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Skating Story
From Dick Johnson (68): Dunseith, ND
Gary and Friends,
Vickie’s story of skating in the old days reminded me of my first experience on ice skates. My folks found a very small set of skates for me and one Sunday at the farm Dad shoveled off a small area on Horseshoe Lake in front of my grandparents house. I was about 4 or 5 at the most and had no idea how to skate. They put the skates on and said for me to try skating. I remember I only made a couple steps and did a back flip. The first thing that hit the ice was the back of my head and I hit it so hard that in just a short while I got sick. Not a real good first experience. I remember later I would watch closely in the fall for the lake to get frozen over with about 3-4 inches of clear ice. Then it was time to put on the skates an go for a trip around the edge of the lake. People used to say they wouldn’t go on the ice until later when it was thicker. Dad used to say that 6 inches of GOOD ice would carry the Caterpillar. I never tried that! We had several Luther League skating parties and also school skating parties at the indoor rink in Bottineau– the Lumberdome. It was there during a blizzard in the winter of ’68, that a bunch of us college guys called to see if they were open for skating. The girl said it was open but nobody was there. Darrell Abrahamson and I had rooms in a house off campus so he and I and several friends walked over to the rink for some fun. Of course the first thing we did was start the old ‘crack the whip’ and the girl came on the loud speaker saying she knew we were the only ones there, but it was still against the rules. Then we decided we would play a game of ‘tag’. We really had a wild deal going until Darrell got tagged and was ‘it’. He couldn’t catch anyone and was stuck as ‘it’ for quite a while. He took after Monte Sande, our good friend from St. John, and was bound and determined to tag him. They went the entire length of the rink with Darrell just a few feet behind Monte. There were no hockey boards in the rink back then, just a plank wall with steel mesh covering the windows to the front area. As Monte and Darrell approached the wall, they were flying. Monte was a good skater and wore figure skates. Darrell had on a set of long blade hockey skates. When Monte got too close to the wall, he simply turned left and Darrell missed the cue and hit the wall wide open! I remember how the old Lumberdome echoed the boom when he hit. He fell back on the ice and we all ripped down the ice to see how bad he was hurt. He got up and kind of grinned but was hurting bad and had squares from the mesh stamped into his chin. We decided we had enough skating and went home. A few days later, Darrell said, “I guess I did hit the wall pretty hard.” He was black and blue on both knees and up and down his legs! It hurt to look at it. Thanks Gary! Dick Anthony family Story – Part Five
From Vickie Metcalfe (70): Bottineau, ND
Anthony Family Story #5
“ Ward and the Mouse Girl”
As a small child, I was shy of most people, as result of my dad’s incessant “Metcalfe” teasing. Which one day, intensified when Dad said, “Next time Ward comes you can go home with him and live with the Anthony’s, Annie would like a girl to help her.”
About a month later, Skip, the black and white border collie began his barking. Peeking out the window, I see Ward coming down the hill into our yard. Panic swept over me. “Oh. NO, today is the day!”
Backing away from the window with stomach clenched, I skedaddled! Albeit quietly. And hastily, barefooted, I ran to the living room closet which had many floor to ceiling shelves. (In those days our closets didn’t have doors. They had heavy homemade curtains). I crawled in and laid on my belly under the bottom shelf. I held my breath. I was ever, so quiet.
With a knock at the back door, dad’s greeting, “Come on in!” First, the smell enters then the boots. Boots the kind with laces that at the top had these metal things the brown laces would be wrapped around and Ward enters. I laid on that closet floor and tried not to breathe lest Ward heard me. I could see those boots, from my mouse eye view under the curtain.
He sat down in mom’s rocking chair right in front of me. “Oh, No!” I was cornered!
Then, the fearful “What if”. Fear, “What if he’d hear the thumping of my heart as he sat rocking his chair?”(hold the breath) His feet were level with my eyes. One foot crossed over the other. And he rocked one foot and tapped the other while he told his tales and my dad laughed.
Ward wore rolled up legs at least one fold, on his blue denim pants that were shiney and grimey. I knew this because whenever he rolled a cigarette, lit the match with his thumb the acrid smell mingled with the smell of Ward, who smelled bad, cause he didn’t bathe too often and his smell mingled with the smell of his rolled King Albert tobacco cigarettes. “thump, thumpity, THUMP.” My heart continued to accompany, the tick, tock, tick, of the cuckoo clock, throughout the long afternoon . The rocking chair creaked back and forth, back and forth. His feet tapped and his hand would go down and flick ashes into his rolled up pants leg, And me, “the mouse girl” found her nose twitching.
Feet would come down, he head for the water bucket, over the wood box. He started to clear his throat, Mom said,” Ward don’t spit in my wood box and he giggled”. My nose twitches again with his one hand flicking of the match, I crossed my eyes, and held my breath. My stomach clenches. My chest hurts.
Mom’s cuckoo clock struck another hour then another, and finally lunch time._Oh, no! thud, thud,THUD! My hearts a-beating! I’m thinking, “Dad’s gonna be calling me to send me home with him!” The long afternoon finally passes with darkness settling upon the house.
Ward finally moved away from the rocking chair. The outside door opens and the cool fresh air whooshes under the curtain. When the door shuts, I tentatively poked my head out of my hidey hole and breathe the long deep breath of relief . “I am still home!”
The clock ticks. I hear Mom putting dishes in the dishpan and the sizzle of heating water of the tea kettle on the wood stove. Dad pulling on his three buckle over shoes saying to mom “Where’s Vickie, I haven’t seen her all afternoon?” The milk buckets clanging. The door slams. All is quiet. “CUCKOO, CUCKOO, CUCKOO, CUCKOO, CUCKOO “
Taking a deep breath, I unclench my teeth, stomach and chest, breathe, crawl out of my nest, pull on my boots and run for the out house and I am relieved.
Family Tales, Vickie Metcalfe, Winter 2011
Posted by Neola Kofoid Garbe: Minot & Bottineau, ND
  Cebu EXPAT dinner.
This is one of many pictures these gals took. They love pictures and we three guys were their target for this shot.
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Dunseith Alumni
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