One of my favorite lines from a movie is from “Lonesome Dove,” the western about the first cattle drive from Texas to the fresh ranges of Montana.  One of the main characters says, “Hell, if we do this, they will be writing songs about us for generations!”

History is a funny thing.  It can be weeks, months, years, centuries or millennia.   It can be world, national, regional, state, local, familial, or personal.

In the end, it should be remembered.

Today is a day that should be remembered.  Today is a day, for those born and raised on the upper plains of the United States, should be marked on in the annuals.  Specifically, for those of us North Dakota State Bison fans…today is a day that should be marked and celebrated.  It should be a day that we pass on to our children, our children’s children, our nieces, nephews, and neighbors.

Today, the Bison made it to big dance, the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.

It was a day of firsts.

The first time that North Dakota State has qualified for the tournament.

The first time that any team from North Dakota has made it to the big dance.

The first time since 1970 that a team, in its first year of eligibility as made it to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.

The first time that a national televised sporting event came out of South Dakota.

Part of it is very surprising.  Part of it is very expected.

This victory, while happening today, like most historic events, has roots much deeper.

When North Dakota State made the jump to Division I sports from their traditional spot in Division II, they were vilified throughout most of the region.  They were abandoning their roots, they were abandoning their fellow colleges, they were entering a new realm of sports that they would be uncompetitive in.

Their response to their fellow Division II universities - come join us.  Let’s make the leap together.

Some followed.  Some chose to stay behind.

In the meantime, something strange happened on the cold plains of Fargo, North Dakota.  Suddenly, the impossible became possible.  Enrollment grew.  More graduate programs were developed.  More money, more then was ever imaginable rolled in.  New buildings were build.  A new excitement, a new energy flowed through the humble campus of North Dakota State.  The Thundering Herd was starting to be heard.

Fewer people took notice of the changes in Fargo, but it was tough not to see the changes on the playing field.  The football team took on the seemingly unbeatable teams…and beat them.  A new entrant to Division I-AA football shouldn’t beat the reigning champs of D I-AA.  But it happened.  A D I-AA football team shouldn’t beat a Big 10 team…but the Bison played the mighty Gophers to a halt the first year and make quick work of them the following.

On the court, the lowly Bison beat the ranked Badger team in one of their first forays into D-I basketball.  A Badger team that had lost only three times at home in the prior four seasons, to top ranked Illinois and Wake Forest was defeated by a scrappy Bison team.

The history was written before tonight.  It is a history of daring great things, of taking the chance, of going for the gold.  It is a tale of hard work, dedication, and going against the odds, against the critics.  It is the things that songs are written about for generations.

Now, they have something to dance too.

 Sabino translates as “orange” in Spanish.  The Sabino Canyon outside of Tucson has many stories around its naming.  The first from the name of the original owner of the vast section of Arizona where the canyon resides, his first name was Sabino.  The second legend, my favorite, centers on a herd of wild horses that plied the canyon, making their home among the tress and cactus.  The legend says that the leader of the herd was large orange colored mustang that couldn’t be captured or tamed and so the canyon was named it his honor.  The third, and official story, is that the canyon was named for a rare orange bush, now extinct, that was only found in this one canyon.

Quite frankly, all stories are fitting in their way.  Grand and vast, like the original tract of land.  Wild and untamable, like the legendary mustang.  Rare and delicate, like the rare orange bush.

A tram will take you up from the visitor’s center, up along WPA roadway that zigs and zags up through the canyon, back and forth across the creek that runs through.  For four miles, the tram goes, ever higher, and around every corner, a new view, a new vastness, new plants, new trees.

The saguaro cacti are everywhere.  Pointing skyward, the young ones (seventy years or less) tall and straight like soldiers looking over the vastness of the vastness of the desert.  The older ones, with their arms - some with one, some with five or more - also reaching skyward, now armed.  They all stand, like sentinels in the desert.  The only place in the world where they are found is in the Sonoran desert of southern Arizona, Nevada, and northern Mexico.

But they are not alone.

The mesquite trees, gnarled and ghoulish, the cottonwoods, sucking up the precious water from the cool running creek, the hickories, the poplars, the oaks - and the host of other trees, all residing side-by-side with the saguaro.  A wide range of birds and animals also call Sabino canyon home.  While on my hike, all I spotted were a brown spotted whiptail lizard and a common ground squirrels, javelinas (the most vicious pig you’ve ever met), mountain lions, badgers, bobcats, jackrabbits, gila monsters, rattlesnakes, white tailed deer, and a host of other animals call this lush desert (can I use those two words together?) home.

It is an odd mix, with the stream giving life to the desert, but it is a desert non-the-less.  It is a bizarre combination - but it is a refreshing combination too.

The freshness of the dry desert air combined with the cool refreshing water of the snow melt rushing down the stream.  The smells of the flowering desert combined with the smells of the spring and budding trees.  The view of a mountain combined with the ever present saguaro cacti.  The coolness of the high altitude winds at the top of the canyon, combined with the heat of the desert where the canyon opens up to the wide valley that nestles the city of Tucson.

Finally, there are the mountains.  Mountains themselves are awe inspiring - there is something about a mountain, especially for a flatlander, that gives life a greater perspective.  As Sabino canyon wonders up and around the rushing waters of the creek, around every corner lies a new peak, a new height, a new tree wrapped majesty.

Sabino canyon - vast and open, wild and free, rare and delicate - maybe all the legends are true.

 It said that everyone has their own unique scent. There have been studies that have shown that men and women are attracted to different scents in the opposite sex, that our individual smells, as well as those of the scents that we wear leave an impression upon the those people we are trying to court.

Growing up a farm, most of the time, any use of the aftershave and cologne would either scare the cows or be rendered useless thanks to the aromatic fragrances of our bovine charges.

Going to school and out on Friday and Saturday night were a different prospect entirely.  In our teenage minds, we need to smell good.  While alfalfa and silage may have a pleasant aroma to a farm boy, it was not attractive to the majority of the people we associated with.  Aftershave and cologne seemed to say, “Hey, I shave,” even if it happened to be about once a month, or at the very least, “hey, I don’t smell like a sweaty teenage boy.”

In our upstairs bathroom on a little wooden shelf above the toilet was a collection of bottles that my folks had collected over the years.  Mom’s scents were in dainty glass bottles and vials.  Dad’s scents were in more manly containers, a blue bottle in the shape of a train engine, a brown bottle in the shape of a 1934 Studebaker.

Those bottles always held an allure.

The first bottle of cologne that I got was an Avon special that I got in my sock for Christmas.  And it smelled like it could have literally come out of my sock…a used one from gym class.  It was the “Avon Wild Country” scent.  I think I even know how it got its name.  The scent makers were pouring things together like kids with a chemistry set.  One of them said, “Wow!  Smell this!”

“Deer urine,” remarks one co-worker.

“Moose sweat,” comments another.

“Smells like a bog in a very, very wet, very, very warm summer,” remarks a third.

“That’s it!” Cries the inventor, “Wild Country!  Let’s put it in a plastic bottle and sell it to mothers of teenage boys!”

The second bottle was a bottle that of cologne called, “Fluid Blues” that was also a Christmas gift, but this time from my very first managers off the farm at a local sandwich shop.

It had a heavy, musky, scent.  Wearing it made me feel like I should be wearing a leather jacket and sitting in a gentlemen’s club.  The first time I wore it, my folks gave me a funny look, “what do you have planned this evening?”  They asked.

“Nothing special…but wanted to mix up the normal sweaty moose mix.” I said.

Aside from the fact that these bottles were not what I would call my scent, they were both very large bottles.  Being the frugal farm boy that I am, I couldn’t bear to part with them.

Given the downturn in the economy, I took them down off of the shelves several months ago, resolved to get them used up.  The Fluid Blues, glass bottled was used for local use.  The Wild Country plastic got used while traveling (less chance of it breaking).

As luck would have it, they both ran out at about the same time.  The Fluid Blues before I left on my trip and the Wild Country half way through my travels.

A part of my childhood, a part of my past has been used up.  It marks another passing of time.  A gift from my mother, gone.  A memento from my first job, used up.  Am I sad?  Am I nostalgic?  Perhaps…but also ready to move on from moose sweat.

 When the railroad finally came to Tucson, Arizona in March of 1880, Tucson’s mayor at the time, Bob Leatherwood was so excited, he sent a telegraph to the Pope in Rome, saying that Tucson was now connected to all of Christendom.  His friends concocted a reply and with the help of a willing telegraph operator, had the following forged reply sent back:

“From His Holiness the Pope, Rome, Vatican City: Congratulations!  Where the hell is Tucson?”

My reply upon hearing that I was going to Tucson was quite similar.  Where the hell is Tucson?

Everyone talked about Tucson being “up” in the mountains.  About being a cool place, high elevation, beautiful.  If that was the case, it must be up in the northern part of the state, probably to the west, closer to the Rocky Mountains - high elevations and cooler temperatures right?

Flying in to Phoenix and looking at a map makes you quickly realize that you must travel south and east to make it to Tucson.  South.  Closer to Mexico.  Colder?  Yup.

For a Minnesota farm boy, the scene that sets unfolds before you on I-10 from Phoenix to Tucson is a bit surreal.  Vast, open desert.  Signs read “Caution Blowing Dust Area.” Scrub brush and small cactus surround the roadway.  But every so often, you see big fields of green - brought alive by the miracle of irrigation, waving fields of wheat, freshly cut alfalfa - then another sign, “Caution Blowing Dust Area.”

With dust devils whirling in the distance, farmers where cutting their first cutting of rich, green alfalfa.  From the interstate, you could see them in cabs of their tractors - wearing, what appeared to be the seed hats you would find on any Midwestern farmer.  Pick up trucks were stopped on the dusty side roads, farmers leaning out to talk to one another - just like you would find on any country road in rural Minnesota.  You could almost hear the conversation, weather, crops, and family.

Driving along, you also get the feeling that you are traveling flat - but that is not the case.  Slowly, the mountains to the east seem to get closer and closer.  Ears start to pop.  Clearly, the elevation is changing.

Completely surrounded by the San Catalina Mountains, Tucson is high up.  Spring temperatures range from the 40’s at night to a very comfortable 70’s at the height of the day.  The high elevation even means snow at some points.  Not what you would expect of a town so close to the border.

 But what a town.

Nestled in the mountain valley, peaks on all sides, the tall buildings of downtown seem out of place, but the adobe homes and shops seem to fit right in, almost a part of the landscape.  Driving through the “suburbs” the homes, in their pinks, grays, and browns, blend into desert landscape with beauty and grace.

Tuscan, I’m glad you are connected to all of Christendom, and I’m glad I’m here.

 Big things happen on mountains.  They are awe inspiring.  They filled with grandeur and splendor.  In mythology, they are the homes of the gods - think of Mount Olympus.  In our songs and folklore, they are referred to with wonder, with amazement - as things of great beauty.  Who can forget the “purple mountain majesty” in America the Beautiful?

But for all of their beauty, they are also formidable, dangerous, and often times and stumbling blocks to progress and advancement.

The Appalachian Mountains were the first borders of English settlement in North America.  The Rocky Mountains were the major challenge for the Lewis and Clark expedition.  The Pyrenees’ Mountains separated Spain from the rest of Europe.  Switzerland was protected due to the Alps.  Think of the people that died crossing the mountains.

They are beautiful, awe inspiring, but dark and dangerous places.  The perfect stumbling block.  The perfect place to test ourselves.  The perfect place for God to test us.

Abraham took his major test on the mountain.  Asked to kill his only son, conceived and bore late in old age, the very love of he and Sarah’s heart, Abraham didn’t flinch.  God demanded.  God will receive.  So up the mountain Abraham went with his beloved Isaac.  As he is preparing to kill him, God intercedes.  Abraham’s love, his loyalty, his faith is proven on that mountain.  That mountain, which he believed would be filled with so much pain and despair, instead is where God promises him that he will make of him a great nation. 

The apostles, Peter, James, and John, too went to the mountain, this time in the presence of the Lord God - in human form, as the Son, Jesus.  Expecting no challenge.  Expecting nothing more but to walk and pray, they are confronted with the majesty of heaven in the form of a transfigured Jesus conversing with Moses and Elijah.  They too are tested - and this test they fail.  They fail to see Jesus for who he really is.  Their faith, though rich on this day, will not see them through on that terrible day when Jesus climbs another mountain, Golgotha - the hill of Calvary. They don’t take the lesson of the mountain to heart, and they lose their faith.

Our faith too is tested in mountains, though often times, they are only mountains of the mind.

How often do we let our fears and discouragement get in the way?  How often do we see an obstacle, a path, a choice in life as too overwhelming?  As too difficult?  How often do we say that our lives are stuck and there is no getting out?  How often do we see the path God has laid before us, and we say, “No Lord, it is too hard, I can’t do it.”

We need to have faith like Abraham - the road is hard.  The mountains are steep.  The way is strewn with rocks and debris.  But we do not walk it alone.  The risen Christ is there with us, and like Abraham before us, while the path, the challenge, the life, may be unthinkable - the rewards of heaven, the rewards of a clearer view, and the rewards of a richer life are there - and with the strength of the Lord, the same Lord who died on a mountain for us, we shall have the strength to make it to the peak.

(Tom Jirik wrote columns in several newspapers in Iowa from the late 1980’s to the mid 1990’s.  This column originally appeared in the The Boone Today) 

March has been a tease.

Three consecutive days of sunny weather with temperatures in the 50’s and 60’s have us firing up our grills and waxing our cars.  Then abruptly the weather changes and we have two days of 20-degree weather with freezing rain and snow.  March is funny that way.

When you hear somebody say, “February,” you automatically think “winter.”  Chills tumble down your spine and thoughts of snow and jumper-cables come to mind.

When somebody says, “April,” you instantly think “spring!”  You think of catching a few rays and of those gentle rains that bring out the green in the dormant grass.

But when somebody says, “March,” what do you think?  A jumble of thoughts right?  Budding trees, blizzards, car wax and snow tires all come to mind.

It’s a strange month, but it could be worse.

I talked to my dad Saturday and he told me how March is progressing in northern Minnesota.

It’s still snowing up there like Mother Nature doesn’t plan to ever have another winter.  They’ve had 72 inches so far this winter and it’s still coming down.  Six feet of snow out to be enough for anybody.

The banks along the sides of the roads are taller than the school bus.  Dad’s tractor-mounted snow blower can’t shoot the white stuff over the top anymore.  A path only wide enough for one car leads through the snow out to my parent’s farm.  “It was kind of fun for awhile-sort of like driving through a tunnel,” Mom said.

They’ve had a few warm days too.   When the temperature there gets above 32 degrees, dad says that single track is covered with hub-deep slush.  “It’s not fun anymore,” Mom noted.

Not long ago, the piles got so high and the track got so narrow, the snowplow could no longer keep the roads open.  Local officials had to call in pay loaders to push the snow back from the road.

“We’re not going to plant a crop this year,” Dad told me.  “We’re worried the snow won’t be melted in time for us to harvest.”

Of course they haven’t had too many warm spring days yet, last week they were still having nightly lows of 10 below.

So take heart, Mid-Iowans, it could be worse.

Bit if this discourse hasn’t relieved your bout with spring fever, look over at that calendar on the wall.  One week and one, two, three, four more days until April with its spring showers and its moderating temperatures and it predictable weather.

Yes, less than a week until April arrives.  It doesn’t matter that the calendar says spring starts this week, 11 days leaves us enough time for two blizzards and an ice storm or two,

Everybody knows spring’s not official until March is over and April begins.

 (Tom Jirik wrote columns in several newspapers in Iowa from the late 1980’s to the mid 1990’s.  This column originally appeared in the The Boone Today) 

On some Minnesota lakes, the ice is still three feet thick or more.  The snow crunches underfoot and the ice snaps and pops as it contracts in the frigid air.   On some lakes, the snow and ice is thick enough to make you doubt that spring will ever come. Muskies and northerns prowl the frigid waters below the ice.  Hardy anglers and spearers wait eagerly for a glimpse of scales or the flash of a fin.  But those who stalk the winter fish are few in number.  For many of them, the focus of their icy excursions has more to do with body-warming liquids, tall tales, and camaraderie than fishing.

 Gophers.  Vermin of the plains.  Destructor of crops.  Hazard to hay makers.  Pillagers of yards.  Mascot.

Growing up, a gopher was nothing more then an unwanted burrowing rodent to be gotten rid of.  The township, county, and state paid entrepreneurs one dollar per pair of hind feet to rid the countryside of the pesky creatures.

Cutting hay, the mounds in the fields almost always wrecked havoc on the machinery.  Driving down field roads to check crops or bring in the harvest turned into an almost unbearable experience as you jostled on the steel seats of the H, rising and falling with each mound of dirt flung up by these burrowing rodents.

Even in the yard, we would occasionally get the pocket gophers, digging open holes for tractors and lawn mowers to get stuck in…a garden hose and a 22 rifle did the trick when that happened (the pocket gopher always has a entry and an exit - flood one, you get him out the other).

Why a sports team would ever take this prairie parasite as its mascot is beyond me.

There was no affinity for the Minnesota Gophers in my household.  Two of my three older brothers all swore their allegiance to the mighty North Dakota State Bison, the school that I would follow them too - and cheer for.

My friends that attended the University of Minnesota were taunted.  “Why not be a Bison when my other choice is a burrowing rodent?”

That didn’t endear myself to them.

From the plains of northwestern Minnesota, and eastern North Dakota, I moved on the tall grass…er…corn prairie of Illinois, where the Fighting Illini were the kings of the plains.  Not normally a sports fan, one Big Ten football game had me hooked.

As a grad student on fellowship, I claimed myself as an Illini mercenary.  There by choice, but also for money - but certainly not by geography - and that Big Ten fever was infectious.

A Minnesotan by birth, but a Bison and Illini by choice.

Moving on in life, I fell in with what Minnesotans would decry as a bad crowd.  Smart, intelligent, hard working, innovative, Minnesotans…but who were Wisconsin alumni and Badger fans.  Wisconsin.  As a native Minnesotan, it is hard to like Wisconsin, though I’m not sure why besides tradition.

They have tried to call me an honorary Badger, telling me that even though they knew my allegiance should fall with other schools, they hoped that the Badgers would be my #3.

As much as I mocked the Gophers, as much as I relished the Bison coming into the Metrodome and beating them, as much as I enjoyed Illinois twenty game willing streak in basketball, I could not cheer for the Badgers over Minnesota.

In the end, these vermin of the valleys, these prairie parasites were my team (albeit #3), and while I could enjoy watching either NDSU or the University of Illinois stomp them back into the mounds from which they came, I can’t stand by without cheering for them when taking on a Badger, a Buckeye, a Spartan, a Hoosier, a Hawkeye, or a Wolverine.

It hit me as I watched the Gophers beat the Badgers tonight and I celebrated with the Gopher fans around me.  While I knew my good Badger fans would be forlorn, there is no denying that Gopher blood runs deep.

A Bison and Illini by choice, a Gopher by birth - they will always be #3 in my heart!

 ”I’m planning a camping trip this spring, but I’m not sure where I’m gonna go,” my friend Jack said.

Normally, I’m a sane, rational person, planning things out, and making sure details are in order.  I’m not sure what possessed me, but at that moment in December, I think I was looking for a little adventure, so I said, “Count me in.  Regardless where it is, I’m game.”

A couple weeks later, the phone rang, “Death Valley,” Jack said.

“Death Valley?” I replied.

“Death Valley.” Jack said.

Uh-oh.

I had never seen a desert up to that point in my life, now, I was expected to sleep under the stars in the middle of it. 

Uh-oh.

My friend Father Ross was excited for me.  “What a great desert experience,” he said.  “Think about all of the holy men and women that spent time in the desert looking for understanding.  Think of Jesus and his own forty days in the desert.  Think of the Hebrews and their forty years of wondering.”

At one, my thoughts turned to the staring Hebrews begging the Lord for deliverance and our Lord being tempted to turn stones into bread.  Yup, sounds delightful.

In the end, it was.  It remains one of my favorite and most memorable vacations.  Sitting in the solitude of the desert, with nothing with the stares overhead and the stillness of the world around you, it was humbling.

When we think of the desert experience of the holy men and women of ages past, of the Hebrews, or even of our Lord, part of it was the desert - the unwelcoming environment, scorching hot during the day, cold at night.  No water.  Little food.  Devoid of life

But in the end, we all reach our own spiritual deserts.  We all face our time of isolation, our time of trial, our time when we are tested, spiritually or morally, a time when we must stand alone with nothing but the strength of God at our side.  It may not be a barren wasteland in the middle of nowhere, but it may be a barren wasteland in the middle of our lives when we are forced to make a decision.  A time when our very life seems barren and empty.

It is these times when we must turn to our Father.  It was He that said he would give us a to a eat a bread that would never let us hunger, and a water that would create a fountain welling up within us.

Death Valley was a beautiful place - filled with wonders, filled with heat and cold, dryness, and steams, and snow.  In the end, much like our times in the spiritual desert, often have to only open our eyes and trust in our faith to come out stronger and better people.

This is a part of a column from “Sporting Clays” magazine by Gil and Vicki Ash:

As times change, you could look at your situation, depending on what it is, as disappointing because it isn’t what it used to be, or you could look at it as just another step in your journey and a great opportunity for you to learn and do something new. Remember, it is not what you know that makes you better; it is what you are willing to learn. No improvement happens without change, and for every change there is a price. The value of change is in the commitment to that change. Things that happen just are. They are neither good nor bad until you make them that way by your reaction to them. So as the horizon changes and the road you are on forks and you don’t know which way to go, do not be afraid of what lies ahead. Adjust your goals and commitments, be alert to new challenges, and look at them as opportunities, not obstacles. It is what it is; it becomes what you make it. If you focus on the obstacle, you will lose sight of the goal.