This column ran in the Oct. 26 edition of the Prairie Post.

You may have heard of the long arm of the law. It indicates the ability of cops to communicate with other law enforcement agencies to apprehend and arrest law breakers.

How about the long arm of the outlaw?

This case comes from the Feb. 4, 1960 edition of the Jamestown Sun.

Walter Walsh, owner of Walsh Liquor store reported the theft of 69 bottles of booze from his store that morning. The crime was committed during the overnight hours.

The thief hadn’t even entered the liquor store. Instead party or parties unknown had broken a window and simply reached in through the window. Within his reach were 69 bottles, ranging in size from half pints to fifths of liquors, whiskey and gin.

The thief evidently wasn’t fussy about what he drank as long as it was kept close to the window.

And evidently the crook was little butterfingered. The article reports a couple of bottles were dropped and broken.

So maybe he had a long arm but a weak grip.

It wasn’t the only crime reported in the article.

At 4:20 that morning a whiskey bottle was thrown against the plate glass window of Olson’s Jewelry. The window broke, triggering the alarm. The store burglar alarms of 1960 didn’t sound an alarm at police headquarters.

Instead it set off an alarm at the scene which could be heard for a six block radius. During the investigation the police checked the area around Walsh Liquor Store but didn’t see anything amiss so it was assumed the Great Liquor Store Robbery occurred later.

And nothing was taken from Olson’s Jewelry according to owner Jacob Doerr.

Police were investigating both crimes under the assumption that both were committed by the same man likely under the influence of alcohol.

What I find kind of interesting about this crime story was its location in the Jamestown Sun. This article was in the center of the front page.

Other articles that day included the fundraising efforts of the local Democratic Party. They were preparing for a visit from a Senator from Massachusetts scheduled for the next weekend.

But Kennedy hadn’t even announced his official candidacy for the presidency at that point although I think it was widely assumed he would throw his hat in the ring.

So a story about a thief with an arm long enough to grab 69 bottles of booze through a broken window made the front page.

This column ran in the Oct. 26 edition of the Prairie Post.

You may have heard of the long arm of the law. It indicates the ability of cops to communicate with other law enforcement agencies to apprehend and arrest law breakers.

How about the long arm of the outlaw?

This case comes from the Feb. 4, 1960 edition of the Jamestown Sun.

Walter Walsh, owner of Walsh Liquor store reported the theft of 69 bottles of booze from his store that morning. The crime was committed during the overnight hours.

The thief hadn’t even entered the liquor store. Instead party or parties unknown had broken a window and simply reached in through the window. Within his reach were 69 bottles, ranging in size from half pints to fifths of liquors, whiskey and gin.

The thief evidently wasn’t fussy about what he drank as long as it was kept close to the window.

And evidently the crook was little butterfingered. The article reports a couple of bottles were dropped and broken.

So maybe he had a long arm but a weak grip.

It wasn’t the only crime reported in the article.

At 4:20 that morning a whiskey bottle was thrown against the plate glass window of Olson’s Jewelry. The window broke, triggering the alarm. The store burglar alarms of 1960 didn’t sound an alarm at police headquarters.

Instead it set off an alarm at the scene which could be heard for a six block radius. During the investigation the police checked the area around Walsh Liquor Store but didn’t see anything amiss so it was assumed the Great Liquor Store Robbery occurred later.

And nothing was taken from Olson’s Jewelry according to owner Jacob Doerr.

Police were investigating both crimes under the assumption that both were committed by the same man likely under the influence of alcohol.

What I find kind of interesting about this crime story was its location in the Jamestown Sun. This article was in the center of the front page.

Other articles that day included the fundraising efforts of the local Democratic Party. They were preparing for a visit from a Senator from Massachusetts scheduled for the next weekend.

But Kennedy hadn’t even announced his official candidacy for the presidency at that point although I think it was widely assumed he would throw his hat in the ring.

So a story about a thief with an arm long enough to grab 69 bottles of booze through a broken window made the front page.

Went for a walk on the Audubon Refuge north of Jamestown this weekend. Kind of my birthday present to myself for surviving another year.

Didn’t see hardly any wildlife and the conditions were overcast, dreary and windy so it wasn’t the best time to be out and about. Still, it gave me chance to think about the changing of the seasons and to think back to brighter and more life filled times of the year on the prairie.

The birdhouses look worn and gray as they stand over a seas of dry grass and weeds swaying endlessly in the prairie wind.

 

Not like the spring when each houses colorful birds and their young.

 

And even the weeds like this thistle teem with life and color.

Rather than turning into the dry tufts of seed ready to be blown on the winds.

Things are a world different in the fall. Still worth getting out and seeing. Especially when it reminds you spring is only, what, maybe six months away.

Working on learning how to take better pictures around my new birdfeeder. Starting to get a little varity in the birds though.

Peaked around a post of the fence to get a peak at this Junco that seemed a little curious as to what I was up to.

We also had the first downy woodpecker pay a visit.

Of course some of the spectators may have a little to do with the birds shyness.

 

I hate it when I realize I am old enough to recall some of the history I write about. I’m guessing a lot of you will recall this topic as well.

A head line on one of the inner pages of the Jamestown Sun in the fall of 1960 said “Sonic Boom is Sound of Security.”

Americans had been breaking the speed of sound since Chuck Yeager piloted the Glamorous Glennis through the sound barrier in October, 1947. The boom caused by the a plane moving faster than a sound wave didn’t become common on the prairies until the 18th Fighter Squadron began operating out of the Grand Forks Air Force Base in 1960.

“Sonic boom is the man-made thunder that indicates the passing presence of an aircraft flying faster than the speed of sound,” a Jamestown Sun article authored by the Air Force said. “An aircraft capable of supersonic speed creates a continuous sonic boom, a sound that is not a single snap, but a roar that crosses the country like the opening of a zipper.”

The article goes on to say the pressure created by a sonic boom was about six times the pressure of a clap of thunder.

“This means the boom will not be strong enough to inflict structural damage on the flimsiest of farm buildings,” the article continued. “In practically all cases it will only assault the ear drums. It isn’t going to crack the plasters in homes or start an earthquake. It may break a few windows and that’s about all.”

Sonic booms did break a few windows, and scared a few flocks of chickens to the point they crowded themselves to death. Nothing too major and the Air Force said they would pay the bills when they came up.

Until the Air Force had the bright idea to perform repeated sonic boom tests over Oklahoma City in 1965. Beginning in February the Air Force created eight booms a day over the city. Within a few months 15,000 complaints had been filed, mostly for cracks to plaster and window glass. Instead of paying off, the government fought the cases feeling the claims were excessive. The government lost in 1969 and shortly thereafter canceled production of supersonic military transports and bombers.

They also set a speed limit in the sky and prohibited sonic booms over land in the United States.

But in 1960 the sky above North Dakota and the northern plains was still a wide open raceway.

“To maintain a high state of combat readiness our modern aircraft requires operations at supersonic speeds,” the Air Force reported in the Jamestown Sun. “A race driver training for the 500-mile Indianapolis Memorial Day race wouldn’t drive his vehicle at 20 miles per hour training for the big event.”

And that is why the sonic booms I remember as a kid were just the sounds of security in the Cold War.

Took some time this weekend to turn some scraps of lumber into a bird feeder.

Years ago we always had a bird feeder but the past few years have just a bit to busy to keep such things up and going.

I’ve set as one of my goals for this winter is to photograph the birds that my feeder attracts.

The first day the feeder didn’t draw much avian attention. Just a few sparrows and this Chickadee.

I don’t think the birds were impressed with my construction efforts.

One mooned me.

Last weekend I ran across a milkweed pods.

I remembered stories my Dad told me of gathering milkweed pods during World War II as part of the war effort.

Did a little research. The fluff from the milkweed was used as an insulation in the clothing issued to pilots who flew in the cold air of high altitude.

The program seems to have been held in the fall with the kids asked to bring the milkweed pods to the schools. From there it was gathered by the government and distributed to the factories for inclusion in the cold weather gear.

According to sites on the Internet about 11 million pounds of seeds were gathered throughout the war. That’s an awful lot of milkweed fluff that kept a lot of American airmen warm.

You have a couple of things in play here.

 Prior to the days of synthetic materials milkweed fluff was evidently about as good an insulation as you could get.

And the kids of the country, I’m guessing this program worked well in the rural schools, got to lend a hand in the war effort.

This column ran in the Oct. 12 edition of the Prairie Post

We’ve all heard of the Germans from Russia, an ethnic group that migrated from Germany to Russia and then to the United States or other final destinations.

It is the prominent ethnic background for much of an area in south central North Dakota. And I have to admit about half my background falls into this category.

The history is interesting and traces back to about the time of the American Revolution.

In the 1760s Catherine II of Russia invited Europeans to settle land in the steppes region of Russia. Whether it was because Catherine herself was German or simply because the German peasants were land hungry those people headed east in droves.

Catherine II promised land, liberty and exemptions from the military draft. All things that were in short supply in Germany. Germany had been contributing soldiers to the Seven Year War, the European title of the French and Indian War in America. Many young men had been drafted into the German Army.

In less than 10 years about 50,000 Germans had resettled to 104 colonies in Russia.

But that was just the first of the migrations from Germany to Russia.

In the early 1800s Alexander I recruited more Germans to settle lands Russia had won from Turkey around the Black Sea.

While both recruitment efforts covered most of Germany many of the recruits came from the southwest part of the country. The Bavaria, Baden and Wurttemberg areas had been the battlefields of that Seven Year War. Not only had the families had their sons drafted they had their fields stomped on by marching armies and their homes and barns burned in the occasional battle or skirmish.

They gathered what little money they had, a few farm tools and maybe a draft animal or two and boarded trains that took them to the Russian Steppes.

But the Germans didn’t have a good life in Russia. Epidemics of small pox, cholera and measles were common and had catastrophic results. Corrupt officials stole from them and raiding nomadic Tartars swooped down on farms and villages stealing and doing other nasty things.

The Tartars were a Turkish ethnic group that resented having their lands taken and given to a bunch of Germans. The word Tartar comes from the Greek word for hell which gives you some idea how tough these folks were although they seem to be best known for their sauce now.

Anyway after more than a century of a tough life in Russia the Czars started drafting the young men of the German colonies into the army. That was the final insult that started a migration of the Germans out of Russia.

The Germans from Russia who arrived in the United States, others immigrated to South America or Australia, were known as tough and hard working people.

I think we can assume they earned those traits honestly.

Spent a little time walking with my camera on a pretty darn nice October afternoon. You can’t knock a day this time of year when there are still mosquitos out.

Some of my pictures turned out alright.

But my efforts at photographing flying pheasants didn’t go so well

Even when I got a second shot it didn’t go well.

Evidently I’m about as good a shot with the camera as I am with a shotgun.

Note: The telephoto lens compresses things and makes items look closer to each other than normal. The pheasant was probably 40 yards from the power line.

This column ran in the Oct. 5 edition of the Prairie Post 

Adventure colored Frank Palmer’s entire life. It even caused him to change his name before it brought him to the Devils Lake area.

You see Frank was born with the last name of Paramore in 1847 in Ohio. When the Civil War broke out the 14 year old lied about his age and enlisted. Somewhere during his service as a Union infantryman his name got changed to Palmer on the unit’s payroll records. The paymaster said he could only pay someone named Palmer so Frank Paramore became Frank Palmer.

And Palmer’s life of adventure continued after the war. In 1866 he traveled by wagon train from Minnesota to the gold fields of Montana. The ox-drawn wagons traveled across what is now North Dakota before ending up at Fort Benton in Montana. But Palmer didn’t make his fortune in the gold fields.

Instead he took a job directing a pony express type communications system that was intended to carry military dispatches from Fort Abercrombie, near present day Wahpeton, to Fort Benton. Palmer was responsible for the express riders from Fort Buford, near present day Williston, to Fort Benton.

The problem was so few dispatch riders made it through the stretch of land from Fort Totten to Fort Buford there were few messages to carry further west.

Shortly thereafter Palmer was hired to manage the weekly mail line between Fort Totten and Fort Stevenson along the Missouri River. Evidently he had a great deal of success in this operation. When it folded he went on to a career of working in trading posts and later retail stores in the Devils Lake community.

Palmer also filed the first land claim in Ramsey County. He imported seed oats and sold the first grain produced to the Army at Fort Totten.

And he got into politics

From 1890 to 1894 he served in the North Dakota Senate. Although his time in office was short he still seemed to have a fair amount of political clout. He lobbied President Theodore Roosevelt to set aside a portion of land along the south shores of Devils Lake as a park in the early 1900s.

On Jan. 9, 1903 Sully Hill became the eighth National Park in the system. It was North Dakota’s only national park until it was demoted to a National Wildlife Refuge in 1931. And by the way the National Wildlife Refuge system was also a creation of Theodore Roosevelt.

Roosevelt died in 1919. In 1947 the park at Medora was created in his honor but not as a true National Park. There were those that felt the area didn’t have enough “natural wonder” to qualify as a National Park. Instead it was Theodore Roosevelt National Memorial Park that was created.

In 1978 the park was upgraded to a full National Park.

The second National Park in North Dakota.