. I know of being disloyal to the United States in the in the military service or otherwise simply because his ancestors came from Europe vacation Earth visiting other people in different states or something to come back and you see the familiar places and makes you feel good to be back home. Setting the time that I felt best about coming home with me after I was in Jamaica because they're everything was Hills and trees and we had gone to nothing was Ocho Rios one day we want to buy a place where there weren't so many trees and was flat and it just felt you know so good and as soon as I got back into the states, even you know, and then especially North Dakota where you could see for a long ways, it just felt like I was coming home. How important is it is the Landon the place around here to you. Does it mean when a very important? It's a honey cuz my folks and I were talking about it yesterday. And we never sell our land. It's too precious, you know, cuz it seems like everything is being taken over by buildings are like that gasification and we just won't let it and I want to have we may be the only ones but we're not going to take us and I just love the lamp and I'm staying here I care about it, you know, I've learned to respect it and take care of it know that if you abused it you may not get it back and just to really hold on to what you've got it all and then we've got a place just received the east of us will call Little Niagara and it's a constant water running and it's just a little broke but it runs all the time. It's just got the prettiest on It's so peaceful and you can see no sunrises and sunsets and I know I just really like. I think I think of how lucky I am and how much I love this place and mostly just a lot of meditation discount was a Gibson what the color friendly telling program for. They brought the underprivileged colored children off from Chicago and they also brought some Indians are from the reservations. I'm not sure which reservation but we took one of the youngsters from Chicago that was about 9 years old at the time and we went camping with him one evening while we were up here and I got home. I took him out on the Prairie and he'd never seen the scars before never seen him at all. And I pointed out the different constellations to him and he was just completely awed by it because he just didn't realize there was that up there in the sky in the same token. When I rock camping. We will go for a walk in the dark and it would just petrified of the dark wasn't used to it at all and I have to admit myself that you know, we were set up here in this is something else that we say. We're not prejudiced against the black or the Indian but I found myself swallowing quite hard a couple times so that little boy because they are different and it takes some getting used to it. So that's nice to sit here and say what we don't have any Prejudice and we love the black people. But if you have Marrone you'd have to get used to the western part of North Dakota is a real good big game are we have Antelope and mule deer and whitetail deer in And I like the openness the spaciousness of North Dakota. I enjoy the Prairie country and I was real happy with it. I know I get a little I enjoy the mountains also, but after you're there for a just a few days by the trees kind of close in on you in the Rock snow mountains and you don't have the visibility or the atmosphere that you do in the plane country. Yeah. I think I really have become attached to the Plains area. snooze the Badlands telephone a bunch of browsing those damn things. They were timid that they wouldn't get up and we got pretty close. Omega fly when I pull my gun up and really I expected for a couple of them to stay there, but they all float. While we was getting the one I found from the other side came over. I only got that got too and I got one and I decided to shoot again get him later after they all flew away and call them guy come over and stole my ghost no-kill a guy. So mine lens all the other guy to get him to get it and leave probably had a big family. feeling other guys or if he had 50 Gates and I didn't have any idea who instilled. Duck down here. So I guess and how come it's nice to drive out into the country in and see maybe this five miles is a flat area. Then you one of the five miles Neale find Rolling Hills, but it's pretty there's a lot of trees in the in the country and you can go for miles not rented with farm and we like this we likes to the smallest of it no congestion and sunset. It's still clear. If you get into a city you may have a sunset but you don't have the the clearness of it because of the smog in the Pollution. It's really Free People. They missed it, but I'm glad I could make a living here. And so they were forced to leave. and are you the farming is going for the young people? They're just the firm's are becoming larger in the Family. Farm is kind of Disappearing weenie. And so their children are leaving going to school I'm leaving but which leaves the territory is open as it was? And if it would stay like that, it's really nice out in the open. You almost appreciate so much the Beautiful. Countryside so that you forget about petty little problems you carry around back home. It's it's just nice to be in the open area is pretty generally the Pharaoh has any late afternoon and you usually witness the sunset in his and thank God you live in a nice area. Nice clean blue sky and if it's it's pretty and you teach your kids to enjoy this. yet person ask consider the old story about the elephant returning to the burial ground, you know, and I think as I get older and as most people get older you you tend to to want those things those sights and sounds which have hold more security for you. And I I feel this in my life. Isaiah I've enjoyed many places In the world not only in America. for a considerable period of time but the I've drifted then I say drifted because it's pretty much an accident that I'm back in this country. But I think that but I'm going to stay here. The fact is you through a. Of time you make you make Provisions. You can see that although you might not be knowing that you're making Provisions for staying. So I am sure that psychologically you return to the burial grounds and you go and I get a special feeling when I go out in the Badlands where I can I can sit on the heels in my light on my land and it's a it's a fantastic feeling you because I don't know whether it is because of Having been raised in this country of ours because you own a piece of the real estate. Or something that you can do is as you want to maybe if they're made maybe saw Leasing. I don't really know. I think I'd like to live the rest of my life out here. Right? I've been away. I've been friends for a few years when I was younger in the mountains, but I like the western part of the River West River area is just enough Prairie left and It's not real flat, but you can see a long ways. I guess when I'm hemmed-in, I don't like it. Some people say that North Dakota's Des of it. Very pretty and a prairie is boring. You find a pretty boring, but I I don't find it that way the. Self maybe it is 4 to a stranger would seem that way but if if they lived here for a Time Princess right here in this courthouse at night. Hey when I'm alone, and there's no TV on I can sit and read it and said you can't hardly hear sound or high enough up above a little traffic. There is in town and I like to have a drill silent. Sometimes I like to read or even think sometimes when it's real quiet not have the rustling bustle of a car or truck or train going by my forefathers that came here from the old country. My grandparents were Pioneers before the railroad time and hauled every piece of lumber and and every break and built-in and really knew some hard times and I just grew up in that then I like the Wide Open Spaces the hills and there's something beautiful about a prairie there. They're like a real said there isn't a lot of prairie left. And really I I think it should be preserved or something about it that I I think is an are sunsets. I think are some of the most beautiful in the world really they are people that don't see Sunsets and see the see the Horizon. I think I've really missed something. I really do. This is been another in the series titled our hometown produced by Minnesota Public Radio Station k c c m with initial assistance from the North Dakota committee for the Humanities and public issues producer series are John ydstie, Dennis Hamilton and Bill Sebring. is that copies of this program are available from kccm and care of Concordia College, Moorhead, Minnesota 56560