Life on the Prairie: Memories of a North Dakota Boy - Tapa blanda

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.

Living in North Dakota, being in the outdoors has always been a huge part of my life. My greatest claims to fame in my life have come as an outdoorsman. For instance, I once knocked down 4 ducks with one shot and to top that off I've also caught an 11+ pound walleye. The paparazzi and reporters are still hounding me. However I didn't get a lot of writing experience sitting in the duck blind. A few years ago my partners talked me into taking over the duties of writing the company Christmas letter. It's a letter we send to our clients to fill them in on company events of the past year. Writing that letter and hearing how people enjoyed it was very gratifying. Eventually the idea for a book came to me, not just as a result of the letter, but as the result of a number of experiences, the letter being the first. Over the years you send a couple letters to an editor, give a couple eulogies, write a few award winning Christmas letters, a magazine article or two, and a dozen pages or so on my family's geneology and then everyone says to you, "You should write a book!" That idea simmered in me for some time. Then about a year ago, an event occurred that brought that idea to a boil. That event was my unplanned retirement at the age of 54. I retired as a result of a 10 year battle with Parkinsons disease. My retirement ended one journey but sent me on a new one, a journey through my past that allowed me to see it like I'd never seen it before. This book is a result of that journey of discovery.