Many opportunities have been offered for us all to respond, I usually leave it to those more able to turn a phrase then myself, however…

Chic ( Gene) LaFromboise stopped over to the house a couple weeks ago, he has taken up the fiddle and was needing a little explanation. We began the eternal curse of “old timers” and began reminicing. I wish I could give this to you verbatum I will do my best. He said when he was growing up they lived many places , one of the places was Dunseith. He and several pals were out playing ball in the street when all of a sudden a man came up and started playing with them. This continued for several days, then one day he said, ” We should get a team.” They did just that and began playing baseball. No one paid this man to do this, no one assigned the children to him. No one recruited this man. He was a young man, who saw some kids that needed something to do. In Chic’s words, ” I love that man” the man was Lincoln Jerstad. Since he was the topic for the last couple of days it seemed appropriate to throw this out there.

Cheryl Haagenson

4th of July Memories from Gary Morgan (54): GARRISON, ND

Gary,

Starting the summer after my sophomore year in high school, I would help shoot off the City’s 4th of July fireworks. I think this was a joint venture between the American Legion and the Commercial Club. Anyway, they had to borrow lumber for some of the displays. Bill Fassett always headed up this project and after supper he and another fellow, that first year it was Bob Hosmer, would pick me up and we would go to the lumber yard. Bill would have a list of materials needed….18′ 2x4s for the waterfall, shorter ones for the flag, pinwheels, etc. We would load up the lumber yard truck then drive to the north lip of the Great Northern gravel pit and start setting up. This was hard work because we had to dig holes in the sun baked, rocky prairie to anchor the 2x4s and dig in the metal tubes for the mortars. By the time we got done it would be getting dark but we would have about an hour wait until it was considered dark enough.
Bill would break out a six pack of Hamms and pass it around. To be treated as an equal was pretty heady stuff for me with all of my teenage insecurities. Then we would sit back and watch the traffic on highways 3 and 5 head for Dunseith for the fireworks and/or dance. They looked like long strings of pearls.
This was a magical time for me. As the dusk deepened, there would be a chorus of frogs from the floor of the gravel pit. Occasionally, a bat would flitter by or there would be the peculiar, undulating whoop of a diving night hawk. I would sip my beer and listen to the men tell stories of past 4th of Julys. That interlude before we shot off the fireworks is one of my fondest memories of being a teenager.
When it was deemed dark enough, we would shoot off the fireworks. Two of us would man the mortars. We would have three sizes. One of us fired of the smaller ones and one of us the two larger sizes. There were about as many smaller ones as the two larger sizes put together.
We would alternate between sizes and occasionally st off one of the stationary displays…pin wheel, waterfall, or whatever. If there was a particularly pleasing display, the people would show their appreciation by honking their horns. The water fall always brought a round of honks because by angling the 2x4s out over the edge, the sparklers would fall all the way to the bottom of the gravel pit.
When we ran out of everything, we would set off the flag and that would be the finale.
One year the crowd was short changed on the large mortars. About the third one was a dud. Where we would light the fuse, drop it down the tube and listen for the “Kerchunk” that sent the missile high in the sky to explode in a myriad of colors, this one just lay there. Since no one felt like reaching down the tube and pulling it out, there were no more large mortars that year.
Another year, for some reason, we didn’t shoot them off at the gravel pit. We set up out on Evan’s pasture, 3 or 4 hundred yards west of the old ball field, west of the city park. If not a disaster, this was a mistake. It must have been a particularly dry year because during the performance we had to chase down and stamp out about a half dozen grass fires. The worst part was we didn’t know if one would flare up hours later. It didn’t happen though.
I must have done this for 4 or 5 years. There would be different fellows every year. That first year was Bob Hosmer. Subsequent years there was Edgar Anderson and Junior Melmer that I remember and brother Dick helped one year. Always, Bill Fassett.
I figured I was about the luckiest kid, ever.

Gary Morgan

Bob Stokes

Dad, Bob Stokes, home on furlough before being shipped to the Pacific Theater in WWII for 31 months and 10 days. Gary