Another School Year

What's going on here, you may wonder?  Well . . .

40 Shrimp and 40 Winks 'til Christmas

We enjoyed a coupla Christmas events last night, although we didn't enjoy that they were scheduled to happen on the same evening. Last night was the annual Christmas party for faculty and staff hosted by the university president and his wife (remember last year's event?). So many people accepted the president's invitation to attend that the Elks Lodge (where the party was held) had to remove a divider that usually sets off our party room from the main dining room for their restaurant, and we took over the whole facility! There were four food stations in various parts of the room, and the highlight for me was the one that featured piles of gigantic shrimp with cocktail sauce. Delicious!

We pretty much had to wolf down our food, though, because we had to get to the next event on time: Hillary's music program at school. We ended up sitting at the party with two other faculty members with children in the program, so we all left early. (And I found out today that, after we had left, my name was drawn to win a door prize: one of the poinsettia plants that decorated the tables. Just my luck.) Susan's dad had eaten supper with the girls at our house (while we were at the party) and then delivered them to the school, Hillary to get ready to perform and the other two to help him save seats for when we arrived.

The music program was called . . .

(Notice any spelling errors? By the way, the title was spelled correctly in the program, so I can't explain this very public mistake.)

. . . and featured Hillary in the role of . . .

(That's Mrs. Claus, by the way, not ol' St. Nick himself . . . although Hillary's Mrs. Claus had a large belly just like her husband's!)

She was very expressive in the delivery of her lines--so much so that people who had seen the show earlier yesterday afternoon (the students performed it at 2:00 and 7:00 P.M.) approached Susan and me before we went to the evening performance to tell us how impressed they had been and what an impression she had made on them. We were pretty proud, and it was a joy to see how "into" performing Hillary was.

Abigail commandeered the camera and put herself in charge of taking photos last night, resulting in a collection of images such as this . . .

. . . and this . . .


So just take my word for it: It was cute, and Hillary did a fine job, and we all enjoyed it.

Here's Hillary after the show posing on stage. Inside that fake fireplace is an actual television on which ran a real video of an authentic fireplace fire, making for a faux fire in the imitation fireplace throughout the performance. Very post-modern, don't you think?

Tragedies

It has been a rough week around here. Sunday night three university students used a cell phone to call a friend, reporting that they needed help and were near water; but the message wasn't clear, and the call was cut short. Thus began a worried search for those students--involving police, community members, their softball teammates, and other groups of university students--that ended Tuesday with the discovery of their bodies inside a vehicle submerged in a rural stock pond northwest of the city.

When I heard that terrible news, I was with a group of 30 university students in New Town for a field experience in the public schools there; we drove up at 5:30 A.M. Tuesday and were to stay overnight, spend Wednesday in the schools, and return Wednesday afternoon. Well, three of the victims' softball teammates were with my group, as were a few more baseball teammates (the men's and women's teams practice and travel together so much that they're as close as one big team), and they were completely distraught. The rest of the group was stunned, too--so we checked back out of the hotel, reboarded the bus, and came back to campus Tuesday night.

University classes were canceled Tuesday night and all day Wednesday, which was designated a day of mourning and remembrance. They were canceled again Thursday afternoon so that all faculty and students could attend a memorial service for the three ladies at 2:00 P.M. We heard from a local pastor, the university president (who was clearly emotionally shaken), the student body president, the three ladies' softball coach and team co-captain, and all of their parents, who were remarkably composed and said such beautiful things about the compassion of our community, the capability of our police and university officials, and the character of our students.

I had never met the three ladies, but I couldn't help crying throughout the service with sympathy for their family and friends, so many of them my own students whom I watched clinging to one another for support, not sure how to react or to process their own emotions--and several of whom I had hugged and listened to and sat with first in a hotel room and then on a bus late Tuesday night.

You can trace the related events from Sunday through today here. You could also search the Internet for news about Ashley Neufeld, Kyrstin Gemar, and Afton Williamson. The story captured national interest and was featured on television news (including Today and Good Morning America) and in newspapers across the U.S. and Canada (the three ladies were from CA, CO, and MB).

As if that weren't enough, yesterday Susan's grandpa Elmer Gustafson passed away. After 98 birthdays and 70 years of marriage to Susan's grandma Laura (remember Elmer and Laura?), "Grandpa Gus" ended his life's journey in the nursing home where he and Laura have been living recently. Susan's dad Roger (who was here for supper tonight) has started making funeral arrangements, and his siblings will be coming to town in the next few days to join him. The funeral will be Monday at 2:00 P.M. at our church, and Susan and I will sing one song, and our three daughters will sing another song. (Elmer always brightened up whenever our girls showed up to visit, so it'll be a sweet moment to have them sing for him one last time.)

Elmer was nearly 80 years older than the three students from our university who died this week, so their deaths were definitely more shocking. However, it's no less sad to say goodbye to a loved one who is elderly. Please keep Susan's family in your prayers as well as the families of Ashley, Kyrstin, and Afton.

Spooky in Southwest ND

Whew! I'm exhausted. Our Halloween was chock-full of activity. This morning I got some work done for school, and Susan got some work done for church (as Sunday school director, she was in charge of setting up for one of this afternoon's events at church; more on that in a bit). Then we joined the university president and his wife for a brunch at the Student Center on campus: an indoor tailgating event before the football game in the afternoon. Mrs. McCallum has been arranging these events throughout the fall and inviting various groups of people to each one to mingle with one another, visit with her and her husband, and enjoy the goodwill, school spirit, and delicious food. Early in the week before each pre-football brunch, she invites various people to taste-test all the menu items that she's considering for that weekend, and I was invited to one of those brunches to sample and recommend (remember?). Now, a few weeks later, I got invited to the weekend event itself!

Some other university faculty and staff were there, too, as were selected members of the community. We enjoyed visiting, of course, and Susan found the president and his wife to be very hospitable; but mostly we were all about the food. We started with appetizers: smoked salmon on garlic toast rounds with all the fixin's for lox (cream cheese, capers, red onions); quesadillas and salsa; sweet-'n'-sour meatballs; and deep-fried chicken nuggets and ranch dressing. Then the buffet line: pasta salad; potato salad; a variety of cheeses with a variety of crackers; bread bowls to fill with our choice of beef stew, cream of broccoli soup, or hearty chicken noodle soup; two egg bakes, one with meat and one vegetarian; and sour-dough buns, mustard, and mayo to make sandwiches out of the garlic-crusted roast beef and roast pork that was being sliced at the end of the buffet line. Then dessert: frosted sugar cookies decorated like pumpkins; slices of dessert breads (banana bread, cranberry bread, etc.); a huge slices of cheese cake. It was just delicious.

Then we headed home so that Susan could help the girls with their costumes. Our church has a "fall festival" each Halloween to which children come in their costumes and eat snacks and play games that are more Bible-themed and less monster-themed. Arranging that is one of Susan's duties as Sunday school director, so in addition to getting games and supplies and food ready over the past few days and this morning, she also had to be at church before the festival began to set up and had to stay late to clean up. So I took the girls to church when it was time and snapped some pics of them in their costumes there:

Suzanna dressed up as a grandma. She borrowed the walker from a friend, donned sensible hose and an '80s dress (complete with shoulder pads), packed her purse with facial tissue and cough drops (I suggested that she toss in some Bengay and a plastic rain bonnet, too), attached an eyeglasses chain to her spectacles, and wore curlers to bed last night and sprayed her hair gray today. She shuffled around a lot and used a pinched voice to give the other children grandmotherly lectures about not eating so much candy, being careful with their costumes pieces (e.g., "You could put an eye out with that sword"), and so on. Yep, she was truly "in character."

Abigail dressed up as a professional dancer from Dancing with the Stars, which we enjoy watching as a family and on which Abigail enjoys daydreaming about appearing someday. The pink jazz dress is from a past dance recital; it has glittery beads all over it. She matched it with glittery silver shoes that she bought for a quarter at a rummage sale last summer. (The white tights and long white sleeves aren't realistic considering all the skin shown by the professional dancers on the TV show, but they're more sensible for trick-or-treating in ND.) She wore curlers to bed, too, last night and had Mommy fix her hair in a super-fancy 'do. Her glamorous makeup includes glitter on her face and in her hair. I suppose that she was "in character," too, striking a pose at the drop of a hat, spinning around in impromptu dance routines, etc.--but that's really just Abigail, Halloween costume or not.

Hillary dressed up as a queen bee. She, too, made use of an old dance recital dress, pairing it with outdoor-trick-or-treat-friendly black tights and a long-sleeved shirt for the black-and-yellow bumblebee look. The fairy wings suggest bee wings, and the tiara (pink feathers and all) suggests her royalty. Thus, people who guessed that she was a fairy were first corrected that she was a queen bee; and then when they nodded and said something like, "Oh, yes, I see it now: a bumblebee!" they were again corrected: not just "a bee" but "the queen bee." Yep, Hillary, too, was both "in character" and perfectly herself.

Susan got in the spirit, too, donning kitty-cat ears and a tail (which she's holding in her left hand) for her afternoon with the children at the fall festival.

At the end of the fall festival, I took the girls and one of their friends around town to trick-or-treat. We hit the houses of their school teachers. Then we went to "Malloween" at the Prairie Hills Mall. Almost every store had employees in Halloween costumes sitting out front with buckets of candy so that children in their own costumes could go from store to store trick-or-treating indoors. It's ideal if you have little kids whom it's a hassle to haul around town; if the weather is cold; or if you like seeing other kids' costumes because they're all on parade as the kids tromp from store to store throughout the mall.

Then we went to "Treat Street" held at Days Hotel Grand Dakota Lodge and Convention Center. Various businesses rent suites there and decorate them according to various themes, stocking them with in-costume people to hand out candy and hide in the dark corners of the rooms and leap out screaming to scare the trick-or-treaters! The line just to get in snaked out the lobby doors, down the parking lot, and around two sides of the building! Thanks goodness the weather was just beautiful--no coats necessary. Inside there were lots of awesomely spooky lights and lit-up monsters and eerie music, and there were cobwebs and black lights and scratchy streamers and mummies and all sorts of creepy stuff in the hallways and each room. Hillary held onto my hand pretty tightly; and people in some of the rooms, seeing a young child entering, called out to their cohorts not to scare our group. When one monster leaped out of the darkness to scare Suzanna, she turned to him and, in character, held out a finger and said, "Stop that!" And he did! Hilarious.

Then we dropped off the girls' friend at her home and went trick-or-treating at our relatives' homes. Susan's uncle Terry and aunt Audrey were at their son Robbie's high school football game, but their daughter Christy happened to be at the house with her kids to let us in and give the girls some candy. We stopped at Susan's other in-town cousins' homes, too, but they must have been out and about with their own kids. We found Susan's aunt Mary and uncle Dale at home and made that our last stop before parking at home and hitting the streets to canvas our own neighborhood. One neighbor across the street always has special treat packages ready for the girls, and we made sure to stop at the homes of all the other neighbors whose lights were still on--including Chuck and Reba's house with its fog machine on the front step going off intermittently and creating an eerie haze on the block!

We didn't get home and sit down to eat supper until about 8:00 P.M.! We were very hungry for the mummies (hot dogs wrapped in crescent rolls and baked), the bones in gore (French fries covered in chili and cheese), and the buttered bug eyes (green peas) that Susan had prepared. She had also roasted the pumpkin seeds from Thursday night's jack-o'-lantern carving spree. Once the traffic at our front door had stopped, we went for a walk around the neighborhood to enjoy the beautiful weather and work off some of the calories from all the Halloween candy. Tonight: the girls and I are having a slumber party in the family room. (I have been spooking them with stories about all the goblins that are out tonight, so none of them wants to spend the night in her own room, wondering what this or that noise outdoors actually is.) After about six hours of trick-or-treating, they're ready to sleep . . . and so am I.

Susan's cousin Todd and his wife Trista stopped by with their son Trae in his cowboy gear, and Susan just had to snap a picture for us to see once we returned. Howdy, pardner!

Remember the girls' pumpkin carving the other night? Here's what the jack-o'-lanterns looked like tonight on our front step. Spooky, no?

Listening

The lovely ladies are out of town this week (remember?), so it has been eerily quiet in the house. I moved Huck out of Suzanna's bedroom into the kitchen so that (a) I'll remember to feed him and (b) I can have someone at home to talk to once in a while. He doesn't say much, but he's an excellent listener.

Speaking of listening, I got to hear from some notable persons yesterday when I attended an event on campus that celebrated the progress made thus far in digitizing President Theodore Roosevelt's papers for our library's Theodore Roosevelt Center (more details here). I was on campus anyway for the university's start-of-the-year faculty orientation, so I had time to stop in and listen to some words from Senator Byron Dorgan and Dr. James Hutson from the Library of Congress. I believe that Lieutenant Governor Jack Dalrymple and humanities scholar Clay Jenkinson spoke, too, after I had stepped out.

I heard preliminary reports from Susan indicating that our nephew Davis is indeed as cute as photos and video clips have led us to believe in the months since his birth. I'm eager to meet the little bugger myself this weekend!

P.S. Tuesday night I enjoyed a delicious supper in the back yard of our university president and his wife. It's a tradition that begins each school year, and last year Susan was my date. She was out of town this year, of course, so I attended on my own but ate enough for two, so there's that. I also visited with lots of friendly colleagues, so I had a good time. Highlights from the many tables of food: one of the appetizers consisted of slices of apple and cheese wrapped in bacon; two of the entrées were a steak casserole with stuffing and gravy and chicken breasts in a Mediterranean broth; there were plenty of savory salads and other side dishes; and I chose a huge portion of crème brûlée for dessert. More about President McCallum and video of his State of the University address from yesterday's orientation are available here.

P.P.S. Dear Reader, do you use Facebook? If so, you'll find this article amusing . . . in either a that-is-so-true-and-i'm-not-alone kind of way or wow-i'm-embarrassed-because-i-do-that kind of way.

Christmas with the President

It's wa-a-a-ay below freezing here, but you can't keep Nor' Dakotans away from a Christmas party. This evening Susan and I attended a holiday social hosted by the university president and his wife. It was held at the Elk's Lodge and featured a buffet set up on several tables around the room: hot appetizers at this table, cold fruits and vegetables at that one, cheeses and smoked fish at this, desserts at that, etc. Upon entering the building, we visited with others in line, exchanging the requisite remarks about the weather and pleasantries about one another's Christmas plans. Then it was on to the cash bar for holiday spirits!

We didn't attend the same event last year because it conflicted with an elementary music program for one of our kids, but we went to it the first winter that we lived here (remember?). Tonight's social was different in a couple ways: first, we have a new president (remember?); and second, we know people now, so it was easy tonight to sit at a table and visit with whoever else sat there. We ended up staying quite a while, and Susan even got to take home the poinsettia plant that served as our table's centerpiece.

Then it was off into the cold, back to our younguns at home (thank you, Grandpa, for staying with them), and down in front of the crackling flames of the fireplace . . .

Investiture

I really can't figure out why, exactly, but I like pomp and ceremony and am often moved to tears by an event that is conducted according to tradition and filled with symbolic meaning to those in attendance. I just as easily get irritated when others in attendance act inappropriately out of ignorance of the rules of conduct or lack of respect for tradition: not removing head gear and covering the heart when the U.S. flag passes during a parade or during the singing of the national anthem, for example; or wearing a T-shirt and jeans or other inappropriately casual clothing to a wedding, funeral, or weekly church service; or wearing the mortarboard vertically in order to display curled and hairsprayed bangs during a commencement ceremony; etc. I must have been taught by parents and teachers to be respectful of traditions and to follow ceremonial rules and procedures, I guess. And I definitely like the feeling of participating in a ceremony with others who also know the meanings behind what we're doing and why we're doing it as we are.

That's a preface to telling you that I participated today in the investiture of Dr. Richard McCallum as our university's president. It was my first such ceremony, and it was carried out formally and beautifully by the committee appointed to conduct it. All classes on campus were canceled after 2:00 P.M. and offices closed after 3:00 P.M. to enable faculty, staff, and students to participate and/or attend. We faculty gathered in the library before the 3:30 P.M. ceremony to get into our academic garb (gowns, hoods, and mortarboards) and line up to process into the auditorium through hallways lined with stands bearing the flags of all the nations from which our students come (which makes for quite an impressive array of flags). We were seated in the front rows and had an excellent view of the proceedings on the stage.

The university band played the processional, and the senior faculty member on campus declared the ceremony opened. There were addresses by Al Jaeger, the Secretary of State of North Dakota; Dennis Johnson, mayor of Dickinson; officers of the faculty, staff, and student senates on campus; representatives of the DSU Alumni Association and Foundation Board; and North Dakota University System chancellor Bill Goetz and North Dakota State Board of Higher Education member Pam Kostelecky, both of whom installed Dr. McCallum by presenting him with the mace, the alumni cane, and the presidential medallion to be worn at official university ceremonies. Dr. McCallum delivered an intelligent, extempore speech on the theme "Reflecting on the Past, Embracing the Present, Forging the Future." He's an excellent public speaker who makes a terrific impression and seems so far to be a visionary leader with integrity. The university chorale sang an arrangement of Robert Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken," and the band played a recessional after the senior faculty member declared the ceremony closed.

The sun had gone down by that time, and the investiture committee had lined the sidewalks leading from the auditorium to the Student Center across campus with luminaries, hundreds of white paper bags filled with sand and tealight candles flickering gently and casting a soft white glow upon the walkways to mark the path to the reception. So simple yet beautiful! The galleria of the Student Center was hung with large prints of photographs representing hallmarks from the university's past: buildings, dignitaries, athletes, etc. Inside the ballroom were numerous tables featuring appetizers from the various cultures represented by our diverse student body. Not only was every food item delicious, but the Food Service staff presented them elegantly (e.g., one appetizer was set out upon various overlapping pieces of slate laid out randomly upon the table like a mis-shuffled deck of cards--clever!). The overhead lights were dimmed, and strings of blue lights wrapped in gauzy ribbon cast a glow upon each tabletop. People moved from table to table, sampling appetizers and mingling, all the while enjoying jazz music played by an ensemble of music professors and senior students. It was very classy.

And at the sidelines all evening were the president and his wife, shaking hands and accepting congratulations and visiting easily with students, faculty, dignitaries, and community members alike (and probably forgoing the food in order to keep their hands empty for shaking, poor dears). They have been here since April and have made a good impression so far on campus and in the community. Here's looking forward to great things from this presidency, started off formally and impressively with today's investiture ceremony.