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The Peace Garden State
The Roughrider State
The Flickertail State

Crap? Not Crap?

I am going to say not crap, as I know many good people from that state and there are some excellent bands floating around the twin cities area (and I am sure elsewhere) that called the great state of North Dakota home at one time or another.

tho: spending time there, esp in winter: crap

full disclosure: I am related to the first governor to North Dakota, John Miller, not crap for that too

I am one of at least three confirmed North Dakotans on this board, so I will freely admit my bias. NOT CRAP. A lot of people think of North Dakota as a vast frozen wasteland where everybody is essentially the same white bread person in a variety of Twins caps. Nothing could be further from the truth. Witness this range:

- A temperature span that can go from 90 below zero (yes, you read that right) in December to 110 in August!
- Water levels that will rise from a crop-destroying drought to a town-destroying flood in mere months!
- Music running the gamut from Lawrence Welk to godheadSilo!
- White people in all kinds of shades of white (basement dweller pale grey to farmer's neck brown)!
- Political views covering the entire ideological spectrum from liberal Republican to conservative Republican!
- Professional teams in sports ranging from...um...uh...well, are the Fighting Sioux considered professionals?

OK, range is maybe not the selling point. What should be is that North Dakotans by and large are extremely hard-working, reliable, polite and honest. They're the poeple you want to have around when you get a flat tire or when you have a lot of heavy things to move.

North Dakota does not bring the weak shit. And that's about the highest compliment I can pay any state.

Dan

Mr. Mohr took the words right out of my brain.

I was born and raised in a village called Wishek, ND.

I'd move back there any day of the week, too.


Three Cheers for Bradley for starting this, the finest of threads!

Ike from ND

danmohr wrote:Professional teams in sports ranging from... um... uh... well, are the Fighting Sioux considered professionals?

You forget the late, lamented Bismarck-Mandan Indians of the mid-1960s.

Which reminds me. Another selling point of a great and funny state is when the state is so totally discounted that a time zone cuts it in half. We used to drive ten miles from my front door in Bismarck (which is pretty much in the center of the state), cross the Missouri River and be in another time zone. That will screw with a seven-year-old.

By the way, why do people make such a big deal about North Dakota winters? I'd MUCH prefer a winter in North Dakota over a winter in Chicago. It's not even a close call.

Bradley R. Weissenberger wrote:Another selling point of a great and funny state is when the state is so totally discounted that a time zone cuts it in half. We used to drive ten miles from my front door in Bismarck (which is pretty much in the center of the state), cross the Missouri River and be in another time zone. That will screw with a seven-year-old.quote]

Yes, my grandma lives in Mandan and I always found it confusing. Didn't Mandan and Bismarck used to be on different sides of the time zone? Are they still? I forget.

Bradley R. Weissenberger wrote:By the way, why do people make such a big deal about North Dakota winters? I'd MUCH prefer a winter in North Dakota over a winter in Chicago. It's not even a close call.

Huh? Chicago ain't that cold. More miserable? Must be all the people. Here is a breakdown of average high and low temperatures for Chicago:

http://www.weather.com/weather/climatology/monthly/USIL0225?from=search

Certainly no picnic; the average low in January is an admittedly brisk 18 degrees. Now, here's a breakdown of my old home, Grand Forks, ND:

http://www.weather.com/weather/climatology/monthly/USND0146?from=search

Take that. The January average (for those non-Midwest folks, I say again - average) temperature was a fucking brutal -4 degrees. I can attest to this. My senior year in high school (my last full time residency year in NoDak), there was a stretch of more than thirty days in the winter where the temperature never, at any point in the day, got above 0.

And GF matches Chicago's highest record temp and bests it's lowest by 16 degrees (-40 in February 1996). Equally shocking is Grand Forks' six months with record highs in the 100+ range and it's six months with record lows below zero. I still find it amazing that people ever settled there. For Ike, Wishek actually has crazier records by a few degrees (107 and -43)! There are also a few places in Montana that can meet or exceed this. Tom Kipp's own Havre, MT clocks in with records of 111 and -52!!! Missoula, sadly, is a little more tame. All the pot smoke from the dorms probably provides a secondary greenhouse effect.

Anyway, my two favorite NoDak jokes:

It's not that the wind in Montana blows, it's just that North Dakota sucks.

First prize is a week long vacation in Fargo, ND. Second prize is a two week vacation in Fargo, ND.

So, you got minnows or no?

Dan