Well, that is sort of how you pronounce it if you are from there anyway. It could be that the tough weather makes people hard on their consonants. It can be beautiful though, especially to a kid. I lived there from the ages of 2-10 and to me "Nort-a-kota" was an experience in wonderland.
We lived in the north state towns of Bottineau and Willow City, mostly in Willow City for about seven years. Both were pretty small but Willow City was really tiny with a population of less than 250 (More like 150 now in 2020). It was mainly a place for churches, bars, a lumberyard, a couple of schools, grocery store and gas station. The largest business there was the God business, with the Catholic Church in the lead. Notre Dame des Victoires was, and still is the largest church but its boarding school, home of the "mighty Redwings," has long closed. I went to grade school at Notre Dame and most of my classmates were farm children who stayed the week and went home on weekends.
At the school, I took piano lessons and the layout remains with me to this day. We had a tiny room with a window that contained five things, a piano, a bench, a metronome, a nun and me. The music we played was as bland as the setting and I didn’t last long. The best thing was the afternoon snack served while we were out on the playground at recess. It was a slice of fresh bread with jam smeared all over it. To me it was delicious and as good as any snack I have had then or since.
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Rubber guns were a big deal to us kids. They were typically made of a couple pieces of wood crudely nailed together in the shape of a pistol and sometimes like a double-barreled shotgun. The grip would have a clothespin nailed to it and the tip of the barrel would have a nail sticking out. “Ammo” would be made out of old inner tubes cut into giant rubber bands. We would stretch the bands from the nail to the clothespin “trigger” and when it was released the band would go flying.
We fought a rubber gun battle on a bridge crossing Willow Creek once. My pals Punky Kunert and Sonny (?) were there. We were taking a break and I had placed my mighty rubber gun on the bridge rail while we horsed around. I accidentally knocked it off the rail and when I reached for it I fell in. For a moment the water was over my head and I couldn’t swim but none of that registered with me. Somehow, I found my footing on the creek bottom and literally walked to the bank. To this day I believe I would have drowned right there if I hadn’t been given a great gift of good fortune.
Interesting that I remember Sonny had a pretty serious lisp. When he talked it sounded like he was filtering all his words through spit. My mother didn’t like me playing with him. I think she was afraid I would start imitating the lisp. She was right. I had a lot of fun figuring out how to do it.
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The little gas station in town was the first public place to get a television set. It was an amazing device and none of my pals or I had one at home. On Saturday mornings though, we would gather at the gas station and the owner let us sit on the floor and watch the weekly cowboy movie. Those movies had us mesmerized…more so than the greatest movies made since.
We had a tiny little movie theater in town – its still there but has long been closed. It couldn’t be any larger than a lot of folk’s living rooms today but it has a little 3-4 foot box office in front to give it theater credentials. Once or twice a month I would find my dad at the lumberyard where he worked and bum a quarter. It was a princely sum that would buy me theater admission (fifteen cents), a candy bar at the drugstore next door and a bag of popcorn.
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| When I took this photo I felt like I was 7 again. |
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There were sloughs around town within easy walking distance. They were pretty shallow, a foot or less of water and heavily populated with frogs or tadpoles depending on the time of year. They were also extensively covered with cat tails. The general set up was perfect for many of our adventures. We would hike to a slough, strip down to our shorts and crawl around chasing tadpoles, playing hide and seek and of course, cowboys and Indians.
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There was a firing range near town. It was a simple set up, just a large earthen berm that folks would use as a backdrop for target practice. We would take coffee cans and knives or small digging tools out there and spend a few hours recovering spent lead from the ground. Someone in town gave us a few cents for our caches so it was almost like gold mining for us little kids.
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We were friends with a farmer family that lived just outside Bottineau. They planted some sizable crops of corn that would grow mighty tall in the eyes of us little kids. They also had Shetland ponies and we would occasionally play cowboys and Indians on horseback in the corn; Russ Dinwoodie, Gary Raymo and I. The stalks were tall enough to completely conceal us so there was a lot of hiding, breathless anticipation and giggling. There were also shouts of “Kerplow! Kerplow!” to simulate a direct hit on your opponent when you surprised him with your stealthy maneuvers.
So sure, Nort-a-kota could be a harsh environment for adults but for kids...a wonderland of adventures.
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