In most respects, North Dakota is OK

In the creation, it is rumored that the earth was without form and void. And that was before anyone ever saw North Dakota.

The Jockey Club in New Jersey protested the creation of a state that was a blank nothingness. Minnesota claimed that we would never make it here. So we must ask: who suggested a state at this location.

The Northern Pacific and Great Northern protested because they had no business here and North Dakota just made it farther to Seattle.

While we filled a place that would otherwise be an unexplainable hole in the earth, the only reason they needed us was to balance the politics in the U. S. Senate. By pairing parties, everyone could buy in, sort of like Hawaii and Alaska.

North Dakota came into the Union the back way. The Louisiana Territory. They were playing "button, button" with us. Spain gave us to France. (It was involuntary.) Then France gave it back. Then Napoleon ran short of cash and had a rummage sale of the empire.

President Thomas Jefferson was new at being president so he was sort of reckless. He doubled the size of the country by buying Louisiana in 1803 for the bargain price of $15 million, four cents an acre with alligators free. Then he wondered if the purchase was constitutional but at four cents an acre he didn't wonder long.

Everybody knew he was a Democrat when he bought something he really didn't need with borrowed money sight unseen. I think the deal was on time payments. He sent Lewis and Clark out to see what he bought and gave us a couple of heroes we could claim.

So there never was a founding of North Dakota. Nobody was looking. Once a part of Louisiana, Missouri, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota, we were the easiest state on the block. It wasn't easy being easy.

Some guy from Pennsylvania prophesied that North Dakota would have crowds of people coming so Building Better became a code word before Biden. Too many railroads and roads crisscrossed the state; counties were created without people, all with high expectations.

Finally, History Professor Elwyn Robinson said in his history of North Dakota that we made a "too much" mistake. Did he consider that we had an immigration office in 1871, but closed in 1875 before anybody heard about us? The Welcome Wagon lost money for 21 years straight.

Miles of nothingness filled in between towns and township halls. Missionaries talked a lot to each other. The Baptists came, not to convert the Indians but to save the Norwegians from the Lutherans.

To make folks around the world acknowledge the state, we needed a hero. Texas had Sam Houston, Virginia had George Washington, Illinois had Lincoln. We really needed a stand-up hero and thought we found him when General George Custer was assigned to Fort Lincoln.

Unfortunately, he was running for president more than bringing order to the west. He stupidly rode over the hill at the Little Big Horn with reconnaissance, shouting "Don't take any prisoners." His men had high regard for his judgment and didn't take any.

Back in Bismarck, many people started to believe in reincarnation because they couldn't explain how anyone could get that dumb in one lifetime.

We may not have a real national home-grown hero but we do have the geographic center of North America. Nobody has seen it but they speculate it must be the largest ball bearing in the country. Using a yardstick, the center of North America is near Balta in Pierce County.

Unfortunately, the site was inaccessible by highway so the Rugby Junior Chamber went down one night and moved it to Rugby because it was easier to move the geographic center than convince the state department of transportation to build a highway to Balta.