Just off old 81 about 40 miles south of Fargo, North Dakota, there is a quintessential mid-western small town that my grandparents called home after moving off the family farm in about 1967. I’ve talked about that town of about 300 here before, and while so many other small towns across the Plains have slowly died, this particular little trade center has managed to keep going. The town is not exactly thriving…the bank, the hotel, the hardware store, the small Ford dealership, a couple of filing stations, the butcher, and the café have all shut down since I started visiting, but there is still a grocer, a town hall, one Standard gas station, a lumber yard, a fire house, a grain elevator, an elementary school, a Lutheran church and a thriving bar. Even if everyone were to leave…I have a feeling the bar would still do enough trade to stay open. Note: I have been in towns in Minnesota…where every single of the businesses have closed…except the saloon.
For many years (15 in a row) I would drive from Los Angeles back to that North Dakota town to visit my Grandfather and family each summer. I would stay in his old house, which had been the local hospital back in the late 1800s and early 1900s (my mother was born there), and we would spend days driving around the country with my Grandpa as he told stories about the old days.
My grandpa was pretty old when (in his 80s) when I started visiting him each year, and he was a devoutly religious man that attended the Evangelical Free Church in neighboring Wolverton, Minnesota. Any kind of extracurricular activity was usually off-limits, and drinking alcohol was a sin that doomed you to an eternal future that included a shovel and a whole lot of coal. Thankfully I was pretty straight-laced at that point in my life, and he used to love to introduce me to folks by telling them that I didn’t drink…and that I didn’t even like coffee.
In the evenings he would “hike of to bed” pretty early (sometimes around 7 or 7:30, at which point I’d sneak down the stairs and hop into my car and head up old 81 into Fargo. They had just passed a gaming initiative about the time I started to visit each year, and in Fargo you could walk into a bar and play blackjack...but there was a two-dollar limit on the bets. I would sit there for hours…drinking diet pop and playing blackjack. Usually around 11pm, I would leave and head back to my car and make the drive back south.
One of the things I love about the Plains is the hellacious thunderstorms that come across the prairie. Oh this night…it was shaping up to be a good one. I was driving my red 72’ Ford Pinto (whatever cool image you have in your head…I looked even cooler) with the window rolled down and you could literally feel the hair on your arms standing in anticipation of the pending electrical storm.
As I drove southward by towns like Oxbow, Hickson and then Christine, you could see bolts of lightning striking the ground. I stepped on the accelerator hoping to get to my grandpa’s house before any heavy rain…or worse…a whole bunch of hail. Thankfully, I could see the lights of town on the horizon and security of the blinking yellow caution light that swayed in the building wind above of the intersection of County Road 81 and Broadway.
Just on the left side of that intersection is the cemetery that hugs the Lutheran church on the west end of town. I used to see an old woman that lived in town walking her dog along the road there sometimes late at night, but after not seeing her for some time, I was surprised to see her outline illuminated by my headlights…particularly on this stormy June night…especially with the weather closing in fast. To make matters worse, she was walking directly through the cemetery…and I remember thinking as I made the left turn into town that it’s true what they said about Plain’s folks…they are a hearty group indeed. There is no way I’d walk through a cemetery at night…in pitch dark, with an electric storm about to break. I surmised that she too must have felt the storm approaching…and decided to take a short cut back to her house to avoid the rain.
The next morning I walked up town to have coffee with the boys (my grandpa never came…couldn’t see “giving” 35 cents for coffee when you could boil it up at home for free) at the town hall. I’ve referenced this group of mostly older farmers before, and I had become a welcome yearly regular with these guys (many of whom I was related to in some way…you may start hearing the banjo music from Deliverance in your head). They reveled in my stories of rough-an-tumble “life in the hood” stories of LA, and they also enjoyed my animated recaps of my nightly gambling excursions into Fargo. Often times, if I’d hit it big, I take my 10 bucks and cover coffee for everyone at the table…I was a popular guy.
On this morning I was telling them about my previous night’s winnings and one of them asked me if I’d driven back in the storm. I told them yes, and almost as an afterthought, I mentioned that I’d seen crazy old Mrs. Erickson out walking at midnight again…directly through the cemetery on the west-end of town. Some of them laughed a bit nervously, and I continued to go on about how odd it was that she’d be out in weather like that. I noticed my uncle looking at me kind of strange…and he leaned over and asked me if I was sure that I saw her. I told him yes…it was her…I have no doubt. I asked what the big deal was…at which point he told me that she had passed away the previous winter.
I know what you’re thinking…but it’s a true story…and the only I was drinking that night was diet Pepsi. It was her…but don’t ask…I don’t know either.
One of the trippy things about moving from Los Angeles to the east is the amount of fervor folks have here connected to Halloween. Sure, kids went trick-or-treating in the west, but there just wasn’t the fascination with the holiday that there is here. I’ve had some people here tell me it’s their favorite holiday…and it’s clear that folks really get into it. So…have a fabulous and festive holiday weekend. It’s going to feel like the season…so make it a good one and do something really ghoulish.
This ain't the Monster Mash
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