North Dakota School of Business Day of Note: On this date in 1889 North Dakota and South Dakota became the 39th and 40th States in the Union. Scrolling through the wires on June 26, 2001, an Associated Press headline caught my eye, N. Dakota May Seek Name Change: BISMARK, N.D. (AP) North Dakotans cant move their state to warmer climes, but some hope a proposed name change will at least help the state seem a little less northern. The Greater North Dakota Association, the states chamber of commerce, is backing a proposal to cur the states name to Dakota. Supporters insist the plan would help alter the states image as a frigid, treeless prairie. Pathetic, I thought. If North Dakota is that desperate for tourist dollars, then Im going to give them some. I called my sister in Montana immediately, asking if she and my nephew would like to come with me to North Dakota for the weekend. I guess, she answered. If you want. Montanans do not, as a rule vacation in North Dakota. IN fact, there is a cottage industry of jokes about the diminished intellectual capacity of the North Dakota neighbors. Such as two North Dakotans are building a rocket to the sun. When they are informed that they and their rocket will burn up before they even land on the suns surface the reply, Well be okay. Well just go there at night. A Montanan is capable of making up North Dakota jokes on the spot. My parents, for example, were having a garage sale at their Bozeman home. My father hoped to sell a wheelbarrow he bought at someone elses garage sale the previous summer. He bought it for ten bucks, he tells a potential buyer, so hes selling it for five, because, he quips, I attended the North Dakota School of Business. Im from North Dakota, too! the woman exclaims, asking him what town the business school is in. According to that AP article about the state changing its name, Lee Peterson, the governors economic development director, didnt believe the name was a major factor in peoples assumptions about North Dakota. The problem with North Dakota is that no one knows about us, Peterson said. That is true. I grew up next door to North Dakota, and the only thing I know about it is that Lawrence Welk comes from there. So imagine my surprise when I went to North Dakotas official tourism Web site and the first image on the screen is the face of Theodore Roosevelt next to the quote, I never would have been President if it had not been for my experiences in North Dakota. (excerpt) —Sarah Vowells The Strenuous Life in The Partly Cloudy Patriot Read The Partly Cloudy Patriot: Library via WorldCat.org: bit.ly/Library_PartlyCloudy Local Bookstore via IndieBound: bit.ly/Partly-Cloudy Goodreads: bit.ly/GR_PartlyCloudy Barnes & Noble: bit.ly/BaN_PartlyCloudy Amazon: amzn.to/1m01gQ1
Posted on: Sun, 02 Nov 2014 14:31:58 +0000
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