It’s not easy being a North Dakotan. I was born here. Now I live here again. But I grew up in a town (what we call a city here, 13,000 people in my youth), not in the country. I spent parts of summers on a family farm in western Minnesota, a dairy, but I’m clearly an “urban” North Dakotan. I’ve hauled some bales, milked cows and goats, driven the cultivator, hauled grain to the elevator in town, painted a corn crib, shoveled manure. Not much. In high school shop I learned how to weld, but I haven’t used that skill in 40 years and I’m guessing it is not like riding a bicycle.
On top of that I am the grasshopper in the Aesop fable of the Grasshopper and the Ant. I’m always the last guy in my neighborhood to gather up the hoses, put away the lawn mower, rake the leaves of my many cottonwood trees. Often enough I wind up trying to coil the hoses after a big winter storm when they are as brittle as old red licorice.
Now that I am contemplating driving an Airstream trailer all over America, I’m going to have to relearn how to back a trailer up. My friends Jim and Lillian bought a camper trailer a couple of years ago and they say the worst fights of their marriage have been about backing up.
The average North Dakotan is a master of using heavy equipment, from gargantuan riding lawn mowers to skid-steers (Bobcat had its origin in a small North Dakota town), all the way up to 18-wheelers. They back up with haughty confidence and grace. One of the greatest things I ever saw was the loading dock of the Bismarck (N.D.) Civic Center at the end of a weekend craft show (Pride of North Dakota). When the closing bell came on Sunday afternoon everyone wanted to get out of there ASAP. My friend David and I walked out the back door to get to his van. As we emerged into the December afternoon, we saw at least 20 pickups with trailers of all sizes, including homebrews, lowboys, and more, all backing into the loading dock at the same time. It was like Internal Combustion Ballet! They exchanged hand signals with other drivers, yielding or taking precedence, laughing out greetings, waving someone in. It seemed that they were all backing up at 25 mph, as if the scene had been written by a choreographer and practiced a dozen times. At times there were no more than a few inches between trailers. Nobody honked a horn. Nobody cursed a rival. Many of the drivers were women. There wasn’t a single scrape or fender bender. And it was all over in half an hour.
I had never seen anything like it. I tried to imagine what it would be like for 50 average New Yorkers trying that dance, or 50 Angelinos. It was flawless.
When I put my Airstream into its commercial storage bay for the winter, I timed my approach so there would be nobody else there. Alone, I spent the better part of an hour making ruinous rookie mistakes in trying to back the 24-foot tube into the bay without damaging something. I have good news. The only thing I damaged was my pride. I suppose I redid the backup 30 times before I finally got it right. It’s so counterintuitive that even experts struggle to give directions. If the storage unit manager had been trying to help me that day it would only have gotten worse, because the added pressure of humiliation makes it impossible to conduct all the little experiments that eventually lead to success. If there were a storage unit with doors at both ends, I would rent it so I could just drive through and not have to back in. I know that I will eventually get pretty good at this, but not without a world of trial and error and blushing embarrassment.
North Dakotans Know How To Do Things
North Dakotans know how to do these things. These skills come with the territory. North Dakotans can back up a trailer, weld a broken hitch, throw up drywall, wire the new bathroom, install new piston rings in the engine, pull a calf in a blizzard, frame a garage, install a new window frame, artificially inseminate an ovulating cow.
This year — trying to be the Ant not the Grasshopper — I determined to make sure my snowblower was in working order before the first big snowfall. It doesn’t snow much here on the northern Great Plains but when it does it’s important to dig out quickly or the ice that forms on the driveway will be an issue until late March. So, about six weeks ago I started the big snowblower on a 75-degree day and ran it for half an hour. That suggested to me that all would be well. But when the time came to use it after a 6-inch snowfall in early October, I couldn’t get it started. It would just about almost start or maybe rumble and choke for 20 seconds or so and then shut down. Inevitably, I flooded the engine trying to get it started, realized that I had flooded the engine, took a long break, and tried again. That went on for three or four days.
A neighbor from down the street cleared my sidewalks on October 28. When I walked out to thank him, and introduce myself, he said, “Well, I just don’t want the children to have any difficulty on Halloween.” Oh, great, you’re playing the “it’s for the children” card. I wanted to say, “you know, back when I was a lad, we trudged through giant snowdrifts at Halloween and we wore real costumes, too!” But I merely thanked him, told him of my snowblower woes, and crept back inside in shame and chagrin. Who are these helpless children, and do they really want my widow’s mite of candy if they are not prepared to trudge to my door?!
I drove to the hardware store to buy that spray stuff that helps start a reluctant engine. That didn’t work. I decided to change the spark plug. Sometimes you just must remove the spark plug, let it dry in there, and things improve. (Notice my technical language.) Just to be safe I drove to the hardware store to buy a new spark plug. Then I spent a couple of hours trying to figure out where the spark plug was on this Briggs & Stratton engine. Eventually I looked it up on YouTube and learned how to remove a protective housing and then get to the engine. Then I spent about an hour scrounging in my many toolboxes and bins looking for a socket that fit a spark plug. I nearly drove to the hardware store just to buy a new one, but tried one more time and found the socket in an unexpected place. I pulled the old spark plug, then went into the house to fetch a hair dryer, with which I blasted hot air into the engine for 10 minutes to dry everything out.
I put in the new spark plug and returned the socket to its proper place (I think). When I pulled the cord, the engine roared into life. I let it run half a tank of gas just to make sure whatever gunk had clogged the system was worked out.
Finally, I was ready to do my subdivision duty. That’s when I discovered that I had a flat tire. Now I do have an air pump cannister somewhere in the garage. I located it and plugged it in, waited 10 minutes for the pressure to build up, and then tried to inflate the tire. But of course, that didn’t work. I could not get the tire to seal properly.
So.
I found the right wrench and removed the wheel. I went inside, got on Amazon.com and tried to find a replacement wheel-and-tire. No luck. I tried to inflate the tire in several clever ways without success.
So, I got in my car and drove to a tractor supply house to look for a new wheel. No luck. Not so far away was a tire shop. I drove there, took the wheel in with the deflated tire and asked them if they could fix it. The owner told me I should go back to the tractor supply store to buy a tube — a tube, he said, was a better idea anyway. He told me tubeless tires on lawnmowers and snowblowers tend to deflate when they sit around between seasons. Who knew? So, I drove to the tractor supply store. They did not have the right size tube in stock. I drove back to the tire store and asked again if they would simply try to inflate the tire. The owner said, “they really didn’t have a tube?” I said they had a 15.5.6 tube but not the 15.5.5 tube I needed. He told me the 15.5.6 tube would probably work. So, I drove back to the tractor supply house and bought that tube. I returned to the tire shop, left the tube, and drove home. They would call me when it was ready. An hour later the tire store called to say the tube was defective. It had a hole. They reckoned that someone had purchased it, damaged it, repackaged it, returned it, and got a refund.
So.
I drove to the tractor supply store and bought another 15.5.6 tube, making sure the package had not been opened. I returned to the tractor supply house and left the new tube. I drove home. Then minutes later they called to say the tire was ready.
So now the snowblower is ready for the next big snow. I hope. I’ve started it a couple of times in the last week to make sure nothing settles out in the intake hose.
I had similar troubles with my snowblower last year, but back then my immediate neighbor Sean, who grew up on a farm 50 miles west of here, lugged it into his heated garage and fixed it. He saw me tearing my arm off trying to start the thing, and he took pity on me. When he brought it back two days later, he told me you should never put unleaded gas into a small engine because something settles out when you let it sit for a few months. Buy only premium gas, said he. That doesn’t come with the owner’s manual! I said, “Sean, how do you know this?” Sean said, “you just know.” He fixed three problems over a two-week period. I bought him gift cards each time until I was getting pretty close to the cost of a new gleaming snowblower. Then Sean and his wife moved to South Carolina. The new neighbors look like clueless urban types just like me, but at least they don’t have a pit bull. They brought me a plate of homemade wontons and eggrolls on Thanksgiving. Those are different skills I don’t possess.
My sense is that whatever the home handyman project is, you are going to the hardware store at least three and maybe four times before you solve the problem. That has been an iron law of my life as a pathetic suburbanite.
But my humiliations were not over.
Ye Old Charles Dickens Festival, Carl and Walleye
For the sixth year in a row, I drove 75.6 miles last weekend to the town of Garrison, N.D. (population 1,432) to attend the annual Charles Dickens Festival. Ye Old This and Ye Old That: Ye Old Barber Shop. Ye Old Bank. Small kiosks on the Main Street: meatballs, knoephla soup, drumsticks, potato on a stick, and — since it is in the heart of German North Dakota — fleischkuechle. I bought tickets for the 13th annual performance of A Christmas Carol. I wore my 16-inch black top hat and brought my father’s stout cane, so I looked either like a dork (yes) or the Grand Marshall of the Dickens Festival Parade.
A friend from Bismarck was with me and we dropped into the Hometown Tavern and Bottle Shop to sip a Tom & Jerry (rum, butter, cream) before the auditorium opened. We were sitting next to a large, crusty man with a five-day beard, who was making some critical remarks about government.
He turned to look at us. He had heard me talking about Gaza. “Where are you from?” he asked. “With that accent you are not from around here.” “Bismarck,” I said. “No. You sound like maybe you are Irish.” “He’s from Dickinson,” my friend said. “No,” he said, nobody from here talks like that. I assured him that I was a true North Dakotan and I had no idea what my voice sounded like, because to me it’s just my voice.
To change the subject, I said, “So where’s your farm?” He looked like a 70-year-old North Dakota farmer. His name was Carl. I did not say that one of my principal interests is the agrarian and that family farmers have a very big place in my heart and soul.
“Farmer! I ain’t no farmer. Been working in iron all my life. Worked on the [coal fired] power plants. Worked on the [ICBM] missiles.” “That where you lost that finger?” Carl explained the accident in great detail.
“Do you spend much time fishing?” my friend asked. We were near the shores of Lake Sakakawea, famous for its fishing opportunities. “All the time,” he said, and worked his smartphone with his big career-damaged fingers to find a photograph of a recent catch. It took a long time. We told him not to worry about it. Finally, Carl found the picture, and showed it to me.
“What kind of fish are they?” I asked (innocently enough).
Our end of the bar went completely silent. You know that television commercial for Pace Salsa where a bunch of cowpokes are sitting around the fire and some poor fool reads the label and says it comes from New York City? And all the others stare at him incredulously and say, “NEW YORK CITY!!”
Suddenly four or five men between the ages of 50 and 85 stared at me with disbelief. “You don’t know a walleye when you see one?” my new friend asked. “You’re kidding.” I admitted that I did not recognize the species of the fish in the picture. “Ever eaten a walleye?” I looked around at all those more authentic North Dakotans. Some were averting their eyes out of pity, but most of them looked upon me with quiet contempt. It was as if time had been suspended. I was alone and exposed. Maybe I was visiting from Ireland. “Now you’re just talking trash,” said I. “I love walleye.”
“Tell you what,” Carl said. “If you wait here 10 minutes, I’ll go get you some, just in case you have never eaten one. I have a freezer full of it.”
We tried hard to talk him out of it, but he lumbered out of the bar and disappeared for 20 minutes or so. When he came back, he handed me two large Ziplock bags each containing six or seven big walleyes, ready to cook.
We finished our Tom & Jerrys and walked up the street to see Scrooge and Tiny Tim. My laughing friend said, “You failed the North Dakota test. You failed North Dakota 101. We can never go back to that bar again.” As we walked by Ye Old Newspaper Shop my friend said, “Thank God, you didn’t say you don’t own a fishing rod or a hunting rifle. We might not have gotten out of there alive.”
I texted my thanks to Carl. He texted back. I’m not quite sure what to do next. If I thaw the fish I’ll have more walleye than I can possibly eat at one sitting, even over a weekend. I’m going to invite myself over for dinner at Jim and Lillian’s house and take the walleye. Jim’s a serious fisherman and he knows exactly how to cook walleye to perfection.
Carl has agreed to take me fishing with him on the big lake. We’re a little like Humphrey Bogart and Claude Rains in Casablanca. Once I get me a fishing license, we’re going to “round up the usual suspects.”
When the next snow comes, I’m going to clear the sidewalks of my four-houses-down neighbor. For the children.
Assuming my snowblower starts.