The Sweetest Language

"Friday, May 9, 2008
Nothing can be softer or more harmonious
The Finns still retain their own language where their geographical situation cuts them off from frequent communication with the Teutonic and Cimbric races. "Both the Lapland and Finnish languages," says Dr. Clarke. ''are pleasing to the ear, and admirably suited to poetry, owing to their plenitude of vowels. They constantly reminded us of the Italian; and we might cite several instances of words common to all the three. Acerbi, as an Italian, sometimes understood words used by the natives of Finland. Nothing can be softer or more harmonious than the sounds uttered by a Finland peasant, when reciting his Pater Noster. It is full of labials, nasals, open vowels, and dipththongs, and is destitute even of a single guttural.''

Edward Isidore Sears: The National Quarterly Review (1863)
Posted by Kaisa Kyläkoski at 12:35 AM From Kaisa's Virtual Bookshelf, virtually a treasure trove!

Yoked Together

Carhenge

Driving through Nebraska on I 80 last week we veered off into Alliance on our way to Crawford to visit a son; on the way we stopped along the road to take a couple of photos of Carhenge. This is a humorous task a family undertook on a family reunion. I think it took a couple of years to complete. I liked it. Sometimes a person can look at art and not find anything funny about it. Wikipedia does a good job of explaining it and names the family responsible for constructing it. Now, I have seen them both. The real deal in England isn't funny.

The Reader and the Read To

Yesterday in Bernie Hunhoff's southdakotamagazine online gem he wrote: "On This Day: August 19 In the summer of 1931, Nebraska poet laureate John Neihardt accompanied Oglala holy man Nick Black Elk to the top of Harney Peak, where Black Elk re-told of great visions he had seen during his lifetime. That conversation, and many more that continued into the spring of 1932, would form the basis for the famed Indian spirituality book, Black Elk Speaks. In his visions, Black Elk told Neihardt that he had met the guider of the universe. Reports vary, but it is believed Black Elk died on this day in 1950 at the age of 86."

On our quick four day trip to the Black Hills I read "Pirate, Pawnee and Mountain Man: The Saga of Hugh Glass" by John Myers to He Who Must Be Obeyed. Somewhere in the text Myers wrote of John G. Neihardt having acquired some information on Glass. Neihardt's "The Song of Hugh Glass" 1915, and the "The Splendid Wayfaring" 1920 are listed in the Bibliography. Myers' adventerous tale took us across two interstate highways, and two states which ate up most of two days on our own four day adventure.

Being so steeped in the history of our own childhood home lands, one thing leads to another as it always does in life. When we recovered from our rigorous travel I poked around in my various book shelves and found a book I bought at the Chadron, Nebraska Museum of the Fur Trade a few years ago, John G. Neihardt's "The Mountain Men: The Song of Three Friends-The Song of Hugh Glass-The Song of Jed Smith." New and unopened, I was delighted to find a drawn map of Hugh Glass's trails beginning at Ft. Atkinson a few miles north of our home on the Missouri River and ranging along rivers and streams to the headwaters of the Missouri and down the Platte. How I longed for a map as I read on the road.

I had always thought that Neihardt was too hard for me to read, especially to read aloud. The first chapter was lovely and of course I can read it! The rest will be saved for our afternoon recovery periods and maybe, as HWMBO suggested, take the place of evening mindless television.

Wagon Trains to Deadwood

Bull Train Up Staged by Plumber


Been Gone/Back Again
"Going Home" never means exactly that. It is putting our feet on the soil of West River South Dakota. We did precisely that last week.

The culmination of the event, besides visiting a grown son and daughter, In-Laws, friends and a cousin, we situated our lawn chairs across the street from the famed Franklin Hotel in Deadwood and watched the wagon trains from Cheyenne, Sidney and Ft. Pierre meet in the street in front of the hotel with yippies, excited yells, and some speeches from wagon masters and city mayors. MC-ing the event was a nephew of a friend.

I couldn't figure out how to get these videos here but they are both well worth watching. One is from Fort Meade on the way to Deadwood and the other in Deadwood.

http://videos.rapidcityjournal.com/p/video?id=2078950

http://videos.rapidcityjournal.com/p/video?id=2083513

The event had not happened for the last hundred years. As the locomotive replaced the horse and wagon in that area, goods came by rail instead of wheel and it connected our pioneers and homesteaders with places outside of this hinterland, as one of my college professors called it, when I went away to school in 1953.

Up to our Necks in Cleome

I left the air conditioned house to take a few photos. The heat and humidity were so thick that the camera lens immediately fogged over.

This is sometimes called Spider Flower and is currently taller than I am.

Tomorrow is a grandson's 28th birthday. He was our first grandchild and born on our wedding anniversary. Tomorrow we celebrate 54 years of wedded bliss.
The birthday boy's dad, our son, is in a hospital in California. We far away old parents are concerned and wish we lived close to help with his post op recovery.

I still long for the days of generational close proximity and the security that it provided every one, young and old.