Thomas D. Isern's Blog: Willow Creek: A Writing Journal, page 16
April 14, 2022
Holy Week, or, Two Inches in Fargo
Perhaps it was survivor guilt that caused me to pencil out this calendar ballad for the folk school this week. 8pm CDT on the Facebook timeline of Plains Folk.
Holy Week, or, Two Inches in Fargo
Air: 99 Years
It’s really not fair, Lord, in this Holy Week
A few days ago our pasque flowers were at peak
To dig out again, well, that’s asking a lot
When two inches in Fargo is all that they got
Whatever you call it, I’m froze to the gizzard
Can’t get to the haystacks, turn the cows in the lot
But two inches in Fargo is all that they got
The calves are all dropping in three feet of snow
Been falling all day, and it’s starting to blow
Got the calves in my back seat, and they’re slimy as snot
And two inches in Fargo is all that they got
Holy Week, or, Two Inches in Fargo
Air: 99 Years
It’s really not fair, Lord, in this Holy Week
A few days ago our pasque flowers were at peak
To dig out again, well, that’s asking a lot
When two inches in Fargo is all that they got
Two inches in Fargo, it doesn’t seem fairIćamnatanka, Schneesturm, or blizzard
They’re sipping their lattes and chai over
there
I’m feeling more bitter than I really ought
Cause two inches in Fargo is all that they got
Whatever you call it, I’m froze to the gizzard
Can’t get to the haystacks, turn the cows in the lot
But two inches in Fargo is all that they got
The calves are all dropping in three feet of snow
Been falling all day, and it’s starting to blow
Got the calves in my back seat, and they’re slimy as snot
And two inches in Fargo is all that they got
April 13, 2022
A Bootlegger Ballad from Steele County
I'm thinking this kind of trouble might have run in the family. As early as the mid-1880s local newspapers were reporting unusually jolly happenings at the farm place of homesteader Archie Baker, up near Hope. There were references to "a good time," "a large social gathering," and "a rousing dance" that seemed to imply something, um, spiritous might be going on. Even the wedding of young Archie, Archie Lemoine, to a gal from Moorhead in 1914 brought forth a report of what seems to have been a notably convivial celebration on the return of the happy couple to Steele County.
All this is my way of approaching the discovery of another delightful and forgotten folksong of the Great Plains, a bootleger ballad--and the bootlegger was the younger Archie Baker. The Hope Pioneer of 14 February 1929 publishes a set of stanzas under the heading, "In the Bastile [sic} at Fargo," recounting how Baker ended up in jail. As he tells the story, back on 21 December he and some companions were passing through town with a cargo of booze when they called in at Madsen's garage--there to be greeted by the Steele County sheriff, whose name I have yet to dig up. The sheriff searched the car, found the booze, and took the bootleggers before a judge in Finlay, resulting in them being sentenced to ten months imprisonment, to be served in Fargo. All this is recounted in the ballad.
After this I lose track of Baker; I suspect he left the territory. But he left us a ballad.
It was on December twenty-first, into Madsen's garage we drove
The sheriff of Steele County was standing by the stove
At first I did not mind it, but it sure gave me a jar
When he started walking toward us, then began to search the car
I'll introduce Baker's bootlegging ballad to the twenty-first century this Friday night in Willow Creek Folk School session #98. 8pm CDT, on the Facebook timeline of Plains Folk.
All this is my way of approaching the discovery of another delightful and forgotten folksong of the Great Plains, a bootleger ballad--and the bootlegger was the younger Archie Baker. The Hope Pioneer of 14 February 1929 publishes a set of stanzas under the heading, "In the Bastile [sic} at Fargo," recounting how Baker ended up in jail. As he tells the story, back on 21 December he and some companions were passing through town with a cargo of booze when they called in at Madsen's garage--there to be greeted by the Steele County sheriff, whose name I have yet to dig up. The sheriff searched the car, found the booze, and took the bootleggers before a judge in Finlay, resulting in them being sentenced to ten months imprisonment, to be served in Fargo. All this is recounted in the ballad.
After this I lose track of Baker; I suspect he left the territory. But he left us a ballad.
It was on December twenty-first, into Madsen's garage we drove
The sheriff of Steele County was standing by the stove
At first I did not mind it, but it sure gave me a jar
When he started walking toward us, then began to search the car
I'll introduce Baker's bootlegging ballad to the twenty-first century this Friday night in Willow Creek Folk School session #98. 8pm CDT, on the Facebook timeline of Plains Folk.
April 12, 2022
Cherokee Bill's Song
If you hang around long enough, and you get around enough, things sometimes connect in wonderful fashion.
A few days ago I was searching digitized newspapers for forgotten ballads of the Great Plains, as I often do at dark-thirty in the morning. In the Caney Phoenix (Caney, Kansas, near the Oklahoma line) I struck color in the rock: a set of stanzas headed, "Cherokee Bill's Song." I believe this to be a forgotten ballad, previously unknown to recent scholars of regional folklore. According to the press notice, it was written by Cherokee Bill himself, who was awaiting a date on the gallows courtesy of Hanging Judge Parker. I was immediately taken with the ballad, and also intrigued by certain rhetorical touches that seemed somehow familiar.
Crawford Goldsby a.k.a. Cherokee Bill grew up a mixed-race child in the Cherokee Nation. As the old saying goes, he fell in with bad companions, and took to robbing banks. He became a notorious and self-described "desperate" character who fashioned for himself an image as an outlaw hero. The Oklahoma Historical Society offers a brief sketch of Cherokee Bill here - https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=GO006 - and there are other stories online, some staid, some lurid.
From the beginning stanza, elements in the ballad resonated to some source I at first could not identify, but then recognized. Here is the first stanza.
Come all you jolly highway men
And outlaws of the land
Who scorn to live in slavery
Or wear a convict's brand.
"Convict"? Why this word choice? And later he declares, "Today we gain our liberty." From what? At this point in the action he is still at large.
Then I reviewed the plotline, the outlaws riding along peacefully one day, being challenged by a superior number of peace officers, declaring defiance, and boldly engaging. And I realized, I am reading an iteration of the Australian ballad, "The Wild Colonial Boy," localized to the Indian Territory and incompletely adapted to fit the life narrative of Cherokee Bill.
As to how "Wild Colonial Boy" made its way to the Cherokee Nation and into the head of Cherokee Bill, I have no idea, but I have no doubt of the literary descent of the song. Which realization and conviction (so to speak) came to me only by virtue of a passing familiarity with Australian balladry and the outlaw legend of that land.
The matter wants further study, but I'll be singing "Cherokee Bill's Song" this Friday night in Willow Creek Folk School session #99.
Here's my beginning of a research file on Cherokee Bill and his ballad. - https://docs.google.com/document/d/117mQsh1iGj1s5SRc9JwbFBi37BxZ37joobtPBrj3cH8/edit?usp=sharing
A few days ago I was searching digitized newspapers for forgotten ballads of the Great Plains, as I often do at dark-thirty in the morning. In the Caney Phoenix (Caney, Kansas, near the Oklahoma line) I struck color in the rock: a set of stanzas headed, "Cherokee Bill's Song." I believe this to be a forgotten ballad, previously unknown to recent scholars of regional folklore. According to the press notice, it was written by Cherokee Bill himself, who was awaiting a date on the gallows courtesy of Hanging Judge Parker. I was immediately taken with the ballad, and also intrigued by certain rhetorical touches that seemed somehow familiar.
Crawford Goldsby a.k.a. Cherokee Bill grew up a mixed-race child in the Cherokee Nation. As the old saying goes, he fell in with bad companions, and took to robbing banks. He became a notorious and self-described "desperate" character who fashioned for himself an image as an outlaw hero. The Oklahoma Historical Society offers a brief sketch of Cherokee Bill here - https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=GO006 - and there are other stories online, some staid, some lurid.
From the beginning stanza, elements in the ballad resonated to some source I at first could not identify, but then recognized. Here is the first stanza.
Come all you jolly highway men
And outlaws of the land
Who scorn to live in slavery
Or wear a convict's brand.
"Convict"? Why this word choice? And later he declares, "Today we gain our liberty." From what? At this point in the action he is still at large.
Then I reviewed the plotline, the outlaws riding along peacefully one day, being challenged by a superior number of peace officers, declaring defiance, and boldly engaging. And I realized, I am reading an iteration of the Australian ballad, "The Wild Colonial Boy," localized to the Indian Territory and incompletely adapted to fit the life narrative of Cherokee Bill.
As to how "Wild Colonial Boy" made its way to the Cherokee Nation and into the head of Cherokee Bill, I have no idea, but I have no doubt of the literary descent of the song. Which realization and conviction (so to speak) came to me only by virtue of a passing familiarity with Australian balladry and the outlaw legend of that land.
The matter wants further study, but I'll be singing "Cherokee Bill's Song" this Friday night in Willow Creek Folk School session #99.
Here's my beginning of a research file on Cherokee Bill and his ballad. - https://docs.google.com/document/d/117mQsh1iGj1s5SRc9JwbFBi37BxZ37joobtPBrj3cH8/edit?usp=sharing
April 10, 2022
Jailhouse Ballads
Coming up on this week's Willow Creek Folk School, #98 - "Jailhouse Ballads" - one from the Indian Territory, one from Kansas, and one from North Dakota. - https://www.facebook.com/events/48339...
April 9, 2022
Murder at the Cook Car
This week on Prairie Public - https://lnkd.in/eGfY4srB
April 2, 2022
Brewster Higley's Homestead
How interesting that in all the historical literature on "Home on the Range" and its author, Brewster Higley, I find no citation indicating any investigator has inquired whether he took a homestead claim. In fact, he did! Proving up in 1878. This is detailed in the BLM land patent index. I have followed up and ordered the homestead file from the National Archives. Details - https://docs.google.com/document/d/19...
Respectable Girl Wants Work
This week on Prairie Public - https://news.prairiepublic.org/podcas...
The Farmer Is the Man
Last night's Willow Creek Folk School - https://fb.watch/c7_ghiFhPH/
March 28, 2022
WCFS #95
Last Friday's Willow Creek Folk School - https://fb.watch/c1lvtXIZgY/
On Friday the 1st, we'll go live from Denver.
On Friday the 1st, we'll go live from Denver.
Willow Creek: A Writing Journal
From the home office on Willow Creek, in the Red River Valley of North Dakota, historian Tom Isern blogs about his (literary) life on the plains.
- Thomas D. Isern's profile
- 83 followers
