Saturday morning. The first Saturday of April. Time for Spring. I’ve played a lot of golf on the first Saturday of April over the years. Not last year, of course, when there was 2 feet of snow on the ground outside my bedroom window. But this year, the grass is getting a green tint out there, and I’d at least …
OK, Doug Burgum, this time you’re on thin ice with me. It’s that time of year. The ice is getting thinner and thinner. but YOUR ice is really thin right now. This past summer, you used your thick billfold to try to become president by offering to send $20 gift cards to anyone sending you a dollar, so you could …
“The crux of this case is the preservation of the untouched and dramatic beauty of the Shorts’ property in the North Dakota Bad Lands while the underlying legal issues are resolved. Theodore Roosevelt once described this area in compelling terms: ”From the edges of the valley the land rises abruptly in steep high buttes, whose crests are sharp and jagged. …
In the Bismarck Tribune about North Dakota Lt. Gov. Tammy Miller’s announcement that she was running for governor this past week. Tribune reporter Jacob Fulton wrote this: Miller touted her childhood “cleaning toilets and stocking shelves” at the family lumber and hardware business in Brocket; she also said she “defended the store from robbers with her shotgun.” Now I had …
I said the other day I was going to stick to writing about King Crab Legs. So here goes. OK, Facebook, OK! I like King Crab Legs! You know that, just like you know a hundred other things about me. But did you have to tell every fish house in America? OK, so now I know, for sure, where I …
This past week, I wrote a story in this space that said the North Dakota Democratic-NPL Party had apparently been the victim of electronic eavesdropping after a device that might have been a “bug” was found in a door frame at the party’s former headquarters, the North Dakota Kennedy Center. Turns out that I and several members of the Kennedy …
I am a sucker for seafood. No, wait, let me shorten that sentence. I am a sucker. You’d think by now, at my ripe old age, I’d know to be mindful of the old saying “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” In my case, I’d change “probably” to “definitely.” I got scammed. Really, really scammed. …
The only thing we know for sure after Monday morning’s court hearing on the proposed bridge over the Little Missouri State Scenic River is that the bridge is not going to get built before March 1. U.S. District Judge Dan Traynor made sure of that because he’s not going to issue a decision on whether he’s going to grant a …
This space can get awfully discouraging much of the time, as I go after oil barons and county commissioners and politicians and other bad guys, and most of my friends will tell you pessimism is not generally my demeanor, so I continually go looking for things to get me back on the “sunny side of life.” From time to time, …
That’s the title of a storied 1969 movie starring Jane Fonda. The first time I saw it was the first time I fell in love with Jane Fonda. God, she was hot. I was a lad of barely 20, and she was 10 years older than me, but I’ve been in love with her from a distance ever since. No …
Sunday night (New Year’s Eve) over supper with family and friends (Lillian’s extraordinary Swedish Meatballs with her secret ******berry ingredient and homemade egg noodles), we had one of those end-of-the-year conversations about the state of things. We decided things are not so good. Oh, our personal lives are pretty much OK, considering those around the table had survived car crashes, …
Lillian and I have cut back on our Christmas mailing this year, so we’re using our blogs to send out our 2023 short Christmas letter. Dear Friends and Family, 2023 was a travel year for us. Including last December, when we were away from home the entire month, the states and provinces we’ve been to: Hawaii (2 new national parks). …
It’s almost here. 2024, an election year. I get the feeling that most North Dakotans, like their fellow Americans, shudder at the thought. That’s OK. Politics in America, which I used to call “my favorite spectator sport,” has taken a sad turn away from what used to be the path to the most successful democracy in the world. Elections, too. …
I wrote this past week about the battle between the Short family and the Billings County Commission and how it is going to finally go to court in January. The Short family, descendants of the late U.S. Congressman Don Short, own the land on the west side of the Little Missouri State Scenic River — the west end of the …
The heirs of North Dakota’s U.S. Congressman Donald Levingston Short are going to get their day in court. You can join them Jan. 22, 2024 if you sit quietly in Courtroom 1 of the U.S. Courthouse in Bismarck. At precisely 9 a.m., U.S. District Judge Daniel Traynor will gavel the audience to quiet and begin hearing a request from attorneys …
Eventually, I kept saying, everyone is going to get COVID. Everyone. Eventually. My “eventually” time came this past week. Lillian and I came home from New York with raging cases of COVID. It’s the worst disease I’ve ever had. It’s the sickest I’ve ever been. For a full week. We came home late Saturday night. I started coughing Sunday. I …
OK, so we don’t have a Speaker of the House. And there’s no one stepping forward from the ranks of the U.S. House Republican caucus to grab the gavel. Well, no problem. The House can pick anyone it wants to be the Speaker, according to Article I, Section II, Clause 5, of the U.S. Constitution, which reads: “The House of …
I swear, I thought this was a spoof story, a la The Onion,until I got down to the bottom and saw this: “NAGA president Eunice Davidson released a statement through theg roup’s media advisors Global Impact Campaigns. Global Impact Campaigns is run by marketing and PR veterans who have worked as strategists for various government, political, and media organizations, including for …
In a file cabinet at the Billings County Clerk of Court’s office in Medora, N.D., there are four checks totaling $54,975 waiting to be picked up by members of the Short family, owners of a ranch about a dozen miles north of town. County Clerk of Court Juliana Hammerstrom is not holding her breath waiting for them to be claimed. …
This is a re-run of something I wrote a dozen years ago, Sept. 11, 2011. And now I’m going to forget what today’s date is and have a good day in the garden. Yes, it has been a long 10 years. On August 29, 2001, I sat beside my wife’s bed as she looked up at her doctor, exhausted, pale and …
OK, a couple of months ago, I bit on Doug Burgum’s now-famous gambit to send $20 gift cards to anyone who would send him a dollar to help him qualify for the debate last week. I sent him a dollar July 17. I immediately got an e-mail that said, “Thank you for your donation! Due to high demand the gift …
Forty-mile-per-hour winds drove a pouring rain sideways outside the Billings County Courthouse in Medora, N.D., this past Thursday afternoon, washing the Bad Lands dust from a dozen or more cars and pickups (mostly pickups) parked on the streets outside. Inside, another storm was brewing, this one going on behind closed doors, as a handful of drivers of those vehicles waited …
An e-mail from an old friend, the filmmaker John Hanson, came out of the blue Wednesday, the day before the newspapers all said we were going to have a northern lights display tonight. The front page headline in the Bismarck Tribune on Wednesday blared “Solar storm to create Northern Lights.” Whoa. Not so fast. The correction at the bottom of …
He was a handsome young Georgia Marine in spit-shined shoes, a white hat and a sharply pressed dress uniform, a member of the United States Marine Corps Drill Team, stationed in Washington, D.C., in the mid-1950s. She was a pretty little country girl from North Dakota, working in the Washington office of a North Dakota congressman. Their paths crossed. She …
I “Lean West,” as my friend Clay says. Although I’ve lived all over the world, including Asia, Slope County, North Dakota, is my home ground. West Fork Deep Creek Township. My family always leaned west. I am most content where there is short-grass prairie. In my bones, I know the flora and fauna of the short-grass prairie. Very small remnants …
Been about 10 days since I reported on the status of the Burgum for President campaign. I can report this morning that the e-mail machine is alive and well. I’ve gotten a couple of dozen more e-mails, at least two a day, since Doug announced he was running. I haven’t responded. Yet. But I might. You can as well. Just click on …
Spent a lot of years in a classroom or office, sometimes with no window. Have attempted to spend as much of the Summer Solstice outdoors. Here’s to more trips around the sun!
When I was a boy growing up in southwest North Dakota, I thought my Dad, Whitey Fuglie, was the most patriotic man in America. I know that I heard him say “God Bless America!” at least a hundred times. Maybe 200. Maybe several hundred. He really was a patriot. A World War II veteran of the U.S. Navy Air Corps, …
Many years ago (well, actually seven years ago this past Sunday), on the eve of the 2016 North Dakota primary election), I wrote in this space, “On Tuesday, I’m going to vote in the Republican primary election for Doug Burgum for Governor of North Dakota.” As I’ve written here many times, I’m a Democrat, and I don’t take crossing over …
About a month ago, I agreed to walk 100 miles in the month of April to raise awareness of cancer and the deadly toll it is taking on us and to raise money for the American Cancer Society. My goal: $250, to be donated by me and my friends. I had the help of a fine list of friends: Valerie …
As you’ve driven down Interstate 94 to Medora, N.D., for the past dozen or so years, you’ve seen a couple of yellow signs just inside the park boundary fence a few miles east of Medora that say, “Land for Sale.” Until I found out the story behind them, they gave me some pause. Hmmm. The park is selling off part …
At about 9:15 Tuesday morning, in the Billings County Courthouse in Medora, N.D., Billings County commissioners voted to go into executive session and told the general public attending the meeting to leave the room. Well, two of the three commissioners — Steve Klym and Lester Iverson — voted to do that. A third, Dean Rodne, voted against the motion to …
A letter to a whole bunch of really good friends. Dear Friends, The nightmare is over. My lawyer says I can talk about it now. Some of you know about it already. Most don’t. Here’s the short version. About a year and a half ago, there was a knock on my front door. A kind of unruly looking fellow, probably …
“On New Year’s Eve, 1940, Paul Southworth Bliss, a veteran of the Great War in Europe and a Colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve, took his service revolver from its holster in his small apartment at the Kansas City, Missouri, YMCA, put the pistol to his head, and pulled the trigger. He was just 51 years old. He left a …
I’m pretty sure these phone calls have already happened. Rrring! Rrring! “Hello, Governor’s Office, this is Doug Burgum.” “Hello, Governor, this is Bill Peterson over at the State Historical Society. They’re telling me I have to decide if I should sign off on letting the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad tear down its historic bridge over the Missouri River so …
Do you know some young person just starting or just ready to start a professional career in North Dakota? Someone who’s a good communicator — maybe a journalism degree) — and is interested in the outdoors (especially North Dakota’s Bad Lands)? Well, I’ve got an idea for them. I’ve been a member of an organization for more than 20 years …
I wrote a couple of weeks ago about some bad bills in the North Dakota Legislature that attempt to ban books from our pubic libraries. One, SB 2123, was a goofy bill that just removed libraries from the list of places “dirty books” are allowed to be displayed. It was such a bad bill that it failed in the Senate …
Elections, as they say, have consequences. What’s been going on in Billings County, North Dakota, elections has been pretty consequential. Billings County is an important place. It’s home to the Bad Lands, Medora and Theodore Roosevelt National Park. And the Little Missouri State Scenic River. More about elections in a minute. You’ve been reading here for more than 10 years …
It started last weekend. I began receiving weird text messages from unknown phone numbers outside the 701 area code. I didn’t think about it much the first time, but then they kept on coming, sometimes three a day. I ignored them, like I had been told to when I got my first cellphone. By the way, I remember my very …
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about a really bad bill in the North Dakoa Legislature, HB 1205, which starts banning books from our libraries. I’ve since learned there’s another one just as bad, SB 2123, which pretty much does the same kind of thing. One’s in the House, the other in the Senate, and both have had hearings and should …
Nothing in recent memory has stirred up as much emotion among Bad Lands enthusiasts as the goofy process now underway to rid Theodore Roosevelt National Park of its wild horse herd. The papers have been flooded with letters to the editor, and newspaper editors themselves have even published editorials telling the National Park Service to keep the horses. My friend, …
I went to the North Dakota Department of Water Resources public hearing Friday on whether they should grant the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad permission to build a new bridge over the Missouri River between Bismarck and Mandan. To quote from the Department’s meeting notice, “The new bridge is intended to replace an existing bridge, the proposed removal of which will …
A lot of bad bills get introduced into the Legislature over the years. Most meet the fate they deserve — into the trash. But from time to time, a bad bill becomes law because of timing. A legislator catches a wave of public interest in a subject that’s in the news and takes advantage of that to introduce a bill …
