#692 – "Sahn Pahl", some points of view on pronunciation of French words

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A fellow Franco-American, Jerry Foley, sent around an interesting letter from a Quebec visitor which he saw in the February 11, 2013, St. Paul Pioneer Press, entitled Sahn Pahl. Several of us, all with an interest in the general topic of being of French ancestry, or speaking or familiar with the language, weighed in with their points of view.
Here’s the originating letter:
“Have you ever noticed there are a lot of French names for places in Minnesota? The state motto is “L’Etoile du Nord” for a reason. I know people think of the area as having such a strong Scandinavian history, which it does, but it seems a lot of people here, and elsewhere, don’t seem to realize that, in terms of non-Native-American European settlement, St. Paul itself, and much of the rest of Minnesota, were originally explored and settled by French and French Canadians.
This history is represented in many names around Minnesota, from St. Paul to Lake Vermilion. Take a look online sometime and see just how many names in Minnesota are French and discover what a rich French history the state has.
I recently visited St. Paul (pronounced “Sahn Pahl”) to do some genealogical history for my family. I have many relatives who lived in and around St. Paul in the 1800s and many are buried in some of the old Catholic cemeteries around the city, complete with headstones totally in French. During my interaction with locals here, I was constantly being “corrected” for my pronunciation of common French terms and names. For example: I pronounced Brainerd as “Bray-Nair” the actual pronunciation and a much prettier sounding place than “Brain Nerd.” Don’t you think?
I pronounced St. Cloud as “Sahn Cloo,” St. Croix as “Sahn Kwah,” Duluth as “Doo loot,” Hennepin as “Ahn Pahn,” Nicollet as “Nee coh Lay,” Robert Street is “Row Bear,” Mille Lacs as “Meel Lahk,” Radisson as “Rahdee sohn” and Pepin as “Pay Pahn.”
I could go on and on as Minnesota is full of French names, but I think you get the idea. All of these pronunciations are actually the correct way to pronounce these words. So, hey, give it a try, Minnesota! Now I don’t even dream that people in Minnesota will start to pronounce these names correctly all the time, but I propose that on one day a year, everyone at least tries to. So, from here on out, I proclaim Feb. 20 pronounce-it-correctly-in-French day in Minnesota.”
Miah Saint-Georges, Saint-Aime, Quebec, Canada
Like most of we French-Canadians, Jerry sports mixed ancestry: Irish and French-Canadian (for me, it’s French-Canadian and German). For you?
But because we live in a country that has truly been a melting pot for most of its history, the pronunciation dilemma, among many others, makes it difficult to maintain some kind of true ethnic identity.
The letter was shared among the members of the steering committee which helped bring the fruition Franco-Fete in Minneapolis September 28-30, 2012. Several persons commented.
Reader. What is your opinion?
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Dr. Virgil Benoit speaks at rededication of graves of Pierre and Martha (Gervais) Bottineau at Red Lake Falls MN August 24, 2000

Dr. Virgil Benoit speaks at rededication of graves of Pierre and Martha (Gervais) Bottineau at Red Lake Falls MN August 24, 2000


Dr. Virgil Benoit Prof. of French at the University of North Dakota and IFMidwest: Like the author of the article regarding pronunciation of place names, many persons are surprised that with all the names that reflect historical presence so little of that history seems living. The author would have to spend a little more time studying the complexity of the matter, and it would be good if his interest were met with a growing interest among those interested in the heritage of French and French Canadians in the Middle West. Pretty hard to be taken very seriously when so quickly passing by.
Graves of Pierre and Martha (Gervais) Bottineau, Red Lake Falls MN August 24, 2000

Graves of Pierre and Martha (Gervais) Bottineau, Red Lake Falls MN August 24, 2000


And here is Mary Ellen Weller, from the foreign state of Wisconsin!
Tous et toutes (one and all)
Let me just add another perspective from the standpoint of the historical power of naming. After all, the native peoples had names for most of these places before any Europeans came.
Then, there is the evidence of power shifts among these Europeans in the many place names that were simply translated from French to English as the British took over. Rainy Lake (Lac de la pluie) is a good example.
As a French teacher, I’m all for good pronunciation but I delight in the survival of so many French place names and value that far more than proper pronunciation.
Jon Tremblay, of St. Paul, who has a web presence at ToutCanadien.com*: Those who know me may be shocked by my reaction to this story. I’m satisfied with the status quo, that is, the local pronunciation.
“Proper pronunciation” is going to differ from one Francophone to another, be it Canadian or French. There is no one proper pronunciation, contrary to what some may foolishly and arrogantly believe.
The local Anglicized pronunciation makes it ours. You can tell if someone is a native Minnesotan by how they pronounce the name of a town, river, lake, county… Mispronunciation of the original language is also not something unique to French. We say “New PrAYgue” and not “New PrAHgue” for New Prague. We say “Shisago” and not “Tchisago” for Chisago. We say, “A-no-ka” and not “A-no-KA, which would give you away as an outsider right away. Lake “L’Homme-Dieu” is slaughtered beyond all recognition in French to the point of making a Francophone burst out laughing, but it’s OUR pronunciation.
I think the important thing in all of this is to remember where the names originate and give credit where credit is do. You’re not going to change the way people pronounce these names, but you could cause them to have a deeper appreciation of where they come from, which would include knowing the pronunciation in the language of origin.
* – And speaking of the web site, something I have not mentioned to anyone to date is hopefully on 4/1/2013 I will have the first of 4 books available for purchase (cheap). This will be a “Jump-Start Guide” or a “Crossing-over Guide” for those who learned France French and now want to understand Canadian French. Based on the number of requests I’ve had to provide this, I think it will be very popular and a good seller.
Old Cemetery rural Dayton MN Sep 2012

Old Cemetery rural Dayton MN Sep 2012 cemetery is maintained, but assorted gravestones no longer are above graves. This was a French-Canadian area.


Here’s filmmaker Christine Loys, responding from France:

Definitely interesting, not only the article, not only the fact itself… but people’s reactions to it….
I keep surprised by [some] not wishing to have a proper pronunciation… It shows a strong will of being themselves, of building an identity that is really their own identity… but to me it seems like if I decided to speak English with my own pronunciation that only the French who speak English could understand… I have been through that sort of attitude amongst French people living for many years in the UK. Some of them would never pronounce proper English and therefore would never be well understood by the English although the quality of their language was very good…
In Quebec, you’ll find an accent but that is easily understood by the French. You will always find stronger accents but even in France there are some strong accents that I can’t understand properly. It comes from old people who have never traveled out of their village or who have never met anybody else than their own family.
In Quebec, you will find many many people with the standard French accent… listen to the radio or the television and I have traveled in Quebec before and you will be surprised but it is true…. as well as in many schools… Those who make the effort, understand that it is a way of opening to the world…and it does not affect their identity… Some others would react like “I am Quebecois and that is how we are”. Fair enough for them.
The idea is that a language is for communication and if you limit it to your area… you lose too much…an accent is fine (and very nice) but not if it prevents your communication with the external world…. I think.
Of course, we are here talking about a community who has this very special definition of being American and having mostly partially French and Canadian origins…not only a community but a state…and finding an identity so many years later based only on very older origins is a challenge that I can try to understand.
Tombstone at old Cemetery rural Dayton MN Sep 2012

Minnesota-Dakota War Veteran Tombstone at old Cemetery rural Dayton MN Sep 2012


Pierre Girard. In my opinion, except for Polish and French, most foreign names and words are pronounced phonetically. One has to have some knowledge of French to know which letters are pronounced and which are silent. Then the rest of the pronunciation is regional and who knows who set the rules for local dialect. Take the capitol of South Dakota for instance. I think all English speaking people would know how to pronounce Pierre correctly, and not as Pier. Most folks pronounce Louisville, KY correctly but then say St Louis, MO instead of “San Lewee”. Then there is Beatrice, NE. It is really pronounced “Be-AA-trice” for some strange reason. Part of the reason that many French words are pronounced incorrectly has a lot to do with the majority of “Americans” speaking only one language and that we are not the most educated nation on the planet.
These are thoughts and not excuses.
In Chippewa Falls the French name Clottier was pronounced Kloocky by the old French people as well as the pie tourtiere was pronounced “tooquere” by my dad’s French relatives. I heard folks at Our Lady of Lourdes pronounce it the same back in the old days when Les Canadienne Errants sang there.
Last (and least) from Dick Bernard: My Dad was 100% French-Canadian, so I’m 50% deeply rooted in things French. But I knew nothing about my ethnic heritage until I was over 40 years old; and did not meet my first-language French-speaking Manitoba relatives till I was over 50. Similarly, elements of the French culture also passed me by. I do not remember a single ND town in which I grew up where there was any visible French presence (including geographic names). German Catholic, Scotch Methodist, Norwegian Lutheran, Syrian Muslim, yes…but not French-Canadian.
Very recently, I came across a “Survey of N.D. Education” which I wrote for my College (Valley City State Teachers College) newspaper over 50 years ago, July 5, 1961. The second paragraph said this: “…the first school in what is now North Dakota was established at Pembina in the year 1818. It was run by the Catholic church – being used for the education of the children of the French settlers at Pembina, and it lasted for only five years. the “classroom was usually a settler’s home, and no school building was constructed in Pembina until 1876.”
At the time, I had no notion of the cultural and historical significance of that paragraph.
My favorite, accidentally discovered, French-derived Americanism is “booya”, the more or less ubiquitous summer picnic staple for churches and organization. Throw everything in the pot, and at serving time it comes out “booya”. A year or two ago I got curious about the word. Here’s what a google-search turned up.

#689 – Dick Bernard: 55-54, Five OT's….

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Now and then we go to watch 8th grader Ryan and his B-squad teammates play basketball. We’ve done this since he started in Woodbury Athletic Association (WAA) a few years ago.
Odds are that we haven’t watched a future State All-Star in any of these years. These are kids who like to play basketball, and each year you can see their skills develop: dribbling, passing, shooting, teamwork….
It’s fun.
Yesterday afternoon, Ryan’s team was playing Oak-Land, on their home court at Woodbury Middle School.
It was a fast moving game, and interesting (which, to me, means “close”). Towards the end, I thought Oak-Land was pulling away – as I recall they were up by 7 – but the Woodbury team tied the score, and the game went into overtime.
(click to enlarge photos)
IMG_0527
Then a second overtime; then a third, a fourth, a fifth….
Overtimes started out at three minutes, then were reduced to two minutes, then came the fifth overtime, only a minute in duration.
Pressure was on. Perhaps there were 50 or so of we spectators there, and we became more attentive and animated. Such happens in close contests.
Then came the final free throw.
Of course, there’s no announcer at these games, and no high tech scoreboard technology saying who’s shooting, so it was just a Woodbury Middle School kid standing on the free throw line at the east end of the court, shooting two.
His first missed.
Then the second. Tension was on. I was trying to take a snapshot so could only listen to the results, and I knew by the cheering that the ball had found its target!
IMG_0535
I doubt anybody from either side left the gym unhappy after that game. It was good, healthy competition and everybody played their best.
Thanks to the kids, the coaches, the ref, the fans, the public schools.
The kids congratulated each other, and off we all went.
It was good.
IMG_0536

#687 – Dick Bernard: "Sykes High, oh Sykes High School of Dreams Come True…."

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Note to reader:
Note: There are six other posts about Sykeston:
There are several other post I have done about Sykeston:
May 4 (the main article): Thoughts on Sykeston High School at its Centennial
May 9 A 1957 Social Studies Test
June 12 Remembering Sykeston in late 1940s
June 28 Snapshots in History of Sykeston
June 29 Sports in 1950s small towns in North Dakota
July 3: Remembering Don Koller and the Lone Ranger
This is also one of a series of posts spawned by recollections of attendance at Valley City (ND) State Teachers College 1958-61. This and the other items are (or will be) permanently accessible at January 2, 2013.
I was a tiny town kid. Sykeston High School, class of ’58, included eight of us. A ninth had dropped out mid-year to join the Air Force. (The subject heading for this blog was the School Song, written in 1942 by two students. Sykeston School Song002) The previous year I had attended Antelope Consolidated, a country Grades 1-12 school near Mooreton, and the Senior Class numbered two: a valedictorian and salutatorian. The smallness didn’t seem to hold us back: long-time U.S. Senator Byron Dorgan was fond of recalling that he graduated 5th in his class of 9 at Regent, in far southwest North Dakota.
Most of us at VCSTC were from tiny towns. In contemporary terms, even Valley City (2010 population 6585) would be considered nothing more than a town; John Hammer, a colleague freshman in 1958 from the surrounding Barnes County (2010 population: 11,066) said that in his high school times, aside from Valley City itself, there were 16 school districts with high schools in Barnes County – perhaps one high school for every 300 total people.
Sykeston was probably pretty typical of those hamlets many of we students called “home”. In 2008, after my 50th high school reunion (held coincident with Sykestons 125th anniversary), I managed to cobble together the data about that high schools graduating classes from the first, in 1917. You can learn a lot about ND from that graph including the fact that my high school closed in 2005, leaving behind only the stately building from 1913.
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Sykeston HS Graduates001

Sykeston HS build 1913, photo in 1958.

Sykeston HS build 1913, photo in June 1958, Dick Bernard.


Valley City State Teachers College, then, was big-time for me, a country kid. It was founded in 1890, and was part of a State College system supervised by a Board. Here is the 1960 Board: ND State College Bd 1960001
Old Main VCSTC 1959

Old Main VCSTC 1959


STC’s sports teams, then, were excellent, and the 1959 annual, in the Basketball section, notes the competition. The ND State Colleges played that year were: Wahpeton, Ellendale, Bottineau, Mayville, Minot, Bismarck & Dickinson. Some of these were Junior Colleges. Private Jamestown College was next-door arch-rival. VCSTC also played University of Manitoba, and S.D. schools Huron and Aberdeen.
Here is the current roster of North Dakota State Colleges. Ellendale long ago “bit the dust”. Devils Lake and Williston may or may not have existed in 1958. I’m not sure.
For whatever reason, I seem to have developed early an interest in what “school” in North Dakota meant, even back in college and early post-college years.
In June, 1961, for some reason I did a little research piece about the history of North Dakota Public Schools and published it in the Viking News which I then edited. I can remember writing the piece, but not why I chose to do it, though I don’t think it was an assignment. You can read it here: VCSTC ND Educ Jul 5 1961001. On rereading it, I think I was basically quite accurate. I probably used the college library sources for research.
In February, 1965, during one of those vaunted three-day blizzards in western North Dakota, I whiled away my time in our tiny apartment doing some more research on Changes in the Small Schools of North Dakota. I used the simplest of resources: the North Dakota School Directories and census data. Blizzard over, for no particular reason, I submitted the unpolished piece to the North Dakota Education Association which, much to my surprise, printed it in the April, 1965 issue: Changes in ND Small Schs001.
Later that month, an editorial about the article appeared in the Grand Forks (ND) Herald – a minor brush with fame.
It would be interesting to see someone update that 1965 blizzard-bound “research”.

#678 – Dick Bernard: Anniversary of a Retirement

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It was thirteen years ago today, January 18, 2000, that my staff colleagues at Education Minnesota bid me adieu at my retirement after 27 years attempting to do my best to represent teachers in a collective bargaining state.
I was not yet 60 when I cleaned out my office, handed in my keys and walked out the north door at 41 Sherburne in St. Paul.
It had been long enough.
Even so, I had purposely fixed my retirement date to accommodate the statutory deadline for contract settlements that year: January 18, 2000.
My job back then was an endless series of negotiations about anything and everything: elementary teachers had differing priorities than secondary; that teacher who’d filed a grievance, or was being disciplined for something, had a difference of opinion with someone. Somebody higher up the food chain had a differing notion of “top priority” than I did….
So it went.
And negotiations was a lot better than the alternative where the game was for one person to win, against someone else who lost.
It was one of many lessons early in my staff career: if you play the game of win and lose, the winner never really wins, at least in the real sense of that term, where a worthy objective is for everybody to feel some sense of winning something. Win/Lose is really Lose/Lose…everybody loses.
We are in the midst of a long-running terrible Civil War where winning is everything; where to negotiate is to lose.
We’re seeing the sad results in our states, and in our nation’s capital, and in our interpersonal communication (or lack of same) about important issues, like the current Gun Issue, Etc.
Thirteen years is a while ago.
I brought my camera along that January 18, 2000, and someone took a few snapshots (at end of this post). Nothing fancy, but it is surprising how many memories come back:
There’s that photo of myself with the co-Presidents of Education Minnesota, Judy Schaubach and Sandra Peterson. Two years earlier rival unions, Minnesota Education Association and Minnesota Federation of Teachers, had merged after many years of conflict.
I like to feel that I played more than a tiny part in that important rapprochement, beginning in the late 1980s in northern Minnesota.
Both officers have retired. Sandra Peterson served 8 years in the Minnesota State Legislature.
Leaders don’t stop leading when they retire.
February 28, in Apple Valley, Education Minnesota’s Dakota County United Educators (Apple Valley/Rosemount) will celebrate 20 years from the beginning of serious negotiations to merge two rival local unions.
I was there, part of that. And proud of it.
There’s my boss, Larry Wicks, who many years earlier I’d practiced-teaching-on at Valley City State Teachers College. I apparently didn’t destroy him then; he’s currently Executive Director of the Ohio Education Association.
And my work colleague and friend Bob Tonra, now many years deceased, who somehow took a fancy to my Uncle’s WWII ships, the battleship USS Arizona and destroyer USS Woodworth and painstakingly made to scale models, behind me as I type this blog.
And of course, colleagues – people in the next office, across the hall, other departments, etc. Or Karen at the Good Earth in Roseville – “my” restaurant for nearly its entire existence. They gave me a free carrot cake that day….
That January 18 I finally cleared the final mess from my office and took a few photos of my work space, across the street from the State Capitol building. On my office door hung a photo from the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, April, 1999, a few days after the massacre at Columbine.
That young lady in the picture is granddaughter Lindsay, then 13. She, her parents and I walked up that Cross Hill on a rainy April day, and saw the stumps of the two crosses one Dad had cut down – the ones erected by someone else to the two killers, who had killed themselves. They lived then, and now, scarce a mile from the high school….
All the memories.
Let’s all learn to truly negotiate and to compromise on even our most cherished beliefs.
Such a talent is our future. Indeed our world’s only chance for a future.
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Judy Schaubach, Dick Bernard, Sandra Peterson Jan 18, 2000


In Gallop Conference Room at Education Minnesota Jan 18, 2000


Karen Schultz and server at Good Earth, January 18, 2000


Bob Tonra with his model of the USS Arizona ca 1996


Larry Wicks (at left)


Cross Hill above Columbine High School, April 1999, granddaughter Lindsay by the crosses, late April, 1999

#675- Dick Bernard: A Mysterious Photograph; subtext, can't be serious all the time, there are mysteries, and they give an opportunity to think back to those ever more olden days!

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Recently, enroute to finding something else, I came across a mysterious 8×10 photograph, unlabeled.
(click to enlarge)

An unknown bunch....


I remembered when I first saw it, in my mother-in-laws effects. She had passed away in 1999 at 84 or so, and it certainly wasn’t her fan memory. Her children have all passed on as well, the most recent and last in 2007, so I can’t ask them. My wife, Barbara, had passed away of kidney disease at age 22 in 1965; her brother, then 19, had died in a car accident in 1975; and the middle brother died at age 60 in 2007.
The photo was and still is a mystery.
I decided to scan the photo and send on to a friend who maintains an e-mail list from Barbara’s high school graduation class of 1961. We were all born from 1940 to 1943…WWII babies.
It brought forth quite a few comments, from whimsical to serious. Here’s a “Facebook” like thread, which turned out to be very long. But if you’re interested, you’ll read on…!
Diane started the conversation: “I don’t have a clue who these people may be. Sorry.”
On we went, and here are a few later responses:
Barb: “I showed this picture to my husband, the musical person, and he had no clue either. He said it looks like a heavy metal band, or one of it’s precursors. Seems to me as though it is not a group from the 60’s, so it was probably not Barbara’s property.”
Larry: “Right…you saw some these guys later on, with Grateful Dead, Kiss, others, but during our late 50s early 60s era, this wasn’t the kind of group we were following and I don’t imagine….”
Margaret: “Perhaps their hair dresser would know.”
Ron: “Very funny Margaret. The guy on the right looks somewhat like a young Frank Zappa. Maybe???”
Diane: “I thought it was rather clever. ”
Doug: “Love your answer Margaret … I asked my wife and she doesn’t know.”
Barb: “[Ron] says that ” it could be” a young Frank Zappa. So who is he???”
Dick: “Well, you shook the bush, and here I am: [look at this video].
It might be Zappa…
If I was to guess, this photo belonged to…Barbara’s younger brother [who] died in a car accident…in August, 1975. He was only 19. I can’t say this for sure, but I think he got into the drug culture in later teen years, which was a shame. He was his Mom’s boy. He really never had a Dad, since his Dad split shortly after he was born. The family story was a very, very difficult one.”
Barb: “Yup, I think Ron was right . . . the guy in the video does look like the picture Dick has! My hubby says he was popular during the hippie years, the drug years, and that he named one of his kids “Dweezel” . . . . good grief! I think I was married and raising little kids during those years and I missed all of those goings on.
Dick, if you put it on e-bay, who knows what you might learn! Even if it isn’t autographed, it’s a real photo. Some old ex-hippie might want it!”
Ron: “He’s [Zappa] the musician who named his children: Moon Unit, Dweezil, Ahmet Emuukha Rodan and Diva Thin Muffin Pigeen.”
Larry, to Margaret’s hairdresser comment: “Haha…good line Margaret…..we 61’ers all had neat hair…like Leland’s and Chuck’s duck tails and Roy’s and others’ crew cuts…etc…and then I was using “butch wax” and “Brylcream” …a little dab will do ya..”….to slick back the locks.”
Dennis: “I have to laugh at the dialogue that follows a picture. We must all be home snug in our environment hoping for those hazy, lazy, crazy days of summer. My skiing ability was tested as I went out this morning and slid down the entire driveway to get the paper. I was very successful, however when I turned to go back up the driveway, I learned it is easier to ski downhill than uphill. Must be a physics law here. I remember the crew cuts. It was suggested to us by our coaches that it would be to our advantage to keep our hair short. I went back to the archives and looked at our basketball pictures, all short hair. Now I pay my barber by the number of hairs left. Oh well!”
Margaret: “You guys had great hair!”
Larry: “Haha…hey, Denny…assume you know HOW to ski or, at YOUR “advanced” age, are you just learning? Bully for you if you’re learning a new skill. Keeps those neurons cracking and healthy, they tell me.
Don had a crew cut or something like it, if memory serves. I look stupid as hell in one (some would argue, “ya, in any other haircut too!”) and that’s how I looked when JoAnne and I got married. Ouch. Why she went through with marrying me I will never know. Now, I too, Denny, as I noticed this morning at “Great Clips,” that I am growing a rather large hairless spot on the back of my head AND the clippings on the cloth I was wrapped in show quite a noticeable amount of gray, that being the growing color of whatever remains.
Weatherwise, as you mentioned, we are “hunkered down” too awaiting a dip into the ice box and perhaps a blizzard of sorts. Roads are very icy tonight. Fargo’s temp, at 8:43 PM central is 16 above, but Denver’s is only 12 – my daughter’s Florida Goldens like romping in the snow but I imagine they’ll start to miss the tropical temps as the thermometer dips. And it’s only 39 in Las Vegas tonight….those are the temps I watch on my iGoogle page.”
Dick: “Does anybody still use Brylcreem? I was one kid who was pretty liberal with the definition of “a little dab”. Maybe that’s why we didn’t have a second chicken for dinner – the family budget went for my Brylcreem.”
Larry: “Hahaha…hey, Dick I see by your Wikipedia link that ” Sara Lee bought the personal care unit of SmithKline Beecham in 1992.” Brylcreem was part of that . I believe it must be sold in some parts of the world, if I read the article correctly..maybe under a different name. Heck, there might even be some in Sarah Lee food products…perish the thought.
I put on plenty of it too. My grandmother used to get pretty mad when it stained the inside of my PARKA.. We all had to have a “parka” in those salad days. Now I wear a red bomber cap when I run my snowblower.”
Dick: “Since I started this ‘marathon’, perhaps I can add another comment (which probably won’t close the conversation). I thought the comments were so intriguing that I’d do a blogpost about the photo, including some of your comments.”
Barb: Well, you were right, Dick. You’ve started a whole “other” conversation! Diane is entertaining a big group of friends at her home in Tempe today, so I’m guessing she won’t comment until tomorrow at the earliest.”
Reader, if you’ve got this far: your opinion?

#672 – Dick Bernard: Remembering Valley City (ND) State Teachers College 1958-64

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NOTE: There will be continuing updates and additions to this post, which will include all additional items. Suggestion that you bookmark this page, if interested in 1958-64 at VCSTC.  Here is a companion post including pdf copy of every page of the 1960-61 Viking News (13 issues, 76 pages).

In the era before phones were ubiquitous…1960 at the hall phone at VCSTC

UPDATES as of March 2, 2013:
1. Memories as shared by some graduates January, 2013: VCSTC MEMORIES JANUARY 2013rev2
2. VCSTC Faculty, Staff and Times: VCSTC Faculty and Times 1958-64rev2
2A. Photos of all Faculty and Staff at VCSTC 1958-64 should be accessible to all in a Facebook album accessible here.
3. Qualities of Memorable Teachers, as shared by teachers: here
4. Remembering Dean of Men Lou Bruhn: here
5. Some pages from the 1960 Viking Annual: Viking 1960111
6. Public Education in North Dakota, some thoughts: here
7. Leila Whitinger (class of 1963) remembers VCSTC here.
8. Mike, VCSTC’s Mr. Moore, a Civics Lesson and Freedom of Speech here
9. Catholic Pope’s remembered, Dick Bernard, here
10. A North Dakota State-wide Civics and Geography test from 1957, including a connection with Soren Kolstoe here
11. Loretta (Welk) Jung (class of 1964) presents a program about her cousin, Lawrence Welk here.
12. Hank Toring ’64 remembers construction of Interstate 94 near Valley City: HANK TORING. Here is a description of I-94 History in North Dakota.
13. Remembering two weddings in Valley City 50 years ago, June 8, 1963, here.
14. Dr. Soren Kolstoe’s poetry about North Dakota, here.
15. A visit to Valley City and Sykeston ND July 5 and 6, 2013, here.
16. A visit to the VCSU campus, October 24, 2013, here.
17. A road trip from North Dakota to California, Summer 1941, here.

Watching the 1960 United States Election Returns

(click to enlarge photos)

Dedication page of 1960 Viking Annual. See Carole Flatau text below.

Text from above page – 1960 Viking Annual

VCSTC Campus 1960 not including Euclid or East Hall. From Viking News May, 1961

Ordinarily I escape solicitors, especially by phone, so it was a happy mistake when I answered the call to enroll in the 2012 Alumni Directory project for Valley City State University, my alma mater over 50 years earlier. (Here’s an aerial map of today’s Valley City including the College)
There had been a previous Directory, in 2003, and I had purchased that as well.
Both are books. The 2003 version was 300 pages, and included only eight people with e-addresses who I knew ‘back then’.
The 2012 edition has about 335 pages, including nearly 40 people with e-addresses who I at least knew back in those long ago years. This edition also includes a CD-ROM.

At walking bridge, looking north Sep 21, 1986

The old walking bridge Sep. 21, 1986

September 21, 1986

Back in those long-ago college years, I doubt any of us, perhaps even our most astute faculty back then, could have even actively imagined the e-mails, facebook, twitter, etc., etc., etc. that exploded onto the scene about 20 years later! George Orwell in his 1949 novel “1984” talked about “telescreens”. 1984 was a long ways in the future, then. Wow.
Back in “ought three” as old-timers might say about 2003, I initiated a conversation of reminiscences with the few in the old crowd who I could reach by e-mail. Fortuitously (it turned out), I kept the recollections in an e-file, which even more fortuitously survived assorted subsequent computer crashes and a change from Microsoft to Mac technology three years ago. (I go by many accurate descriptors, but “geek” is not one of them. At the same time, I can do the rudimentary navigation required to survive in the 21st century).
Shortly after the 2012 Directory came out, I made contact with those brave souls who had chosen to reveal their e-mail addresses in the book.
I then decided to transfer the old memories (with permission of the writers of the time) to a pdf document remembering 1958-61 at Valley City State Teachers College, as written February-April, 2003. That 54 page document is accessible here, in 14 point Times New Roman: VCSTC Memories recorded Feb
During VCSTC times I had, for some unremembered reason, be come the Sports Editor of the 1960 Viking Annual, then Editor of the Viking News in 1960-61.
Thanks to Mary Hagen Canine, I have the entire set of that years Viking News (as I have the old annuals as well).
As a New Years Day project, I decided to make a Facebook album of the photos which appeared in the Viking News in 1960-61. You can see them here. Simply click on an individual picture to enlarge it somewhat. Since the original photos were screened for printing at the Valley City Times Record, they are not high resolution. (The news photographer, I learned from the 1960 annual, was Gerhard Ovrebo, who all aspiring scientists at STC would well remember!)
In fact, as a final part of this little new years project, I decided to pdf the Faculty pages of the 1961 Annual, which you can see here (Mr. Ovrebo and camera on page 22): VCSTC Admin 59-60001.
Ah, the memories.
It occurs to me, at age 72, that those faculty who I thought were ancient at the time I was a student, were actually much younger than I am today. So is how it goes.
If you wish to add to the memory bank of the reminiscences, feel free to e-mail me at [dick.bernard@icloud.com as of 2021]. Additional memories of others will be assembled and shared on or after February 1. If you wish a memory shared, please give your specific permission to republish when you submit the memory.
Some photos from Yearbooks 1959-62:

Old Main 1959-60

Bridge 1959-60

Assembly 1959-60

Dr. Lokken 1960-61

East/Euclid 1959-60

Mythaler Hall 1959-60

Then and Now….

Dick Bernard, Freshman VCSTC, sometime in 1958-59

Dick Bernard making a Peace Site presentation at Twin Cities public TV Channel 2, St. Paul MN, January 25, 2013

#669 – Dick Bernard: Christmas Day 2012 Joyeux Noel

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Recently, on one of my forays through the flotsam and jetsam of paper in my life, I came across some unused Christmas cards from days gone by.
These cards had text in French: “Joyeux Noel. Bonne et Heureuse Annee”, and all were from “Coll. Oratoire Saint-Joseph”, ca 1980s, the most recent 1991. It took little ‘sleuthing’ on my part to figure out this mystery. On my last trip to Montreal, in 1992, I had visited the magnificent Oratory of St. Joseph, and in the gift shop there saw these greeting cards for sale, and bought one of each. Then brought them home, and never used them.
I was going to use one of these cards this card, but then decided to wait until I could scan them for use in this blog. Doubtless they are all copyrighted, but I’m sure Brother Saint Andre Bessette, founder of the Oratory will understand. Here they are: Cards ca 1982002. There are 15 in all.
All Blessings at Christmas. Happy Holidays. All best wishes.
Christmas is a simple yet exceedingly complicated holiday in our western tradition. I happen to come from the Catholic tradition: shortly I’ll be ushering at the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis; my roots are French-Canadian and German Catholic. I seem to recall that my Dad, in his only trip to his ancestral Quebec in 1982, visited the Oratory with me. And I went back to the Oratory on subsequent trips.
But Christmas is complex in our society.
This year, to my knowledge, the United States Postal Service marks every stamped piece of mail thus:
(click to enlarge)

The Postal Service had seven holiday stamps this year, including two Christian and two secular, and Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and Eid…all reflecting different traditions. I tried to get all seven varieties this year, but the last three were not in stock when I wanted to purchase them, probably some function of “supply and demand”.
Today, for youngsters of all ages, “Santa Claus” will dominate, though Santa won’t arrive at everyone’s doorstep.
Christmas is a complex time of year.
So, Merry Christmas, but keep a notion of the ideal we are noting today.
It comes well expressed as an addition to a friends Christmas letter received a couple of weeks ago, from a writing by Jay Cormier, as follows:
CHRISTMAS ROOM
“He is never mentioned in Luke’s story of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem, but he is the linchpin of the whole Christmas story. Were it not for him, Jesus would not have been born in a poor stable but in the Bethlehem Ramada.
He is the innkeeper who presumably refused a room to Joseph and Mary, forcing them to find shelter in a barn. All Luke says is that “there was no room for them in the inn.” Bur every Christmas pageant includes the innkeeper, often portrayed as a gruff old bir who cannot be bothered with a poor carpenter from the sticks and his young bride. Sometimes he is the harried host, overcome with the demands of running a hotel during a busy season. and once in a while, the innkeeper is a compassionate soul who sympathizes with these poor travelers and offers the only hospitality he can.
The innkeeper never realizes who he is turning away. It is a busy time: guests and customers need to be taken care of, and the place is filling up faster than he and his wife can keep up with. (Nothing personal, folks – it’s the busy season.)
We should not be too quick to ridicule: We’re all innkeepers when it comes to this Child. Things need to be taken care of, our lives fill up faster than we can cope. (Nothing personal, Jesus.)
The innkeeper’s plight is the challenge of Christmas: to make room in our homes and hearts for this Child, in the midst of the demanding commerce of our professions and careers, in the quiet desperation of our pain and anguish , at our kitchen table and in our classrooms, in our wallets and checkbooks, in our calendars and day planners; to make room for him both when he is welcome and when his presence is embarrassing and inconvenient.
Take a moment to remember that Christ comes in every guest who comes to your inn in every season of the new year. “
NOTE: My Christmas “card” this year remains here. Especially note the video accessible there.

#668 – Dick Bernard: Dad's Birthday

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Twenty-five years ago today, December 22, 1987, my Dad celebrated his 80th birthday.
Being Dad, it became a particularly special event, worthy of note this day.
As I recall, my sister, Flo, and I had taken the trip from Minnesota to Dad’s new home at Our Lady of the Snows, overlooking the Mississippi River Valley just above East St. Louis IL. Dad had just moved there from his previous home in San Benito TX, where he’d lived since he and Mom became “winter Texans” in 1976, and not long thereafter purchased a small home at 557 N. Dowling, and became full-time residents of that Rio Grande Valley community.
Mom passed away in August of 1981 and Dad had a decision to make. He decided to live on, staying very actively engaged in the San Benito senior and Catholic and general community. He became an active volunteer at the Berta Cabaza Junior High School across the street from their home, tutoring Hispanic kids whose first language was Spanish, and by all accounts, the volunteer job was a great fit for him. That story, with photos, continues here.
In 1987 his good Valley friends his good friends in San Benito, the Brashers, began talking with him about this Apartment Community called Our Lady of the Snows in their home town of Belleville IL They weren’t Catholic themselves, but they thought the Apartment Community there might be a good fit for Dad, and he decided to try it out with a short visit, then in the summer of 1987 with the help of Flo, and later with my help, he made the long move north to a small apartment in that wonderful Apartment Community.
Our Lady of the Snows became an exceptionally great fit for Dad, and he blended in with everything there. That’s a story in itself.
But this story is about his 80th birthday….
Dad was always a methodical sort of guy, and he’d become acquainted with a physical fitness program through the U.S. government which made suggestions for senior activities, and awarded certificates to those completing their projects.
Eighty days before his 80th birthday he made a decision.
He was going to walk a 15 minute mile once every day, culminating with the 80th mile on his 80th birthday.
I don’t recall him announcing this goal at the outset, but that’s what he did.
He picked his route and his time. He would begin at the stage area of the ampitheatre at Our Lady of the Snows at 7:45 a.m., walk back and forth, row to row, until he reached a mile. (On the general map of the shrine, the area I’m describing is in the lower right hand corner of the developed area.) Somehow he had calculated what was a mile. His goal was to reach the Bells by the time the Angelus rang at 8 a.m.
He’d walked this route the previous 79 days. December 22, 1987, Flo and I were with him.
I recall it as a chilly morning and, worse, a little icy and thus potentially hazardous along Dad’s chosen route.
No matter.
This was Dad, and this was his route, and this was the 80th day, and the day for the 80th 15 minute mile on his 80th birthday. No little thing like ice was going to stop him!
This day he led and we followed, and he was a man on a mission. We did our best to keep up, but it was futile, at least for me.
He arrived at the Bells two minutes before they rang.
There was no drama. He’d made his goal.
He lived on at Our Lady of the Snows till his death November 7, 1997, not quite making 90, basically covering every inch of that remarkable facility on foot, many, many times.
I got into my own habit of walking that day in 1987, and since, I calculate, I’ve walked the circumference of the earth.
Lately a bit of osteo-arthritis in the right hip has crimped my habit of 2 1/2 miles a day, and I’m searching for an alternative.
There are habits and there are habits.
Happy Birthday, Dad!

#665 – Dick Bernard: When will we learn? Thoughts immediately after Newtown CT

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Friday morning we took a quick trip over to an area shopping mall to watch our 7th grade grandsons school band do a half hour mall concert. I’m always proud watching kids perform, and watching the teachers work their magic with those kids, and this concert was no exception. This band was a unit, playing a medley of Christmas songs for quite a throng of us, likely heavily sprinkled with parents and grandparents and other family of the students (our grandkid also had his aunt there. His Mom and Dad were at work, his Mom as a Middle School Principal a few miles away.)
(click to enlarge)

Concert at the Mall December 14, 2012


December 14, 2012


Enroute home we stopped at a store on busy France Avenue to pick up some items, and decided to have lunch in a casual dining place across the drive. Meal over, we walked past one of those ubiquitous flat screen TV’s on the wall, sound off, closed captioning on.
I noted something about a shooting in a school, and the view of the top of a school somewhere provided by a news helicopter. We stopped until the closed caption at least identified where the breaking news was taking place, and saw it was in Connecticut, and drove home.
The rest is history, and as we all know, the massacre at the Newtown CT elementary school became the story of the day, and will now dominate for awhile the public and perhaps even the political conversation – and it is a conversation we all need to be involved in about our American reverence for rights, freedom and guns, regardless of deadly capacity.
We’ve had plenty of warning and even practice in this conversation: Not long ago was the Aurora theatre; followed by the assault on the Sikh Temple; followed by the attack on the business in Minneapolis; the Portland Mall…and on and on. There were similar events before; others still to come. Pretty uniquely American….
Random acts of violence involving guns. We know that such events trigger similar events. Someone, somewhere gets an idea….
The debates again beginning will be predictable, I fear.
After Aurora the on-line Patch newspaper editor in Eagan started a poll/conversation on gun control. I had joined the conversation thread then.
Consistently about 60% of respondents were against any kind of gun control, and were passionate about it; the rest of us were more or less evenly divided in favor of gun control, or of restrictions on guns and ownership.
Aurora passed, and on life went, but the poll remained and I was still on the list to receive comments. After each of the above incidents the comments began again. I just looked (early a.m. on Dec. 15) and there are 684* comments, with the percentages consistent with my above comment.)
I’m guessing that sometime today the poll will return to my inbox, with the predictable passions continuing.
Of course, the 60% against gun control is reflective only of those who take the time to present their point of view in a non-scientific poll. It is just a poll, and is so acknowledged there.
But at least respondents present a point of view, even though it is one I have always disagreed with.
If there is to be a change in gun policy in this country, it is going to have to be from the people, including the many who think they can’t do anything, and complain that it’s up to the politicians.
Not so.
WE are the politicians in this and so many ways.
A wrong position on guns has for far too long been a political death sentence for our political leaders, and if we don’t like that, we’re the ones who will have to be, as Gandhi said, “the change we wish to see”.
Those middle schoolers at the suburban mall went home safely yesterday; 26 people, mostly tiny children, in a Connecticut town didn’t….
POSTNOTE: My favorite blogger has a good summary of yesterdays news about the CT massacre and the politics here. A pull quote from William Saletan included in this post: “This morning, a madman attacked more than 20 children at an elementary school in China. As of this writing, there are no reported fatalities.
A few hours later, a madman attacked an elementary school in Connecticut. As of this writing, 20 of those kids are dead.
The difference? The weapon. The madman in China had a knife. The madman in Connecticut had three semi-automatic guns.”
* UPDATE Dec. 19, 2012: I had wondered when the first comment would be added to the 684. I note that the article itself remains focused on the more recent Minneapolis shooting, but this comment appeared overnight from “Terry the Terrible”: “Bla, bla, bla. They already tried a ten yr experiment banning extra capacity mags, bayonet mounts(??? Musta been afraid of drive by bayonetings) and such and it did absolutly nothing twards reducing crime so we know another ban on (so called) assult weapons would be useless and stupid. Also. All of you folks that think taking all of our guns will solve every little thing need to be educated and taken to the range for a day of learning about and shooti.g yourself. You may even find that it is FUN! O.k., sorry for the rant. Peace… all you wicked and violent sounding gun grabbers. Leave us alone already- one of us might save your lives someday.”

#662 – Dick Bernard: Pearl Harbor Day one day after.

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Yesterday, December 7, was Pearl Harbor Day. Much of the day I was out-and-about.
Dad’s brother, my uncle Frank, died on the USS Arizona that day, and especially since the 50th anniversary, 1991, it’s been a very significant date for me. I visited the Arizona Memorial in November, 1985, Frank’s burial place literally underneath my feet, in the remains of the battleship that was his home for the last six years of his life. Were he still alive, he’d now be 97. I’ve written about Frank and/or Pearl Harbor often. Most recent is here.
A year ago, December 7, I was at the Veteran’s Service Building in St. Paul to remember the 70th anniversary of the attack. There I met Edgar Wentzlaff, a crewman on the Arizona, who survived. He didn’t remember my Uncle, which wouldn’t be a surprise. What surprised me was that yesterday’s Star Tribune carried a long article about now-95 year old Edgar. Time is running out for the survivors of WWII; tell their stories while they are still alive.
Back home yesterday was an e-mail from my brother, Frank, born Nov 1945, first male child after Frank died, and named for my Uncle Frank. The e-mail included a photo of a man in California, Gary Hanson, who I’ve communicated with, who has made a scale model of the Arizona. Behind me as I type is my own model of the Arizona, made by my friend and colleague Bob Tonra back in the mid 1990s; beside it is a scale model of the USS Woodworth, also by Tonra. Woodworth is the Destroyer on which my mothers brother, Lt. George W. Busch, spent three years in the Pacific, 1943-45.
(click to enlarge).

USS Arizona and DD460, USS Woodworth, models in my home office December 8, 2012. Both models in wood, made by friend and colleague Bob Tonra ca 1996. The "water" with the Arizona is dried Hawaiian foliage from two Hawaiian friends.


Gary Hanson with his Arizona model.


Pearl Harbor and the effects of War (Frank was a peacetime victim, technically) is never far away, a constant reminder of the elusiveness of peace, and the brutality and stupidity of war. It also reminds about how complex and difficult an issue this business of war and peace can be, even among passionate people of seemingly like-interests. War…and Peace…is a family matter.
Pearl Harbor is also a reminder of the need for, and fragility of, enforceable World Law, and the need for a system in which such law has a place at the table.
Working on the issue is no simple task, far beyond absolute 100% right positioning, “standing for something”.
Back home yesterday afternoon I watched again the History Channel program, “The First 24 Hours”, about the first hours after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. I had seen the program before, but events immediately preceding the program made me more mindful of the difficulties we face to prevent the next and likely much worse cataclysm if nations cannot figure out how to get along.
Back then, until the day war was declared, December 8, 1941, the U.S. was a nation divided about whether or not to enter WWII, which had already been raging for several years.
An extremely strong interest group at the time was “America First”, whose motivation was basically as its name suggests. Our isolationism ended only with a disaster that we felt we could only remedy by an extremely long and deadly World War II.
Then, and today, our dilemma is not so much external (like terrorists); rather it is within each and everyone of us, dedicated to our own top and non-negotiable priorities. Thinking, somehow, that we can prevail over our opposition, or win by sneak attacks of small and major scale (that’s why I used my December 7 blog space for the Minnesota Orchestra lockout: in my mind, it was a simple power play now gone awry, with no face-saving way yet found to settle on terms of a contract. Most people don’t care about an Orchestra being locked out, but the effects are felt by those who do.)
Even within the so-called “peace” community, of which I am a part, there is often disagreement, to the detriment of those same advocates for peace.
Yesterday, on Pearl Harbor Day, I saw a copy of the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928, supposedly an everlasting and legally binding pact to end all war, following up on the 1914-1918 “war to end all wars” and the resulting Armistice Day commemoration, which later was changed, in the United States, to be called Veterans Day, losing the essence of the day (in my opinion.) In the United Kingdom it is called Remembrance Day.
Of course, the WWI Treaty of Versailles, intended to end War, only helped to spawn Hitler and WWII. And the ink was hardly dry on Kellogg-Briand when ways to bypass its supposedly iron clad language were found, including by the signatories.
I support people with the passion for Kellogg-Briand, etc. But my friends whose passion is making Kellogg-Briand binding once again, seem not quite as passionate about simple things like promoting Peace Sites, places of peace in our midst; or remarkable movements with results like the 1968 and 1971 Declarations of World Citizenship in Minneapolis and Hennepin County, and then Minnesota.
It can be most frustrating.
And on we go.
Where do you stand?
We live in an increasingly fragile world, and the actions we take, or do not take, and the work we do together, or not, will contribute to the problem…or the solution…one person at a time.

Ruhel Islam, owner of Gandhi Mahal Restaurant in Minneapolis, accepts plaque recognizing his restaurant as an International Peace Site from World Citizen founder Lynn Elling (seated at left) Dec. 7, 2012


NOTE to Twin Citians: Gandhi Mahal is a great restaurant. Check it out.