Loyal to North Dakota

My Dad always loved North Dakota. He took off from his native Iowa as a young 20-somethingish man, leaving behind a prosperous family business to pioneer as a homesteader. After getting his land, he built a sod house that was his first home. He was a great story-teller and even as a child I sensed that when my Dad walked into the dining room where a bunch of threshing crew farmers were eating, the place livened up.

He used to say that America knew North Dakota was a "pain in the neck," but when oil wells began springing up all of the state, they knew it was "growing pains."

His jokes were usually on himself or his state. Like about the lady who with her husband were visiting the area. Dad said she swung her arm over the vast plains and said, "I'd have to love my husband an awful lot to live here!" And another time some ranchers/farmers were lined up for something that required them to give their names....Kringlaak, Severson, Finsaas...and finally the writer looked up and admonished, "Why don't you men get white men's names?"

Though he moved his family 50 miles West to irrigated land after years of crop failures, he stll remained in his beloved Norh Dakota. The far Western part, Fairview, where they say that when you drive up one certain street, you have 2 wheels in North Dakota and 2 wheels in Montana. His wheels just went to Montana to shop.