Growing Up in North Dakota

had its own outhouse, even!). There was also a town hall, where I attended my first dance, dancing to, I remember, the song “Purple People Eater” and where the famous moose dinner was held. There was also a drug store in town, where we could get phosphate drinks – you could order your flavors and then get the fizzy stuff added to the drink. I remember loving chocolate cola with extra phosphate! I also bought my mom some “My Sin” cologne there, probably the first time we had a place we could go shopping in town. This was also the town where I belonged to 4H for a while (I remember I didn’t like it very well) and took piano lessons (which I hated).

I don’t remember any friends in particular from this town but I do remember putting on plays in a shed of one of my friends – and of a birthday party that I attended, where the mom had baked little prizes into the cake. I thought that was wonderful.

My dad did a lot of hunting when we lived here and we ate a lot of what he’d brought in, I think to supplement a meager food budget. He’d shot a deer, I remember, and after it had been butchered and wrapped, he stored it in a shed in the back yard where it remained frozen all winter. I also remember getting milk and cream from the local farmers. My favorite thing to