1/31/2008

Message from Don Boardman (60): 
 
Just to refresh your memory on cold temperatures.  My digital thermometer quits at about -22 and most of yesterday it just read ERROR.  In the middle of the afternoon it was -20 with 28 MPH gusting to 36.  I just looked at the weather channel and it is -34 with 5 mph and it is 8:51 A.M.  We don’t mind it if the wind isn’t blowing.  The house is warm and we get used to the colder temperatures.  We only have about 8 inches of snow on the level and wish we had at least a foot more.  We went into the winter very dry here in Bottineau.  Don’t you wish you were here to enjoy it?  I remember as a kid sleeping in the upstairs of the house on the farm and when mom would holler up the stairs to get up and get dressed we hated to get out of that nice warm nest we were in.  The blanket were piled high on us so we could hardly move.  We would grab our clothes and run down stairs and dress by the fire that mom and dad had going.  You have to do what you have to do and life wasn’t so bad.
Don Boardman
Bottineau
 
 
 
Dales Pritchard’s (63) message to Dwight Lang (61): 
 
Good Morning Dwight,I haven’t seen you since you graduated.  I never knew your older
brother.  He disappeared before I started high school.  Talking about
snow clogged roads, I remember that your mother taught school one year,
maybe two, at the Ackworth country school.  Believe she stayed there
when the roads got too bad.  The best of roads at that time weren’t very
good!  I believe your dad substituted for your mother when she had
something else she had to do.  

Dale Pritchard (63)

 
 
 
 
Randy Flynn’s (70) message and reply to Shirley Brennan (60):
 
Gary,Thank you again for your daily message.  You are a daily copy
of the Turtle Mountain Star or the Bottineau Courant (depending
on which side of Dunseith you lived on).  To paraphrase the
quote, “The Turtle Mountain Star is like a letter from home”,
attributed to Dick Morgan; “Your message, Gary, is like a
telephone call from home.”

  Please thank Shirley for me and pass on the following
message.

Shirley,

Thank you for the update on Pat(Brennan)Groff and her family.
I am saddened to hear of Glenn’s passing.  Please send my
condolences to Pat and her children.

Your message helped me remember that summer; wheat dust, a few
stubble fires, and rain when we did not need it.  I had
forgotten Mike’s and David’s names.  David was very young at
the time, 10 or 12.  Mike was about 16 years old, tall, thin
and wiry.  I was even thin then, ooohh, we all change with time
and gravity.

Stay well.

Randy Flynn

 
 
 
 
Message from Leland (Lee) Stickland (64): 
 
Gentlemen,
 
Do you recall our valiant efforts to emulate the 4 guys that invaded America in the early 1960s?
 
I was ‘pokon’ around on You Tube this am and was reminded of the earlier song of the Beatles.  The Beatles group was yet in the time period when modern, contemporary music was understandable, not caustic, not so hard on the senses and certainly not offensive.
 
Funny how things change as the years go on.
 
Gary, when I went searching for the e-mail address of Alan and Bill, I find that I have received  219 messages per your very able assistances, thus far.  I do enjoy the memories and the recall relative to Dunseith.
 
I have learned that it is better to listen and to read than to stick my foot in my mouth. 
 
LEE
 
Lee, we all stick our feet in our mouths.  Believe me, folks will not fault you for doing it.  You are your own worst critic.  I have made a my share of blunders with this stuff, especially with some of the identification of some of the class of 65 folks in some pictures that I should have known.
 
 
 
 
Message from Diane Hill (75): 
 
Hi Gary!
Diane (Hill)Moline (75).  I too have been enjoying the e-mails
about Dunseith and what some of you older folks remember. Tim
(68), Brenda (70), Greg (72) and Joanne (74), Bruce (81) and
Lynn (83) are my siblings. My dad John Hill passed away when I
was just 25. So we did not get to know him real well as
adults.  Does anyone have some memories they would like to
share with us about our father?  Mom (Murl Hill)(50) still
lives out on our farm.  She keeps busy with church stuff and
all her kids and grandkids-soon to be 9.
It’s a balming 30 below here in Minot, ND today!!


 Diane, I didn’t know your family that well, but I sure do remember riding the Fugere Hill school busses.  Our 4-H club rented one of your dad’s busses several times and your dad was the driver, taking us to the Minot State Fair.  You guys were all a little younger than me.  Gary. 
 
 
Memories from Dick Johnson (68): djcars@srt.com
 
Gary and DHS classmatesI imagine you are getting swamped with memories but there are a
couple short stories that may be of interest to most. Can
anyone remember how we used to antagonize poor old Said ‘Sy’
Kadry at the pool hall? If you knocked a ball off the pool
table he would kick you out. You could come back in ten minutes
and play again BUT it cost you another dime! So being the jerks
we were, we would wait until he was busy with a customer and
then bang the butt uf our pool cue on the floor real hard! Sy
would come on the run and crawl all around the tables to see
who knocked the ball off, much to our amusement, of course! We
should have been horsewhipped or worse!

Another story from the old days is one about Mac McHugh, a
colorful Dunseith old timer. He was a fixture at the Crystal
Cafe for many years. My grandfather, Henry Olson and Ike Berg
were working together at the bar and would take turns going for
dinner at the Crystal. One time Ike went first and when he came
back,Grandpa Henry went over and sat on the same stool that Ike
had just left.Mac McHugh was still there on the next stool and
he just kept looking at Henry without saying a word. Finally he
said, “Hank,are you ever going to amount to anything”? Grandpa
said, “No, probably not”. Mac replied, “Ya, that what Ike said
about you”! Anything for a little exitement on a quiet day in
old Dunseith! Enough for now.

Dick