This Is So Cool: Watford City's New High School -- Doors Opened Today -- February 16, 2016

While I was up in the Bakken, I was told that Watford City might be in a "better financial" environment than Williston during this slump in oil prices. I don't know. A number of reasons were provided.

Both cities (Williston and Watford City) approved new high schools during the past few years to accommodate the growth. Watford City's new high school officially opened for students today; Williston's new high school is on track to open for the 2016 - 2017 school year. From The Bismarck Tribune:

Every building has a story and the first pages have been turned for the new $53 million Watford City High School.

The school is perhaps the most emblematic new structure of Watford City’s dynamic growth and stands for its hopes for the future and for all the children — native residents and newcomers — who will pass through its doors.

The 160,000-square-foot building may not have as many feet of glass going vertical as floor going horizontal, but head custodian Nick Segneri was already pondering the job of keeping it sparkling.

“It’s going to take lots of Windex,” said Segneri, noting the lighting is a “daylight harvesting” design, with an automatic eye that can dial the wattage up or down depending on outside conditions.

Horizontal? I love that word. I wonder if the head custodian make a Freudian slip or knew exactly what he was saying.

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I Think It's Due To Global Warming

The Bismarck Tribune is reporting a huge increase in the North Dakota sheep population:

Brad Gilbertson is optimistic and knowledgeable about North Dakota's sheep industry. But even he was surprised to hear the number of sheep in the state soared 14 percent in 2015, the largest percentage increase in the nation.

"Really? It was that much? That's a big increase," the Sherwood, N.D., sheep producer and state Lamb and Wool Producers Association spokesman said of the increase.

His best explanation is that a "combination of things," including more young producers, pushed up sheep numbers in the state.

The sheep industry nationwide -- which had been in long-term decline -- continued to rally in 2015, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service, an arm of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The U.S. had 5.32 million sheep and lambs on Jan. 1 -- up 1 percent from a year earlier. It was the second straight year that sheep numbers rose nationally.

This is of particular interest to me. My paternal grandfather raised sheep when he homesteaded south of Newell, South Dakota.

While driving through Newell last week, I noted one flock of sheep. I have seldom become emotional driving through the Newell area. In fact, I don't recall ever tearing up a bit when driving through Newell -- except if I stopped during "allergy season," but for whatever reason it happened this time. I think it was because while getting the exact mileage between landmarks in the area, I really, really "saw" my grandfather's field in which I ran freely when I was five years old. And six years old. And every year after that until I left for college in the autumn of 1969.

I saw the short grass. I saw the irrigation ditch. I saw the row of trees in the distant. Nothing had changed. It was like seeing myself in one of those montages they do on Cold Case on television. I saw my grandfather behind three horses with a one-blade plow. For a five-year-old the fields were immense; I only recall once running all the way to the tree line. Now the fields look much more manageable. This last trip my dad told me his father gave him, when he was a teenager before he left for Sioux Falls, and then for military (WWII), 2 1/4 acres to farm -- one acre each for two vegetables (I've already forgotten the specifics) and one-fourth acre for strawberries. He gave one of his older sisters a nickel for each pint of strawberries she picked; he sold the strawberries in Rapid City for 25 cents/pint (or whatever size those little boxes are; maybe they are a quart; I don't know; I would not make a good businessman nor a good farmer).

Another digression I see. I don't remember much about the sheep except that they were there. Occasionally we got there early enough in the spring to see the sheep sheared. At the time I thought it must have been painful with all the screaming the sheep did, but obviously they were just frightened or embarrassed but they were not hurt. The sheep even had painless branding unlike their cattle friends. Brands were painted on sheep. My granddad's brand was a red splotch that was supposed to be an "O" I suppose.

Victor Hugo wrote:

When people look back at their childhood or youth, their wistfulness comes from the memory, not of what their lives had been in those years, but of what life had then promised to be. The expectation of some indefinable splendor, of the unusual, the exciting, the great, is an attribute of youth -- and the process of aging is the process of that expectation's gradual extinction.

I disagree with the first assumption. I do agree that the process of aging may include the process of a gradual extinction of one's expectations, in some cases. But not in all cases. My father's expectations, at age 94, have never diminished. He still assumes he will win that new lottery that promises $1,000-a-day-for-life. Which he thinks is unfair to those his age. LOL.

But even more so, I strongly disagree that the wistfulness of looking back comes from memories of what life "then promised to be." While running through my grandfather's fields I recall absolutely no memories of any expectation of the future. Why would I? I was already in heaven.

Old Rivers, Walter Brennan