In August, big sis Viv and her children converged on Bismarck from opposite coasts. Eliott drove from Los Angeles with Viv, his sister Arianne, and her son Dillon.
Eliott holds his nephew Dillon on his lap while Dillon's mom, Arianne, Franci and Jaylia look on.
Our nephew Jon and wife Lisa came from New Jersey and showed off their new addition, Cassie, being entertained here by Pam.
We dusted off the cradle I built before Reed was born and it was large enough to accommodate Cassie [but would not be for long, I suspect].
She was a charmer, for sure.
On Saturday, the Wolfes and drove to Mott where the town was celebrating Tractor Fest. An invitation was extended to NBC newsman, Ron Mott, to attend the festivities. In a first for county seat of Hettinger County, NBC obliged. Jon chats with a cameraman on Mott's main street, a/ka/ Brown Avenue.
Ron Mott, on the big tractor, rides toward the camera, as does his sidekick, one of the town's local youth. While there was a decent crowd on hand, I reported to Jon that in the early 60s there were twice as many people in town on a typical summer Saturday evening. Farms are bigger and the families smaller these days. There are fewer students in grades K-12 combined today than were in high school when I graduated in 1968.
On the positive side, Mott's Country Club has been vastly improved and sports wonderful fairways and immaculate grass greens. Much of that is attributable to the hard work and expertise of Richard Lindemann ["Badger"], the course superintendent. The club was hosting a scramble that day sponsored by the Commercial Bank of Mott. I was lucky and got paired with Jon, a big stick, and two others. We shot 11 under par and tied for first place but after matching cards, it was determined that the other team got a birdie earlier in the round than we did so we took second place.
It looks like our team killed some wildlife but, in truth, managed only to put down some beer, not deer.