If you want to see this house, simply look southwest from any high ground in Bismarck-Mandan. Seriously, though…simply cross the river and take the first right. Stay on this road until you reach the Fort Lincoln school. Continue to go straight from the 4-way stop there, and you can see the house to your right. From there I forget the exact turn to take, but I think it’s the third turn on the right. You’ll figure it out. If you get lost, you can always look for the glow!
With the NWS forecasting temperatures around 30 for the next couple of days, with the strong possibility of freezing rain, I really hope our cities can keep their white blanket intact. A white Christmas is the only kind of Christmas for this guy!
For some reason, people in Bismarck-Mandan need very little excuse to drive around and look at other peoples’ houses. A friend of mine who lived in a very luxurious home in a south Bismarck neighborhood spoke of these people with great disdain, as he felt as if he was some sort of exhibit while out washing his cars or working in the yard. Go to any well-to-do neighborhood and you’ll find them, gapers toodling along at 10-15 miles per hour, apparently living vicariously through those whose houses are gape-worthy.
Northview Lane is normally not such a neighborhood, but they certainly get the attention for the last few weeks out of each year. Once these lights go up, traffic is almost non-stop. In fact, it was pretty annoying for me to try to take a picture of it! I decided to set my shutter speed at a full thirty seconds long, causing the headlights and taillights of the cars to show up as streaks in the picture, but erasing the cars themselves.
My favorite time of the year is driving around during the Christmas season, Charlie Brown Christmas music playing in the truck’s minidisc player, with my wife by my side. She and the new baby were having a special evening at a friend’s house tonight, so little PJ and I took the trip ourselves. He dozed off halfway down Northview, so it was just me and the camera after that. If time allows, I’ll try to photograph my favorite Christmas displays this year. It’ll help me brush up on my night photography skills and share the Christmas spirit as well. Stay tuned!
You’d be astonished how many hits I get on this site from out of state. Most are folks that left North Dakota, some many years ago, and are still looking back. It’s for you guys that I knock myself out to provide a little bit of the feel of July 4th here in Bismarck-Mandan. I’ll provide a few somewhat witty captions for context.
We’ll start with the Mandan July 4th Parade:
Fred Flintstone was there. Those arm tats must have been applied after the show was cancelled – they don’t look like Hanna-Barbera work.
What could be….well, cooler than a motorized cooler? Obviously one with nitrous, but that’s probably still on the drawing board.
First of the ninth, seventh pocketbike cav. First on the ground and keeping the throttle pinned wide open.
Next year, they’re going to bring the BIG one.
Amen.
“Seriously, kid…I once caught a Gundar this tall…”
For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. -James 2:10Now let’s shift gears to the state capitol. My wife, boy, and I arrived at the show a little late as we had other things going on this evening. No worries, we were able to hook up with our friends in time to catch the second half of the performance by the Bismarck Mandan Symphony. The show was hosted by Kent Conrad, who could walk to the festivities from the apartment building he owns (if he actually lived there). Anyway, here’s the pics:
But where do you get a guy to do flagpole repair on a holiday weekend? Good question. If I had a cherry picker I’d rig something up, but that would probably result in my arrest. I would hope that someone would go to whatever lengths necessary to get Old Glory back where it belongs, especially in time for Memorial Day. You’ve got 48 hours, folks…let’s make it happen!
By the way, it didn’t look to me like the flag pole had been sabotaged or vandalized. My guess was that the recent high winds probably broke something up top that was near failure and finally broke. Maybe the North Dakota Peace Coalition was trying to run a white flag up the pole and broke it! I don’t know. In any case, I just hope they get it fixed. It’s really embarassing to have the flag missing from the state capitol during the Memorial Day holiday.
Having successfully performed an attitude adjustment, I burned tires back to the house, grabbed the family, and went out to look at Christmas lights. We were able to ignore the absence of snow, as were many others. Northview Lane was absolutely packed with constant traffic, as were other Christmas display hot spots. Bismarck-Mandan residents, including newly reminded ones like myself, don’t allow Christmas to be determined by precipitation totals; rather, by their good cheer.
There are still a few hours of Christmas Day left…let’s make the most of them!
One thing I first realized when I became a Christian is that there’s way more to the Christmas story than I’d ever known. Jesus didn’t suddenly spring up and change the way God dealt with man forever; his birth was foretold. Around the time of his conception, you didn’t have to explain to an Israelite who the Messiah was. He was foretold by the prophets. His lineage was known and predicted, as well as his birthplace of Bethlehem. They were literally waiting for him to arrive.
Another thing I realized is that we Gentiles are not God’s chosen people; Israel is. We, however, through the faith in Jesus that his nation didn’t have, are grafted in. In both the old and new testaments, Jesus is referred to as a light to the Gentiles. As Paul points out in Romans, the grace God shows the Gentiles is intended to provoke Israel to jealousy. He made a covenant with them that he will not break, and his wish is that they’d come around.
The Christmas story as told in Luke is simply beautiful. I love to try to picture that starry night (because I’m a starry night kind of guy) and the magnitude of the events that unfolded around Jesus’ birth. People were waiting for his birth. This night was prophecy fulfilled, the opportunity for God’s chosen people to be redeemed. Later on, because he wasn’t the type of Messiah they wanted, they rejected him. When Stephen was stoned in Acts chapter 7, he saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God. He was ready to redeem his people, but again they rejected him and killed the messenger, Stephen. Thus we are now in the church age, the time of the Gentiles.
Christmas 2006 has been such a mix of feelings for our household. First off is our little Christmas present, the handome little PJ who was born last week. On the down side, we’re experiencing another brown Christmas. Once the snow comes to stay each year, I load the Minidisc of “A Charlie Brown Christmas” in my truck and don’t take it out till Spring. This year the snow left. It’s really hard to get in the spirit of driving around with Stacy, looking at lights, and listening to Vince Gauraldi when the roads and lawns are barren. It takes the spirit right out of it.
One other down side every Christmas is that my dad disowned me when he found out I wasn’t going to a Catholic church any more. He hasn’t spoken to me since, and it’s been two or three years now. I don’t remember the exact time it started. He didn’t attend my wedding, didn’t visit us in the hospital when our boy was born, and his only response to the news that he’s got a grandson was to hand the phone to my mom. If I come to the house, he leaves the room until I have left. I can’t really get too upset by dwelling on it, because it’s his decision. The man that told me all through my youth that it’s important not to ever leave a loved one on bad terms, because there’s no telling if something might take them from you, has thrown his own advice out the window. Hopefully little PJ will help soften his heart, along with our prayers.
There were little victories, too…Christmas displays were allowed to stand in Chicago and Seattle. Store employees wished “Merry Christmas” except for certain stores (which I boycotted). The Northern Lights showed off their colors just two weeks before Christmas. Friends and family have come back to Bismarck-Mandan to visit, and there’s plenty of time to reminisce. My friend Reed and the rest of his aviation unit are home from Bosnia in time for the holidays. Today, Christmas Eve, marks the 9th anniversary of the day I brought Scooter home from The Birdhouse, tucked in a little pet carrier box which I stuffed in my coat to keep him warm. He’s sitting on my shoulder right now, feathers fluffed, and leaning against my earlobe. He’s spent many years there while I stare at the computer screen, and sometimes I feel I should split some of my freelance money with him.
Aside from PJ and Scooter, the most treasured memory I will retain from Christmas 2006 was the time spent caroling at one of Bismarck’s nursing homes this year. As we walked the halls singing, many residents would stand in their doorways and sing along. I could barely continue through the tears when I’d see a little old lady standing at the entrance to her room, singing the fourth verse of Joy to the World (or any of our other Christmas hymns) by heart. These days most people, myself included, don’t even know how many verses the popular Christmas hymns have, and certainly don’t know the words to those verses. I was touched beyond description. If you ever have the opportunity to go caroling for these folks, don’t let it pass you by. It will leave you a changed person.
Having the baby a little ahead of our expectations has kinda cramped my style of last-minute shopping. I tend to go to Kirkwood mall once a year (not counting Scheel’s), mostly because I don’t care for having to shield my eyes from the way the girls are dressed down there. This time I cranked up my iPod, put my head down, and finished my shopping all in one day. I managed to get almost all the Snoopy keepsake ornaments from Hallmark, too. Among the random songs came a couple of Christmas songs by gospel singer Robert Robinson, whose voice will send shivers up your spine. If you saw a guy with watery eyes wearing a motorcycle jacket and an iPod, that was me.
Two events that always signal the Christmas week are: James Bond marathons and the 24-hour “Christmas Story” marathon on TBS. I own the DVD of “Christmas Story” after being introduced to the movie in 2003. How I went 20 years without discovering this masterpiece (and Christmas staple) is beyond me…but that has been rectified. And I still watch it on satellite, despite the fact that the DVD sits ready and waiting. What can I say, it’s tradition. We also watched the usual Frosty the Snowman and other Rankin-Bass features, because they’re tradition too. I’m not going to teach my kids that there’s a Santa Claus, but I do find the TV specials entertaining.
Because our plans got put back a little bit, we’re likely to spend Christmas Day opening gifts and that sort of thing. My brother made it back for the weekend, so we’ll see him briefly. It seems like all our loved ones in town are sick or have sick kids, so we’re staying home to isolate our little boy from any unwanted germs. After all, he still won’t be a week old on Christmas day. It’ll just be the four of us, counting Scooter, and it’s the stuff memories are made of. I hope your Christmas is as memorable as mine. If you’ve got anything you’d like to share about your Christmas, please enter it as a comment. Merry Christmas!
On a side note, I think it’s funny that people like me will complain about spending $7.75 to sit through a two hour movie at a theater while happily spending $5 to cruise through a 15-20 minute Christmas display. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the five bucks, I just think the human nature of it is funny. While a theater like the new Grand is worth $7.75, Christmas in the Park is equally deserving of your five bucks.