It’s the last day of 2012 and here in central Kansas we’re getting a nice snowfall which so far is staying on the fields. Although it isn’t expected to be a heavy snow, we’re thankful for any moisture we receive.
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At this time of year many people’s thoughts turn to wondering what it would take to have a happy new year in 2013. For those living and working on the prairies and plains, especially those in agriculture, one thing that would make for a great new year would be moisture in the right amount at the right time.
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After posting the blog about “Buffalo Misconceptions,” I remembered a great quote about their habit of rubbing on telegraph poles. It’s taken from Frank Roe’s The North American Buffalo and is in a note on page 439:
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The American buffalo, or technically the Bison Americanus, have always fascinated me and over the years I’ve gathered considerable material on the species as well as spent time observing them in pastures.
I’ve encountered myths and misconceptions about this animal dating as early as the 1500s to as recently as November, 2012.
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The Whistler referred to is Joseph Nelson Garland Whistler who graduated from West Point in 1846 and was brevetted a brigadier general during the Civil War. In 1871 Whistler, a Lt. Col. at that time, was in charge of the military escort for the North Pacific railroad survey. Apparently Whistler had a problem with alcohol which may account for his seemingly strange statement.
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Rod Beemer, Bennington, who grew up on a family farm nine miles south of Abilene, started as a writer in the 1960s, quit his occupation as a magazine writer and followed another passion, custom woodworking. Writing never left his blood.
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Sad. Disappointed. Embarrassed.
Those are the feelings I had after reading Larry McMurtry’s new book about George Armstrong Custer. I’m a huge fan of Lonesome Dove and anticipated a similar caliber work on Custer but it was a great disappointment. Besides that, I was sad and embarrassed that McMurtry’s name was on this book.
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“One of the greatest fallacies concerning Indian resistance to white advancement across the Great Plains involves the methods of Indian warfare. Hollywood and television have always depicted wagon trains or dismounted cavalry with Indians riding around them in circles. There is not a single recorded instance in Western American History where Indians maintained their attack using such tactics.”
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Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., the distinguished Supreme Court justice, served in the Union Army during the Civil War and was wounded in three battles: Ball’s Bluff; Antietam and Chancellorsville. I marveled that he managed to survive three gunshot wounds, especially when one considers the primitive, inept medical practices of that era.
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This past summer my wife visited some kin in Missouri and came home with a violin, or fiddle. Violins have been an interest to me since I tried to find my mother’s violin after returning home following a few years’ absence. I don’t do music but I was interested in the construction of a violin which I consider to be one of the two top arts of woodworking. The other being a sailing vessel.
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