The Real Teacher

I am sitting in my classroom waiting for the next parents to trickle in.  It is that iconic event we lovingly refer to as Parent/Teacher conferences.  Let’s be honest here.  Nobody loves it.  It is a long day for teachers and drudgery for most parents.  Because my husband and I sent our children to a tiny K-12 school district, all conferences were held on the same night(s).  Traveling from class to class for our four children literally took hours – 10 minutes at each stop to tell us our children were doing just fine and 40 minutes to discuss our wheat crop and current grain prices.  The bright spot was the homemade desserts and coffee loving displayed in the hallway.

I am on the other side of the desk now.  I actually like them more now than I did as a parent.  I get to look parents in the eye and honestly share the strengths and challenges their child possesses.  Most parents appreciate the honest appraisal, I think.  Better to know than wonder.  It is usually a healthy conversation. 

I think my experiences as a parent have helped me as a teacher. I try to remember the feelings of being told they were excelling or struggling.  It can be an emotional roller coaster.  Every parent wants to hear praise and glowing reports.  It can be tough to hear less.

As a formal educator now, there are few things I am a little desperate for parents to understand about their child in this great grinding wheel of education.  Maybe these things will help you understand your child’s experience better in general, and teachers in particular.  Here they are:

1.     I will never know your child as well as you do.  I spend many hours with your child, yes indeed, I do.  Sometimes too many hours and sometimes not enough.  I assess and listen to them stumble over words and struggle to add those darn 9 fact families.  But your child is your progeny.  Your flesh and blood.  You know their moods and what happened at home this morning to make them so weepy (or angry or silly).  I am an expert at teaching.  You are the expert on your child.  Speak up.  Tell me if I misunderstand your child’s learning style or fail to see their grasp of concepts that seem to elude them at school or on a test.  I want to hear it in your own words.  I like your child, but you love your child.  There is a vast and unfathomable difference.

2.     You are and always will be your child’s best advocate.  If you are frustrated that they are frustrated with something at school, please come to me.  I can only address the things I am aware of.  If they love school, do me a favor and tell me.  Teachers like an “atta boy” once in awhile too. 

3.     I am not your enemy.  If there is issue that leaves you frustrated or angry, let’s have an adult conversation.  Accusations will only throw up a few stony emotional walls between us.  Come to the table with the problem and some possible solutions.  We’ll talk.  I want to hear what you have to say but I don’t have the time or energy to wade through a sea of angry rants.  We can do this calmly and part friends.  I choose to believe the best in you.  I hope you will return the favor.

4.     We are partners, you and I.  I may not love everything about the way you parent, or communicate with me, or approach life in general.  It is quite possible you won’t love all things about me either.  That's OK.  The rugged reality is, we have been thrown together for nine months with the corporate goal of helping your child grow toward the next grade.  The raw truth is (oh, if parents truly understood this…!), I cannot do it without you.  I have file folders stuffed with strategies, graphic organizers, and cutesy art projects, but YOU… you, my friend, are the sun, moon, and stars in your child's universe.  If you say, “Let’s read together for a few minutes.”  They will come running.  If you ask at the cash register while you pay for your Slushy, “What is this coin called and how much is it worth?,” they will quickly learn that a quarter is worth twenty-five cents.  Your impromptu reading and math lessons will always go further than my carefully crafted, standards-aligned, works of genius. 

So when you sit in my tiny chairs at my tiny table for conferences and I show you reams of standardized test scores and examples of their work, I will look you in your tired eyes and say, “Let’s work together, you and I.  Help me understand your child and I will help you understand my student.  You may not know this, but I need you more than you need me.  You are the REAL teacher in this sloppy partnership." 

I hope you take your role seriously.

Join me...

When Snails Fly

It is becoming something of an established fact in our tiny school that Mrs. Dahl likes to keep a critter or two in her classroom.  My incoming students were so jazzed about life in the Magic Tree House that some began gathering gifts for me before school had even begun. 

One precious lass pulled a dead Monarch out of the grill of the family car and carefully stored it away for the onset of school.  Another captured snails on vacation and lugged them home for sharing with her classmates.  These she triumphantly presented to me on the day BEFORE school began.  Her ear-to-ear grin was priceless as she set a watery habitat on my Discovery table.  “Do you know how to care for snails?” I asked inquisitively.  “No,” was her unembellished response.  I didn’t either.  But she hadn’t killed them yet (obviously) so I figured I couldn’t do much worse.

I did notice that they were a bit… odiferous.  Downright stinky, actually.  I have an acute sense of smell.  It’s something of a superpower, really.  I can catch a whiff of sweaty gym socks from five hundred yards - cigarette smoke from the open window of a car half a mile ahead - garlic breath from across the teacher’s lounge.  It’s a gift, and a curse. 

I was a little concerned about my new students walking into something akin to a Louisiana swamp on their first day of first grade, but that angelic grin was killin’ me.  I didn’t have the heart to refuse her obvious joy, so I thanked her profusely, promised to care for them as best I could, then lit a Vanilla candle when she walked out the door.  It helped, but only a little.  These things were crankin’ out stink like pickups off a Ford assembly line.

Monday came and went.  The Darlings oohed and ahhed over the “pets.”  The stench intensified over the hours exponentially.  I had vowed to keep them around until Friday anyway.  I figured even a Bloodhound like me could endure five days of offensive odor. 

I was wrong.  By Tuesday morning I had had enough.  They had to go.  Now to think of a way to escort them out the door without devastating Angel Face.  Hmmmmm.  Her mother is my coworker and dear friend.  I went to her first.  How should I handle this?  She didn’t want them back, even though she was suffering from a sinus infection and couldn’t smell a darn thing (lucky duck).  We collaborated on a “release back into nature” plan.  Yes, the perfect thing!

I tried to be casual about broaching the subject with the owner of the Stinkers.  “Pets are wonderful and we can learn so much from them, but they are happiest in the wild”… yada, yada.  She didn’t have to think long or hard about it.  Yes, she agreed they should be let go.  I silently rejoiced.

After music, I signed our merry group out of the building, grabbed the sloshing tank, held my nose, and stepped into glorious fresh air.  I asked the original owner if she would like to carry them.  She adamantly refused.  “They STINK!” she declared.  One little pixie offered to carry our captives.  I am not sure she took a breath the entire trek.  I don’t know how she didn’t faint, either from the fumes or lack of breathing. 

Angel Face’s mother had suggested a spot just on the edge of town.  We found the algae-covered slough and stopped.  Pixie was dripping from sloshed, rancid water, even though I had offered numerous times to take the nasty tank for her.  Every time I did so she turned a deeper shade of oxygen-starved purple and shook her head no. 

There was a deep band of cattails separating us from the water so we stayed on the pavement and removed the lid from the tank.  Well, now here was a fine predicament.  There was so much vegetation between the Darlings and the water that it was impossible to gently lay the creatures at the edge of the slough, which would have been a fine send-off indeed.  “What should we do, Mrs. Dahl?” they wanted to know.  I thought for a moment.  I sure wasn’t wading into that cesspool.  In fact I was pretty sure I didn’t.  My friend had warned me of this.  “I think we have to throw them in, children.”  Heads swiveled in my direction.  I could hear their thoughts.  Is she kidding??  “You mean like a baseball?” one Darling asked hesitantly.  Yes, exactly like a baseball.  “Don’t worry, children.  They’ll be much happier in the wild.”  Sailing through the air will be sort of like a carnival thrill ride, right?

A burly lad reached in the tank, found the biggest shell, leaned back and wound up like he was standing on the pitcher’s mound at Yankees Stadium, and let her go with all his might.  I thought maybe, just maybe, I could hear the teeniest snail-voiced, “weeeeeeeeee!”   

The process was repeated until all snails had had their turn being launched into the August air by the gusto of five brand new first graders.  I asked Angel Face if she had anything to say before we headed back.  She shook her head and looked relieved to no longer be the proud owner of five snails.

We raced back to our tiny brick schoolhouse in the humid late-summer day, empty tank evidence of our escapade.  I lustily sang all of the words to Born Free that I knew, which weren’t that many.

I watched my new students laughing and sweating and happy to be free of the confines of the school. 

What did they learn? 

They learned that sometimes there has to be a Plan B.  They learned that sometimes the kindest thing to do is let something go back to where it came from.  They learned that Mrs. Dahl isn’t much of a singer.  They learned that, contrary to conventional wisdom, snails really CAN fly.  They learned that the best science isn’t found on the two-dimensional pages of a textbook.

And I…

I fell in love with five precious, sweating, laughing children who will learn to love this big, wide world as much I do over the next nine months.

I have the greatest job in the world.

The Autumn of Lasts

I can feel it already.  There are evenings now that contain the faintest hint of it; a bonfire that requires a sweatshirt… mornings that lay wrapped in shrouds of chilly mist… a Super Moon gauzy in the inky black sky.  It is coming. 

I am not ready.

This is a big year in the Dahl house.  Big.  I have been a mother for nearly three decades.  Chubby-cheeked, squalling baby Trevor joined the world July of 1986.  On Monday, the youngest of the Dahl tribe, sweet Hannah Rose, will begin her senior year of high school.  Did you hear what I just said?  Her SENIOR YEAR.  Yes, I am shouting this information at you.  It seems less real if I scream into the wind and the sound of my voice is swallowed by the gale and carried to an unknown place. 

She wasn’t supposed to be a girl.  I was pretty sure Mr. Dahl and I were incapable of birthing a female.  I had to ask my husband to repeat the doctor’s pronouncement that we had indeed conceived a girl.  I had always said I wanted four boys – no girls.  Boys are just so EASY.  They argue – they punch each other in the gut a few times – and it’s over.  No drama.  No petty catiness. 

After son #3 joined the ranks, I figured my wishes had been heard by the Guy in the Sky and I’d get that golfing foursome after all.  But there was a latent, growing need blossoming in me to try my hand at raising a sweet little petunia.  When she arrived, I knew our family was complete.  I loved her before I knew she was a she. 

And my oh my, did I have fun!  I sewed flouncy little dresses for her and found every shade of hair do-dad imaginable.  I curled her hair every Saturday night so she’d have a head full of bouncy blond spirals for church on Sunday.  I stocked up on tights and (gulp) paid the bucks for an American Girl doll.  We had tea parties with real tea and cookies and watched princess movies together.  I love her so very much.

But the cool breath of Autumn is in the air.  Only faintly last August as we raided the Kohls racks for just the right back-to-school clothes.  I felt the gooseflesh chilling my marrow and reached for a sweater as she went on a school sponsored state college tour.  I knew it was coming.  All of the usual signs were present.  But I have this ridiculous need to rebel against the onslaught of winter.  I wear flip-flops way too late in the season.  I refuse to wear socks year round – even on subzero days.  I raise my fist in the face of Narnia’s Forever Winter and shout, “I refuse to bend!” 

And yet…

… the leaves are turning.  The fragrance of chimneys belching wood smoke permeates the air and apple crisp bubbling in the oven. These signs of approach of winter all pull my face close and whisper, “It is here.  You must accept that it is time.”

So we raided the Kohls racks once again and finalized her fall schedule and made plans for a family college tour.  The ACT practice book sits on her desk.  A stack of unopened college admissions mail is scattered around her room like cards in a forgotten game. 

Her Spring is coming and my Autumn is descending.  She will choose a college and retake the ACT and tuck her truck stop job money away for college late night pizza runs and shampoo and overpriced textbooks.  And she will be giddy with the freedom of liberation from parental strict oversight, as we all were.

It is her time.  Time to take her first hesitant steps into adulthood.  Her future Woman is waiting for her there.  And so I must be happy for her.  The college years are really unlike any other time of life.  They will shape and mold and refine her.

I am happy for me too.  I cannot stop the advent of senior year and college freshman.  I wouldn’t even if I could.  I have been here three times before.  I am enough of an expert at it to know she will survive and thrive. 

“Why are you jumping ahead??” you are asking.  Savor the moment, Vonda!  Don’t wish it away and dive headfirst into waters that are a full year away.  What’s wrong with you, Quasihippie???

Fear not.  I will savor.  I AM savoring.  I watch her walk across a room and memorize the shape of her form.  I drink in the way her long silken hair catches the sparks from the sun streaming through the window.  I listen to her babble about everything and nothing and am fully in the moment.   I will not have these small treasures a year from now.  

I have been here before.  I know what lies ahead.

And yet, I know that John and I have good days ahead as well.  The last time it was just the two of us we were not even twenty-five yet.  We were flat broke.  It will be infinitely enjoyable to rediscover what it means to be a couple again.  And we will look forward to their visits.  Trevor comes home occasionally for the weekend.  The other two may land close enough to do the same.  Time will tell.  Our nest will not be so empty as just vacant in between visits.  I do not look at the years ahead as Winter, but rather an extended Fall.  I love Fall.  I think I will be OK.

In the meantime, I will sit on bleachers on chilly Saturday mornings and cheer for volleyball games.  I will clap and laugh for one-act plays and speech meets.  I will be there for every possible track meet (outdoor track in North Dakota is... interesting).  I will begin the time-intensive process of searching for childhood photos for her graduation party.  I will compile the invitation list.  Our tea parties will take on the shape and form of late night popcorn and shopping days.  I will savor and drink in and memorize while she is with me.  Oh dear.  There is a little burning behind my eyes even as I type the words… a little mist gathering on my lashes.  I suspect I will have this reaction to Sentimentality many times over the precious, fleeting days of My Autumn.  I better get used to it.

On her first day of Kindergarten, I held her impossibly small hand in my own, helped her put her things away, hugged her tiny frame and walked away.  I had no doubt whatsoever that she would never survive without me. 

I was wrong.  She flapped her fragile little wings uncertainly a time or two, then faced the wind and soared.  She has ridden the currents on giddy heights ever since.  She will be just fine.

I miss her already…

Mrs. Dahl: Lab Rat

Still basking in the glow of playing paleontologist on my recent dinosaur safari, I jumped at the invitation to enter the bowels of our state Historic Society museum and home for the North Dakota State Geologic Survey, to volunteer my services for the morning.

I must have been more excited than I realized.  I could not get my eyeballs to stay shut the night before.  And when I finally did enter the Land of Nod, I couldn’t stay asleep.  Mr. Annoying Alarm Clock started playing Journey right when I had asked him to the night before.  It wasn’t even hard to haul my aging carcass out of bed.  I was awake and rarin’ to go.  Adventure awaited.  I love adventure!

Reporting to the main office, I was handed a visitor pass and escorted to the fossil lab by one of the three state paleontologists.  Becky welcomed me warmly and guided me down and through and around the labyrinth of corridors. 

Super Sassy?? How did they know?

Our state legislature had approved funds a couple of sessions ago for a major expansion of the impressive building located on our state capital grounds that houses all the Historical Society’s artifacts, its business offices, and the newly expanded and world-class museum. Although open to the public, it isn’t even completed yet.  It is going to be spectacular.  Wandering around the cinder block portion restricted to the public, I felt like a fan with a coveted backstage pass. 

When we stopped in front of the massive doors of the paleontology unit, I gawked like a love-struck seventh grade boy at the retinal scan machine by the doors.  This is movie stuff!  We stepped into the suite and Becky methodically gave me a fascinating and comprehensive tour.  Good gracious, it was glorious to have access to the priceless finds housed in that space.  We walked past massive tibias and teeth and turtle shells.  Some were cleaned and waiting for permanent storage, others still covered in their original organic matter and waiting for loving attention.

A chunk of Triceratops they've been working on for 40 years!

Sea Turtle shell

The lab itself made my jaw drop to the cement floor.  The contrast of high-tech security and simple tools stood in stark contrast to one another.  The ceiling lights on motion censors, the bucket of plain-old-Grandma’s-kitchen baking soda used in the micro blaster, the microscopes and cheap paintbrushes and bent dental picks all added to the air of careful chaos that permeated the very air.  Dusty lab coats hung thickly on a rack, plaster-casted fossils were stacked everywhere, and the biggest smile-generator of all… a plastic bag with my name on it sitting in the cupboard – fossils I had uncovered in the Badlands two weeks ago.  So they hadn’t dumped out my precious finds after all.  So cool.  I rock.

Micro Blaster station

Um..... maybe there IS a hidden Jurassic Park

Look what I found!?

My work station

Becky handed me a double-headed pick – the kind your dental hygienist tortures you with – and a tray of small bones.  My job was to clean them as gently and thoroughly as possible before they entered the micro blaster chamber – a job I am determined to work my way up to.  Then she left me alone to work on the menial tasks that overwhelm her precious time and energies.  I put in my ear buds, cranked iTunes, and set to work, happily removing eons of filth from irreplaceable items.  I was a little terrified, to be honest.  What if I broke something or threw some rare find away?  Eeek.  Really, what were they thinking allowing me access to this National Treasure vault in the first place?  The were no questions on the application pertaining clumsiness.  I would have had to answer YES in bold red letters.  Are they insane? Am I?? 

Calm down, sister, and take a deep breath…

The time went incredibly fast.  I felt it such a privilege to be there, to be useful to my state and my beloved field of science.  Yeah, you can say it.  I am geek.

I want to go back.  I WILL go back.  I asked Becky if the schedule she deposited in Google Docs for me was indeed the entirety of the department’s volunteer roster.  Seven??  That’s it for all the buckets and drawers and plaster-casted jewels from the field? 

Good grief, they NEED me.

Time will be problematic with the advent of a new school year, but somehow someway I will try to lend a hand on something of sporadic, consistent basis.

And so…..

When my fresh crop of Darlings open their science books for the first time this year and I ask them, “First Graders, what do you think a scientist looks like?”  I can answer with complete candor (and a crooked little smile), “A scientist looks a lot like me”….

 

Christmas Morning Comes on August 1st

I asked Mr. Dahl to stop at the school on our way home from a lovely community party last night.  As I let myself in the door and found my way to the light switch I saw that our office administrator had been busy delivering requisitioned items to classrooms.  I grinned. I couldn’t help it.  It felt like Christmas morning. 

Markers and clipboards and a rainbow of construction paper all stacked and lumped in piles on every available surface.  I had spent untold hours doing a laborious classroom inventory and then more hours poring over supply company websites.  Education dollars are scarce and ludicrously precious so I take my role as conservator of taxpayers’ funds seriously.  But the flip side of the coin is, I will unashamedly ask for whatever resources I feel will benefit the Darlings.  They are only first graders once and deserve a first rate year.  The onus is on the saints who balance the books to tell me no.  They never have. 

My eyes skimmed over the piles and then light up when I saw the new globe amongst my spoils.  Images of ghosts of lessons past raced through my head and I laughed out loud. 

The old globe, the one that will now receive the fine burial it deserves in the dumpster out back, had benefitted from a Governor’s reprieve once before.  The library was throwing it out… and the library doesn’t throw ANYTHING out.  This thing was old in and terrible repair.  But I was desperate.  The only other globe to be found my first year of teaching was so outdated the lines and boundaries and names of countries had changed more than a few times.  At least this geriatric, rickety sphere, though well used, showed Myanmar where Burma used to be.

I could see that someone had tried to jury-rig the poles, both North and South, where the stand fit dead center in each.  But the fit was loose and when I tried to spin the world it wobbled precipitously.  Oh well, I decided with a sigh.  It would have to do. 

I set the raggedy specimen by my reading chair, determined to use it often.  And boy did I.  Holy cow, spun the last breath out of that sucker.  If the Darlings wanted to know where Madagascar was in the middle of reading block, by gum we where going to take the time to locate it.  We traveled the world on the smooth surface of that relic.  But sometimes there was a little drama thrown in too.

The first time it happened set the tone for future catastrophes.  It went something like this;  “Mrs. Dahl, where IS Greenland?”  Me:  “Well, let’s just find out!”  I gave that bad-boy a spin, like Vanna White on a hunt for all the D’s.  The orb wobbled for a moment, then (horrors), jumped its moorings, flew suspended in the air for what seemed an eternity, then crashed to the floor, rolled across blue industrial carpet and landed under the kidney table, South America side-up. 

The air was sucked out of the room for the briefest of moments and then Blondie asked in a tremulous voice, “Mrs. Dahl, are we going to die?”  I looked him square in the eye, the rest of his compadres frozen and watching, then said with panic in my voice and a twinkle in my eye, “we are DOOMED. Run!!!!!!!” 

Chaos ensued.

Six-year-olds screaming and running into each other and falling to the floor in sheer terror.  The world had spun clear off its axis.  Life on the Blue Marble was over.  Get ready to meet your Maker.  This is it.  We are TOAST.

Still laughing and falling and screaming, they retrieved our runaway Earth and handed it to me with breathless joy.  I managed to put it back into orbit and life resumed normalcy. 

It was sort of symbolic, really.  First graders believe their teacher to hold all of life’s secrets in his or her hands.  Other than their hours at home, school is their world.  They are utterly trusting and innocently adoring.  Not just me, of course; any first grade teacher anywhere in the world.  Think of your first grade teacher.  I’ll bet you smiled. 

It is the best job ever, this introductory grade.  And so humbling it terrifies me a little. 

And so, as I unpack and organize and ready the Magic Tree House for a fresh crop of Darlings, I am excited – yes, like a kid on Christmas Day.  I am grateful for the funds to purchase such wonderful things that will enhance our journey.

And on August 18^th, my precious students will walk through my door freshly scrubbed, nervous, backpacks brimming. 

And I….

I will have the untold, untiring pleasure of introducing them to the wonders of this amazing world… butterflies and lizards and poetry and phonemes and Antarctic penguins… 

It never gets old for me.  Ever.

Come with me, Children.  The world awaits…

Mrs. Dahl Finds Her Inner Indiana Jones/Land of the Lost

The last hours of Vonda's Big Adventure were spent roaming around a fantastic dinosaur museum in Dickinson.  This little gem is small but very well done.  I was surprised at how differently I viewed the exhibits after my excursion into "field work" as we in the paleo biz call it.

Cast of a T-rex

Actual leg bone of a T-rex that people are encouraged to touch

I was pretty jazzed to see crocodile scutes on display, no more spectacular than the ones I had heard my pick clink against, had carefully dug around, and then brushed clean.  Cleaned up they were surprisingly white. 

And (ta-da!), there was a Champsosaurus display showing the same vertebrae I had uncovered.

Scutes

Artist rendering of a Champsosaurus

Bones from a Champsosaurus

The most intriguing display was the intact skull of a Brontosaurus that had been found in Montana.  It was spectacular.  Next to the skull was a collage of photos showing the process from first discovery to careful extraction from the soil, to the plaster "jacket" and then the process of carefully cleaning it for display.  These were photos that mean something to me now.  I have done this process myself.  I have an appreciation for how labor-intensive it is to find and share the past with the public. 

I already know that I want to go on another expedition next summer.  When and where will be determined in the winter months when the schedules for the summer are released. 

I have so much newly acquired knowledge to share with my students.  I cannot wait to develop lesson plans utilizing my experiences from the last week.  A fellow teacher whose husband is a rancher gave me a bag of cow bones a few years ago (something that probably doesn't happen all that often in city schools, I am guessing) and encouraged me to bury them in the pebbles of the playground as a paleontology activity.  I have yet to do it, but this fall will be the time.  Can you imagine how much fun the Darlings will have digging for "fossils?" 

And so...

My little adventure comes to a close.  I am mentally stimulated, physically exhausted, professionally energized, and my brain is about to explode with ideas.  I am happier than a fly on a manure pile.

Thanks for coming along.  I hope you enjoyed it too.

The End

 

Mrs. Dahl Finds Her Inner Indiana Jones/Day 3: Freestylin'

What is she up to now???

The band of gold-seeking emigrants, led by Captain James Fisk, knew they were in trouble.  The caravan of ninety-seven covered wagons, one hundred and seventy men, women, and children, and 50 escort troops from Fort Rice, were as exposed as ducks on a pond.  They had heard the rumors.  They spoke of the dangers in quiet whispers so that the children among them wouldn't hear.  They had questioned the wisdom of their leader's decision to follow the uncharted route.  But they had hoped and prayed that the rumors were unfounded, that the remaining miles of bone-jarring travel across the grassy prairie would be uneventful, and that their leader was wiser than they gave him credit for.  Their hearts burned with gold fever and their dreams lead them to risk everything in trade for a better future.

Their commander, Captain Fisk, foolishly chose to lead the train on an uncharted path in the hopes of saving a few miles.  He was confident that General Sully's battle with the Sioux further north in what would later be dubbed as the Killdeer Mountain Battle, would assure them that they would be left alone. They were itching to be on their way.  Their impatience would prove to be fatal.

The Sioux had only recently been victims themselves of an unprovoked, devastating attack that robbed them of their winter supplies and forced them to move south for the winter.  They wanted revenge.  This vulnerable wagon train with its crippled soldier escort would suffer the wrath of an enraged people. *

My short-lived career as a paleontologist came to an end but my lust for adventure did not.  What to do... what to do...?

I hugged Trevor goodbye and thanked him for his hospitality - and for buying more bath towels my first night there so that I could have one too (goodness gracious, that kid lives sparsely), and headed my hot rod mini van south on highway 85.  I had a destination in mind, but wanted to do some photo safari work on the way. My first stop... Amidon, ND.

See the cop in the car?  It's a dummy.  This car has been parked in the same spot in the eensy-weensy town of Amidon for as long as I can remember.  It gives me the giggles every time.  Now THAT is how speed traps are done.

I wonder if he has a box of fake donuts riding shotgun?

The southwest corner of our fair state is ruggedly remote.  It is one of my husband's favorite spots.  Ranches sit miles off the highway and far, far apart from their neighbors - if they have any at all.  Buttes rise majestically, antelope run wild, and you can see so far ahead and behind you that you can almost see the curvature of the earth.  The terrain out here makes you feel small and bold simultaneously.  Each mile was therapeutic and restorative for me.

The old face of North Dakota

So where was I headed?

While a student at the University of Mary, we were required to volunteer at the Heritage Center - our state museum.  I set a goal for myself during that very enjoyable experience of one day visiting every site listed on the historical register.  Yesterday  I crossed another site off my bucket list.

As I wound my way through the southern edge of the North Dakota prairie, I was struck again by the riches of this vast state.  Farmers were busy baling hay for long winter months, crops ripening were visible in endless fields,  cattle grazed lazily, and oil rigs pumped their black gold - evidence of a new fever that has drastically changed our state.  Wind towers are also increasingly common.  Well, no wonder.  There is no shortage of wind in these here parts.  Opinion is divided on their ability to spoil the beauty of the landscape. 

The new face of the prairie

The day was epically beautiful.  Three days and three gifts of perfect weather.  Thank you, my Creator.

This is pretty much how it looked when the settlers came through - endless grass and sky

After I snapped a pic of the fake cop, I eventually turned off of 85 and onto highway 12.  There is little traffic down here.  It is as stress-free as driving gets.  The occasional slow farm implement is about the only thing that might make you take your foot off the accelerator, but only briefly as clear road will soon appear and you can blow his doors off without danger to him or yourself.

I found Fort Dilts road without too much trouble (thank you, Google Maps) and worked my way through a cloud of scoria dust (a redish mineral they use to cover the roads out here) to the Fort.

Dang creek!  The air almost crackled with the tension of waiting for an attack.  It was quiet out here.  Far too quiet for comfort.  The emigrants had heard the far off beat of drums the night before and it raised the gooseflesh on their skin.  The children were somber and stayed close to the wagons today, instead of skipping off to look at a rock or simply run off energy.  

As the nervous party had crossed Deep Creek, a wagon had struggled to cross and now needed a quick fix before moving on.  A second wagon with tools stayed behind to assist, along with eight soldiers.  The other ninety-five wagons proceeded on, assured the stragglers would catch up.  

This was the opportunity the Sioux had been waiting for.  A vicious battle ensued.  Both wagons were captures, two of the three emigrants were killed, along with six of the soldiers.  The other two soldiers were mortally wounded.  Others rushed back to assist, one of them the wagon train scout, Jefferson Dilts, and these heroes were either killed or severely wounded as well.  When the attack was over, nine members of the wagon train were dead and three more would die of their wounds later.  The Sioux lost two dozen warriors.

I drove through four miles of nothingness.  No cars, no noise, no houses.  Only a dusty road and gently sloping prairie.  North Dakota is good about signs.  I had no trouble finding the spot in spite of its isolation.

I was pleasantly surprised to find it freshly mowed.  I had done my homework and therefore was not dismayed at the lack of tourist touches.  In fact, there was nearly nothing to see.  An ancient gate and... a mailbox??  It seemed like an odd addition.  A flag pole without a flag.  Wild mustard, cone flowers, and scrubby sage bush hugged the site protectively.

I read the story posted on the interpretive sign across from the gate/mailbox.  As I read the astonishing story again, with more detail this time, I was a little overcome.  Maybe it was the perfect stillness of the site.  Maybe it was the absolute lack of interruption.  Maybe it was the eerie sense that little had seemed to changed out here in the one-hundred and fifty-one years since that fateful day.

I was so curious about that doggone mailbox I had to peek.  Inside I found a book wrapped in plastic.  Ahhh.... a guest register.  Sure enough, a Walmart-worthy, simple spiral-bound notebook held the names of ghosts of visitors past.  Nothing leather-bound or flashy here.  I was impressed with the guest list.  People from literally all over the country had made the same trek I had.  Some had added snarky comments about the lack of shiny amenities.  They had expected something else and felt cheated after that long drive.

I, on the other hand, felt the rustic simplicity was befitting.  The early settlers had endured terrible hardships in a hostile land.  This was the perfect memorial to their ordeal.

My imagination labels those as original covered wagon tracks

The wounded, terrified teamsters found a corral and place to spend the night along the creek.  The three wounded in the original attack died and were buried in the corral.  As the team tried to move forward over the next two days, things got ugly.  The Sioux were relentless in tormenting the party.  In retaliation, the whites laced bread with strychnine and left a trail behind them.  The Sioux were ravenous (they had lost all of their winter supplies in the attack on their village) so they hungrily ate the poisoned bread.  Many died a terrible death from this tactic.

The wagon train reached their breaking point.  They knew continuing the trek was impossible under these circumstances.  They found a high spot overlooking the surrounding hills, put the wagons in a circle, erected a sod berm for protective purposes, and dispatched two horsemen to ride back to Fort Rice for reinforcements.  The dead were buried within the walls of the sod embankment. 

An artist's rendering of the fort based on eye witness accounts

The very spot where I now stood.

Sure enough, simple grave markers sprouted from ground like white prairie grasses.  I read each one.  They listed only the names and ranks of the fallen:  Thomas Williamson, Marma Betts, William Chase, Augustine Carpenter, Jefferson Dilts, Theodore Rosch, Joseph Delaney, Ernest Hoffinaster, and James Fisk.  The original sod embankment was still visible under the soil.

They had the misfortune of being wounded in action only to die as escorts because of the impatience of their commander

For fourteen days, the wagon train party hid within the sketchy confines of the earthen berm.  The stench of over two hundred people, plus their livestock in such close confines was nauseating.  No leaving the hastily constructed fort for bathroom purposes!  The unending fright, the stench, the frustration of halting the expedition, the crude graves as daily reminders of their peril nearly drove the party mad.

This hell was taking its toll.  They had not been bothered by the Sioux for eleven days, but were terrified to leave the fort without cavalry support.  At last, on the dawn of the fourteenth day, a long line snaked across the prairie and a shout erupted from the camp.  As the troops came closer, the teamsters were overjoyed to see over eight hundred uniformed saviors coming to their rescue.  They wept with relief.  The terror of the last two weeks melted into joy.

The story ends bleakly.  No American spirit rising up here.  No Rocky Balboa knock-me-down-and-I'll-just-get-back-up ending.  What was left of the party went back to Fort Rice (near Bismarck) and then disbanded.  They had had enough of thrill-seeking.  For many, it cost them everything.  It simply was not worth the price.

He is buried where I sit, the brave rescue party leader, Corporal Jefferson Dilts

 As I stood quietly reliving this American tale in my mind, a man who had been baling hay in the field across from me, stopped his machinery and walked toward me.  "I don't usually see people stay this long," he said without preamble.  His name is James Birch and he was eager to share what he knew of the story, filling in spotty details.  I was eager to hear them.  Understandably, he is a little protective of this outpost.  He is happy when visitors gush about it, and hurt when they complain.  He's the one that lovingly keeps it mowed and accessible for history hacks like me.  He understands better than most what price the early settlers paid.

My personal historian, James Birch

I love the stories that make up America, the greatest nation on earth.  I do not care if people think it gauche to make such a boast.  It is time to get some national pride back.  The lavish blessings you and I enjoy everyday came at the cost of people like Corporal Jefferson Dilts and his ill-fated companions.  I thank them one-hundred and fifty-one years too late.

God bless America...

*  The account of the siege is in my own words - a little historical fiction added - no charge...