Page 4 THE CAVALIER CHRONICLE Wednesday, May 12, 2021
~ Personal Columns ~
Slices of Life
Overcoming and embracing change
By: Jill Pertler
They say it changes you. It transforms you in ways you never could have or would have imagined before. Grief. Deep, formidable life-altering grief. Something you never could have, would have or wanted to see coming. At first you don't believe it. Your mind can't grasp this new reality that has suddenly become yours. How could anything change the world you've come to believe as true? That would be impossible. You've spent your entire life creating we, and then suddenly the we becomes me. Alone. Lonely. Feeling like you are at a dead end. You were satisfied with your life and can't imagine it changing. You wouldn't want it to change. Why would it change? But then it does. Without your consent or cooperation. Without warning. Without anything that makes any sense. And you are supposed to accept it and go on. Your someone - your number one person - leaves this Earth and you are left to deal with it. It feels very alone, because you are alone. The ones in the know tell you that you will change. Your grief- storm will transform you. You will never be the same. "But I want to be the same!" You scream inside your head (or maybe even out loud). "I don't want anything to change!" But it already has. It. Already. Has. Take a breath. Take that in because it is bigger than big. Especially once you have lived it out firsthand. Your truth has already changed - without your permission. So, where do you go from here? When the old you no longer exists? When there is no choice, really, because that was stolen from you? When the only option now is to live this new life you never, ever imagined and that involves finding an entirely new you. It is uncomfortable. It is unnerving. It is filled with regret and sorrow. It's inevitable. It has to happen because the alternative to living again is dying and I'm not ready for that yet. But at the tail end of this regret and sorrow comes hope and a desire for the future. You find a new yearning for the future. You want to go on. You are no longer are satisfied with existing. You want to live. To live again. Fully, madly, deeply. Your entire being yearns for this. This transformation changes you in ways you never would have thought possible - before. It pushes you. It challenges you to grow. And one day, deep into this tunnel of grief that seems never- ending (because it is) you realize the growth isn't a challenge. It's an opportunity. It's a new path that didn't exist before. And even though you never, not ever, would have chosen this path, it is put before you; missing the opportunity in it would be missing the point. It would lessen the lesson of losing the love of your life. And I, for one, will never let that experience be diminished. I was blessed with a love of a lifetime, but I'm not satisfied. Not quite yet. I'm still here and I want more. And I'm going to find it. I'm not sure what that looks like right now, but I know with complete certainty that Thom wants that for me. And I know with complete certainty that I can do it for him.
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Monday Morning Musings
I'm sitting here Monday morning with my first cup of coffee, contemplating a weekend that felt almost normal after things got crazy some 14- months ago. It seemed like forever since my family had gotten together but, buoyed by vaccinations, we managed it for a Mother's Day dinner in Frederick, SD, that Mom didn't even have to cook for. Well, she did make her epic potato salad, but I think the rest of the ribs, beans, salads, and desserts came from my sisters and sister-in-law. Just when I think I'm a fairly competent cook, I eat a meal like that and realize I have a long way to go. I'm an accomplished recluse but the imposed banishment of Covid had begun to wear on even on me, so the hugs, stories and laughs made for a pretty special day. I've eased back into a more normal routine-going to local businesses instead of doing pick-up, but I'll still wear a mask until we truly are out of the woods-and we're not. Vaccine hesitancy may well unleash variants and put us back in lockdown. But undoubtedly, things are much better. Stadiums and venues are expanding capacity. We've come a long way, and for those who subscribe to the old Reagan adage that government is the problem, in this case, not so-from the federal down to the state levels, although admittedly and forever imperfect, government worked. And with a little more community spirit from citizens, it would work better. We tend to be concentric in America, figuring that if things are fine here, they must be fine elsewhere. Well, if this pandemic should have taught us anything, it's that the world is inexorably interconnected. Borders are lines on a map that don't mean a thing to our environment and its pollution, ozone layer, and viruses. Poor India, where I have a doctor friend, is suffering horrible losses, something like 4,000 dead a day. But even in Europe, things are tough. My sister-in-law Pam recounted recent conversations she'd had with several friends in Germany, and they all had the same story. Restaurants were shut down. They hadn't received vaccinations. Curfews were still in effect. Tough going. This won't be over until it's over everywhere, but we're blessed to live in America. I'm counting other blessings, too. Thanks to two snow squalls last week, things are greening up, and farmers, ever hopeful that the drought will end any day, are planting at a brisk pace in a lot of acres that are usually mush. My rain gauge claimed we got a half-inch of moisture over the weekend. Your results may vary. For the first time in a long time, I was happy that my gravel road was greasy. It signifies hope in a particularly hopeful spring. Dylan, who has wrapped up his vaccinations, was back for the weekend, happily trimming back old growth in the flower beds, lopping dead branches, and landscaping a pond. We did the things you're supposed to do in spring, took worshipful tours around the yard to inspect the buds on the newest trees, and admire the perennials that promise to do even better this year. And even in the snow, bright yellow tulips bloomed. Gus the Wonder Pug, who has gotten a bit neurotic and barky over a long winter, was back to his happy old self outside, sniffing and peeing and working off the winter flab. Having Dylan and Indy under the same roof gives me the motivation to cook. I often go for large vats of chili or soup so we can eat on it for a couple of days. Saturday, I attempted corn chowder, borrowing from several recipes and adding my own special touches which naturally included German sausage. It got so intensely quiet when they devoured the first bowl you could hear arteries harden. Dylan topped off the bird feeders over the weekend, and yesterday afternoon after he'd headed back to Bismarck, I sat outside and watched aerial visitors scratch away at fresh mulch and munch birdseed. A thrasher even appeared but fluttered off when I twitched a muscle. Skittish things. I'm hoping this is my last column at my desk computer for a while. Soon, I'll be on a table in the yard pecking away on my laptop, with butterflies and bees dancing around and Gus stretched out in shaded, cool grass. I hope you find these moments, too. Say a prayer for rain, and we'll visit next week.
Tony Bender, 2021
That's Life
by Tony Bender
Moments in Time
From The History Channel
* On May 10, 1869, the presidents of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads meet in Promontory, Utah, and drive a ceremonial last spike into a rail line that connects their railroads. This made transcontinental railroad travel possible for the first time in U.S. history. * On May 16, 1929, the first-ever Academy Awards ceremony is held, with some 270 people in attendance. Movies were just making the transition from silent films to "talkies," but all the nominated films were without sound. * On May 11, 1934, a massive dust storm sends millions of tons of topsoil flying across the parched Great Plains to the East Coast and as far away as ships 300 miles offshore. Farmers had pushed their fields to the limit, plowing under more and more grassland. * On May 15, 1942, Lt. Ronald Reagan, a cavalry officer, applies for reassignment to the Army Air Force. As a public relations officer, the actor and future president produced military training, morale and propaganda films. * On May 12, 1975, the American freighter Mayaguez is captured by communist government forces gunboats in Cambodia. Two days later President Ford ordered the bombing of the Cambodian port where the gunboats had come from. Forty-one Americans died, many in an accidental explosion during the attack.
c) 2021 Hearst Communications, Inc.
"Storycatcher" Sarah Hinnenkamp
Giggle Fits
The first time I remember a giggle fit - and I mean a serious giggle fit - was after my first year of college in Moorhead, Minn. I came home after a grueling finals week. Like any finals week, it involved poor sleep and food habits, and too much stress, either real or self- imposed. Something struck my funny bone (I blame my brothers and their jokes) and I started laughing and I could not stop. At some point my brothers left the room, bored that the giggle fit was going on so long. I ended up on the dining room floor, gasping for air and clutching my stomach because my abs hurt from laughing. Tears streamed down my face. My mom went about her home chores, eventually stepping over top of me to get around the room. While this is the first giggle fit that dramatically sticks out in my memory, these instances happened many times before. By this point my family was used to my stress response that usually happen twice per year - after each finals week. The great thing about this mechanism of stress relief was that it was on a consistent schedule, until I graduated from college, that is. After that I never knew when these crazy fits of laughing and crying may strike. As a native Midwesterner with Norwegian and German heritage, I'm used to stuffing my feelings down to my toes. The funny thing about those feelings, is that they find a way to come out eventually. I remember the first time my husband experienced this. In fact, it was his quick wit that triggered the giggle fit, complete with a horrifying ugly cry. At first, he looked quite shocked, then amused. Once he figured out which keyword kicked everything off in my brain, he dropped it back into conversation over the course of the next ten minutes. It seemed like I may never gain composure - or catch my breath - again. Soon, my body relaxed, my eyes stopped crying, and the laughing stopped. I took a deep breath and I felt like me again. It hasn't happened for a while, but oh, last week, the giggles appeared again. Husband Terry once again thought it was thanks to his wonderful wit. What he doesn't know, is that I was giggling about my own response to his joke. This is a good news/bad news situation as you'd think I would have a bit more control and could stop the giggle fit, but I am my own worst enemy. I replayed my own joke in my head and the tears from laughing continued. I just had to work through it. It was a lovely release of stress that needed to happen after months of building up. Maybe I should try more normal avenues of stress relief, such as running or kick boxing. Actually, the idea of that seems stressful.
Sarah Hinnenkamp Jill Pertler
Just Wanted To Say...
By Lynn Schroeder
DAKOTA DATEBOOK: Tommy Tucker time! by Merry Helm
May 18, 2021 - Today is Tommy Tucker's birthday. He was born in 1908 in Souris, where he was known by his real name, Gerald Duppler. Fans of 1940s big bands will recall his 1941 hit, "I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire." Tommy Tucker was one of the most successful orchestra leaders of his day. He specialized in slow dance music for hotel ballroom audiences, a style that kept him at the top of his profession for nearly 30 years. Tucker majored in music at UND and graduated Phi Beta Kappa Key in 1929. His first band, Tommy Tucker and His Californians, was formed that same year. They made several recordings, with Tucker on vocals, before breaking up in the mid-'30s. Despite the Great Depression, Tucker flourished when his next orchestra hit the hotel and ballroom circuit. During their heyday, the band bus carried an average of 25 performers plus 13 wives. Their schedule was brutal. The Tommy Tucker Orchestra was also a favorite on radio shows such as the very popular "Fibber McGee and Molly Show," in 1936- 37, and the "Georgie Jessel Show" in '38. Tucker wrote, "Since our music was not especially stylized, we needed a trademark. So I hit upon the idea of using the sound of a clock's tick-tock to introduce our radio shows, a spoken slogan, 'It's Tommy Tucker Time!' and then our theme. This was an instant success. It took only a lick or two on wood blocks of different pitches... with many of our listeners at home and in the ballroom imitating our tick-tock." Tucker's theme song was an original called "I Love You, Oh I Love You." Two other original tunes also became hits: "Cool, Calm And Collected" and a song that was considered too suggestive for children, "The Man Who Comes Around." The lyrics parents found objectionable were, "There's a man who comes to our house, every single day. When papa comes home, the man goes away." Tucker's personal favorite, "That Old Sweetheart of Mine," never made it big. "It was based on a poem by James Whitcomb Riley," he wrote, "which I had studied in grade school and greatly enjoyed. I had high hopes for that tune. It wasn't to be, but we never stopped trying." When swing became popular during World War II, Tucker tried to make the transition by hiring an arranger named Van Alexander, who had arranged Ella Fitzgerald's famous tune, "A-Tisket, A-Tasket." But, Tucker's foray into swing failed, so he went back to his tried and true formula, three slow songs, then an up-tempo. When the popularity of big bands waned during the late '50s, Tucker finally quit performing to take a job teaching music at Monmouth College in New Jersey. "Every morning on my way to the college," he wrote, "I came to a fork in the road. The left fork would take me to the open highway where I had spent a quarter of a century of endless miles and sleepless nights as we jumped from one city to another, the task of setting up the band, playing the job, packing up the instruments early in the morning, and getting on the bus to continue ever onward; but the fork to the right took me to the college and home every night." Tucker didn't retire from his second career until he was 71. He died in Florida in 1989.
Abercrombie bank heist by Jayme Job
May 12, 2021 - Three bank bandits pulled off a sensational heist at the State Bank of Abercrombie on this date in 1924, escaping with a total of $18,000 in cash and Liberty bonds. Fargo Sheriff Fred Fraemer said that he did not know exactly how or when the men arrived, but he thought they came in from the south at around 11 p.m. When they got there, the men cut all of the telephone and telegraph wires going into the town. They also took a hostage - Marius Strand, the phone company's night operator. They gagged and bound Mr. Strand, and held him prisoner in the lumberyard until 1 a.m. At this time, the lights in the town were put out and the caf closed down for the night. The bandits hurried to the rear of the bank, dragging their prisoner behind. They employed a crowbar and other tools they had stolen from a nearby tool house to break into one of the bank's rear windows. They climbed inside the building and again engaged the stolen crowbar to pry bricks from the side of the vault. According to Strand, the bandits succeeded in making a small hole in the wall of the vault, just large enough for the smallest bandit to crawl through to reach the bank's safe, inside of the vault. This man crawled into the vault and placed five charges of nitroglycerine explosives around the safe. It was apparently the bandits' intention to only blow open the door of the small safe, but the ensuing explosion was so violent that it not only destroyed the safe, but the massive door from the vault was torn from its hinges. The vault's lock combination was thrown across the room. The bandits quickly collected the booty and fled from the scene, leaving their bound hostage behind. Luckily, Mr. Strand's feet were not tightly bound, and he was eventually able to arouse some of the town's citizens. Authorities traced the getaway car to Ortonville, but lost the track. They arrested five men two weeks later in Minot, and charged them with the crime. The men were already being held on drunkenness charges and were in possession of a stolen car. Their former hostage, Mr. Strand, identified the thieves. "Dakota Datebook" is a radio series from Prairie Public in partnership with the State Historical Society of North Dakota and with funding from the North Dakota Humanities Council.
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