Thursday 21st May 2009 – If You Want to Get Ahead

I got to spend the evening at a cabin down by the lake.  We had a barbeque, but when the sun went down, it got just a bit to cold to stay out.  Everyone is very please that the lake is filling up again: it has been gradually emptying over the last few years, but the Corps of Engineers (the army runs the big rivers here) has promised it will be 12 feet higher by the fall.  This has been greatly aided by all the flooding over the past month on North Dakota.  The dam is used to keep the Missouri navigable for barges.  The local joke is that the Corps of Engineers keep it dredged, but the only barges which use it are those taking away the dredging spoil.

Having read about the building of the dam, I was rather surprised to discover that it's actually twenty miles from Glasgow.  The dam was one of the major projects of Roosevelt's 'New Deal', and was built between 1933 and 1940.  The workers lived in 'tar-paper' boom towns, now largely gone.  If you didn't know what you were looking for, you wouldn't know it was there.  I took a wrong turning on my way to the cabin and had driven along most of it before I realised it.  It is an earth dam, the biggest in the world, and is largely invisible until you realise that the scenery is just a bit too regular.  I will take the tour next week.

 

The barbeque gave me an opportunity to show off my new hat.  Although it's windy here, and still a bit cold, the sun is very strong.  So I needed a hat.  Ostensibly, I went out to buy a shirt, since I finally had to admit that old faithful was not up to a barbeque.  The shop was basically selling cowboy outfits.  I kept my back firmly towards the boots, but I couldn't resist trying on some of the hats.  Either I got a cowboy hat or a baseball cap.  What finally swung it was noticing the label inside the hat said 'Stetson' on it.  Well, I just had to, didn't I?

Everyone was very kind and said it suited me.  I wonder if it actually does.  But it does keep the sun off me: all of me.  Since I notice most of the men keep their hats on indoors, I asked if that was really polite.  A lady teacher told me in no uncertain terms that it was not.  She used that tone of voice which told me she was not really talking to me, but to all the other guys.  I took it off very quickly.

 

Some of the youngsters went off for a plane trip, and came back and 'buzzed' us: very exciting.