Just completed my 452nd consecutive weekly Bismarck Tribune newspaper column. The sun is shining. My car is packed. I wrote about my favorite of all subjects today: my love of North Dakota, this improbable, this amazing place. My friend JK of Texas has been here this week. We have wandered the state, and talked incessantly in that wonderful way of old friends who know the contours of each others minds, but still find each other interesting. His view is simple: the techno-miracle of fracturing is not really about American energy independence, though of course it is partly about that. What it really means is that the United States is going to have a near infinitude of energy, and that means that we will continue to be able to do the best creative work, institution building, and progress of the planet, that we get this amazing second lease on the American Dream. Yes, there will be dislocations and transformations to places like western North Dakota, but there is nothing to be done about so gigantic and unstoppable a phenomenon. What we Dakotans need to do is make the best of it in every sense of the term, and work hard to protect our homeland, but not to do any handwringing. Meanwhile, like Candide, I tend my garden. Good news. The tomatoes are starting to get legs. The corn (1 inch) is up. Onions are up. My potatoes are late, but the first two of them has thrust through the soil. My garlic has not yet appeared. I soaked the garden last night--we have had only 13 100ths of rain in May at my house--and I weeded as much as I could do in a couple of evening hours. Im still on top of the weeding, but probably not for much longer. Now I am about to drive to Hamlin Garland country in Brown County, South Dakota, and then to Grant Wood countryside in Nebraska, and then to Red Cloud, Nebraska, where on Friday I will give a lecture at the annual Willa Cather conference. And on the return to Dakota (to Medora, to dedicate the extension of the Maah Da Hey Trail), Ill stop at Mari Sandoz grave in the Sand Hills. If you have not read Cathers My Antonia (or lately) I so strongly recommend it. It is one of the supreme works of American literature, and arguably the best Great Plains book. And I very highly recommend Hamlin Garlands Son of the Middle Border, which together with Eric Sevareids Not So WIld a Dream stands at the top of Great Plains autobiography. What could be better to start the summer than a loopy Great Plains auto trip. I wish I had finished my column earlier so that I could spend more of today wandering Dakota, but Im glad to point the car into the countryside at any time. The smell of my tomatoes is already intoxicating. I have dirt underneath my fingernails. My knuckles are scraped. My spirit is alive with friendship, with great books, and with love of the Great Plains. csj
Posted on: Wed, 04 Jun 2014 16:19:38 +0000