Neil O. Nelson
in the free fall it was taking, in no way, shape or form are we out of the woods.
Times are tough.
In fact it’s so bad . . .
How bad is it?
It’s so bad WalMart is getting in line for a bailout.
TIME and Newsweek are merging, JC Penney wants to incorporate Kohl’s and Starbuck’s wants to start selling draft beer.
It’s so bad shopping centers are closing. No kidding. If that isn’t a sure sign the sky is falling, I don’t know what is.
And we thought the shutdown of Small Town America’s Main Streets was catastrophic.
How can America survive without shopping centers?
I don’t know the answer to that question, but I’m willing to give it a whirl, life without shopping centers, that is.
Developers trying to open new and bigger shopping centers are saying it’s bad timing; they’ll survive, they just need a break and a little time.
Good luck.
Meantime, we’re being flooded, here in the Upper Plains States.
Flowing north, the flooding Red River is taking no prisoners.
Even the Goose River is claiming all river bottomland. The Knife River is slicing apart Oliver County, muddying up towns like Hazen and Beulah and the Beaver River in Emmons County is making Linton wished there were more beaver dams upstream.
Not surprisingly, it snowed again this week.
We had a blizzard on Tuesday. That snow soon started melting.
Now, it’s so wet we’re literally waterlogged.
It’s so wet there’s a movement to put the Capitol building on a raft and float it on the Missouri.
Waterlogged minds will think like that.
Politicians can then claim, with some degree of honesty, “Hey, we’re keeping our heads above water, aren’t we?” As in, the ship isn’t sinking.
It’s so wet Going Green is all wet.
It’s so wet Greyhound is considering rafting people from Fargo to Grand Forks.
Winnipeg is sending down ferryboats to transport tourists north.
UND wants to play hockey on the Red next winter. “Party at Whitey’s between periods.”
It’s so wet and the river is so wide at the Grand Cities — you can’t see EGF from GF.
The city of Oslo, Minnesota is negotiating with Maple Lake on a pipeline to save the Minnesota lake when the next drought hits. They’ll build the reservoir over the town of Erskine, which is a low point along Hwy. 2.
The Red is so wide and deep it’s challenging Devils Lake and Sakakawea for the title of the Biggest Body of Water in North Dakota.
Being the moving target that it is, the Red can make any claim it wants.
Caledonia is telling friends: “Hey, we can see the Red from here.”
Water front property for sale in eastern North Dakota is taking on a new and different meaning this spring. It’s more than just a hollow claim. “You want water outside your front door? Forget Detroit Lakes, think Fargo.”
Cornfield fishing this spring is being touted and trouted.
Don’t be surprised when Canada says, “Enough is enough,” and builds a damn at the border. We can kiss Pembina good-bye but think of the reservoir water we’ll have when the river runs dry.
Which it will in 3009, 100 years from now.
And Fargo will have encroached, embraced and embodied all municipalities (extended its city limits, in other words) from Drayton to Wahpeton and will bill itself as the “City on the Red.”
If, by chance, the Red does one day run dry sometime in the next 50 years, our children can claim their parents were here when the river was 40 feet deep in Fargo and 50 feet deep in Grand Forks.
“You’re kidding? They’re building soccer fields and golf courses on the river bottom.”
They better have flood insurance, our children will intone.
“Flood insurance? What’s a flood?”
And our kids can show them torn and tattered front pages from today’s newspapers.
And they’ll ask, “What’s that you’re holding? What’s a newspaper?”
