Friday, March 22, 2024

Sunday, March 17, 2024

A South Dakota Family Story -- March 18, 1956

March 22, 1956.

We lived in Williston, ND, at the time. 

My paternal grandparents lived in Newell, SD, about 280 miles and about six hours due south of Williston. 

On March 18, 1956, Christine, my paternal grandmother died. That was a Sunday.

Dad and I drove down for the funeral, leaving Mom home alone with three toddlers all younger than I. I was five years old at the time. So, I guess I missed a few days of kindergarten.

The funeral was held Wednesday, March 21, 1956, and Dad and I headed home the next day, Thursday.

Shortly outside of Newell, SD, in a moderately severe snowstorm (not a blizzard as far as I recall) the car -- a sedan -- slid off the two-lane highway into the ditch. Needless to say, we weren't going to get out under our own power. This was before cell phones.

We were literally in about as precarious situation as one could ever be, but we knew it was best to stick with the car and hope for someone to drive by.

It was at that moment, after a half-hour or so of waiting when we ran out of things to talk about so I thought it was as good a time as ever to tell Dad that Mom told me to keep it a secret, not tell Dad because he would but one of my younger siblings, perhaps Craig, but it could have been one of my two sisters at the time had just come down with measles at the time Dad and I were leaving Williston for the funeral. 

I don't recall the specifics, but I do recollect that it appeared this was probably not the best time to have mentioned this to Dad.

Sometime later, again, I don't recall, but it must have been less than an hour when a farmer came be, rescued us, and pulled us out of the ditch with his truck or whatever he was driving.

Saturday, March 9, 2024

Books On Broadway

March 12, 2014

Mr Chuck Wilder
Books on Broadway
12 W Broadway, Williston, ND 58801


Hi, Chuck,

I have had many memorable “events” over the years, but few were more memorable or more rewarding than “mahjong night” at the Wilder residence. Thank youl

One of the things I always hoped to do was to learn to play mahjong.  And can you believe it: I learned at the table where a Chinese professor was slapping my hand every time I tried to pick up a tile from the wrong end of the dragon. I have ordered a set, and will teach my wife and two granddaughters. I expect to have many enjoyable evenings.

Please say “hi” to Jeff and Constance. I had donuts and coffee on the last two mornings before I left Williston. I think they are moving to a better location; I hope it works out for them.

Tell Joyce I really enjoyed meeting her. Her guest Lily was a most wonderful person; it was an unexpected treat to meet such a rare individual who seemed to be genuinely intrigued with a place like Williston.

Tell Nancy I think I paid for all my coffee before I departed Williston, but if I forgot, I will make it up when I return.

Now, to the books. I bought four books from Books on Broadway this trip. I am never disappointed in the selections I find in your store. We live in Grapevine, TX, a tourist destination of about 60,000 people a few miles northeast of Ft Worth/northwest of Dallas. It’s a wonderful city but there are NO bookstores. I asked one of the local businesswomen (on local city council) what their Main Street needed. She said the town needed something for the men, and a bookstore. That’s what I was looking for when I asked her the question. I was hoping she would realize the lack of a bookstore in that size of town if “frightening.” There is a Barnes and Noble about 5 miles away in the next town over but I’m talking about an independent bookstore. I really don’t have much need for a Barnes and Noble bookstore; I think “readers” prefer independent bookstores that “fit” the town where they are located.

I’m pretty much at the end of my book-quest. I’ve been reading voraciously since 2002. It is becoming more and more difficult to find something “new.” I don’t care for contemporary literature. For literature, I prefer the classics, or books, even if not classics, written by the titans, as it were.

Now, to the books. I bought On The Origin of Tepees; Crazy Horse by Kingsley Bray;  Grand Pursuit by Sylvia Nasar; and, the biography of Leonard Cohen.

I finished Tepees. I am reading Crazy Horse and Grand Pursuit now, and probably won’t read Leonard Cohen for quite some time.

Tepees is simply a “fun” travelogue; anyone who has grown up in the northern Great Plains can identify with the author’s observations. I’ve read a lot of books on the Plains Indians, but I think Jonnie Hughes does a superb job providing a 30-second sound bite on the displacement of the Great Plains Indians during the 1600’s and 1700’s. The book is filled with enough trivia to prepare one for multiple cocktail parties.

For someone who has no understanding of economics or no historical perspective, Sylvia Nasar would be a great place to start. I can’t think of a drier subject than economics, but, again, for the serious reader of literature, she mentions many authors of literature (Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot, Charles Dickens, etc) which puts the subject (economics) in perspective. For someone who knows nothing about economics but has read a lot of literature, this is a rewarding book.

Crazy Horse has to be read very, very slowly. Because the author does not use genealogy charts and the Native American names don’t lend themselves to following family lines, it can be difficult to follow family lines. However, as I write that, I wonder if that might be an interesting theme to follow up on American Indian culture, whether family ties or tribal ties are more important. I’m beginning to think there is a reason that family lines are not carried though their names like they are in Europe. It will be interesting to see if  I ever come across a book that talks about names of Indians and family ties.

There are probably few people that have visited as many independent bookstores as I have visited over the years around the world. I don’t think I have found a “better” bookstore than yours. I can only assume there were some lean times before the boom; I don’t know. All I can say now is that the 40,000 folks new to Williston are very, very fortunate to have Books on Broadway.

Bruce

Christmas Letter To Carl -- 2014

Christmas 2014


Dear Dad,

I hope you enjoy the Christmas album.

You have three beautiful great-granddaughters in Texas: Arianna (11 years old); Olivia (8 years old); and, Sophia, born earlier this year, June30, 2014.

From the photo album you will become a bit acquainted with them, I hope.

Arianna is very athletic and loves the outdoors: she loves to swim and she loves bicycling. She is also a very good student and thinks about becoming a marine biologist.

Olivia is also very athletic but instead of swimming she enjoys soccer. She has been invited to join several soccer teams in the local area, and she presently plays on three teams. She hopes to get a college scholarship for playing soccer. She is also a very, very bright student.

We don’t know much about Sophia yet, she is only six months old, but it is very easy to get a smile out of her. She is a very happy baby.

It’s hard to believe that all of this began with your own parents emigrating from Norway, immigrating to the USA and ending up in South Dakota.

If they could see your family album they would see the years you spent on the USS Wakefield in two great oceans. They would see your early years driving truck and then finally ending up in Bismarck, and then Williston, North Dakota, with a very beautiful wife.

In a dreary, windy, and remote outpost, you and mom raised six wonderful children who in their own ways have become very successful.

Along the way, you built one of the premier businesses in western North Dakota and perhaps what has become one of the biggest insurance agencies west of the Mississippi. You and Craig were singularly responsible for finding an oil underwriter that has put Karla and Robbie where they are today.

You saw six children not only graduate from high school, but all six attending college, and colleges across the US, as far west as Washington State, and as far south as Arizona.

Your parents would have been happy to see two of your children remain close to home so you always had someone looking after you. Craig left early but he, along with Karla, was probably the most steadfast of your children, staying focused on his agency and his family.

Your parents would be proud of your service in the US Coast Guard, and your oldest child made a successful career in the US Air Force and your granddaughter Kiri, our older daughter, spent several years in the uniformed service as a nurse in the Public Health Service.

Although Mom did not particularly “like” North Dakota, she was given much moral support by you and her children and survived the harshness of the state. In her “retirement,” she was able to have her own home in that part of the country where she grew up as well as a beautiful retirement home at the entrance to Glacier Park, perhaps her favorite place to be.

I think your parents would be very, very happy for how your life turned out; and, very, very proud of all our accomplishments. Bruce Conway has told me that Willistonites are very, very aware of all your philanthropy over the years.

Your own children have been very well provided for. Besides all of them receiving a college education, you have continued to support them emotionally as well as financially. Several of your children and several of your grandchildren probably appreciate your monetary gifts more than you could ever know.

I hope you enjoy the album; I hope it helps introduce you to three of your most beautiful granddaughters. We mention you and your accomplishments to them often.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.  Love, Bruce and May

Monday, January 22, 2024

Don's 100th

From the album Leslie sent us. Don's 100th birthday in Amish country, Pennsylvania, autumn, 2023.

Left to right back row:

  • Ken, Leslie, and Don: children of Don.

Full family -- three generations. A couple of grandchildren / great-grandchildren missing.


Names of grand-children:

Tuesday, December 26, 2023

Annual Update -- Christmas, 2023

December 9, 2023

Bruce and May Oksol

____ Brazos Blvd Apt ___
Euless, TX 76039


Hi, guys, binary and non-binary,

Just a short note to update you.

Bruce and May are still doing well in north Texas. Both are in good health. Bruce is 72 years old and May is 29.

May has become quite the accomplished painter with more friends in Dallas than she thought she would ever have. Pretty amazing after all these years.

Bruce lives and breathes biking and blogging. Google themilliondollarway oksol.

******************************

Daughter Kiri, son-in-law Josh, and their three daughters all doing well, here in north Texas, also.


Kiri lives and breathes paddle boarding. She participated in her first-ever 31-mile (actually 33 miles) paddle boarding race on the Tennessee River this fall, the Chattajack. First-time ever for her. 772 participants with a waiting list of 200 who did not race. Google Chattajack. Click on Results, 2023, scroll to 7 hours 43 minutes, or thereabouts.

Arianna is in her third year at Vanderbilt, Nashville, TN, majoring in government policy, secondary eduction, or something along those lines. I can’t keep up.

Olivia is a senior in high school. Olivia, as a junior in high school was captain of her high school soccer team that took the Texas championship last spring. Her robotics team competed at the state level (I never figured out how they did; what medals they won) and she soloed during the summer participating in a USAF-sponsored program with 30 hours of flying time. She has a USAF-ROTC scholarship to the college of her choice. TBD.

Sophia, nine years old and a fourth grader spends as much time at our apartment as she does at her parents’. Sophia and Bruce have converted one of Bruce’s two geographically-separated garages into a “Bat Cave.” The Bat Cave’s location is undisclosed. Awesome.

Sophia has won a gold, silver, and bronze medal at jiu-jitsu tournaments in Dallas. Her lack of a “killer-instinct” will limit her chances toward national / international fame but her South Korean instructor says he can change that. Limited soccer activity this year but she will follow her older sister in soccer success. She will likely become a soccer player - coach..

***********************

Daughter Laura, son-in-law Tim, and their twins Judah and Levi, at age 3.75 years (birthdays in March) are doing well in Portland, Oregon. May and I try to visit every other month, traveling separately to maximize the time the grandsons see us.

Tim is building cutting-edge Class 8 electric Cascadias and the Freightliner eM2 in one of only two world-class truck factories in the US. He occasionally has one parked in the  front of his house.

Laura runs a sweat shop turning out highly sought after jeans, jackets, and Covid masks for toddlers, and purses for adults. She has several state-of-the-art programmable sewing machines as well as traditional Singers for her two employees. It appears the younger employee, Judah, will have as his high school science project the process involved to develop a sewing machine oil optimized for the high-humidity Pacific Northwest market.

Levi? He seems to be more grounded, more interested in high-tech Duplo (Lego) trains.


And that’s the annual update.

Bruce and May Oksol

Reminiscing -- Christmas, 2023

I was going to send this as an insert with my annual Christmas card to friends, but for a number of reasons, chose not to.

But I thought it might be interesting to the children and grandchildren, and perhaps more.

So, here goes:

*********************************
Christmas 2023


Hi, guys and gals, binary and non-binary,

Our annual update is posted elsewhere.

I’m sitting in the Bat Cave, at an undisclosed location. It’s mid-December — the winter solstice was last night, 9:27 p.m. CT.

I’ve had two glasses of wine and am enjoying my YouTube play list on a huge flat-screen Philips “smart TV” powered by an Amazon Firestick, which connects me with the legacy networks, MAX, HBO, YouTube, ESPN, Hulu, and almost anything else one can think of.

I’m working on an Apple laptop. I was the #3 Apple Fanboy.

As the attached update says, I’m 72 years old and in good health.

Sipping $8-wine (bottle, not glass), in my Hawaiian short-sleeve shirt, and watching great music, it’s hard not to reminisce.

I wear nostalgia on my sleeves.

But that gets boring for readers; I will try to shorten this a bit using bullet-lists.

The Bat Cave was the second-best thing I ever did in retirement. The first-best thing: the blog.

My “life” is all around me in the Bat Cave. Framed photos of the entire family going back a generation or two, and the photos of grandkids, hang on the walls.

Prized photographs from my 30-year career in the USAF hang on one wall:

  • posing in front of the T-37, Randolph AFB: my first real flying experience with the USAF on my way to becoming a flight surgeon
  • the B-52: one 8-hour, all-night low-level terrain-following flight through the Rocky Mountains launched out of Grand Forks AFB, ND, in 1982, or thereabouts;
  • the F-15: more than a 100 sorties out of Bitburg AB, Germany, 1983 - 1986;
  • the F-111: a dozen or so sorties out of RAF Lakenheath, England, 1986 - 1989;
  • the F-104 “widowmaker”: over the Mediterranean, flying out of Sardinia;
  • from a KC-135, re-fueling an SR-71: who knows where?
  • responding to a B-1B emergency landing: Rhein-Main AB, Germany, 1993
  • countless flights in C-130s, KC-135s, C-5s; other USAF aircraft and the US Army’s C-12;
  • UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter on the ground in northern Iraq and in the air in South America.


A mechanical engineering drawing board and a work bench for Sophia under the photos.

And then shelves and shelves of Legos including some really, really prized Legos.

And surrounded by bookshelves of books. Mostly literature. Some science.

Stickley Furniture.

And coffee mugs from everywhere: 


  • USC School of Medicine
  • my father-in-law’s US Army coffee mugs, along with one for his Japanese wife who probably never had a cup of coffee in her life
  • an X-Files coffee cup from our younger daughter who lived and breathed that experience but who also never drank coffee;
  • several USAF coffee mugs; most from Germany
  • two Spode Christmas tree cups, from England

As a family we spent thirteen years overseas.

We spent three years in England. With additional temporary assignments there for me, I’ve probably lived in England for a total of four-plus years.

From England, I gained a real appreciation for

  • great 60s music;
  • Shakespeare; and,
  • long, solitary walks on treeless highlands during inclement weathe

From Germany, eight+ years:

  • Legos


From Turkey, two years:

  • a real appreciation for living in a country — the US — where “government” works;
  • a real appreciation for living in a country — the US — where there is no beyanname.
  • a great lifelong frien

From Japan, temporary duty:

  • a real sadness we did not have a full tour there.

The US:

I have lived in, or worked in, or visited all fifty states (as far as I know, including Hawaii, Alaska, Wyoming, and Rhode Island). I’ve hitchhiked across the entire USA not once, but twice. I have fond memories of everywhere I’ve been and could say great things about every state, but now, in the autumn — and, soon-to-be — winter of my life, I can say that living in a middle class suburb of Ff Worth, north Texas, thirty minutes from Dallas, is just about the best place I can imagine.
May and I try to get back to Portland, Oregon, every three months traveling separately, so the grandsons see one of us almost every other month or so. May stays a bit longer, but I generally go for five days.

We also try to schedule five-day road trips for the two of us, renting a car from our Enterprise Rental just down the street. Our longest trip was to Philadelphia and back, all in five days, to visit art museums in Philadelphia, visit Gettsyburg, and celebrate my uncle’s 100th birthday in Amish Country, Pennsylvania. Don was my mother’s only sibling, and I don’t recall ever meeting him. At his 100th birthday he told me he sort of recalls meeting me when I was two or three years old. It was an incredible trip — Dallas to Philadelphia in five days with a short stop in Nashville to see our oldest granddaughter, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN.

We did another five-day trip to Nashville - Chattanooga to see our daughter compete in the 31-mile paddle-boarding race down the Tennessee River; and, during that trip see our Vanderbilt daughter participate in a Latino dance festival.

We have at least two five-day trips pencilled in for this spring — one in New Mexico, one in Arizona.

We can connect with the extended Oksol family on Flathead Lake, Montana, where our parents left us a McMansion Of Memories now owned by the youngest sibling.

We can connect with May’s brother and sister-in-law in Huntington Beach, California, just down the road from Disneyland.

                                                                   ******************



If I have one regret it would be that I did not keep a 2 x 3 index card on every incredible person I met and / or worked with or for in the USAF. And then kept in touch. But it was not in my genetic makeup to do that.