| Summary: | A tribute to our pioneers by F. Leslie Forsgren An address delivered to a banquet honoring the senior citizens of Divide County, North Dakota, on the occasion of the Diamond Jubilee and 75th birthday of Crosby, July 17,1979. Toastmaster Bob, Governor Link and Mrs. Link. Justice VandeWalle, Senator Rait and Mrs. Rait', Representatives Oppedahl and Jacobson and Mrs. Jacobson, Mayor Engberg, other distinguished guests, honored senior citizens, and all of the rest of you, my friends. When Pastor Anderson originally invited me to speak at this occasion, he led me to understand that the selection of the speaker had been made in consideration of the modern trend of extending equal opportunities to minorities. Since I belong to the ethnic majority in this county, his reference was obviously not racial. Likewise, since Bob Kinsey, Jerry VandeWalle and myself are all lawyers, then neither could the reference have been professional. This left the conclusion with me that the selection and reference must have been made from a political stand point. Now I have heard it said facetiously albeit somewhat factually, that the Republicans of Divide County usually hold their district conventions in a telephone booth on the corner of Main Street and 1st Ave. NW in down town Crosby. I would guess that would qualify me as a member of a minority. Looking over the list of distinguished guests reminds me of the old song, "I'm a lonely little petunia in an onion patch"; or is it a lonely little onion in a petunia patch? I am also experiencing some of the feelings the Democrats must have felt in the 1979 legislative session, so I suppose they now feel that this preponderance is only fair. I must say however, that I feel singularly honored at this opportunity to address such a distinguished gathering. The very nature of the affair affords me certain peculiar advantages as well. Please note that nothing I say tonight can be vetoed by Governor Link. None of my statements can be objected to by Bob, as immaterial, irrelevent or beside the point, nor can Justice Jerry sustain such an objection under these captive conditions. Equally important to me, neither Senator George nor Representatives Irvin or Olaf can interrupt me with a point of order, nor counter with rebuttal debate. In a strict sense, it would appear that I have it made. Returning if you will, to the subject of ethnic origin, one of the reasons I am particularly proud of my personal origins, is the fact that the Norwegian Americans are perhaps the only people left in America with enough of a sense of humor not to resent ethnic jokes told about them, We don't get mad, not even when our relatives still in Norway stand on the Swedish border on the Syttende Mai and throw fire crackers at the Swedes. We don't even mind when the Swedes light those firecrackers and throw them right back. I have a cousin whose parents didn't immigrate, and so he's a pilot for the Royal Norwegian Airlines. They tell the story about him when he made first landing at Kennedy Airport in New York. He brought the jet in and immediately after touchdown he slammed the brakes on hard, painfully tumbling his passengers tight up against their seat belts in the abrupt stop. A stewardess ran up to the cockpit to enquire the reason for such a rough and short landing. My cousin replied quite logically, "These crazy American build such funny runways, they're 6000 feet wide and only 200 feet long." A short time ago my cousin was flying across the Atlantic between Oslo and Reykevik, Iceland. About half ways he developed engine trouble, losing two out of three of his engines. Realizing that they would soon have to ditch the aircraft, he turned the controls over to co-pilot and walked back to address his passengers on the loud speaker. Min herer o darner. (Ladies and gentlemen). We have lost two of our engines and we'll have to ditch. Now just stay calm and I'll explain the procedure. First I want all of you who can swim to line up on the left side of the plane near the door. After we are in the water, you will have plenty of time to get out of the plane and swim away so you won't get sucked in when the plane sinks. Now all of you who can't swim, I want you to line up on the right side of the airplane; now, to those of you on the right, we wish to thank you for flying with Royal Norwegian Airlines. Tonight, I would like you to enter with me into a mystical time machine. We'll pull this lever, and set the dial for July 17, 1904, at the hour of 12:00 o'clock noon. I have set it for noon, because it will be warm then, there's no roof over our heads, no chairs, no tables, no church, no Crosby. Here we have only open prairie on a slightly elevated ground, and set on the verdant green of original buffalo grass, crocus heads sticking their violet blossoms above their emerald stems. We look out over the rolling sea of grass, spotted with buck brush and satiny pink of delicate wild roses. We see no trees and from here we can see only one small body of water to the southwest, its surface lightly rippled by the waft of a gentle breeze and the tiny v-marks of a mother mallard and her urgently following chicks. There are of course, no roads or ditches marring the landscape, and only a few wagon ruts and stock trails. It is quiet, but we can hear meadow larks sing, black birds chirp, the trill of the robin, the lilt of the killdeer; and we see the bustling flashes of striped prairie chickens and ruffed grouse in their quest for the bountiful food lying on the rich, fertile soil. We see the gophers darting to and fro, their plummed tails flickering, whistling to one another and warning of a hawk gracefully soaring overhead on spreading motionless predatory wings. Curious but alert antelope twitch their powder puff tails at the nearby invisible Canadian border. At this time of the day, the lonesome yelp of the coyote has been stilled. On the purple hills to the southeast, a perceiving eye can spot the occasional alabaster white of skeletons, a plaintive reminder of the sixty million buffaloes who but a short time before had stretched out an endless brown furry mass, munched on the high protein grasses, grew fat and sleek and furnished all of the food, clothing and shelter for the former tenants, the seven tribes of the Sioux and Cree. This then is the sea of hope, and these natural stirrings are its myriad heralds. About a mile west of us clusters a handful of small, unpainted or tarpapered wooden building, flanked along a couple of hundred yards of a rutted, dusty street; OLD CROSBY, soon to be picked up bodily and transported by horse drawn vehicles to the area where we are now seated. There gathered is a milling group of people, shaking hands in the Old World manner, exchanging greetings in multiple tongues: Howsen gorder mi day; vie gehts, mein fruend; Gud Dagen, gud Dagen; Hutta Show; the top of the maarning to ye; har mowrrrr ni; Bone Jur, mon ami; Jane Dobray; Hoot mon, tis a brae morn! - 11 - Scanned with a Zeutschel Zeta book scanner at 300 dpi. Edited in Multi-Page TIFF Editor.
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