I remember Roland and Cora from my early childhood. Cora and Dad were first cousins and close in age. Dad and Eugene Mongeon were school buddies. Roland was “big brother” to Gene and kind of “adopted” Dad.

 

Later when Dad was old enough to work on threshing crews — age 14 or so — he would be pretty tired at night and wasn’t really old enough to take part in the shenanigans the older guys did. Roland was, but rarely did. When the others would come back making noise Dad would wake up and more often than not see Roland saying his nightly Rosary.

 

Roland and Dad moved to their respective farms along Highway 3 in the mid-forties. The house on Dad’s place was in terrible shape and the one on Roland’s place was very nice. In fact, it sits next door to Stella Schimetz home in Dunseith today. When Joni and I were first married we rented the upstairs apartment from Mary Gottbreht for a couple summers. Anyway, Roland’s house had all the amenities of the day, and Dad’s was a shack. The other problem was the well Dad used for cattle went bad, putting Dad in a bind. There were other problems as well. I think it was the winter of ’45-’46 when all this took place. It was a rough winter and #3 was barely passable in the summer, let alone a bad winter. Roland and Cora decided they would like to move to town. Cora’s health was part of that decision. Roland let Dad move his herd to his place where there was plenty of room. Dad took care of Roland’s heard and in turn lived there for free. Turned out that the winter and roads were so bad that the only way into town was by horse.

 

In 1960 Dad built the house on our farm. He hired a carpenter named Gilmer Ihla from Rolette to do it, with the understanding that Dad would earn some of the money back by working for Gilmer. Gilmer got hurt about half way through the construction and was out for nearly a month. I was 13, so I couldn’t help much. I usually came home and did the chores. Gary Pigeon was working for us then. Gary helped with everything. Those of you who remember Gary know that if anything vaguely resembled a tool, Gary mastered in no time. When Gilmer came back and saw the progress, he said “What do you need me for?” It was late in the fall and the weather started going bad. Gilmer couldn’t make it every day–and there were no phones until ’62-’63, so Gilmer built the cabinets at his shot and brought them out. We moved in for Christmas. Not bad for a house construction that began around Labor Day!

 

Anyway, the reason for the previous paragraph was to lead to this one. The next year, Roland built his home. Gilmer was a very talented carpenter and Roland wanted him to build it. Gilmer was about the age we are today and was actually retired. The last thing he wanted was another project 25 miles form home. (Frankly, the last +)*(&^^%#@% thing I want to do is build another house!) Gilmer told Roland that the only way he would do it is if he could convince Art Richard to help — and that Roland would pay Dad whatever they could agree on. Not sure how that all worked out, but Dad always figured he owed Roland toe that winter in the ’40’s, so I’m sure Roland got a pretty good deal.

 

I’m not sure which of the next two events happened next, but I think it was the accident where Roland lost the tips of some of his fingers in a corn chopper. It was obviously harvest time. Roland was going to be laid up for the rest of the season. “Jimmy” Gottbreht had worked for Roland for a number of yeas at that time and knew Roland’s operation pretty well. Dad talked to Jimmy and they formed a plan to harvest Roland’s crops. Jimmy took care of the chores. Dad organized the neighbors and Roland’s crop was in the bin in less than a week. First time I ever saw six combines going around the same field.

 

Roland and Dad were very involved in the early years of the Dunseith Knights of Columbus. One night after a KC meeting they both attended, Roland came home to find Cora had passed away while sitting in her chair watching TV. Dad was the first person Roland called. I don’t know any details after that.

 

Later on Roland retired from farming at the age of 68. I rented his land form the mid ’70’s until I left ND in 1990. I drafted one contract. It was for three years. That was the last document we had. After that it was “settle up in the fall, and plant in the spring. (It was much the same with my three other land owners, Bill Evans, Emery Carbonneau, and Don Koehmsted. Wouldn’t we have a much better country if things were like that today?)

 

I have the fondest memories of all the times a lot of us shared at morning or afternoon coffee at Dale’s or the Gathering or both. The coffee group included Roland, Bill, Armand Neil, Dick, Keith, Ray, Dwight, Freddie, Gordie, Terry, and Father Joe. It was a winter ritual — and of course everyone was welcome if they didn’t mind playing the numbers/napkin game to see who paid. I know I missed people.

 

Roland, like every human was not perfect, but a huge majority of the people in the world could take lessons on how to be a friend and how to treat others.

 

And Joan–I’m glad you were once one of my students. Best wishes to you and your mom.

 

Allen

 

I thought about the 30 year business I ran with 1800 employees, all
without a Blackberry that played music, took videos, pictures and
communicated with Facebook and Twitter.

I signed up under duress for Twitter and Facebook, so my seven kids, their
spouses, 13 grandkids and 2 great grand kids could communicate with me in
the modern way. I figured I could handle something as simple as Twitter
with only 140 characters of space.

That was before one of my grandkids hooked me up for Tweeter, Tweetree,
Twhirl, Twitterfon, Tweetie and Twittererific Tweetdeck, Twitpix and
something that sends every message to my cell phone and every other
program within the texting world.

My phone was beeping every three minutes with the details of everything
except the bowel movements of the entire next generation. I am not ready
to live like this. I keep my cell phone in the garage in my golf bag.

The kids bought me a GPS for my last birthday because they say I get lost
every now and then going over to the grocery store or library. I keep that
in a box under my tool bench with the Blue tooth [it’s red] phone I am
supposed to use when I drive. I wore it once and was standing in line at
Barnes and Noble talking to my wife as everyone in the nearest 50 yards
was glaring at me. Seems I have to take my hearing aid out to use it, and
I got a little loud.

I mean the GPS looked pretty smart on my dash board, but the lady inside
was the most annoying, rudest person I had run into in a long time. Every
10 minutes, she would sarcastically say, “Re-calc-ul-ating”. You would
think that she could be nicer. It was like she could barely tolerate me.
She would let go with a deep sigh and then tell me to make a U-turn at the
next light. Then when I would make a right turn instead, it was not good.

When I get really lost now, I call my wife and tell her the name of the
cross streets and while she is starting to develop the same tone as Gypsy,
the GPS lady, at least she loves me.

To be perfectly frank, I am still trying to learn how to use the cordless
phones in our house. We have had them for 4 years, but I still haven’t
figured out how I can lose three phones all at once and have run around
digging under chair cushions and checking bathrooms and the dirty laundry
baskets when the phone rings.

The world is just getting too complex for me. They even mess me up every
time I go to the grocery store. You would think they could settle on
something themselves but this sudden “Paper or Plastic?” every time I
check out just knocks me for a loop. I bought some of those cloth reusable
bags to avoid looking confused, but I never remember to take them in with
me.

Now I toss it back to them. When they ask me, “Paper or Plastic?” I just
say, “Doesn’t matter to me. I am bi-sacksual.” Then it’s their turn to
stare at me with a blank look.

I was recently asked if I tweet. I answered, No, but I do toot a lot.”