Don't Know Nothin'

Lake Wobegone ND

My sister, father, cousin, nephew, nephew's girlfriend, nurse and nurse's son were all there when I arrived. We had the run of the Inn right downtown, Victorian charm.

We were on the third floor and took our suitcases up the outdoor steps in back because it would have been pretty hard to get them up the circular stairwaay inside, probably 18-20 inches wide, hardly room to put a foot onto it.

So Father's Day weekend was supposed to be Rally in the Valley. There were pictures on the front page of the paper and captions, but no schedule of events or where or what about anything. don't know nothin.

Apparently they had been trying to find out where things were happening since they got there a few days ago, but no one seemed to know. After a while they suspected that it's a insider event and that we from outside were not wanted there. very strange.

I came on Saturday evening and had been up at 3am and 4am the past 2 nights, so I fell asleep with my clothes on up on my bed....I heard the fireworks but was too tired to go watch. I think they viewed them from the landing at the top of the outside stairs. After that there was apparently a thunderstorm. I heard some noise but I was too tired to care.

We took Daddy to the house he grew up in. He gets energy when he is here. He walks and does not faint. If the nurse says, are you tired, do you want to rest, he says no are YOU tired? She took him to the park and was a LONG way from the Inn and said we can take a taxi for $3.00. He said no, we can walk a little and rest a little, walk a little, rest a little. At home it's once around the circle and he's done, bored.

So Valley City. I woke up early and searched everywhere for my coffee and tried hard not to wake my dorm-mates (5 of us in the upper room sleeping) but I had to unzip my suitcase in more than one place. It was scissors I was looking for and finally went all the way down to the kitchen and found a plastic knife and took it upstairs only to learn I could pull the coffee open with my fingers. No one else got up except nurse for 2 hours. I read my Bible and prayed and then walked around the neighborhood. Such a tiny town, NO CARS; I could have walked down the middle of the streets and not bothered anyone. Many charming old houses, my favorite was painted light blue-green.

Long about 11am it dawned on me that it was Sunday, and I wished I had gone to church. I saw people coming out and even if there were a later service I would have wanted to have gone home to change clothes.

I have never lived in a small town really.

Nurses son attracted the popular girls in the front yard of the boy who apparently was not friendly with these girls. So they are hanging around flirting with him and the dad comes out drunk and yells at them to get out and throws a rock at nurse's son. We think we'll be front page news tomorrow on the police blotter, since that surely tops "snapping turtle reported in middle of highway; officer removes it."
Poor kid ... the police came by to interview him. Apparently he was here last year with my dad and his mom the nurse and made friends with the kids here and had been emailing with one of the girls. Interesting.

Well, we didn't see ourselves in the Dont Know Nothin Journal but neither was the police report in it, so maybe they only do it once a week.

There was a house a couple blocks over for sale by owner dirt cheap so we looked at it. Sister and nurse were ready to sign but all I could see was that every surface needed replacing and it was ugly and not that big. price was too good to be true. The idea of having Daddy up there every summer, though, now that's a good one...get him away from the monotany of home. His wife and all his siblings are dead and only his kids remain. I told sister I could never get my older kids to spend their precious little vacation time in North Dakota! No mountains.

So Binford, tall graineries, and cement factories, a ball park? No, a bull riding ring. Small houses and a neighborhood around Daddy's house. Oh, he says, Uncle......long pause.....I can't remember his name, lived in that house. The owner is there and lets us look inside. The kitchen cupboards made by my Farfar (father's father in Swedish) are still funcioning like new, precise fit and original hardware still working. Two other built in cabinets in the living room made my him.
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Daddy cries a little and says this is the best part of the trip. We drive up and down many of the streets in the neighborhood; I stick my camera out the window and snap more charming pictures.