North Dakota Senior

Life on the Prairie: Memories of a North Dakota Boy

Description

One of the things I've often thought about over the years is what keeps us in North Dakota? If you ask that question of a hundred different people you may get a hundred different answers. Although the answers vary, most have a common theme. Somewhere in their answer the word "freedom" appears. Another word that appears almost as often is "outdoors". Our freedoms and our closeness to nature fit together like a hand and glove, blending together almost seamlessly in our lives on the Northern Plains. This book is a bit of a light hearted look at our life on the plains that is guaranteed to bring back a lot of memories. What started out as a book of memories in a lot of ways became much more. It became a permanent part of my life long journey. I'm not sure it will ever be finished, at least in my mind, but here's what I've got so far! If this is interesting to you, maybe you'll capture some of what it feels like to be as free as we are and what life is like out here on the prairies of North Dakota.

Reviews

Rating: 5 / 5
Date: 2008-10-06
Summary: "a fine look back at a small-town boyhood"

I bought this on Amazon after reading Klosterman's Downtown Owl, a novel about life in the fictional town of Owl, North Dakota (which is located about 20 miles from the real town of Steele, where Stein grew up). Klosterman's excellent novel and Stein's wonderful nonfiction memoirs complement each other very well. The difference bewteen the two (Downtown Owl is set a bit later than Stein's work) is that you get a sense of greater mobility in Stein's story. That may well be because of Stein's family. The book is mostly about Steele and the surrounding land, but the Steins travelled a lot--New York, Boston, Montana, etc--whereas you get the feeling in Downtown Owl that not many residents even get as far as Minneapolis. But in both works you see that a lot of the young people will drift away--some of my North Dakota friends are now in Berkeley and Rhode Island, for example. In both works you get a sense of the isolation, and in both works you'll see how severe the winter weather can be.

Life on the Priarie talks about times where many (or most) people lacked indoor plumbing. It speaks of the small homes where one entered through the kitchen and "boxcar" homes. As with Downtown Owl, sports was a vital part of the community life, but also (unlike the novel) you'll read and learn a lot about ice fishing (certainly popular in Minnesota, most people may not associate it with North Dakota as well). So Life on the Priarie is a loving look back at a life which perhaps may have changed in a few ways (the idea of having no Internet and Amazon and having to drive 100 miles to a bookstore where you can browse a bit is frightening to contemplate!), but in many ways it's still much the same--except that the small-town populations are shrinking in North Dakota unless you're on the Interstate or your town is a suburb of a major (for ND) population center. Read it now--it's sad to think of what Steele and Owl 20-30 may look like years from now--will they be half the size they are now? Well worth reading indeed!

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Rating: 5 / 5
Date: 2008-01-30
Summary: "This book captures North Dakota life perfectly"

I too am a North Dakota Native but have lived almost a decade out of the Sate now. I am also several years younger than the author and grew up in a much larger city. However, the author does such an incredible job of capturing the emotions and feelings of what it is like to grow up in a small town in North Dakota that you are easily able to immerse yourself into his childhood and life. The book is a quick and enlightening read and I highly recommend it to anyone, especially for those that want to learn more about living in a State peacefully tucked away in the Nation's heartland.