The Grand Canyon, the Petrified Forest, and the Big Picture

Posted on March 22, 2025 by Brian H. Gill
Erin Whittaker, U.S. National Park Service's photo of the Grand Canyon in fog. (November 29, 2013) via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.
Erin Whittaker/U.S. National Park Service’s photo of the Grand Canyon in fog. (November 29, 2013)

The Grand Canyon, Petrified Forest, and Meteor Crater aren’t on the obvious and shortest route from San Francisco to the Upper Midwest.

But in 1979, with no reason for staying in San Francisco — that’s another topic, for another time — and good reasons for returning to Minnesota, going out of my way to see them seemed like a good idea.

On the South Rim: a Beard, a Cap and an Unresolved Puzzle

Pescaiolo's photo of the Grand Canyon in winter. (February 23, 2008) via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.
Pescaiolo’s photo of the Grand Canyon in winter. (February 23, 2008)

It’s been nearly 46 years since I was at the Grand Canyon. It hasn’t changed much.

On a geologic timescale, 46 years is a ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ interval. The South Rim Visitor Center is another matter. I can’t even be sure it’s at the same location now.1

At any rate, I’d been thoroughly enjoying myself on the south rim. While living in San Francisco, I bought a topographic map of the Grand Canyon. It wasn’t big as a tablecloth, and that’s yet another topic.

I’d spread out the map at intervals, seeing what I was looking at, and take photos.

I was flattered, and surprised, when two tourists from Thailand asked me if I was Jewish. I explained that I’m a gentile — I don’t remember my exact words.

We chatted a bit, which is how I learned they were from Thailand. Then I went back to enjoying the magnificent views.

I hadn’t asked them what suggested that I was a Jew. That remained and remains a puzzle. A minor one, but a puzzle nonetheless.

After mulling it over, I strongly suspect they’d noticed that I had a full beard and never took my cap off.

Quite a few gentiles in America wore caps indoors and out at the time, and still do: but not many American men have a ‘haven’t shaved in years’ beard. The plain black jacket I wore probably helped, too.

I enjoyed being mistaken for one of my Lord’s closer relatives. But my ancestors are about as gentile as it gets, west of the Urals. They probably hadn’t even heard of Abraham or Isaac until missionaries arrived, and that’s yet again another topic.

Norwegian, But Not Nordic: a Digression

Elmer Boyd Smith's 'The third gift — an enormous hammer'. 'The dwarven sons of Sons of Ivaldi forge the hammer Mjolnir for the god Thor while Loki watches on. On the table before them sits their other creations: the multiplying ring Draupnir, the boar Gullinbursti, the ship Skíðblaðnir, the spear Gungnir, and golden hair for the goddess Sif.' From 'In the Days of Giants: A Book of Norse Tales', page 88, Abbie Farwell Brown, illustrations by Elmer Boyd Smith (1902) via Wikipedia
Elmer Boyd Smith’s “The dwarven sons of Sons of Ivaldi forge the hammer Mjolnir for Thor…”.(1902)

A fair number of forms I’ve filled out over the years have asked, in general terms, who my ancestors were.

I’m a Euro-American with roots in southern Norway and the northern British Isles, so I generally check off whatever the current euphemism for “white” is.

Getting more specific than that might be tricky, particularly if I needed to be both precise and accurate.

Family records don’t say, but my Norwegian ancestors almost certainly lived near “Nordic” folks: those tall, pale, blond Europeans who fit my culture’s “Norwegian” pigeonhole.

Now, I’ve got blue eyes, and the congenital melanin deficiency common to northwestern Europeans.

But I’m like many of my Scandinavian kin: short, with black hair. We’re not, as far as I can tell, Sámi. I’ve no idea “who” we are, or if anyone’s gotten around to cataloging our particular stock. On the other hand, maybe we have been cataloged: as folklore.

Flyby at the Petrified Forest

Paul P's photo/image: looking east, from a 360 view taken in Petrified Forest National Park. (September 2017) Paul P, via Google Street View, used w/o permission.
Petrified Forest National Park, near Blue Mesa Scenic Road. (Paul P/Google Street View)

I got a quick look at cinder cones in the Painted Dessert while I was at the Grand Canyon’s south rim. Exactly where that was, I don’t know.

Nothing at the Visitor Center looked familiar when I virtually visited the place this week, using Google Street View. Hardly surprising, since I was only there once, in 1979.

The same goes for Petrified Forest National Park. I’m guessing that they’ve re-engineered the park entrance. And relocated it, too.2

When I was there, the entrance — the one I used — was on what may have been a dry river bottom, with low buttes on either side. Or maybe they’re called mesas.

Either way, I’d stopped and was going through a ‘getting into the national park’ process which involved having my car’s window rolled down and talking with someone at the checkpoint.

We were interrupted by a loud roar, and a very brief glimpse of a military jet flashing across a gap in the buttes ahead. It must have been turning, since the pilot had its wings almost at right angles to the ground.

I said ‘looks like one of ours’, or something of the sort. I know; but I’m a guy, and was in my 20s.

The park ranger was still holding the binoculars he’d grabbed, and sounded irritated.

A short but informative conversation followed. Seems that Petrified Forest National Park is between two air bases, and that pilots would try flying between them without being identified. That’s how I remember it. Again, it’s been almost 46 years.

Joyriding? More Likely: Training

National Park Service photo: 'Jasper Forest follows an old roadbed into a wonderland of geology and petrified wood.' (2019)
“Jasper Forest follows an old roadbed into a wonderland of geology and petrified wood.” (NPS)

What I’m certain of is that I saw and heard that jet, and that it must have been flying as low as the top of that badlands’ high ground. My guess is that whatever was going on, it wasn’t simply joyriding.

How official those ‘try and spot me’ flights were, I don’t know. But it does strike me as the sort of exercise that would be very good practice for pilots whose job might include staying off the radar.

I’ve tried piecing together what sort of jet it was, and which two air bases were involved. Given time, maybe I could narrow it down to a few strong possibilities. Maybe.3

Then again, maybe not. It’s been a long time. I only got a quick look at the wings: and, although I’m curious, I’m not that curious.

The Big Picture

NASA astronaut photograph ISS039-E-5258, Expedition 39 crew (March 25, 2014) 'The Grand Canyon in northern Arizona is a favorite for astronauts shooting photos from the International Space Station, as well as one of the best-known tourist attractions in the world.'
The Grand Canyon, seen from International Space Station. (March 25, 2014)

Recapping, I met tourists from Thailand at the Grand Canyon, and saw a low-flying military jet in the Petrified Forest.

The contrast reminded me of — well, quite a lot, actually. But I’ll wrap things up this week with points that I’ve talked about often: but not recently.

I’ll start with the obvious. We don’t live in an ideal world, and we’re not perfect people.

But God doesn’t make junk, and we’re not the Almighty’s big mistake. That should, arguably, be obvious: but I’ve run into folks with — interesting — ideas.

So here’s a quick look at how I see life, the universe, and everything:

This universe was, and is, basically good. We were basically good. We still are: we were, and are, made “in the divine image”. (Genesis 1:27, 31; Catechism of the Catholic Church, 31, 299, 337-344, 355-379)

Something, obviously, went wrong with us. But God did not hit us with a ‘bad-stick’ and change what we basically are.

Our nature has not changed. We were and remain wounded: but we are not corrupted. (Genesis 1:27, 31, 3:1–19; Catechism, 31, 299, 355-361, 374-379, 398, 400-406, 405, 1701-1707, 1949)

Free Will, Living With Consequences, a Good Idea, and Very Good News

Detail of boy using printer's tools, Currier and Ives: 'The progress of the century - the lightning steam press, the electric telegraph, the locomotive, [and] the steamboat'. (ca. 1876)
Currier and Ives: “The progress of the century – the lightning steam press, the electric telegraph, the locomotive, [and] the steamboat”, detail. (ca. 1876)

The account of what happened, in Genesis 3, is figurative, “…but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man….” (Catechism 390)

The first of us decided that ‘I want’ mattered more than God’s ‘you should’. (Catechism, 398)

I’m not personally responsible for that bad decision, and human nature did not become all bad. But, like everyone else, I’m living with consequences of humanity’s bad start. (Catechism, 390, 396-406)

That’s the bad news. The good news is that hope is an option.

We “…all need salvation and that salvation is offered to all through Christ….” (Catechism, 389, 405, 407-412, 1701-1707, 1811, 1949)

Putting it another way — God loves us, and wants to adopt us. All of us. (Matthew 5:44–5; John 1:12–14, 3:17; Romans 8:14–17; ; Ephesians 1:3–5; Peter 2:3–4; Catechism, 1-3, 27-30, 52, 1825, 1996)

So: how come God didn’t swoop in after the first of us made that profoundly ill-considered decision, and make everything better?

It boils down to free will. Each of us decides to act, or not act. Each of us lives with the consequences of our decisions, and the consequences of decisions made before we came along. (Catechism, 344-404, 1730, 1951)

Making good decisions matters, a lot. Happily, we’ve got rules: and they’re quite simple.

I should love God, love my neighbor, and see everyone as my neighbor. (Matthew 5:43–44, 22:36–40; Mark 12:28–31; Luke 6:31, 10:25–27, 29–37; Catechism, 1789, 2196)

I said the rules are simple: not easy.

But loving God and neighbors, and seeing everyone as a neighbor? It’s still a good idea.

The Danger of War, the Civilization of Love

Inlakechh/Marco Bauriedel's 'Cityscape'. (ca. 2016) used w/o permission.
Marco Bauriedel’s “Cityscape”. (ca. 2016) used w/o permission.

Ideally, visiting the Grand Canyon from anywhere in the world would be simple: apart, maybe, from the economic angle.

International borders would be open, with checks on who’s going where limited to the equivalent of mail forwarding.

The analog of today’s armed forces would be more like our fire and rescue departments.

That’s not, putting it mildly, the world we live in.

Something I like about being Catholic is that the Church shows anyone who’s interested how we could and should act. And tells us that we should use our brains. It’s like Pope St. Paul VI said:

“…As long as the danger of war remains and there is no competent and sufficiently powerful authority at the international level, governments cannot be denied the right to legitimate defense once every means of peaceful settlement has been exhausted….”
(“Gaudium et Spes” , Pope St. Paul VI (December 7, 1965)) [emphasis mine]

Deciding where and when peaceful settlement stops being a reasonable option — that’s among the reasons I don’t yearn for high office.

So much for the world we live in today.

I’ll wrap this up with a something another pope said, a bit of poetry, and how I see a very long-term goal.4

“…The answer to the fear which darkens human existence at the end of the twentieth century is the common effort to build the civilization of love, founded on the universal values of peace, solidarity, justice, and liberty….”
(“To the United Nations Organization” , Pope St. John Paul II (October 5, 1995))

Looking Forward

Nighttime photo of the 1939 World's Fair, New York City. (September 15, 1939.)
Nighttime photo of the 1939 World’s Fair, New York City. (September 15, 1939)

Building a civilization of love will take time and effort on an epic scale. Even so, I think it’s a good idea.

I also think we’re closer to that goal than we were when Tennyson wrote “Locksley Hall” and “Locksley Hall — Sixty Years After”.

Not much, mind you: but turning good ideas into practical realities takes time.

“…For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,
Saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be;…
“…Till the war-drum throbbed no longer, and the battle-flags were furl’d
In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.
“There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe,
And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law.…”
(“Locksley Hall” , Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1835)) [emphasis mine]

“…Gone the cry of ‘Forward, Forward,’ lost within a growing gloom;
Lost, or only heard in silence from the silence of a tomb.
“Half the marvels of my morning, triumphs over time and space,
Staled by frequence, shrunk by usage into commonest commonplace!
“‘Forward’ rang the voices then, and of the many mine was one.
Let us hush this cry of ‘Forward’ till ten thousand years have gone.…”
(“Locksley Hall – Sixty Years After” , Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1886)) [emphasis mine]

Tennyson was born in 1809, which would make him about 77 when he wrote “Locksley Hall — Sixty Years After”. I’m 73: not all that much younger.

So how come I don’t endorse his view that we should put our cries of “Forward” on hold for ten millennia?

Tennyson was a poet, an Englishman, and lived during the 19th century.

I’ve written the occasional poem. But I’m a writer, an historian, an American, and was born in the mid-20th century. I’ve also had a rather more — miscellaneous — life than England’s Poet Laureate.

Waiting Ten Thousand Years: Not an Option

Waldemar Kaempffert's 'Miracles You'll See in the Next Fifty Years', Popular Mechanics (February 1950) via David S. Zondy's Tales of Future Past https://davidszondy.com/futurepast/life-in-2000-ad.html
Waldemar Kaempffert’s “Miracles You’ll See in the Next Fifty Years”, Popular Mechanics (February 1950)

I was a teen in the Sixties, and remember the unreasonably optimistic expectations many of my elders had for ‘The Future’.

Then, when electric can openers and color television failed to end poverty, abolish ignorance, and carry us into a shining utopia — equally-unreasonably pessimism came into fashion.

I never quite lost the idea that new technology gives us new opportunities.

How we use those opportunities is up to us. We’ll be centuries, cleaning up the mess made by bungled opportunities made in Tennyson’s day.

“…Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,
Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales…
“…Not in vain the distance beacons. Forward, forward let us range;
Let the great world spin forever down the ringing grooves of change….”
(“Locksley Hall” , Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1835))

Albrecht Dürer's 'Melancholia I,.' (1514) via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.
Albrecht Dürer’s “Melancholia I”. (1514)

Again: how come I’m not sitting here in central Minnesota, wringing my hands, bemoaning the futility of it all, and saying that Tennyson was right — that we should stop “the cry of Forward! Forward!” for at least ten millennia?

Basically, it’s because I’m a Catholic: accepting the status quo is not an option. Neither is giving up because we’ve made mistakes.

Like it or not, we have “dominion” over this world. We’re stewards, or maybe ‘foremen’ is a better word: tasked with making reasoned use of this world’s resources for ourselves and for future generations. We have the authority to do what we see fit: and the responsibilities that go with that authority. (Catechism, 16, 339, 356-358, 2402, 2415-2418, 2456)

Cleaning up the mess left by earlier generations, and not repeating their mistakes? It’s part of our job.

The same principle applies to how we treat each other. It’s putting that ‘love God and neighbor, and everybody’s our neighbor’ thing into practice. Social justice, the kind that makes sense, is a good idea: and part of being a Catholic (Catechism, 1928-1942, for starters)

If we lived in perfect societies — we don’t, so another part of being a Catholic means at least suggesting that moving forward makes sense.

Long-Haul Projects

Zellim's 'Celistic Concept Art', detail. (2013) used w/o permission
Zellim’s “Celistic Concept Art”, detail. (2013)

I very strongly suspect we’ll have the mess left by Industrial Age blunders cleaned up in the next several centuries. Maybe sooner. It’s a fairly straightforward physical problem, and we’ve been learning a great deal about how Earth’s systems work.

Cobbling together a reasonable facsimile of St. John Paul II’s civilization of love: I’d like to think we could get something in working order in the next few centuries.

But I very strongly suspect that’s a seriously long-haul project. Humanity has a massive backlog of unresolved issues. It may take more than ten millennia.

But building a civilization of love is something we can work on now. And something we must work on, if generations who won’t be born until today’s problems and Sargon’s inventory reports seem roughly contemporary, will live in a better world.5

That’s why I keep suggesting that justice, and acts of charity — along with respecting humanity’s “transcendent dignity” — make sense. So does working toward a society where justice, charity and respect are the norm. All this starts in me, with an ongoing “inner conversion”. (Catechism, 1886-1889, 1928-1942, 2419-2442)

Finally: doing what I can do, with what I’ve got, makes sense. It’s worth thinking about.

Sound familiar? Maybe you’ve read these:

1 Just a few links:

2 A few more links:

3 If I had to guess, the two bases would be Luke, Gila Bend, or Davis-Monthan in Arizona, and maybe Hill in Utah:

4 The idea, and phrase, has been around for a while — Pope St. Paul VI mentioned “the civilization of love and of peace” in 1970:

5 Keeping records matters (so does putting things in perspective):

Posted in Being Catholic, Family Stories, Journal, Series | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Odors, Experiences, and a Life Without Scent

Posted on March 15, 2025 by Brian H. Gill

Brian H. Gill's photo: lilac blossoms. (May 2021)How things smell matters.

“‘…What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;…'”
(Juliet, “Romeo and Juliet” , Shakespeare (ca. 1597))

“‘Here’s the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh!'”
(Lady Macbeth, “Macbeth” , Shakespeare (ca. 1606))

“…Great masses of pale white clematis hang in sheets from the trees, cactus and aloe run riot among the glens, sweet scents of oleander float around the deep ravines, delicious perfumes of violets are wafted on every breeze from unseen and unsuspected gardens….”
(“The Mediterranean: Its Storied Cities and Venerable Ruins” , T. G. Bonney, E. A. R. Ball, H. D. Traill, Grant Allen, Arthur Griffiths, Robert Brown (1862))

I know that. I’ve done a fair amount of reading in my day, so I know quite a bit about odor. I gather that roses and other flowers smell sweet, and that blood has a distinctive odor.

But I don’t know it the way I know that a cloudless sky is blue. If my sight was as good as my sense of smell, I’d be legally blind.

There wasn’t one dramatic ‘aha’ moment when I realized that most folks have a whole world of perceptions that I don’t.

But a couple experiences do stand out.

A Brief Experience With Burning Sulfur

My folks got me a chemistry set in my preteens. It may or may not have included a sample of sulfur, and definitely did included a small alcohol burner.

This was back when manufacturers and retailers apparently assumed that parents had an ounce or two of sense, legislators weren’t trying to protect us from everything, and that’s another topic.

I’m not sure who got the idea. My guess is that my folks suggested it, since they seemed quite interested in seeing whether I could smell burning sulfur.

At any rate, we were in the kitchen of 818: a room in the northeast corner that was only as large as it needed to be. I’d lit the alcohol burner and set a small bit of sulfur over it. At least, that’s how I remember it.

Again, the room wasn’t large. My folks had, prudently, seen to it that windows were open. When the sulfur started burning, I saw the blue flame just fine. Odd: I don’t remember what the sulfur was in. Never mind.

Anyway, I should have detected the burning sulfur’s odor immediately. My folks definitely did, and assured me that I should.

I didn’t. I got a little closer, and still detected nothing. Other than what I could see, of course, and a little heat coming from the alcohol burner and sulfur.

Okay, maybe I needed to get closer. Finally, with my nose directly over the blue flame, I detected something: a sharp, unpleasant sensation in my nose and around my eyes.

We extinguished the flames, and that was the end of that experiment.

My folks and I talked about the situation, and decided that I really didn’t have much of a sense of smell.

A Day on a Lake

My folks spent a week at one of the lake resorts north of Park Rapids, Minnesota, each summer while I was growing up. That’s an annual routine I thoroughly enjoyed, and wasn’t able to replicate when my wife and I were raising our kids.

On one of these vacations, the three of us — me, Mom, and Dad — took a leisurely look around the lake in the sixteen footer that came with our cabin.

I don’t remember which year, what lake, or exactly how long the boat was. “Sixteen foot” is how Dad described it. The boat itself was wood, with an outboard motor at the back and two oars halfway along its length.

Where Every Prospect Pleases

We’d been noodling around for a while when Dad guided the boat in to a shallow bay. Shallow both in terms of how far back the bay went from the lake’s average shore, and in terms of depth. A great many reeds grew in the bay.

Dad had me at the front of the boat. Or I’d chosen that spot, I don’t remember which.

We were going slowly, not more than what would be comfortable walking speed on land. My folks mentioned that there was a distinct smell in the air. Well, of course. Where else would a smell be.

The point is that they asked me if I noticed it.

I didn’t.

I’d noticed the blue sky, the white clouds, the sunshine glinting on water, the reeds, the trees lining the bay.

I heard the boat’s motor — I’ve seen the sound outboard motors make described as a hum, roar, or whine. Understandable: but to me their sound is more like a buzz. Or maybe a Bronx cheer or raspberry.

I felt the boat’s gentle rocking, and the sun’s warmth.

In short, I’d noticed all the details of a beautiful summer day on a Minnesota lake.

Nearly all, that is. I’d been taking in the sights, sounds, and sensations — I’ve noticed, by the way, that poets often focus on sights and sounds:

“…The small birds twitter
The lake doth glitter….”
(“The Cock is crowing” , William Wordsworth (1815))

Make that 19th century poets I’ve run across. I get the impression that more up-to-date poets would focus on what my parents smelled — and I didn’t.

And Only Fish are Stinky

My parents insisted that I should be smelling something, so I paid careful attention to the air, breathing in deeply.

Sure enough, there was something distinctive about the olfactory ambience. Something not pleasant.

Right around that time, I looked down at the reed-filled water.

There was a dead fish floating right off the boat’s bow. And another next to it, with more filling in most of the blank spots between reeds.

I mentioned this to my parents.

Dad turned the boat around and we left that little bay.

Living in a Mostly-Scentless World

One of the perks that come with writing these ‘family stories’ is a reason for rummaging around in my mind’s archives.

Not only do I enjoy rummaging through archives, inner and otherwise, occasionally I’ll run across something that corrects a perception I thought was accurate; but isn’t.

Like me having no sense of smell. Maybe.

Getting Technical

Anosmia, ‘smell blindness’, being unable to detect smells, comes in a few flavors.

There’s just plain anosmia, being unable to detect one or more smells.

Then there’s hyposmia, which is the same thing except that the odors get detected: just not very well.

Anosmia can be acquired or congenital.

There’s a fair number of ways someone can lose their sense of smell. Like having COVID-19, for example. I’ve put a few links in a footnote.1 If you want me to talk about this at some point, let me know in a comment.

‘Smell blindness’ comes with downsides.

For example, my wife had me promise that I’d have the gas feed to our house shut off if she dies before I do. That’s not a downside, but not being able to smell the stink that’s put in commercial gas is.

Some folks have been looking at the social angle of lacking a sense of smell. Makes sense. But for someone like me, it’s just one more item I deal with when interacting with folks: and not even close to the top of the list.2

Leaves, Genes, and Anesthetic

Back in December I said that “I have no sense of smell”. That may not be accurate, although at that moment it seemed so. Lying isn’t the same as unintentionally making an inaccurate statement, although the result’s the same. And that’s yet another topic. Several.

I love the Christmas season. It’s also the time of year when, as my wife put it, I ‘get weird’. That’s something I’ll be talking about when I’m feeling a lot less, well, weird. Good grief, I’ve wandered off-topic again.

I may not be quite anosmic.

Like I said earlier, I could tell there was something off about the air above those dead fish.

Decades later, as an adult, I was visiting Dad on the homestead. Our conversation turned to the sense of smell. His wasn’t any too keen, either, so maybe it’s in our genes.

We were outside. Dad leaned over, picked a handful of some plant’s leaves and blossoms: or maybe they’d gone to seed by then. Rubbing what he’d picked between his palms, he cupped his hands and had me take a sniff.

I could tell that the air between his cupped hands was a trifle warm, but that was about it. After a few more tries, I thought maybe I could detect something: and told Dad.

That, and the burning sulfur, is as close as I’ve come to having a formal diagnosis of my sense of smell.

Another ‘I smell something’ experience happened just before one of those operations I had as a child.

Anesthesia masks were opaque in those days. This one looked really big as a medico put it over my face. Right before the lights, subjectively, went out, I smelled something very minty: like the light green mint candy at some wedding reception I’d been at as a child.

My oldest daughter wondered if the anesthetic might have contained menthol. I said maybe the minty smell happened when my brain, while going into sleep mode, grabbed the first label at hand and slapped it on the incoming olfactory data.

I figure that the minty maybe-odor will remain a mystery.

Now, finally, the usual more-or-less-related family stories:

1 What we’re learning about how we smell:

2 Living with a blind nose:

Posted in Family Stories, Journal, Series | Tagged , | 3 Comments

The Eagle, My Father, and the Warehouse

Posted on March 8, 2025 by Brian H. Gill
NDSU's Fargo history collection photo: 'Case Threshing Machine Company building in background during an F.O.E. parade on N.P. Avenue, July 1, 1910'.
Parade on NP Avenue, Fargo, North Dakota. Inset: Case Threshing Machine Co. eagle and globe. (1910)

I remember when the Case building on NP (Northern Pacific) Avenue in Fargo looked the way it did in that photo.

I’d better explain.

I’m old, but I’m not that old. The F. O. E. (Fraternal Order of Eagles) parade on NP Avenue was in the summer of 1910. I wasn’t born until the fall of 1951.

Besides, the building I remember didn’t look exactly like the one in the photo.

I don’t remember either the water tower or the “J. I. CASE THRESHING MACHINE CO.” signage. Someone probably took the lettering down in 1928, 0r a little after, when “J. I. Case Company” became the outfit’s moniker.1

But otherwise, the Case company’s Fargo warehouse hadn’t changed much in the half-century between that 1910 parade and the time my father took me for a ride on the building’s freight elevator. Not on the outside, anyway.

A Dad Moment: Riding a Freight Elevator

CommercialCafe's photo: interior of Case building in Fargo during renovation. (August 4, 2021)
Case building interior, 2021. It didn’t look nearly this bright and tidy when my Dad and I were there.

I’m not sure how — or when, for that matter — my father arranged for us to get into the Case warehouse.

Whenever it was, the building was mostly empty: no people, a lot of open space lit by sunlight coming in through the windows.

There wasn’t much to see apart from columns and the beams and joists overhead.

We went in through the south door. I’m pretty sure about this, although it’s been a long time and I was young. We walked the building’s length to the freight elevator at the back.

Then we rode the open timber platform up to the top floor, looked around, and took the elevator back down.

Maybe that doesn’t sound like much. Not compared to, say, a trip to Disneyland.

But seeing the inside of a warehouse and riding a freight elevator was fun. And, at least as important, it was something my father and I did together.

The Curious Case of the Vanishing Eagle

Bonanzaville's photo: Case Eagle and Globe, from the Case building in Fargo, North Dakota. Displayed in the Pioneer Village, Bonanzaville USA, West Fargo, North Dakota. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonanzaville,_USAThe Case building I remember was topped by a globe set on a small platform.

An eagle perched on the globe, gazing down NP Avenue.

At some point, both disappeared. I don’t remember exactly when.

The Case eagle logo dates back to 1865. I don’t know if the globe was part of the logo then. J. I. Case probably got the idea of using an eagle in his company’s logo from the 8th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment’s mascot, Old Abe; but I haven’t confirmed that.

At any rate, the Case globe and eagle perched atop of the Case building are part of my memories of Fargo’s NP Avenue.

And then they were gone.

Maybe the eagle and globe got taken down as part of the corporate shuffle that started in 1967 and went into overdrive in the 1980s. Or maybe someone got the notion that the logo was imperialistic and had to go. That was an interesting period.

Without them, the Case warehouse was just another building on NP Avenue.

I thought the Case building’s logo was gone for good. But it looks like someone donated it to an open-air museum in West Fargo. Or maybe the museum had it all along. Either way, the sculpture was on display in Bonanzaville by February of 2018.2

The Old Case Building and Downtown Fargo: Catching Up

Commercial Cafe's photo: Case Plaza, seen from the southeast, in Fargo, ND.
The Case building, remodeled as office space. (ca. 2020)

Someone converted the Case building to office space in the late 1980s to 1990s.

About a decade back, folks running a regional flood control project apparently wondered if they could tear it down safely. An engineering firm said, basically, ‘yes’.

But Google Street View includes images of the Case building taken in January of 2022.

Google Maps: detail of search results for 'case plaza fargo nd'. (March 6, 2025)Google Maps says there’s a law firm with offices there.

On the other hand, Google Maps also says that Case Plaza is “Permanently closed”.

Gripping as a legal firm operating out of an abandoned warehouse might be as a whodunit’s setting, my guess is that Case Plaza — or at least the building — isn’t entirely “closed”.

For me, that’s good news. I’d be sorry to see the old Case building destroyed, and don’t see the point in tearing it down. It’s near the Red River, but not much higher or lower than the rest of downtown Fargo.

Granted, precious few places in Fargo are higher or lower than any other. Fargo is on what used to be the bottom of Glacial Lake Agassiz: some of the flattest land on Earth, and I’m wandering off-topic.

Before moving on, a quick look at how I caught up with the Case building’s story.

I knew what to look for because I grew up across the river, in Moorhead, Minnesota.

The Internet gives me access to occasional nuggets of useful information, along with mountains of drivel, and that’s definitely another topic.3

This is the sort of thing I found:

Downtown Fargo Historic Case IH Office
Grain Designs

CLIENT: Enclave Companies
LOCATION: Fargo, ND
COMPLETION:
NOV. 2015 | 2018 expansion | 2020 expansion
PROJECT SCOPE:

  • 14 reclaimed douglas fir L office desks and U desks
  • 4 sit stand desks
  • 4 live edge office meeting tables
  • metal and wood binder storage shelves
  • glass top CASE steam engine door table
  • design+build+delivery & installation

Based on that, I figured that someone was converting the Case warehouse to offices around 2015.

Unless the Grain Designs job was for someone remodeling existing office space. I found the vague ‘late 1980s to 1990s’ conversion date in an engineering report.4

Change, Personal Limitations, and a Few Good Ideas

Google Street View: Case Plaza in Fargo, ND. (January 2022)
Case Plaza on NP Avenue and 2nd Street North, Fargo, North Dakota. (January 2022)

I enjoy getting out and seeing places, which is another way in which my wife and I are profoundly unlike. There’s a world of difference between “compatible” and “identical”, and that’s yet another topic.

Getting out and seeing places, physically, isn’t a practical option, so my visits are virtual. Given Google Street View’s limitations, that means my visit to Fargo’s downtown this week was actually to the Fargo downtown that existed in 2021 and 2022.

The car wash that had been across the street west of the Case building was a coffee shop and a gas station. Fargo’s downtown had fewer buildings, more parking lots, and more high-rises than I remember. And they’ve got the start of a skyway system: one over Broadway, and another over 2nd Avenue North. Maybe more.5

That last, I think, is a smart move. I grew up in this part of the world, and like it here: but our winters don’t encourage casual strolls in the great outdoors. And that — you guessed it — is yet again another topic.

Part of an Imperfect Family: and Loving It

I was talking with my third-oldest daughter about the Case building and my father’s way of taking me on what amounted to field trips.

He’s a hard act to follow, but she reassured me that getting taken hither, thither, and yon wasn’t something she’d yearned for.

That was reassuring, although it was a reminder of how long it took me to appreciate the gap between my enthusiasm for getting out and seeing things, and the interests — and capacities — of my wife and our kids.

This isn’t that hypothetical ‘perfect family’ Pope Francis talked about.

“…’We all dream about a beautiful, perfect family. But,’ Pope Francis recognized, ‘there’ no such thing as a perfect family,’ for each family ‘has its own problems,’ ‘as well as its tremendous joys.’…”
(“Pope’s March prayer intention: ‘for families in crisis’” , Deborah Castellano Lubov, Vatican News (March 4, 2025))

But, somehow, we’ve managed. And every day I think God that I’m part of this family.

I’ve said that before:

1 The J. I. Case Company and Fargo, some context:

2 An eagle, a logo, and a little lore:

3 Where I found what I found, and my take on the Information Age:

4 “…The property was converted to office space during the late 1980s to early 1990s….”:

5 Looks like there is more:

  • Wikipedia
  • Way: Fargo Skyway (316313120), Version #4 (“Updates to Downtown Fargo using Spring 2020 Imagery from ESRI. Block 9, Mercantile Garage, Adjusted Robert’s Commons, added many sidewalks.”)
    OpenStreetMap
Posted in Family Stories, Journal, Series | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

“No Such Thing as a Perfect Family”

Posted on March 4, 2025 by Brian H. Gill

One way or another, I’ve been part of a family all my life: as a child, as a husband and father, as a grandfather. The experience has never been perfect. But I think Pope Francis is right. We do, occasionally, have “tremendous joys”.

I also think the pope’s March prayer intention is a good idea:

“Pope’s March prayer intention: ‘for families in crisis’”
“Pope Francis releases his prayer intention for the month of March 2025, and invites everyone to pray for ‘families in crisis,’ as he acknowledges that no family is perfect, but that when we forgive our family members, we can rediscover peace.”
Deborah Castellano Lubov, Vatican News (March 4, 2025)….

“… ‘We all dream about a beautiful, perfect family. But,’ Pope Francis recognized, ‘there’s no such thing as a perfect family,’ for each family ‘has its own problems,’ ‘as well as its tremendous joys.’…”

I’ve embedded the video that went along with that article:

My prayer routine won’t change because of this. I already “…offer [my prayers, works, joys and sufferings of this day] for the intentions of our bishops and of all the apostles of prayer, and in particular for those recommended by our Holy Father this month”.

What’ll be different this month is that I know what the pope’s prayer intention is.

As for what “intention” means in this context — the way I’ve seen the word used, a prayer intention is a specific request. Which, in this case, is help for families who are going through rough patches.

That makes sense to me.

I’ve talked about families and rough patches before, and have posted something our parish priest said about families and celebrating life:

Posted in Being Catholic, Journal | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

My Oak Tree and Its Travels

Posted on March 1, 2025 by Brian H. Gill
Google Street View image: Buford Avenue and Keston Street, St. Anthony Park, St. Paul, Minnesota. (July 2011) used w/o permission.
Buford Avenue, looking down Keston Street. (July 2011) Google Street View

A happy memory from our time on Buford Avenue in the early 1960s — I talked about that a couple weeks back1 — is planting an acorn from one of the oaks there.

An Acorn and Memories

Google Street View: pedestrian path near corner of Doswell Avenue and Keston Street. (Image taken September 2022) from Google Street View February 12, 2025; used w/o permission.Among the many things I don’t remember from that time is when we planted it.

I suspect it was in the fall, since that’s apparently a good season for starting an oak seedling.2 And by spring; well, life was getting interesting, and that’s another topic.

Now that I think of it, I’m pretty sure we planted the acorn after we returned to Moorhead.

Seasons

Google Street View's image: Prairie Home Cemetery, seen from near 9th Street South and 9th Avenue South, Moorhead, Minnesota. (February 2022) via Google Street View, used w/o permission.Whatever season it was, I remember being happy when the acorn sprouted: and impressed at the size of the leaf. A full-size oak leaf on a tiny stem.

My oak flourished in the back yard of 818.3

Time passed.

The tiny oak became a (very) small oak, and kept flourishing: even after we dug it up, carried it in a pot to 1010, and planted it in that back yard.

More time passed.

My father retired. My folks got ready for moving to the farmstead where my mother grew up: which involved a major reconfiguration of the house. There’s a story or two there, which I may tell: eventually.

The oak was still small, but by that time it had grown a hefty taproot. We dug it up again, taking as much of the taproot along as we could. My father planted it at the farm, a few yards east of the house.

Despite his best efforts with careful watering and tending, my oak did not flourish in its new spot. One spring, no new leaves budded. My oak was gone.

Something like a half-century later, I still tear up when remembering that loss.

Even so, my memories of that little oak tree are happy. Partly because of how it began. Partly because that little oak had traveled with me and my parents through so many seasons of my life.

I could develop that thought into a long memoir of my adolescence and early adulthood, strung along the branches of a long-gone tree.

But I won’t.

Instead, I’ll talk — briefly, for me — about my father and another tree.

A Tree Grows on Campus

Minnesota State University Moorhead's photo: an aerial view of MSUM when it was Moorhead State College. (1970)
Moorhead State, when I was there the first time.

My father started working at Minnesota State University Moorhead when its name was Moorhead State Teachers College. It’s had five monikers so far —

  • Moorhead Normal School (1888-1921)
  • Moorhead State Teachers College (1921-1957)
  • Moorhead State College (1957-1975)
  • Moorhead State University (1975-2000)
  • Minnesota State University Moorhead (2000-present)

— which is more than you need, or maybe want, to know about one of Fargo-Moorhead’s colleges/universities.

Livingston Lord Library — named after the school’s first president — was part of a massive expansion of the place from 1958 to 1968. The first part of the building went up in 1960.4

Planning, Pavement, and Leaving Room For a Tree

Minnesota State University Moorhead's photo: an aerial view showing Roland Dille Center for the Arts (left) and Livingston Lord Library (right).
Minnesota State University Moorhead. The tree I’ll be talking about is in the inset’s center.

I’m not sure how much my father had to with planning the new library. But since he was MSC’s head librarian, he’d have had at least a hand in it.

The library’s service entrance, where they took deliveries, was on the south side.

There’d been a good-sized tree there, a few yards away from where trucks would pull up to unload books. Steering a delivery truck back there wasn’t overly hard, but the time a semi driver tried — that’s another story, and I’m drifting off-topic.

Which reminds me. I spent most of my life in the Upper Midwest. In my dialect of English, folks often called a smallish truck, the sort you’d use to deliver parcels smaller than a pallet, a “delivery truck”. On the other hand, some folks call such vehicles cargo vans, panel trucks, panel vans, or box trucks. I love my native language, but admit that it’s — complicated.

Where was I? The new library’s delivery entrance. Right.

Construction happened in 1960, so planning would have been in late 1959 or earlier. ‘Thinking green’ hadn’t caught on yet.

Bulldozing that good-sized tree would have looked like an obvious step in prepping the site. In the short term, it’d make construction easier. In the long term, generations of delivery drivers might have thanked the planners.

My father was at least as practical as anyone else: maybe more so. But he’s also my father. Where others saw a disposable obstruction, he saw a tree.

That’s why the new driveway/sidewalk running along Livingston Lord Library’s south side had a large circular gap near the library’s delivery entrance. And a good-sized tree growing in the center of that gap.

Legacies

Google Maps: Minnesota State University Moorhead, Livingston Lord Library and Ballard Hall, with the tree my father saved growing between. (image taken February 27, 2025) used w/o permission
The tree my father saved, south of Livingston Lord Library, MSUM. Google Maps image.

I haven’t been to the library, or Moorhead, lately. Not in person. But I’ll make the occasional virtual visit, often using Google Maps and Google Street View.

The tree is still there, apparently: although its leaves may be getting thin. How recent Google’s data is for that location, I don’t know.

It’s a happy thought, that the old tree is still there; giving shade in the summer and occasionally getting in the way of students and delivery vans.

How long it will last, I don’t know. But I do see its survival as one of my father’s legacies: and a testament to his good sense, insisting that the new paving accommodate both its growth and the tree’s need for rainwater.

My oldest daughter and I get together on Discord each evening, circumstances permitting. Last Wednesday our chat flittered past my oak, and around trees in general:

[oldest daughter] “I suspect there’s quite a bit more to the story because there is a small oak tree in the area you mentioned.“

[me] “Aha! Maybe Dad/Gpa Gill replanted – – –“

[oldest daughter] “I wouldn’t be surprised. He was as sentimental as you.
Your Russian olive is still a thorny, bushy mess to the south, too.

[me] “So they didn’t clear it. 😉 Awww.”

[oldest daughter] “Yes!
As much as [second oldest daughter] and [her husband] find it annoying to mow around, it’s still there.
Often surrounded by a circle of uncut grass.

[me] “Well, good for them 🙂 That’s nice – – – but – – –
😀 ‘natural prairie’ 😉 “

[oldest daughter] “[second oldest daughter] said that it’ll stay put as long as you’re alive.”

[me] “That’s – very thoughtful of her. I really wish I could see a way of getting up there in person. Oh, well.
“I’m genuinely touched by that – I hope it’s not a hardship. It is, after all, just a tree.”
(Discord chat (February 26, 2025)) [emphasis mine]

Maybe my father planted another oak there. But I wouldn’t put it past him to find some way of reviving the little oak’s roots.

Finally, a few thoughts about trees, the Sixties, and all that.

I like trees. A lot. So did my father.

One of the good ideas that got traction in the Sixties was seeing trees, plants, and critters in general as something other than a source for toothpicks or an impediment to Progress.

Some other ideas that got traction, and occasionally spun out of control: well, I’m far from delighted at every change that’s happened since then.

Screenshot from a 20th Century Fox trailer for 'Gentlemen_Prefer_Blondes.' Marilyn Monroe and men in formal suits and vests. (1953) via Wikipedia, used w/o permission.And my memory’s too good for me to yearn for ‘the good old days’.

That’s as serious as I’ll get this week.

Time for the seemingly-inevitable links:

1 Another memory from my seasons on Buford Avenue:

2 “…Conditions considered best for bur oak germination were not well documented in the available literature….”:

  • Quercus macrocarpa, Fire Effects Information System (FEIS), Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture

3 Naming the houses my folks and I lived in:

4 Background:

Posted in Family Stories, Journal, Series | Tagged , , | 2 Comments