My Home Town

I like my little home town. Everyone knows everyone, everyone is friendly.
One day I met a lady at the grocery store that I knew only from meeting her
on the road every morning driving to school. She was driving her family to school
so they didn’t have to ride the bus. We recognized each other from these daily meetings
and introduced ourselves to each other then stood and talked for twenty minutes or more.
One thing we had in common is our name. Her last name is Larson. That was our last
name in Norway. Maybe we are cousins! Our family took the farm name for their
last name when they emigrated. Now we have a name no one can pronounce or spell. 
Skrivseth 

When you go to Norway you can still visit the Skrivseth farm.
There is a Skrivseth Mountain, and a Skrivseth Lake, too.
The family living in the house has taken the farm name too,
but they may or may not be related to us. It is confusing. 

Now that was a little bunny trail . . . 
 
I was filling the car with gas the other day when a memory flashed
across my mind. Krysta and I were on the way to ND last summer.
We needed gas so we pulled into a gas station being careful to pull
up on the passenger side since our Ford Focus has the gas cap on the
*wrong*side of the car.  I often forget. This station had two pumps in
a row and someone was fueling at the pump ahead of us.  I got out and
started filling the car. Just as I finished I thought,
“Oh, yes, I want to wash the windows.”

I suppose the proper way to do that is wash the windows while the gas flows
but I had not thought of it in time to be efficient. It was a lovely day, the sun was shining,
the birds were singing,  the traffic was rolling down the interstate as I leisurely washed the
windows on one side of our little white Focus. Just as I went around to dunk the window washer in the water someone said, “Can you pull ahead so other people can get gas too?” I wish I would have feigned deafness and kept on with my task. But I looked up - and made eye contact - with a disgruntled looking guy who was oozing impatience out of every pore.

I thought, but did not say, “You aren’t from around here, are you?” 
I put the washer thing-a-ma-jig in the water, got in the car and pulled ahead
to the empty space in front of me. I finished washing my windows. Out of the corner
of my eye I could see this guy rolling his eyes, sighing a huge sigh and shrugging his shoulder’s
at my obvious stupidity.

He filled up with rapid speed and pulled up in front of the store and parked to wait
for the pretty gal who had gone inside.  And that’s when I saw his
North Dakota license plates. Nope, he wasn’t from Minnesota.

Now I realize Minnesotans carry niceness to extremes.  Ellis and I went on a mystery bus tour this spring. The school bus company comes up with an *end of the school year* event. We heard about the murky past when gangsters were welcomed to St. Paul and the police kept them safe as long as they checked in with them, performed no crimes in St Paul and shared a portion of the loot with them. One millionaire was kidnapped outside his house when he came home for lunch. A crook strolled up to him, engaged him in conversation by asking if they could discuss a business proposition. The get away car pulled up, they slipped a pillowcase over his head, pushed him in the car and drove off. This man realized the only way to stay alive was to keep cool and not struggle. The robbers started arguing.

"We got the wrong man."

"No we didn't!"

"Yes we did!"

“Why do you think this is the wrong man?” 

“Because he’s not trying to get away!”

Finally the man who was kidnapped told them they have the right man.

Is that carrying Minnesota niceness to an extreme?

 

For the most part we have found people in ND very friendly.
Since the oil boom things have changed a bit.  There was that one trip
when Ellis and I traveled home from MT in two vehicles.
- one in a white van and the other in a brown pick up.

(We buy used vehicles from MT. There is hardly any rust on them.)


The van developed a funny little hiccough.  It would go along nicely for a half hour
or so then stop.  Twenty minutes later you could start it up and drive again for another
half hour only to have this repeat. We limped our way to Minot in this fashion. Ellis wanted
to have a dealer look at it but they were closing.
"Nope, come back tomorrow and good luck with finding a motel in this town."


So plan B was to get a dolly that would hook up to the pick up, drive the van onto it and pull it home. The gal punched in the make of the pick up and said, "Oh, that pick up isn’t the right size
to pull a van on a dolly."  Company policy or something.  Ellis was frosted.


So we ate supper at a nice restaurant and talked over the situation.
We decided to get on the road and head for Bismarck.
After dark since it was cooler the van ran.
At Bismarck there were no motels with vacancies either.
Ellis fueled up and headed east on the interstate and the van continued to run.
We stopped at a rest area to get a few winks of sleep then drove home as fast as we could
with a few more stops and starts. We pulled into Blooming Prairie and parked in front of our
local garage.  Ellis explained the trouble to the owner.


He listened, and said, "I think I know what’s wrong."
He made a minute adjustment all within five minutes or less 
and the thing ran with no trouble after that.  


If the man in Minot had listened for two minutes
and made the same adjustment . .  . 


how nice that would have been.


I suppose we needed to learn something - maybe patience - right about then.
One thing for sure - we like our home town best.