Skip to main content

Let down...

   "Walking the Pembina Trail," with Jackie Helms, Tom Thronsedt, and Orlin Ostby's family: his wife, Amanda, their 15 year old son Christopher and 12 year old daughter Catherine for the better part of 400 miles in the sweltering heat and winds of July and August 2008 from Pembina, ND to St. Paul, MN in commemoration of Minnesota's 150th birthday--then have it 'suddenly' end sort of leaves me with an empty feeling, although we accomplished what we set out to do.  I wondered about this end-of-trail syndrome. Taking the opportunity, I asked two women who participated in the Sesquicentennial wagon train that traveled from Cannon Falls, Minnesota to the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul in May of 2008 about it. They had said the trip had been a good one but they were glad it was over so they could get back to real beds and hot showers. They had walked for five days and covered 150 miles... What would we think after 50 some days and 400 miles? 

    Reviewing the superb website, http://pembinatrail.blogspot.com helps recall many of the memories I have of the trip and also includes images of me--important because I was one of the photographers of our group and wasn't in the 2000 or so images I captured. At least it verifies to myself that I was there and this all wasn't some strange hallucination on my part that I walked and talked to a Holstein ox named 'Pum' for 400 miles who liked to smell and lick my sleeve... What deviant would dream that up other than some exceptionally tall guy named Bunyan with a bad case of the bovine 'blues?' 

    We all had been involved with all the trip's aspects that it predominated most of our other concerns. Thinking about Pum the ox and his entourage, having to remember to do this or that, contacting people/making arrangements, talking at length with people who stopped us along the road or at county fairs and the Minnesota State Fair, autographing t-shirts, selling WTPT buttons, and taking tons of digital images of the unique slow-moving caravan, the reality of being home and working at the toy factory full time again has left me, and the others, in a sort of fog. Two weeks home and we haven't completely unpacked from this lifestyle we adopted for two months and don't seem to really want to... 

Writing three hours each morning for a book I'm publishing about the trip, as well as laying out a Special Edition/Raven issue, at least in my head, pre-occupies my immediate thought processes so much so I have to catch myself on occasion and tell myself to think about what I'm doing right now. It's sort of akin to slapping yourself in the face to 'wake up.' It hasn't gotten so bad that I need to sleep in my Metis shirt or tie my Metis sash to the rear view mirror in my car or even wear my wide-brimmed canvas hat in the house these days, but the seeming self-importance the trip lent me is hard to replace. I know, I know--readers are out there are saying, "Get a life, buddy."

Well, it doesn't help matters for almost all of us participants 'to have to' be in local parades, fall festivals, and threshing shows after the fact with Pum and the ox cart, and have to talk about our trip again and again. Nor does it help when the two younger walkers, brother and sister Chris and Catherine Ostby, talk about the trip with some actually fond memories of it and laugh about them now, when in fact at the time, it was understandably difficult for them at their ages--walking along the roads with a bunch of old people and an ox--of all things. Natural aging aside, I think we all matured a little more on that trip somehow, whether we were 12 years old or 67, relating to one another in a wholly alien environment apart from our normal 21st century lives--and walking all that way, changed us somehow. It was as though the world passed us by in their headlong rush to 'go someplace,' and we just strolled along beside it in a sort of time warp, talking among ourselves, laughing, avoiding sudden poop piles that Pum would unleash on the unsuspecting...

It was a good time, all in all. An adventure, to be sure. A chance of a lifetime... 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

1972 An August Adventure: Stormy Lake, Snake Bay, Ontario

My 1972 Toyota Land Cruiser   A life changing event. I've had asthma all my life and it limited me somewhat until 1972, when after an event on a remote Canadian lake I was rushed to Dryden Area Hospital for emergency treatment of a pneumothorax /lung collapse. Early one morning, my dad and I left Des Moines, Iowa on 1530 mile round trip fishing expedition to Stormy Lake, Ontario; stopping in Roseau, Minnesota to join six family members: My uncle  Martin and aunt Irene Davidson of Roseau, their son Jack Davidson and his 8-yr old son, Jeffrey, of Thief River Falls, Minnesota, and Jack's older brother Dean Davidson, and his 11-yr old son, Larry, of Clive, Iowa in addition to their two two vehicles, one with a boat atop it. We were pulling a one-wheeled trailer behind my brand new 1972 Toyota Land Cruiser to handle extra gear. Leaving Roseau as the last vehicle in the three car caravan, we headed off toward the...
1 comment
Read more

Mac Furlong: Real Hunter

   This last Tuesday, October 1st, in Reed River, Sven saw Mac Furlong hurrying down Main Street on his way to sign up for the Big Buck Contest at Normies On Main . Mac was wearing his Reed River Bank clothes so Sven didn’t recognize him right off, Mac walking so serious like, but Sven ought to have known that about this time of year all the local deer hunters are getting real anxious. Beginning soon after the Roseau County Fair in July, hunter types begin walking about the outdoors sports departments in their local hardware stores and sporting goods shops salivating over the latest hunting gear, wearing at least one parcel of florescent orange on their person as if to let the ordinary public know that, they, in fact, are real hunters of a serious nature, although temperatures are yet in the eighties. “See here, my florescent orange insulated cap with earflaps?” “Lo and behold, my florescent-orange camo jacket with elbow padding and several important pockets?” “Check o...
3 comments
Read more

Friends to the End: Delmer Roseen and Curtis Johnson

  Delmer and Curtis: Friends to the End      From where he was buried on Saturday April 11th, 1992, the tin roofs of his buildings could be seen through the trees. Across the fence, at the foot of his grave, were the fields he farmed. Between them, Mikinaak Creek--so much a part of Delmer Roseen’s life and sadly, his death--still winds through willow slough, over beaver dams below the Palmville Cemetery, and past his door to the South Fork of the Roseau River, only a few yards to the southeast.         Delmer lived northeast of us in Palmville Township. If I looked just right, I could see his yard light through the woods between his place and mine. Either of us could hear the soft ‘clung’ of the rope and pulley against the flag pole in the cemetery at the corner of our two farms. Red willows, popple islands, and slough grass; green mossy fence posts; the often submerged patchwork of woven wire, and the depth of water i...
1 comment
Read more