I grew up on a farm in Wells County. My dad, James Patrie, loved poetry and I learned his philosophy through the poems he liked. I like those poems myself because they can express complicated thoughts through simple feelings.
My dad believed there was no higher virtue than loving your fellow man. Dad didn’t believe in the death penalty because he thought killing an innocent person was worse than letting a guilty person go free. Dad thought killing someone as a punishment for a crime, even after a legal conviction, would preclude the opportunity to recognize mistakes in the trial that might have proven innocence.
I have been thinking about Dad’s philosophy and the poetry he loved. I wonder what he would say about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, about the US military killing people on board ships without even a trial, about demolishing the East wing of the Whitehouse, about creating a call center to receive up to 6,000 calls per day identifying the location of up to 450,000 unaccompanied minors living in the United States without authorization from US Customs and Immigration Services.
Dad didn’t like Senator Joseph McCarthy and his accusations that people were communists. I think he would have been against accusing children of illegally being in the United States.
Dad loved public speaking and entered speech contests. He lived in a time (1910-2000) when poets and public speakers were celebrities and drew crowds. If Dad could have observed the speeches of Donald Trump and the actions of his administration toward immigrants, I am pretty sure he would have said those speeches and actions are ugly. There is no poetry or beauty in ICE raids, or name calling, or irrational tariffs, or flaunting of wealth or sexuality.
I don’t know for sure what my dad might have thought beautiful. My guess would be his first response was Katherine, his wife and my mother. He also really liked horses and appreciated the beauty of a well-matched team.
Growing up with this man, I didn’t talk about what I thought was beautiful with him. I wish I could have and, in his memory, here is what I thought was beautiful as a farm boy in Wells County. Make your own list, here is mine:
A flax field in bloom.
Clean cattle after a rain in green grass.
Mrs. Peterson, my fifth-grade teacher at Fessenden.
1963 Chevy Impala.
The poetry of Bob Dylan.
The “I have a dream speech” by Dr. Martin Luther King.
The Declaration of Independence.
The Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln.
Bright gold straw bales.
Healthy calves playing.
Our Case 400 tractor, pulling an International Plow Chief 3 bottom plow, with a Minneapolis packer and pony drill.
Blue-winged Teal landing on the slough.
“Counting flowers on the Wall,” by the Statler Brothers.
The warming sun coming through the east window of the Patrie Farm house.
And the most beautiful thing I remember was the kindness of my mother. Other kids liked my mom also.
Across North Dakota there are beautiful communities many young people have never heard of or been to. There are singers and poets, athletes and kind and honest people.
North Dakota has been distracted by the national politics of the ugliness of fear, racism, vulgarity, greed and deceit. We have almost forgotten what is beautiful about the Peace Garden State, our flower the Wild Prairie Rose, and the pledge of our media to shine the light of truth so this democracy can guide its own destiny. In the ugliness of today, let’s choose beauty again.
Bill Patrie is a retired planner and economic developer having worked in regional and statewide positions. He is the author of “Creating Co-op Fever” printed by USDA as a service bulletin, and “100 Stories of Hope” a book about his interviews with 100 people in poverty.
