Blog numbering.
Folks, I screwed up yesterday with the blog numbering. It should have been 791, not 781. I am continuing on with 791 today. Gary
Verena Gillis Appreciation:
From Vickie Metcalfe (70): Bottineau, ND
Gary,
I’d like to express my appreciation to Verena. Wow! Thank-you for all the thoughtfulness, communication and hard work you are doing to make such an organized school homecoming!
Cool rainy, weather has been in our picture the past 2 weeks . Rhubarb was coming up nicely, as it likes the cool spring moisture. I woke up today wondering if my rhubarb crop will fail as it’s peeking through a light snow covering. Then, I wondered about juneberries which can be touchy about frost.
Oh well, looking at the positive, the cold clime keeps my mind on school! And I’m not longing to be outdoors in the frosty muddy glop yard cleaning.
Take care when re-filling your cuppa …. fill your day with some laughter too.Vickie
Vickie, I 2nd your words of appreciation for Verena. She has done and is doing a wonderful job coordinating all of the logistics and organizing for our reunion. She’s a super woman with great communication and organizational skills. Thank you Verena. Gary
Email address change:
From Leland Hagen (50): Bryan, TX.
I am changing internet service effective today, 7-may -2010. Please make this correction to your address book.
lghagen1@ verizon.net
Thanks,
Leland
David Houim, Cousin to the Hackman siblings, was killed in a tree cutting accident:
Posted by Larry Hackman (66): Bismarck, ND.
Note: Larry, Neola sent me David’s obituary several days ago. I was waiting for more info and connections before posting. Thanks, Gary
Gary
Since David Hoium was brought up and some people know him.
I thought I would send my first cousins obituary.
He was the youngest son of my mothers sister.
He died much to young and left a wife and three children behind that will miss him.
He joins his daughter, and his mother and dad in heaven.
He was a good guy.
He will be missed.
God bless him, his family and all of you,
Thank you for your prayers.
Larry Hackman
David Houim
Dec. 5, 1965 – May 1, 2010
David Wesley Houim, 44, of Rugby, died at the Trinity Medical Center in Minot, North Dakota, on Saturday, May 1, 2010, from complications related to injuries he suffered during a tree cutting job on Tuesday, April 27.
David was born Dec. 5, 1965, to Virgil and Frances (Kraft) Houim of Rugby, N.D. He was raised in Rugby and after high school went on to Bismarck State College to complete his training as an electrical lineman. He spent four years working for the Boylston Municipality in Massachusetts before returning to Rugby, the community that was always home to him.
On April 29, 1989, he and Nancy Heilman were married at Little Flower Catholic Church in Rugby, and made their home in Rugby and started a family of their own. Over the years, many people came to know David through his business, “Dave Houim Tree Service,” and from the rental properties that they owned and managed in Rugby. His wife, Nancy, was always proud of the integrity and honesty that David brought to their businesses.
When away from work, he enjoyed a number of outdoor activities, including hunting, fishing, canoeing, downhill skiing and particularly camping. He also took great pride in the remodeling jobs that he completed, not only with the rental properties, but his family home as well. We will always remember his trademark laugh and a smile that made you feel at ease when you were with him. He had a great sense of humor and always had time for a good joke or recalling an amusing situation.
David was a man of conviction, committed to doing what was right and instilling that in his children. His kind heartedness was extended to so many people. He was willing to do anything for anybody, even if they were complete strangers. The unfailing devotion he had for his family was even more evident when they went through some difficult days and challenging times. He was always willing to make sacrifices in order to care for his family. They were his priority and they brought a great deal of love and joy to his life.
Survivors include: his wife, Nancy; his children, Joshua, Ashley and Amber, all at home; three sisters, Darlene (Garry) Rose, Rugby, Karen (Stacey) Koster, Mayville, and Carol (Don) Clarkson, Detroit Lakes, Minn.; five brothers, Garry (Lana), Mandan, Donald (Judy), Grandin, Bill (Brenda), Minot, Bob (Monica) and Ken (Kathy), all of Rugby; his father-in-law and mother-in-law, Raymond and Rosanna Heilman, of Portage, Wis.; aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, other relatives and many, many friends.
He was preceded in death by his daughter, Abby, on May 31, 2001; and his parents.
Mass of Christian Burial: Will be held at 11 a.m. Wednesday, May 5, in Little Flower Catholic Church in Rugby, with burial in the church cemetery. Fr. Tom Graner will be the Celebrant.
Friends may call today, May 4, from 4 to 7 p.m., at Little Flower Catholic Church in Rugby, and Wednesday, from 9 to 10:30 a.m., at Anderson Funeral Home in Rugby. There will be no reviewal in the church on Wednesday.
Rosary and vigil prayers: Will begin at 7 p.m. today in the church.
Music: Little Flower Church Choir.
Casket Bearers: Garry, Donald, Bob, Bill and Ken Houim, Joseph Ramedan, Steve Braaten and Brooks Houim.
Arrangements with Anderson Funeral Home of Rugby.
North Dakota forever:
Posted by Mike & Sandra Zeiler Vandal (62): Elk River, MN
Here’s an article by Chris Jones from a Dec. ’09 issue of Esquire that I thought you might appreciate:
The Emptiest, Loneliest, Highway in America
There are only about 640,000 people in North Dakota. For five hours — unbroken by a pause, a turn, or even a lane change — I was blissfully one of them.
I’ve never believed it’s about the journey; for me, it’s always been the destination that counts. My destination was Montana, so I wanted North Dakota to disappear.
Even before I found myself on the otherwise empty I-94, I’d been told that the 352 miles of four-lane between Fargo and Beach were among the most desperate in the country to cross. Except for Bismarck, rising above the middle of the state, there would be nothing to mark the distance.
I’d made things harder on myself by crossing Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, Wisconsin, and Minnesota before I tackled our most barren country. After so much uninterrupted green, my Corolla had already become a kind of sensory-deprivation chamber, like one of those metal tubes in which divers get over the bends. I’d even turned off the radio. (When I caught myself singing along to Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” outside Brainerd, I feared permanent damage to my self-esteem.) In Moorhead, I stopped to top off the tank and buy a bag of beef jerky. I had five hours to empty them before North Dakota would fall along with the night.
At first, the prairie opened up in a way that made it seem romantically panoramic. Through the dead bugs on my windows, I scanned a massive blue sky and great flats of grass. But after twenty minutes, it all became too overwhelming, too anti-mountain, for my mind to take in anymore. To get by, I tried to home in on the details, catching them the way a climber finds cracks in the face of a rock. I convinced myself that there was a beauty in power lines and the undersides of overpasses. And maybe there was something beautiful about them, those small artifacts of industry. Watching North Dakota’s human landscape pass by was like watching a noble but ultimately futile fight. The sky and the space were always going to win, but there was something in the struggle against them that took hold in me. By the time I’d put Bismarck behind me, its lights just coming on to fend against the semidarkness, it had somehow become about the journey after all.
Because how often do we sit for five hours, chewing beef jerky, watching the sun set? In silence? In dreams? It never happens anymore, except in Canadian hospital emergency rooms, but even then, there’s something to watch other than the sunflowers turning west. Without having to make so much as a single lane change, I’d entered the closest thing to a runner’s high that a fat man can feel. I had rolled clean into bliss, my mind as open as the fields around me. Squinting into orange, I thought about those things that we never let ourselves think about — those things that we actively defend ourselves against thinking about by having so much other stuff to look at and listen to.
On that godforsaken highway, I had revelations. I witnessed miracles. I saw every mistake I had made. I made peace with my regrets. And then I looked forward, ahead to the first few folds in the earth, to the canyons and the Continental Divide. I saw the rest of what I wanted out there. I saw the battles I still wanted to wage, the people I still wanted to meet and meet again, the trophies I still wanted to hang on my walls. I saw nearly every place I wanted to go between now and the end, and by the time I saw that big blue sign in my headlights, WELCOME TO MONTANA, I saw, too, that I wanted North Dakota to last forever.
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