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Brooks Peterson

Monday, July 2, 2001
North Dakota ponders shortening its name

This just in from the frozen north: Some residents of the sober, sturdy state of North Dakota have suddenly become preoccupied with . . . image?
   North Dakota, it seems, is insufficiently hip and happening. And a big part of it is the name. Say "North Dakota" and people think of frozen wastes, endless winters and vast empty spaces. . . .
   This, they reason, is something of a turn-off for people and (more to the point, perhaps) businesses looking for a place to put down roots and generate payrolls. Accordingly, the Greater North Dakota Association proposes dropping the "North" and billing the state henceforth simply "Dakota."
   One high-profile North Dakotan has signed on already. Former Gov. Ed Schafer told The Associated Press the change "would get a lot of attention. Personally, I think it would be fun."
   In fact, people are already having fun with the proposal. People in South Dakota: David Owen, executive director of the South Dakota Chamber of Commerce facetiously (one assumes) accused North Dakota of trying to horn in on South Dakota's glory. "They can become 'Lower Alberta' for all I care," he said.
   This is family history here
   So? So this: I have a stake in this brawl. In fact, I have roots in the North Dakota soil, and even at this distant remove I tend to get a little worried about people who want to mess with what is, after all, a piece of my personal legacy.
   Never been there myself, but my dad, Lyle Peterson, grew up in North Dakota - Grand Forks, to be precise - and while he decided early in his life that he'd had enough of the permafrost, I remain steeped in the lore of his North Dakota upbringing.
   The Depression times were tough, but Dad shrugged that off as I have heard so many of his generation do: "We were poor - but then, everybody was poor. So we didn't know we were poor."
   Dad grew up tough, of necessity: His father took off during Dad's infancy, so it was a hardscrabble existence.
   Not least because of his name: As kids will do, some of his acquaintances turned "Lyle" into "Lila." (But not more than once, I suspect.)
   He worked a number of jobs to help keep himself and his mother afloat. The story I remember most is the one he told of working in a meat market. He was puzzled why customers repeatedly asked for the Peterson kid to slice up their purchases. Ah, but then he noticed that the proprietor, a snuff dipper, tended to dribble the, ah, juice into the meat now and then.
   But it wasn't all work. Dad, who at 6-foot-3 was tall for those days, was something of a presence on the YMCA basketball court.
   Growing-up tales
   Football, however, was another matter. He went out for the high school team only to be swiftly winnowed out. The problem: The first time somebody ran into him full-tilt, as you're supposed to do in football, Dad didn't appreciate it, so he slugged him. Another guy ran into him on another play. And he slugged him. At that point the coach suggested he Explore Other Opportunities.
   There were many other tales from that North Dakota boyhood: of an aunt who belonged to some ultra-fundamentalist denomination scaring the bejabbers out of him with her visions of the end of the world; of having been foolish enough to volunteer to parachute (for a few bucks) out of a plane piloted by a barnstorming aviator. (Dad had second thoughts once aloft, but the pilot thoughtfully hurled him bodily out of the aircraft.) There were visits to East Grand Forks, Minn., something of a wide-open town just across the border from the relatively staid Grand Forks.
   North Dakota may indeed be less than cutting-edge in some respects. But I can tell you this: I know it produced one heck of a good man - and I suspect it turned out many others as well. "Dakota?" I think not. Leave well enough alone.
   Brooks Peterson can be reached by phone at 886-3772, or by e-mail at petersonb@ caller.com


Brooks Peterson can be reached by phone at 886-3772, or by e-mail at petersonb@caller.com

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