Category Archives: Uncategorized

More About The Dickinson Mafia

February 18, 2015Uncategorizedbusiness in Dickinson North Dakota, cost of housing in Dickinson North Dakota, Dickinson Mafia, doing business in Dickinson North Dakota, Living in Dickinson, North Dakota, Masonic Lodge in Dickinson North Dakota, Moving to Dickinson, North Dakota, oil boom in Dickinson North Dakota, relocating to Dickinson North Dakota, who controls Dickinson North Dakotaname withheld

The first time that I wrote about the Dickinson Mafia was in my previous post, “The Dickinson Mafia”. I stated that the Dickinson Mafia was a group of local business owners and city leaders that had decided among themselves what they envisioned for Dickinson, that they tell themselves and each other that what they want is for the betterment of Dickinson, and in the best interest of its citizens, but what they want happens to coincide with making themselves richer, controlling citizens for their benefit, and helping them maintain power.

In my previous post I gave two examples of the endeavors of the Dickinson Mafia. Business owners can join the Chamber of Commerce to express their views about what they see for the future, and try to get other business owners to share their view. Business owners can express their views at City Commission/Council/Zoning meetings. They can write Letters To The Editor of the “Dickinson Press” expressing their opinions on issues. They can join the Golf Club, the Eagles Lodge, or the Elks Lodge in order to talk to other business owners and community leaders about their ideas. In my opinion, when business men want to get things done in a more unseen way, they join the Masonic Lodge. The Masonic Lodge holds their meetings in private, and they do not publicize who their members are, the rank of their members, and what things they discuss. The Masonic Lodge is very similar to the “Good-Old-Boy Network”.

Like the “Good-Old-Boy Network” in the South, a newcomer to a city who starts a construction business might be clueless as to why he seems to be having so much trouble, with everything. The newcomer who started a construction company might know why he is having so much trouble if he knew that his main competitor is the Grand Master of the local Masonic Lodge, and that the lumber company owner, the concrete company owner, the building inspector, the city engineer, the mayor, and the chief of police are also members of the local Masonic Lodge. Though the Masons publicly claim that this is not the case, their primary purpose and reason for existence is to have an organization of men that secretly gain power and control, and then exert their power and control. Men that are mayors, chiefs of police, bank presidents, attorneys, real estate agents, and insurance agents do obtain information that is private and confidential, to share some information would be a violation of ethics and illegal, however this information is shared among Masons to allow financial gain, business opportunity, and to undermine, control, and manipulate others. In the case of the Dickinson Mafia, I do not know yet whether they ever worked within the local Masonic Lodge. It appears to me that the Dickinson Mafia is able to achieve the same things on its own: having people gain positions of power, using that power to further enrich themselves, using their money to further increase their power, using their money, power, and influence to control what is done in Dickinson, and to control people in Dickinson. The people in Dickinson are somewhat aware that this is being done. They think it and they feel it, but they are not always able or willing to verbalize how they are controlled by some of the wealthy business owners in Dickinson.

The way that the Dickinson Mafia want Dickinson to be, is that they want to have mechanisms of control in place so that they can control what is going on in Dickinson during the oil booms that come and go, so that they can also have control when the oil booms go away. It does not matter where you are from, have you ever seen more vacant barren land anywhere than what there is outside of Dickinson? There is vacant undeveloped land as far as you can see, and beyond as far as you can see. There is no scarcity of vacant land. The cost of housing in Dickinson, and the shortage of housing in Dickinson is something that the Dickinson Mafia want. Though quick, affordable housing was something that was needed starting back in 2010, the Dickinson Mafia didn’t want that. They didn’t want out-of-state workers to come here, make a lot of money, send money back home, pay off their houses back home, get ahead financially, the Dickinson Mafia wanted the out-of-state workers to be taken advantage of, just like they have been taking advantage of the workers in their own businesses for the last thirty years.

One more thing, if you try to look up the “Dickinson Mafia” on the internet, the first six results of your search are an exact match for “Dickinson Mafia”. You can go and look at each of these six matching websites, web addresses, or links, and they really don’t contain any content that is relevant to an entity or activity that would or could be called “Dickinson Mafia”. It is like someone had the expectation that people would be trying to find out information about the “Dickinson Mafia” and they wanted to make sure that your internet search would be sure to turn up their six websites, that contain no information on the Dickinson Mafia. That is one way to try to keep people from knowing about the Dickinson Mafia.

The Dickinson Mafia

February 17, 2015UncategorizedCatholic Church in Dickinson, Dickinson Mafia, DUI in Dickinson, Good-Old-Boy Network, Living in Dickinson, Out-of-state worker in Dickinson, starting a business in Dickinson, Trinity High Schoolname withheld

I have not wanted to write about the Dickinson Mafia until now. No, I am not joking about the Dickinson Mafia, though they are a joke. They are a group of business owners and a few of the city leaders that try to decide and control what happens in Dickinson. Though I could name them, I won’t, yet.

The Dickinson Mafia have agreed more or less amongst themselves what they envision for Dickinson. They tell themselves and each other that they are looking out for the best interest of Dickinson and its citizens, but it is amazing how this coincides with making themselves richer and trying to control other people for their benefit and to maintain their power.

Two of the members of the Dickinson Mafia own large local companies. Even now, their wages are low in comparison to what out-of-state companies and corporations operating in Dickinson pay. These two large local companies attempt to pay skilled tradesmen and educated professionals the same wages as entry-level workers at Burger King, Wendys, and Wal-Mart here in Dickinson. For the last thirty years they have treated their workers like slaves, paying them meager wages so that they live pay check to pay check with no chance of saving enough money to start their own business, or to leave Dickinson and not live pay check to pay check. Paying low wages ensures that these workers have no choice but to be obedient, they have no money saved up to afford to be without a job, and should they not be obedient and lose their job, the Dickinson Mafia will try to make sure that they don’t get hired elsewhere.

Though these large local companies try to make their employees believe that the low wages they receive are just a matter of economics, what the company can afford to pay and remain in business, these large local companies have their names on the walls of the St. Joseph’s Hospital, the West River Community Center, and the Dickinson State University for their donations of millions of dollars. It disgusts me that wealthy people deliberately pay their workers low wages so that they have no option but to work their whole lives to provide the bare necessities for themselves, so that the wealthy can make large profits, so that they can give away their extra millions like they are such lovers of mankind, yet really they are slave drivers.

In 2010, when work began to pick up in Dickinson, local workers in Dickinson began to see that they could earn higher wages from out-of-state companies that came to operate in Dickinson. Many workers quit working for the locally owned companies. The Dickinson Mafia did not like this, they did not like this at all! In the past in Dickinson, a local worker could only afford a tiny apartment, or if his wife worked, they could afford a small plain house or a single-wide trailer. This was how the Dickinson Mafia wanted things. If you could just barely afford a place to live, you had to go along with what the Dickinson Mafia wanted: you had better do whatever it is that they told you at work, you had better not cause any problems around town after work, you had better not try to start any business without their permission, you had better not try to compete with them in business, and you had better not try to do or say anything against them politically.

In the South, there used to be what was called the Good-Old-Boy Network. If you came to a small town in the South and tried to start a business, let’s say a construction business for instance, your success or failure would depend on what the Good-Old-Boy Network wanted. You might not have known, that the concrete company owner, the lumber company owner, the building inspector, the fire marshal, the city engineer, the bank manager, and the mayor had already gotten together, discussed it, and decided that you were not somebody that they wanted to succeed. Consequently, you would have problem after problem, and the Good-Old-Boy Network would make sure that you went out of business.

In the South, if you were conservative, Christian-Protestant, not a criminal, not pushy, and assured some of the members of the Good-Old-Boy Network that you were not going to do anything crazy, they would probably let you do business. There is an expression, “People like people, who are like themselves.” When I lived in Idaho, I came to find out that the region I lived in was about sixty percent Mormon, and I also came to find out that you were not going to get a good job, succeed in business, or go on a date with a good-looking Mormon girl, unless you were Mormon. In Dickinson, the Dickinson Mafia is associated with the Catholic Church. The members of the Dickinson Mafia grew up Catholic. They associated with each other growing up at Catholic functions. I suppose this is why they are called the “Dickinson Mafia”, I didn’t make the name up. The Dickinson Mafia give preference to people who graduated from Trinity High School in Dickinson. Trinity High School is a private Catholic school in Dickinson, some of the members of the Dickinson Mafia went to school there, most of the members of the Dickinson Mafia send their children there.

The Dickinson Mafia use their association with the Catholic Church to further their agenda in Dickinson. I already stated that the Dickinson Mafia share a vision of what they want Dickinson to be, and though they tell themselves and each other that it is for the good of Dickinson and the well-being of its citizens, it coincides with making themselves richer and controlling others to benefit them and maintain their power. I will try to give a few examples of the Dickinson Mafia at work, where they use their association with the Catholic Church as a tool to achieve their goals.

If you are an out-of-state worker, you already have a home in another state, if you would have wanted to move to North Dakota, you would have done so years ago. You are here because the economy is bad in the state where your home is. You would rather be home where it is warmer, and there are trees. You are only here because there is work here. You would just like an affordable place to stay while you are here. You don’t want to stay in a $150 per night hotel, or a $1,500 per month one-bedroom apartment. Back home, $1,500 per month would rent a four-bedroom, three-bathroom house. There were developers that proposed temporary housing for workers in Dickinson, so-called “man-camps”. The city/county council members and zoning boards voted against “man-camps” in Dickinson and Stark County. There were concerned citizens in Dickinson that were worried about “all those men in those man-camps”, surely they would be raping women in Dickinson. I remember the discussions of “man-camps” in Dickinson in 2011. The citizens of Dickinson were saying that for the safety of the families in Dickinson, for the safety of the women and children, for the well-being of Dickinson, and to not destroy the God-fearing morality of Dickinson, that they be spared from the wickedness and the lawlessness of the “man-camps”. How did everybody in Dickinson get so worked up about the wicked and lawless man-camps? What happened is, apartment developments got approved and built instead.

I would like to point out, that the same wicked and lawless oil-field workers that would have lived in the man-camps on the north side of Dickinson are the same people that rented the newly constructed apartments on the north side of Dickinson. The Dickinson Mafia put the word out and got it into people’s heads, particularly the church-going people that were determined to fight evil, that the man-camp dwellers were savages, but the people that would rent apartments were the kind of people Dickinson wanted. Keep in mind the people were the same workers whether they lived in a man-camp or in an apartment. The difference was, that the Dickinson Mafia wanted to force the purchase of acreage rather than the leasing of acreage. The Dickinson Mafia wanted millions and millions of dollars to be spent on the construction of permanent apartments, and the permanent property tax assessment on those apartments.

Another thing that I think the Dickinson Mafia and the Catholic Church have initiated are the over-zealous DUI arrests in Dickinson. The Dickinson Mafia and the Catholic Church want you to go to work, then go home to your family, and stay home until you are ready to go to work again the next day. They do not want you to go out in town and get into any trouble after work. Your life is work, and your family. As far as the law in the United States goes, it is not illegal to go to a bar, have a couple of drinks, and then drive home. But in Dickinson, the police will get behind you with the intention of finding something, anything, any reason to pull you over, so that they can ask you if you have been drinking, give you a field sobriety test, then arrest you for DUI, even if your blood alcohol level is below the legal limit. Why do the police do this in Dickinson? It is because they have been directed to do this. The police would not do this unless they had been directed to do this and they were backed up and supported by those in power in both the business community and the dominant church community. They have a vision for what Dickinson is going to be, and they have decided to control other people to benefit them.

If You and Your Family Move to Dickinson, North Dakota

February 15, 2015Uncategorizedco-workers in Dickinson, Dan Porter Toyota, Employment in Dickinson, kids in Dickinson, Living in Dickinson, Moving to Dickinson, Prairie Hills Mall, relocating to Dickinson, rent in Dickinson, Sax Chevrolet, school in Dickinson, shopping in Dickinsonname withheld

I received a comment on my blog from a reader whose family is going to relocate to Dickinson, North Dakota. I would like to answer some of the reader’s questions, and offer my sincerest advice. In this blog, I have mostly written about what it is like to be a man in Dickinson, but in this post, I want to write about what it will be like for a wife, and for a teenage son or daughter.

I believe that it is probably difficult for a teenage son or daughter to leave their friends and familiar high school behind, and relocate to some place that is new, and have to start over again. One of my friends who lives in Williston had to do this many times during his childhood because his father was in the military. He did not have a very good time in school, he felt that he was picked on because he was an easy target, he was always the new kid in class.

In general, lately, about 30% of the time in Dickinson, I feel that I am not treated very nicely by the local people, because I am not from here. I want to caution parents that if your son or daughter enters school in Dickinson, they may experience some negativity from school administrators, teachers, and students. School administrators and teachers are probably tired of new students from elsewhere, having to review and incorporate each new student’s academic records, having to determine what classes to enroll them in, and evaluate where they are in comparison to other students. Even though adults in the education system should be above directing negativity towards students, it may happen. Students may be negative towards a new classmates because they may copy the attitudes of their parents, or they may take out their anger on someone who is an “easy target”, because they are from somewhere else, are not settled in yet, and don’t have any friends. It might be inappropriate to be as blunt as I am putting it, with your son or daughter. I would try to say something like,”It can be difficult to start over at a new school. It is difficult when you are not familiar with the town, with the people, and you don’t have any friends yet. The first days may be hard, but things will get better.” Please advise your son or daughter, if they are confronted with an administrator, teacher, or classmate that is picking on them, try to not say,”Dickinson sucks!, I wish that I never moved here!” This is a normal thought, but don’t say it out loud. Some days in Dickinson, it feels like everyone is against you, but if you make it through the day, you may find that tomorrow you have a better day. In Dickinson you sometimes run across more than several people in a row that are unfriendly towards you because you are from somewhere else, but eventually you meet some people that are more friendly.

In order for your son or daughter to not be depressed, to have something to look forward to doing, to meet people, or to keep to themselves if they wish, I highly recommend having them go to the West River Community Center every day. The West River Community Center has an indoor rock climbing wall with safety lines, three indoor racquetball courts, two indoor tennis courts, four indoor basketball courts, an indoor track, two indoor swimming pools, indoor volleyball court, and weight rooms. If they don’t feel like talking to anyone, they can swim, lift weights, walk the track, practice racquetball, or practice basketball. It is a very good place to get exercise in the winter, and it is safe for kids and adults. There are a lot of housewives and moms that use the West River Community Center throughout the day, and these women seem to have an above average positive attitude and they seem to be more outgoing and happier.

Because there a lot of new kids enrolled in school in Dickinson, and because these kids come from all over the United States, I would be very watchful about what kinds of kids my son or daughter was becoming friends with. I would watch out for kids that appear to be too street-smart for their age, or kids that seem to be too mature for their age. I would be concerned that if my son or daughter was raised in a well supervised, caring environment, is their street-smart, and more mature friend, going to take advantage of my more naive son or daughter, going to get them involved in things inappropriate for their age, smoking, drugs, sex. It is probably necessary to try to meet the parents of the kids that your son or daughter is spending time with. Is your son or daughter going over to their friend’s home where the parents are routinely absent for several hours? Does anyone in the household appear to have a drug or alcohol problem? Do the parents appear to be reckless or have an unsafe environment for your son or daughter to be in? Because there are so many new people that have moved to Dickinson recently, you have to be more careful about your safety and your child’s safety.

There are three small Family Value grocery stores in Dickinson, their prices are higher than the Wal-Mart in Dickinson. If you have patience to wait in line, and it is daylight, you can shop at Wal-Mart if you want to. If it is dark or nearing dark, I would not want my wife or girlfriend to go to Wal-Mart, the parking lot walk is too far and too dangerous at night. If it is dark, you are much safer going to the smaller Family Value grocery stores, the parking lot walk is short and safe. In Dickinson at night, a warning for both men and women, you don’t want to be way out in the Wal-Mart parking lot at night, or be at a gas station late at night where you will be approached by what appears to be a pan-handler or beggar. What appears to be a pan-handler or beggar, is actually probably a drug addict and a criminal, who has spotted you before you ever noticed them. They approach you when you are not able to ignore them, such as when you have a long walk to the store, or when you are pumping gas. If they thought that they could get away with it, they would probably take your money by theft or by force, they only ask you for money because they feel they would get caught in a theft or a mugging, but if you are far enough out in a dark parking lot, their odds improve for getting away with a theft, mugging, or abduction.

If you are looking for good warm winter clothing, Runnings Farm & Ranch store has a very good selection of winter jackets, overalls, hats, gloves, work boots, and snow boots. Carhart jackets are very warm and durable, Berne jackets are maybe as good and less expensive. The hardware stores like Ace, Macs, and Menards also have good warm winter jackets. The Prairie Hills Mall has Herbergers Department Store. Herbergers Department Store has nice clothes for men, women, and children. If you have a job interview, a date, or a wedding, you will be able to find shoes, pants, belts. shirts, ties, suit jackets, and winter jackets that are nice and appropriate. The only movie theater in Dickinson is also in the Prairie Hills Mall, and it usually has about four different movies at any one time.

If you have car problems in Dickinson, I recommend that you take your car to the dealer. I have taken vehicles to the Dodge dealer and the Toyota dealer in Dickinson, and both of these dealers have done good work and they have a good reputation. I believe that the Ford dealer and the Chevy dealer also have a good reputation. There are at least several good independent mechanic shops in Dickinson, but the good mechanic shops have a waiting time of about four weeks before they can work on your vehicle. If you have an Audi, BMW, Mercedes, Porsche, Range Rover, Saab, Subaru, Volvo, or Volkswagen, you may not be able to find anyone in Dickinson who wants to work on your vehicle. I have heard that Dan Porter Toyota may try to work on some foreign vehicles, and that Sax Chevrolet may try to work on some foreign vehicles, but they may not want to work on your foreign vehicle if it is a complicated repair.

When you begin work with an employer in Dickinson, try to be polite, positive, moderate in your behavior, moderate in what you say, and be careful and mindful of certain things. It has been my experience in Dickinson, that your co-workers will try to cause problems for you. Keep in mind that your co-workers may dislike you because you are from someplace else, or because they believe you have more education or experience than them, or because they wanted their relative to get the job that you have. Keep in mind that they would like for you to make a mistake or for you to say something that they could try to damage you with. Be careful not to say anything sarcastic or jokingly, because your coworkers will repeat what you said without adding that you had been joking. Be careful not to give any opinions about work or workers, because you may have assumed that what you said was not going to be repeated, however your coworkers will go tell everyone what you said. Your co-workers will ask you what you think of Dickinson, try to say something positive like, “The West River Community Center is very nice.” The longer you remain positive, moderate in your behavior, moderate in what you say, and refrain from saying anything that could offend anyone, and refrain from giving your opinion on anything, the longer you can keep your job.

And to answer the last question of the reader, I do not think that there has been a recent drop in rental rates or home prices, but this could/should start to occur any day now because there has been a reduction in the number of oil field jobs and the price of oil is still currently low.

Surprise Sighting of Attractive Women in Dickinson, North Dakota

February 10, 2015Uncategorizedattractive women in Dickinson, Entertainment in Dickinson, how to meet women in Dickinson, Living in Dickinson, Moving to Dickinson, women, Women in Dickinsonname withheld

On January 24, 2015, I went to the Chili Cook-Off at the Astoria Hotel in Dickinson, North Dakota. There were about twenty companies that served their home-made chili at this event, which was a fundraiser for rural fire departments. There were about four bars that served alcohol. The band “Outlaw Sippin” played from about 9 p.m. to midnight. There were about four hundred to five hundred people at this event.

I have spent about two and a half years in Dickinson, and I have never seen more attractive women in Dickinson than I saw at this event. In fact, the last time I saw that many attractive women in one place, was twenty years ago when I was at a school with over 30,000 students. At the Chili Cook-Off, there were all different kinds of attractive women: tall skinny ones, tiny petite ones, friendly volunteer women of all ages, cow-girls, hot housewives, pretty geeks, off-duty bartenders, on-duty bartenders, out-of-town girls, local girls, college girls, other kinds too.

I have thought about it and thought about it, why did pretty women come out to this event? What made this event different? Three things: large clean bathrooms, tile, and clean, warm, safe environment. I tried to understand why women decided to come to this event, and imagine what their thought process must have been. Here is what they must have been thinking, “I would like to go to this event at the Astoria Hotel, they have nice big bathrooms that are clean, and have tile work, and I can drink and have someplace safe to go to the bathroom. I like tile work. It will be clean, and warm, and dry, and safe, and not nasty. I can eat some chili.”

I have done a lot of complaining about the lack of attractive women in Dickinson. It turns out, that if you have a nice, clean, warm, dry, safe environment, with tile, they will come out. Also, the women at this event were nice to me, which was unusual, I guess they must have been in a good mood and felt safe.

Work Slow-Down in Dickinson, North Dakota

February 3, 2015UncategorizedApartments in Dickinson, Continental Resources in Dickinson, Dakota Prairie Refinery, Lay-Offs in Dickinson, Marathon Oil in Dickinson, out-of-state worker, Patterson, rent in Dickinson, Unemployment in Dickinson, White Trash in Dickinson, Whiting Petroleum in Dickinson, winter in Dickinson, Work Slow Down in Dickinsonname withheld

I have not posted anything to this blog for approximately six weeks. I have been very busy due to changes in Dickinson. Normally, there is a work slow-down in North Dakota from the beginning of December through the end of March. This normal work slow down did occur. It is difficult to perform different types of construction due to the ground freezing solid, due to concrete not being able to cure, and due to it being difficult to work outside when it is below 0 degrees Fahrenheit. I would estimate that approximately twenty-five percent of the out-of-state workers go home at this time of year.

For the out-of-state worker, if you are not working more than forty hours per week, the cost of rent is so high in Dickinson, that you would probably want to go home in the winter, you see most of your money going towards rent, you are not getting ahead financially, there is not a lot to do in Dickinson, it is miserably cold outside, so you go home. The long time residents of Dickinson say that the winter in North Dakota “keeps out the riff-raff”. I agree with them on this. I hate white-trash. The high cost of rent, the high cost of utilities, the severity of the cold and snow, the lack of work, makes it difficult to get by in the winter in North Dakota, and the white-trash leave here like rats from a sinking ship.

In addition to the normal winter work slow-down, there has been a second contributor to the work slow-down, the price of oil. Sometime in December, the price of oil went below $50 per barrel. The oil companies here in North Dakota such as Whiting, Marathon, and Continental, have calculated that when they can sell the North Dakota oil for more than $80 per barrel, they are making a profit. Once the price of North Dakota oil falls below $80 per barrel, to the oil companies, it’s like a car dealer selling a new car for less than it costs to manufacture it, they don’t want to do this, there is no point in pumping oil from the ground to sell it at a loss. People here in North Dakota and across the United States speculate on how this will affect employment. People that use sound logic and reasoning believe that under these circumstances, the oil companies will reduce the amount of oil that is pumped, and try to reduce costs wherever they can because they are not making a profit on the oil that is pumped. In the “Dickinson Press” newspaper in late January, there was a front page news story about the Patterson drilling company parking forty of its drill rigs on land outside of Dickinson because contracts for drilling new wells had declined. This newspaper story also cited another drilling company parking its drill rigs outside of Dickinson due to a slow down in drilling.

In national news, it was either Baker Hughes or Halliburton that announced they were laying off 7,000 people. Schlumberger announced that they were laying off 1,000 workers. Other oil industry companies announced lay-offs. My estimate is that the Baker Hughes and Schlumberger lay-offs will probably remove at least one hundred workers in Dickinson. Patterson drilling parking forty of their drill rigs will probably cost about four hundred jobs in Dickinson. The Dakota Prairie Refinery in Dickinson is just being completed, this project had employed more than several hundred people at any one time, and these people are going to be laid off now. When you add in the other drilling company that parked its drill rigs outside of Dickinson, just these companies mentioned in this paragraph will total about 1,000 jobs lost in Dickinson in January.

There are approximately six very large apartment communities that are just being completed in Dickinson, totaling approximately 1,000 new units. At this same time, I believe that there are at least 1,000 jobs that have been lost in Dickinson. It will be interesting to see what happens. If you have read some of my blog posts from 2014, you can see that much of what I wrote about, was that the oil boom that Dickinson had been experiencing presently, had happened before about thirty years ago. I think that in 2015 many people in Dickinson will experience a catastrophe. Some people employed with Baker Hughes, Halliburton, or Patterson drilling, who had purchased a house in Dickinson in order to move their wife and children here, will not be able to pay their mortgage on the $300,000 house they bought, nor will they be able to sell it for more than $250,000. People who purchased new travel trailers to live in RV Parks, and people who purchased manufactured homes in manufactured home communities will just walk away from their trailers because they will no longer be able to make the payments and pay the lot rent, and there will be no point in living in Dickinson anyway if they can’t get a job here. People will walk away from their apartment leases. Will the new apartment communities still be able to charge $2,000 a month for an apartment?

I would like to be here in Dickinson long enough to see some people have their heads shoved in shit, which is what I felt that some people have done to me, merely for coming here, and being from somewhere else. Myself, and other people have come to North Dakota, with a college education, with no criminal record, with a work history of professionalism, and having lived and worked throughout the United States, and been treated like dirt by ignorant, uneducated, never-been-anywhere North Dakotans who temporarily and briefly have been given power over other people by the oil boom here. I would like to be here to see some of the local people and businesses who have mistreated and taken advantage of people from out-of-town, get what is coming to them.

A Business Fails In Dickinson, North Dakota

November 21, 2014Uncategorizedbusiness in Dickinson, DUI in Dickinson, Employment in Dickinson, Housing in Dickinson, Moving to Dickinson, rent in Dickinsonname withheld

In the blog post below I write about a business in Dickinson that I worked for. The owners were not particularly evil or malevolent, but they were kind of mixed-up in their thinking. It was frustrating to see them do things that most business owners elsewhere in the United States would not do, avoiding these mistakes by using normal business sense. I also explain that it was difficult for this business to work in Dickinson, due to Dickinson being so hostile to out-of-state workers.

In 2013, when I returned to Dickinson, after having been gone for a year, I got a job at a construction company, as a foreman. I was glad that I got the foreman position because I would have a better chance of protecting my safety and well-being, than if I were a crew worker. The pay was not high, though it was O.K. with me. On my first day of work, I came to find out that the foreman I was replacing had given his two-weeks notice of quitting, during his first week. On this first day of work, both of the company owners came to the work sites, they were very hyped-up, and I could see why the foreman that I was replacing, was quitting.

Both of the construction company owners had a degree in engineering, both of them were in their late forties, early fifties. This was a specialty type of construction company. The workers and technicians had come from Oregon, Washington, North Dakota, Idaho, Florida, and Missouri. Two workers had a degree in engineering, a third worker was about two years away from his degree in engineering. Some of the workers had received technical training in the military regarding this type of work, other workers had gained knowledge and experience regarding this type of work in other states. The construction company had accumulated these workers over three years of being in business.

In the beginning, when I first met everyone, all the employees seemed to have above average intelligence, everyone was upbeat, and positive, about forty percent of the workers were very sharp and quick-witted. One of the very first problems that I became aware of at this construction company, was that all of the out-of-state employees were having housing problems. My housing situation was very, very bad, and I didn’t want anyone to find out where I was living, I was embarrassed about it. Two of the workers had paid a lot of money for a basement apartment, they had moved everything they owned from Oregon and Washington, to Dickinson, the basement apartment flooded in May and ruined all of their belongings. They complained about this to the company owners, explaining their expenses in relocating to Dickinson, having to pay extremely high rent just to share a basement apartment, then having all of their belongings destroyed in a flooded basement. These two employees explained to the company owners that they needed to be paid enough money to afford a decent place to live in Dickinson, or that the company needed to subsidize their housing, otherwise it would not be worth it to them to remain in North Dakota. When I first came to work at this company, these two workers were intelligent, funny, energetic, and good at their jobs. Due to their housing problems, they soon became sarcastic, bitter, and complaining, they hurt company morale, especially when they decided to quit the company and leave North Dakota in June, then they really ranted about how much North Dakota sucks.

Of the remaining workers, one, then another, and then another had housing problems in Dickinson or other problems in Dickinson. Due to the cost of housing in Dickinson, one of the married out-of-state workers, never brought his wife to live with him in North Dakota during the two years that he was here. He had a single bedroom in a house that was shared with some of the other workers. He went straight home, never went out to eat, never went out to bars, never went to Patterson Lake. I felt sorry for him. He didn’t have much of a life, all he did was work and go home. He didn’t have any friends. He was invited to go out by two of his out-of-state co-workers who had lived in the rental house with him, but he declined. Unlike him, these two out-of-state co-workers tried to make the best of living in Dickinson, they went out to restaurants and bars every night in Dickinson. In early June, these two out-of-state workers both got a DUI in Dickinson. I liked these two guys, the corporation that we did work for liked these two guys, they were fun, positive, intelligent, and good at their jobs. After they got their DUIs, they were not happy about being in Dickinson anymore, their attitudes were not good, they didn’t seem to care about their work very much. The company had to let them go by the end of August, but they had been two of the best employees before they got their DUIs.

Due to the construction company getting into a position where all of their work was coming from one client corporation, and due to pressure from that client, the two owners of the company that I worked for under-bid the remainder of the work for the year. Some of the work that I did with my two crews, was taking three times as long as what had been budgeted. Rather than the jobs being straight forward, most of the jobs had several special conditions that had not been accounted for, which would require additional time and work. I was frustrated with not being able to make money on jobs, but losing money on jobs. In discussions with the company owners regarding the amount of time each job was taking, and the additional work required due to complicating conditions, the two company owners acknowledged that they had been led to believe that the work they were to provide fixed pricing on was nothing out of the ordinary, but the work that the company was given, was problem work. The two company owners did not want to protest that the work they were given was problem work with special conditions, not ordinary work, and that additional work requires additional charges. Instead, they thought that they would be “rewarded” at a later date for their perseverance by the corporation we were working for.

I was frustrated additionally, by a couple of hires that the two owners had made to do someone a favor. One hire was made to give their niece a job. A second hire was made to give the daughter of a friend a job. At this point, two months in, we had lost four key employees, who were intelligent, funny, upbeat, who had knowledge and years of work experience in this specialized area. They were replaced with two young ladies, who had no construction experience or skills, who were hired as a favor to someone.

To try to make a long story short, one of the young ladies who was hired as a favor to her father, was a problem. She was not accustomed to doing physical labor, she was not good at performing physical labor, she did not want to perform physical labor, she did not want to follow instructions, instead she would question me when I would ask her to do something. The other laborers would do their work, and then go and help her do her work, instead of getting a break from their work, the other laborers would complete their work, and go and do her work. After a couple of weeks on the job, she wore a pair of jeans with the entire crotch missing. Neither me, nor any crew member said a word. At the end of the day I went to the company owners to speak about the problems I was having with this young lady, the company owners said that they had already received a complaint from the corporation we were working for, either through a site supervisor or through a member of the public reporting it. The company owners asked this young lady why she was wearing pants with the entire crotch missing, and why she was questioning me when I asked her to do something. She just acted innocent, and like she wanted to work just like everybody else.

In late August, I was tired of how things were going at work. I felt pressured to try to complete jobs more quickly, though there was not much I could do to speed things up, there were no short cuts to be taken, the jobs had been under-bid, it had not been known that each of the jobs we were given would be unusually difficult due to special conditions. I was additionally frustrated that keeping in mind that we needed to complete jobs more quickly, instead of getting a strong and experienced construction worker, I got a young lady crew worker who did not want to perform physical labor, would question what I asked her to do, and it looked like she tried to set us up for a claim of sexual harassment. I quit in late August, and went to work for another company that did similar work.

An out-of-state worker from a southern state was made foreman for my two work crews at the company that I left. He had arrived in Dickinson in July. He had a wife and a couple of children back home in the state he had come from. In August he had been able to lease a house about twenty-five miles south of Dickinson, and he brought his wife and children to North Dakota. He was a little unhappy about the drive to and from work each day, but he could only afford a house that was outside of Dickinson. I saw him a few times around town, and I saw him a couple of times on the job. In about October, he and his family went back home to the state he had come from. I guess that he was frustrated like I was about having to do nothing but problem jobs that had been under-bid. He had seen enough of Dickinson to come to the conclusion that even though you can get a job here, the way Dickinson is and the cost of housing makes it not worth it to be here.

In 2014, the out-of-state co-worker who always went straight home after work, who never went out to eat or out to bars, whose wife lived in a different state, he finally went home. The out-of-state construction manager who had brought his wife to North Dakota about six months previously and had leased a house about thirty miles to the east of Dickinson, he quit and went back to the state he had come from. The local women who worked in the construction company office quit. Then the young lady that had been hired as a favor to her father, she quit. Then the client corporation no longer wanted or needed this construction company, and there was no reward for the company’s “perseverance” through difficult work that had been underbid. And the two owners, and their niece, were the last ones, and they went home.

Women in Dickinson, North Dakota

November 17, 2014UncategorizedDickinson sucks, Entertainment in Dickinson, Living in Dickinson, marriage in Dickinson, meeting women in Dickinson, Moving to Dickinson, over-eating, People in Dickinson, women's activities in Dickinsonname withheld

I stated that the purpose of this blog was to try to provide truthful information to people about what living in Dickinson, North Dakota, is like. Women in Dickinson, North Dakota, are significantly different from women elsewhere. I feel the need to explain this, not so that I can say cruel things about women in Dickinson, but to let people from out of state know what to expect.

As I have said elsewhere in this blog, there are way more men in Dickinson than women. If you come to Dickinson, you will see that there is a shortage of women. For most people, this is an additional unpleasant thing about Dickinson, in addition to seven months of cold grey weather, lack of places to shop, lack of entertainment, lack of things to do, over zealous DUI citations, and the fact that Dickinson residents and your co-workers from Dickinson do not like people from out of state.

Day after day after day in Dickinson, I go to the gas station, to work, to the grocery store, to the hardware store, to other stores, and I don’t see any pretty women. It gets depressing. I wonder to myself,”What has happened to the Earth?” It is like I am stuck in some apocalyptic movie, living in some dreary, barren land, after some kind of devastating disaster. It’s like I’m on some kind of prison planet. I might as well be in prison, there are mostly men here, not any women. The hardships in Dickinson, make me feel like I am living through the Great Depression, like I’m a refugee during a war, or that I have been put in prison for some kind of crime. Like I said before, if you want to know what living in Dickinson will be like, you need to watch the movies “The Grapes of Wrath”, “Deliverance”, and “Planet of the Apes”.

One of the reasons why you don’t see many pretty women in Dickinson, is because, there aren’t very many. When I lived in warm states like Florida, Texas, and Arizona, women were very concerned with how they looked, they were even competitive about it. In states with warm climates, there are so many more opportunities to go out, for recreation, socializing, entertainment, business. In warm states, people ride bikes, walk, jog, play tennis, play golf, surf, water ski, roller blade, swim, sun bathe. In warm states, people go to movies, plays, concerts, cook outs, cruises, dinner parties, drinks after work. In all of the aforementioned recreational and social activities in the warm states, the women are concerned with how they look. They want to look good in their bathing suit, their golf outfit, their dinner dress, their party dress. The women look forward to shopping for clothes and planning what they will wear.

Without trying to go too deep into the psychology of why women do what they do, in warm states, women want to look good, they try to look good. The women enjoy getting attention from men, they enjoy getting noticed. The women enjoy getting admired for their jewelry and clothing. Women in warm states read “Vogue”, “Vanity Fair”, “Cosmopolitan”, and “People”, in order to see what clothes other women are wearing, what accessories they have, how they are wearing their hair. In warm states, women go to the gym, exercise, diet, pay attention to what they are eating, in order to maintain and improve their appearance.

One of the reasons why women are competitive about how they look in the warm states, is because there are about equal numbers of men and women. The women would like to be able to get the boyfriend or the husband that they want, but there is competition for the better males. In order to be able to get one of the better males, each woman has to try to be more attractive than the other women who are seeking his attention.

In Dickinson, most of the women do not ride bikes, jog, play tennis, play golf, roller blade, swim, or water ski. It is too cold to do outdoor activities for seven months of the year. In Dickinson, most of the women do not go to plays, dinner parties, or drinks after work. What I am saying is, most of the women in Dickinson do not exercise, they do not go out, they do not have any place to go, therefore, they do not care how they look, they do not care very much about what they wear, and rather than being competitive about looking good, I actually think that they are competitive about looking bad.

In Dickinson, I think that the women that are from here, try to look bad. One possible reason why women from Dickinson try to look bad, is so that they will be left alone by the men. There is nothing to do in Dickinson, and nowhere to go, what is the use in a woman looking good in Dickinson, it’s not like she’s looking forward to getting asked out on a date, there is nowhere to go. Why would they want to look attractive? They are not really looking forward to some guy in Dickinson trying to mount them. As far as women being in competition with other women for the better males, I can just hear some woman from Dickinson in her North Dakota accent saying, “I don’t want him, you can have him,…no you can have him,….no, you can have him.”

A second reason why women in Dickinson try to look bad, is to get along with other women and to have solidarity with other women. All of the women have decided that they are going to be anywhere from thirty pounds to one hundred pounds over weight. If all the women do this, the men won’t really know the difference. So when the men in Dickinson see big overweight women, with baggy loose clothing, and unkempt hair, the men think nothing of it, because that is what they are used to seeing. The buffalo are big, the cows are big, the women are big.

Snake River Women, Preparation for Dickinson, North Dakota

November 10, 2014UncategorizedWomen in Dickinsonname withheld

In 2010, I found myself in a bar one evening, not far from the Snake River. It was summer, and the sky became darker outside as it passed 8:30 p.m. Gathered were: several veterans of the Vietnam War, a couple of presently employed construction workers, a couple of presently unemployed construction workers, a parolee, a handicapped person, the head bar skank, an off duty bar skank, and a free roaming bar skank.

It was Saturday night, and the bar would become busier as the night moved on. Angry music was played on the jukebox, “…judging from all the assholes in the room, I’m definitely not alone…”, “…so I jacked the keys to my girlfriend’s car, wrecked that piece of shit, and then stepped away…” The construction workers played pool, the handicapped guy talked to himself, the skanks smoked and yelled at people.

More and more single guys entered the bar as time passed. The great big tall guy who owned the trucking company had a pretty good girlfriend, she was a tall blond, pretty, funny, good at pool. One of the Vietnam Veterans had a very good looking daughter who came in for a short while, but she was gone before long.

When you are a single guy in a bar, you hope that there will be some pretty women that come in, that maybe you can get. As it became close to 10 p.m., it looked doubtful that that was going to happen. Unfortunately, it can not be helped, if the pretty women in the town choose not to come to the bar, but instead stay home and bake cookies.

The bar was crowded now at 11:00 p.m., though it was mostly men. To get out of the midst of the crowd and the noise, I had moved closer to the entrance, at the end of the bar. Through the window and between the curtains I could see an older 1970s Ford truck, and 1970s Chevy truck, drive by and find a parking spot along the street. In a minute or so, in walked a slender young man in his mid-twenties, followed close behind by a plump female creature with bright red streaks in her dark brown hair. In walked a similar young man, the female with him was also plump with dark hair, but this one had blue streaks in her hair.

These two females had normal size breasts more or less, medium length hair, soft pale skin, but their faces, necks, shoulders, arms, buttocks, and legs were heftier than normal, almost as if they had been accustomed to pulling wagons or sleds. They did not appear to be comfortable inside this bar, it was as if it was new and strange to them. They did not settle down, but bobbed their heads, craned their necks around, as if looking for signs of danger, or perhaps, food.

It was then that one of the Vietnam Veterans leaned over and spoke to me,”You’re looking at them girls over there aren’t you! Well, I could tell you was. Look here, do you know where those girls come from? Those girls is Snake River girls, they come from the Snake River bottoms, the swampy areas, the low areas, the banks. What you do, is you do like them boys. You wait till it gets dark, it has got to be after dark, between 10 and 11, you drive along the river road, it has got to be in a truck, maybe, maybe like a great big old Chrysler might work, but just as likely not, it needs to be an old truck, so that they can hear you.”

I can’t say that I looked at this guy with disbelief, because what he was saying seemed plausible. He continued,”You have got to make a lot of noise, normally if the tail gate is rattling and the doors are sqeaking, they will come out, but if they don’t, you have got to get a piece of pipe and bang on the bed of your truck. Then you have got to take a flash light and shine it along the river bank, right beside an upturned tree is a good place to look, another good place is if there is a pile of logs and trees from when the river flooded, that is also a good place to look. Now, you may think that some of these girls are a little hefty looking, not the kind you would see in a magazine, they are different, they are different, but hey, these old country boys don’t care nothing about that .”

I didn’t say anything, or ask any questions, I just nodded my head in agreement, as if what he was saying was easy to understand. Nothing more was said. Sometimes, you find yourself in a position, where it is easier to go along and fit in.

Profiles In White Trash, Dickinson, North Dakota

November 10, 2014UncategorizedLiving in Dickinson, Moving to Dickinson, Night Life in Dickinson, oil field workers, People in Dickinson, Restaurants in Dickinson, white trashname withheld

In western North Dakota, historically, I don’t think that there were white trash people. Yes, there were poor people. Yes, there were uneducated people. However, due to the difficulty of life in North Dakota, with its very cold and long winters, its lack of trees, its lack of wild animals for food, and its lack of industry, conditions were not right for the creation of white trash people. In order to survive in North Dakota, you had to be hard working, you had to plan ahead, and you had to think of the consequences of your actions, or inaction.

In a cold, barren state, where survival requires hard work, self-sufficiency, accountability, and reaping what you sew, white trash people can not survive.

Unfortunately, there are white trash people in North Dakota now. Unfortunately, I have to admit, that they are from the South. I don’t think that there is anyone that hates white trash more than I do. There are two things about white trash people that go hand in hand, which are the primary ingredients of white trash, one is ignorance, the second is bad conduct.

Ignorance is not so bad, if a person would just keep their mouth shut, stay home, and not have children. In the case of white trash people, they are out and about, and they have the Midas touch in being offensive.

At about 6:30 a.m. one morning not long ago, I went to have breakfast at the Perkins restaurant in Dickinson. Within about a minute of being seated at a booth, I could hear someone with a strong southern accent, speaking overly loudly to a group of people seated in an adjacent, enclosed room. This man, was using language that was not appropriate for a public restaurant, speaking about a subject that was not appropriate for a public restaurant, and was speaking too loudly. He appeared to think, like all white trash seem to think, that he was being witty and entertaining, rather than realizing he was being inappropriate and offensive. The waitress went back to the group after a few minutes to take their orders, she was a pleasant lady, in her sixties. The man began to speak to her inappropriately, asking her if she was married, making a couple of suggestive comments. Even though the waitress did not act offended, I am pretty sure that she was, because she is married, and she is from North Dakota, and is not accustomed to being spoken to like this. As I already said, historically, there were not white trash people in North Dakota.

The adjacent enclosed room, was being occupied by approximately ten workers from an oil field service company. I could tell from their accents, that just about all of these workers were from the south. Though I continued to hear this particular man, speaking overly loud, throughout the time I was eating, I never heard about five or six of the group say anything, one way or the other. Before the boasting speakers had finished eating and talking, about five of the workers excused themselves to go to work. Three of these workers who left early, were black men. I looked at these men as they left, their faces visible to me, but not to those remaining seated at the table they left, their faces had a pained and disapproving look, almost a grimace.

I could tell that just as I was disgusted by the white trash, so were these men. Both they and I grew up in the South, and we knew that this behavior was inappropriate, and we were sorry for it.

Just as I was getting ready to leave, a hostess brought a well dressed man in his late fifties, towards the back of the restaurant, closer to the white trash oil field workers than I was seated, he quickly assessed that group with one look that took less than a second, and said, “No.”, and he immediately turned, and walked to the furthest table in the opposite direction.

Trying To Get By In Dickinson, North Dakota, Part II

November 4, 2014UncategorizedDickinson, Dickinson Police, Employment in Dickinson, Living in Dickinson, Moving to Dickinson, North Dakota, relocating to Dickinson, Restaurants in Dickinsonname withheld

In my very first post to this blog, I explained why I was writing this blog. I said that I wanted to describe what it was like living in Dickinson, North Dakota. I wanted people to have the truth. If you have read at least several of my posts, you will probably have thought to yourself the following three things: that I am pessimistic, that I am negative, and that I am exaggerating. The last point, that I am exaggerating, no, you will find out sooner or later if you come here, that I am not exaggerating. That I am pessimistic and negative, yes, but this is necessary for survival here.

As far as people who have come to Dickinson, I have fared a little bit better than average. I have been able to make enough money to pay my bills, to keep my home in a different state, to buy an additional vehicle, to buy more tools, clothes, guns, etcetera. I have not been arrested and taken to jail, although I have come close about five times. I have not gotten any women pregnant or gotten any venereal diseases. I got injured badly enough to where I couldn’t work for five months, no workers compensation from North Dakota, but I have recovered about 90% after a couple of years. Currently I have an O.K. place to live here in Dickinson. So all in all, I feel like I am doing a little bit better than average.

Why, you might ask, do I think that I am doing a little bit better than average? Well, I will tell you. Among the people who I know that have come to Dickinson in the last seven years, who I will refer to as: “ES”, “MR”, and “SA”, these three people have been arrested and taken to jail in Dickinson a combined total of five times. “ES” and “MR” have college degrees. Among the people who I know who are from Dickinson, who I will refer to as: “MK”, “CL”, and “DS”, these three people have been arrested and taken to jail in Dickinson at least once each. “MK” and “CL” have college degrees.

Some of you people who are reading this are thinking, “So what about being arrested.” So what? Do you know how much harder it is to get a job after you have been arrested for something? You can either tell the truth, and not be hired, or you can lie, get hired, and then get fired when your background check gets completed. I worked for the government once, and was questioned for five hours by an investigator during the background check, and I didn’t have any arrests, I never would have been hired if I had. It sucks to get arrested, and have that on your record. In the past six months in Dickinson, I have been stopped by the police three times, and been asked for my I.D. and current address.

Regarding being stopped by the police three times in the past six months, do you think this leads to a negative and pessimistic outlook? Yes, it does. The Dickinson Police are just hoping that you have an outstanding warrant, an expired driver’s license, expired insurance, that you have been drinking, that they can spot drugs, or a weapon in your vehicle. That way, you can get arrested, be taken to jail, miss work, lose your job, be unable to make your car payments, your apartment/house payments, and lose everything you own. You see, this is Dickinson, and everything was nice here, before you got here. As far as Dickinson is concerned, you are a piece of shit, oil field trash, out of state worker. As I wrote in a previous post, if you want to know what living in Dickinson will be like, you need to watch the movies “Deliverance”, “The Grapes of Wrath”, and “Planet of the Apes”.

To get back on track with the theme of this post, “Trying To Get By In Dickinson, North Dakota, Part II”, and to stick by my assertion that you need to be pessimistic and negative to survive in Dickinson, I will elaborate with an example. Every time I get in my vehicle, before I leave the driveway, I remind myself that this is Dickinson, and be prepared for some f___ed up shit. This past Sunday morning I was driving to work at 7 a.m., I get to the intersection of State Avenue and 21st Street, which used to be a three way stop up until about a week ago, the north bound lane did not have to stop. About a week ago they installed a stop sign for the north bound lane, and now all four stop signs have a sign that says “all way”. I was going west, and came to a complete stop at the stop sign, here comes a new four door, four wheel drive, black dodge truck going north, I said to myself, “No way am I going”, sure enough, the illiterate, ignorant piece of shit went through the intersection going 30 miles per hour. The oil field truck behind it, came to a complete stop at the stop sign and waved for me to go ahead, the two guys in the front seat were laughing, they saw what happened. About two months ago, the same thing happened to me at the intersection of 23rd Avenue and Fairway, Fairway has no stop sign, 23rd Ave has a stop sign that says “cross street does not stop”, but a lady on 23rd Avenue pulled out right in front of me. I was ready, because I know how stupid, ignorant, and illiterate the people in Dickinson are, they can’t figure out “STOP” and “cross street does not stop”. By the way, if I had gotten into an accident when that lady at the stop sign pulled out in front of me, do you know who would have gotten cited for the accident when the Dickinson Police arrived? That’s right, me, because I am a worthless piece of shit out of state worker, and Dickinson was nice before I got here.

Before you get here, and once you are here, you need to plan on things going bad. As I mentioned in a previous post, you need to be prepared for not getting served in a restaurant, (try looking at the restaurant review site “Yelp”, for restaurant reviews in Dickinson, and you will see that I am not making this up.) If you need to make a bunch of copies on a Friday, and SBM closes at 5:00 p.m., don’t be surprised when both locations are closed at 4:00 p.m., (the only other place to get copies is the UPS store.) If you need to park your car at the Dickinson airport, you may need four wheel drive to get out, (a fifty seater airline aircraft got stuck in the mud at the Dickinson airport in the spring of 2014.) You may not be able to get a hotel room, or your hotel room reservations may not be found, (I know business owners and construction crews that have had to sleep in their vehicles at oil field locations and construction sites.) If you get injured working or get laid off, expect not to get workers compensation or unemployment from North Dakota, ( Happened to me, happened to three people I know: “CL” ,”JK”, “CC”.) Do not drink even one beer, and then drive in Dickinson, you will likely get a DUI. If you have company provided housing, or any housing for that matter, you need to have a back up plan “B”, and a back up plan “C”, (I have seen many, many people, including me, get up shit creek in Dickinson when they lost their housing, it is not easy to find a place, and housing is extremely expensive. For instance, if you get injured and can’t work, you will lose your company housing.) I have met several people who came to Dickinson, could not find a place stay, ran out of money, and then begged the police to take them to jail so that they could have a warm place to stay and something to eat, there is no homeless shelter in Dickinson.

In summary, and I am not joking, I mean it, you have a better chance of surviving in Dickinson if you plan on things not going well. If you come from the south like I do, don’t expect people to be nice to you, you can’t expect that, you had better expect them to be mean to you, because they will be. Don’t you be friendly either, anything you say will be used against you, the people here are just looking for some specific things to dislike you for, they already don’t like you in general. The longer you keep your mouth shut, the longer you can keep your job. Even telling your landlord or neighbor where you are starting work, will result in your landlord or neighbor immediately telling their aunts, uncles, cousins, nephews, nieces, grandkids, that, “They’re hiring at the college!, they’re hiring at the college!, get down there!”, even though you might have a master’s degree or doctorate, and their relatives didn’t graduate from high school.

What does that leave? Well, you pretty much have to keep your mouth shut, do your job, keep a close eye on your coworkers trying to get you injured or in trouble, don’t go to bars, be extra careful driving, go straight home, and quickly come up with a back up plan “B”, and plan “C” for a different place to live, and a different place to work.

Trying To Get By In Dickinson, North Dakota, Part I

October 18, 2014UncategorizedEmployment in Dickinson, Living in Dickinson, Moving to Dickinson, relocating to Dickinson, Women in Dickinsonname withheld

Please read my previous blog, “Like Crabs In A Bucket”, that describes how people in Dickinson will possibly try to impede your life.

Below are some preliminary guidelines on how to get by in Dickinson, North Dakota:

Don’t Say Anything! For reasons that will be explained below, do not say anything! If people in Dickinson learn that you have an education, that you have a foreign car, that you have a pretty wife or girlfriend, that you have a house, that you are from a different state, you will have difficulties!

Try Not To Let It Be Discovered That You Have An Education! North Dakota has the largest number of people with less than an 8th grade education, and the highest per capita beer consumption. So if you hear someone talking about something that is factually not correct, or absurdly incorrect, try not to say anything, so that you are neither agreeing nor disagreeing. It helps to go and do something else, if you feel tempted to say something. Remember, people in North Dakota would rather you had done four years in prison than four years in college!

Do Not Let It Be Known That You Have A Foreign Car! You had better not have a foreign car! What, do you think you are better than us? What, are you too good to drive an American car? Get that piece of shit out of here!

Do Not Let It Be Known That You Have A Pretty Wife Or A Pretty Girlfriend! If you have a pretty wife, or a pretty girlfriend, do not be seen with her. If you are seen with her, this will cause bewilderment, confusion, anger, hatred, jealousy, and malevolence. Most men in Dickinson do not have a pretty wife. Most men in Dickinson have a wife that is overweight. I don’t think that they know their wife is not pretty and overweight, they only have the other wives in Dickinson to compare them to. This is what they are used to. Don’t rock the boat, keep your pretty wife or girlfriend out of sight.

Do Not Let It Be Known That You Have A House, Or Anything! If they think that you have anything, anything!, they will be jealous of you. You must think that you are better than them if you have a: hot tub, drum set, aquarium, etcetera. That ain’t right if you have a: house, pool, pool table, trampoline, etcetera.

You may think, “So what, I don’t care.” Do Not Make This Mistake! You have driven here from a different state and have relocated. Do you want to lose that job that you just got because your wife came by to drop off your lunch? Now everybody is mad, and nobody can get any work done becuase you have a pretty wife. How did you get a pretty wife? Do you have money? Hey!, how much is this new guy getting paid! Yeah, how much is this new guy getting paid that he can have a pretty wife?! That aint right!

Another example: “Hey, I heard this new guy say that he had a pool.” Reply, “Well we don’t need any of that shit around here! These people coming from some other state, bragging about how they had a pool! If their state is so good, then how come they came out here, they probably need to go back there then!” Yeah!!!

Example: “I heard this guy say he used to be an engineer, well we don’t need any engineers around here. I’m gonna drop this board on his head when he walks by. Look here he comes…” “Heh, heh, that’ll teach him.”

Remember, Dickinson used to be nice before you got here! You ruined everything! We don’t need that (meaning anything you have, anything you have done, anything you are) shit around here!

Like Crabs In A Bucket, Dickinson, North Dakota

October 18, 2014UncategorizedEmployment in Dickinson, Housing in Dickinson, Living in Dickinson, Moving to Dickinson, People in Dickinson, unfriendly people in Dickinson, what is Dickinson like, Working in Dickinsonname withheld

When I grew up in the South, I used to catch blue crabs in the Indian River. While you were crabbing, you dropped the crabs that you caught into a half-filled bucket of water. If you would look in the bucket after you had caught about five crabs, one of the crabs would very nearly have the tip of one of his claws on the top rim of the bucket. But he never got out, because the other four crabs had a hold of him and were pulling him back down. Dickinson is like that.

When I first got to Dickinson in 2011, I went to work for an oil field service company that was short handed. They hired me, and two other out of state workers. One of the workers never showed up. They hired me because I had a camper on the back of my truck, I had a clean driving record, no criminal record, and had construction experience. In order to encourage me and the other guy to stay, the company management said that they would provide housing for me and the other guy, that is, until the other workers heard that. The other workers, which were from Dickinson, said, “That aint right, why should the company pay for them to have a place to live, they don’t pay for us to have a place to live.” The result, the company withdrew the offer to provide a place for me and the other guy to live. Did that benefit the current employees from Dickinson? No, it only caused me and the other guy to have to live in campers on the company property, it had no benefit to the current employees.

After the offer of company subsidized housing was withdrawn, the current Dickinson employees started to say, “That ain’t right, you get to stay in your camper on the company property and not pay rent. We have to pay rent for where we live.” I explained that I had a house, I had to pay for that house, property tax, homeowners insurance, utilities. My house was in a different state, I did not need or want another house, I just came here to work. I wondered to myself, “WTF, why are these people so intent on making sure that you don’t get anything, when it doesn’t affect them, they just want to see that you aren’t getting anything.”

The second company that I went to work for in Dickinson, I stayed in my camper on the company property. So did a friend of mine who I will call “SA”. “SA” went to the Dickinson DMV to change his driver’s license to a North Dakota license. The DMV lady asked for his current address, and “SA” gave her the construction company address. The DMV lady argued with him that this was not his address, until she did not want to argue any more, and she telephoned the police. “SA” was arrested for providing false information to the DMV. The charges were dropped when the prosecutor realized the address that “SA” gave, was actually where he was living, oops! What benefit did the DMV get from refusing to give “SA” a North Dakota driver’s license? “SA” had a job, he lived at the construction company yard, and he continued to live there for another two years, working for the company. He did not earn enough money to afford $1,500 per month for a one bedroom apartment, plus utilities.

I will give a couple of examples of the experiences of local people, who have lived here their whole lives. A friend of mine, who I will call “DS”, owned thirty acres of vacant land outside of Dickinson. “DS” did not make much money, but due to a circumstance that came up, he had the opportunity to buy a used manufactured home for roughly $3,000, about ten years ago, but he had to get it moved to his property. He checked with Stark County to find out what the rules and requirements were, he wanted to place the manufactured home on his property. He was informed by the county that he could not move the manufactured home onto his property and live in it like he wanted. He accepted their reason. It was not until someone moved a manufactured home onto an adjacent property several years later, that he found out that he had been lied to. He told me that he felt like some people at the county had disliked him, and they just didn’t want to see him get ahead.

A life long resident of Dickinson, who I will call “CL”, who has a degree in business, has told me many stories of trying to start businesses, trying to gain employment, and opportunities in Dickinson. When he was young, thirty years ago, a house or a property would become available, ones in which he figured he made enough money to be able to buy if he really lived frugally, but he could manage. He asked older business people in the community what they thought about him buying that land, if they thought it was a good idea or not. They told him oh no, no, no, bad idea. Sometimes he had an idea to start a business, he would use his money, and borrow some additional money from family members, and he was told, oh no, no, no, bad idea, from business people who had a say in it, like a bank, or a supplier. As he got older, and he saw other people start the businesses that he had wanted to start, and their businesses grew, he said he thought, “WTF, why did everybody try to talk me out of, or try to stop me, from starting that business, or buying that house? Why did I listen to those people? It turns out they just didn’t want me to succeed, they were jealous or something!”

You may or may not have experienced this before, where you live in a town, or work for a company, where people try to block you from something. You may want to buy a property, start a business, get a job, get a promotion, and people try to prevent this from happening, not because they want what it is that you want, they just can’t stand to see someone else get ahead. I used to think of it this way, “They don’t want to put in the time and energy to start a business or get a promotion in order to advance themselves, but, by God, if they can help it, you’re not going to get ahead either!” Just like crabs in a bucket, pulling each other back.

Oil Field Speculation in Dickinson, Part II

October 10, 2014UncategorizedEmployment in Dickinson, employment in Dickinson North Dakota, Housing in Dickinson, housing in Dickinson North Dakota, Living in Dickinson, Living in Dickinson, North Dakota, Unemployment in Dickinson, unemployment in Dickinson North Dakotaname withheld

I hope that you have read “Oil Field Speculation in Dickinson, Part I”, but it is not absolutely necessary to be able to follow along with this “Oil Field Speculation in Dickinson, Part II”.

In 2011, I met here in Dickinson a truck driver who had grown up in Gillette, Wyoming. I will use the initials “SA” for this individual to protect his identity. When “SA” was a kid, there was an oil and gas drilling boom in Gillette, Wyoming. He said he remembered new apartment buildings being built and new manufactured homes being brought in. He remembered people buying new trucks, motorcycles, boat, and RVs. “SA” remembered his father standing around with other people, and they were all agreeing,”…this economy here in Gillette is so big now, it can’t fail, it’s big enough now to go on its own, it doesn’t depend on those oil field jobs, we got so many people living here now…”. Within a few years, the trucks, motorcycles, boats, and RVs were being repossessed. Whole apartment buildings became vacant or were never completed. The oil and gas drilling had stopped.

Here in Dickinson, there appears to be the belief that there are so many people in Dickinson, that the economy is big enough to not be dependent on the oil drilling. As an example of this belief, look at the new apartment buildings that have been constructed in 2012, 2013, and 2014. There are approximately eighty new units at the south end of State Avenue, approximately two hundred new units at the north end of State Avenue, approximately eighty new units near the new Menards, approximately one hundred fifty new units north of the North Park RV Park. Just to the west of Tooz Construction there are about one hundred new units. I have probably left out some of the new apartment buildings. The North Park RV Park, the Heart River RV Park, and the South Park Trailer Park have probably doubled in size. There are about four new large “Extended Stay” hotels.

I partly want to find fault with the real estate developers/investors, and then again I don’t. It is good that there are more places to live in Dickinson, it was necessary to have more places to live. If you have read my previous blogs, you can’t stay at WalMart, the truck stops, or Patterson Lake anymore. You can’t live in a tent in someone’s backyard for $700 a month anymore. However, I don’t know how much longer the new housing units are going to be needed. The real estate developers/investors and new home buyers have got to be thinking that the oil drilling is going to continue for more than several years, either that, or they think that the economy is so big in Dickinson now that it is not entirely dependent on oil drilling.

An indication that the real estate developers/investors have seen the possibility of the oil drilling not lasting more than several years, is the extremely high rent prices. You might have read in my previous blogs that a one bedroom apartment will be at least $1,500 per month, and that a two or three bedroom apartment will be $2,000 to $3,000 per month. The high rent, I believe, is in part due to the real estate developers/investors realizing that the oil drilling could stop, and that they need to get back the money they invested as soon as possible, while they still can.

My point in this particular blog, is again, to look at what has happened in the past. In Gillette, Wyoming, there was an oil and gas drilling boom, many new housing units were created, with the expectation that the economy would not fail. When the drilling stopped, apartment buildings became vacant or were never completed. Be aware of what could happen, and plan accordingly.

Oil Field Speculation in Dickinson, Part I

October 10, 2014UncategorizedEmployment in Dickinson, employment in Dickinson North Dakota, Living in Dickinson, Living in Dickinson, North Dakota, Moving to Dickinson, North Dakota, oil boom in Dickinson North Dakota, oil bust in Dickinson North Dakota, property investment in Dickinson North Dakota, relocating to Dickinson North Dakota, Unemployment in Dickinson, unemployment in Dickinson North Dakota, Working in Dickinson, working in Dickinson North Dakotaname withheld

I arrived in Dickinson, North Dakota, in May of 2011, stayed for eight months, then came back in May of 2013, and have been here since. I have become friends or acquaintances of several long time residents who are now in their 60s, “DS”, “IB”, and “CL”. I have to use these initials to protect their identities. Each of these individuals had business and social dealings with each other, so I have been able to cross check what each of them has told me.

In approximately the mid 1980s, there was an oil boom in Dickinson. Many local people were making a great deal of money. “CL” was about thirty years old, and at this time he bought a new truck, a new car, and a manufactured home in a twelve month period. His friends and acquaintances did the same thing. Within a few years, “CL” had to move back in with his parents, and had to go to work at a grocery store, because that was the only job he could get. The same thing happened to his friends, they went from having their own homes and new cars, to living in apartments and driving beaters. The oil field jobs went away, and it was hard to find even a low paying job in Dickinson.

Within a couple of years of the oil field jobs going away, property prices had fallen tremendously in Dickinson. “IB” and a business partner were able to scrape enough money together to buy some warehouses on several acres of land for about $6,000 each, even though it was very hard to earn money in Dickinson at that time. “IB” and his business partner had worked in the oil field and they strongly believed that eventually the oil drilling would have to come back to Dickinson. “DS” was about forty years old, and he was able to buy 30 acres of land that nobody wanted for about $20,000.

When I got here in 2011, “IB” and his business partner were getting about $30,000 per month in rent from the different warehouse buildings that they had bought, I was told. Once I found out which warehouse buildings they were, and what they were charging for rent, that dollar amount was approximately correct. “DS” had his property for sale for about $3 million.

Both “IB” and “DS” were stressed individuals. They had had to go through a lot to buy their properties when money was scarce, and hold onto their properties through bad economic times, over about twenty years. Nobody knew when or if the oil drilling would come back. If it would have been a sure thing, real estate prices would not have gone down, and everybody would have bought property.

Rather than this being a lesson in investment, I want this to be a warning. The oil drilling came to Dickinson in the past, everybody was making money for a few years, and then the oil drilling went away, leaving many people broke. Many people spent the money they had made very quickly because they thought that their jobs would last longer than they did, and that they would have the chance to pay off everything that was bought on credit: cars, motorcycles, boats, homes. Keep in mind also that real estate prices dropped tremendously within a few years. There were very few jobs in Dickinson then, and the jobs were low pay. Do not fail to understand the lessons of the past, please try to remember what has happened before and plan accordingly.

Bad Service, a Common Problem in Dickinson, North Dakota

October 10, 2014UncategorizedBars in Dickinson, bars in Dickinson North Dakota, Living in Dickinson, Living in Dickinson, North Dakota, Moving to Dickinson, North Dakota, Night Life in Dickinson, night life in Dickinson North Dakota, relocating to Dickinson North Dakota, Restaurants in Dickinson, restaurants in Dickinson North Dakota, what is Dickinson North Dakota Likename withheld

A couple of days ago, I had a problem at a restaurant in Dickinson. In the past, I had recommended this restaurant to people. I said that the service was good in this restaurant because the husband and wife owners were always there, waiting on tables, seating customers, checking on customers, making drinks, and serving as cashiers. A couple of days ago I walked out of this restaurant due to not be waited on.

I wrote a review of this restaurant on the website “Yelp”. I read other reviews of this restaurant on “Yelp”, and was surprised to see that the very same thing had happened to other customers. Other customers had had to walk out for not being served, and other customers had been treated very rudely.

I went and read the reviews for the Players Sports Bar on “Yelp”, and found that there were about four or five reviews complaining of bad service, which is what I had experienced. I then read on “Yelp” all the other reviews for all of the restaurants that I had eaten at in Dickinson, and bad service was common complaint. Eventually, I started to see reviews that started out saying, “…this is Dickinson, you are not going to find a good restaurant…this one is worse than usual…”

If you have lived in Dickinson for even a short while, you will see “Help Wanted” signs in most restaurants in Dickinson, and most retail stores in Dickinson. One reason for this is that there are many jobs in Dickinson that pay more than restaurant or retail jobs, so there is currently a shortage of restaurant and retail workers. So, the wait staff or bartender that served you, that wasn’t good at their job, or wasn’t friendly, was possibly the only person available, or the best of the lot that was not a very good lot.

Additionally, the restaurant that I went to a couple of days ago and walked out of for not being waited on, that I used to recommend, they are very busy. I believe that the husband and wife owner have come to the point that they believe they don’t have to be nice to every customer, they have enough customers.

If you are poor and come to Dickinson, North Dakota

October 1, 2014Uncategorizedhousing in Dickinson North Dakota, Living in Dickinson, Living in Dickinson, North Dakota, Moving to Dickinson, North Dakota, out of state worker in Dickinson North Dakota, relocating to Dickinson North Dakota, what is Dickinson North Dakota Like, Working in Dickinson, working in Dickinson North Dakotaname withheld

If you are poor and come to Dickinson, North Dakota, there is no homeless shelter. If you think you are clever, and you will sleep in your car in the Wal-Mart parking lot, there have been a couple hundred people before you that have already ruined that, you can’t do that now. Likewise, if you think that you will sleep in your car at a truck stop, there have been a couple hundred people before you that have already ruined that, you can’t do that now.

If you think that you will bring your trailer with you and stay at an RV park, they will only allow trailers and motor homes that are newer than ten years old, and by the way, the lot rent is $800 per month, plus about another $250 per month for your electric bill. If you think that you will go to a public campground, there have already been a couple hundred people before you that have ruined that, campground stay is limited to ten days, then you have to leave for thirty days.

If you think that you will ask some farmer if you can park your trailer on some corner of his land, there have already been a couple hundred people before you that have ruined that. If you think that you will call the Catholic Church to ask for a place to stay, they will tell you,”There have been some rapes and kidnappings in North Dakota, we have some women here, we can’t have anybody stay on that land.”

All out-of-state workers are hated. You have ruined everything! Not only will you not be helped, they will try to fuck you in every way that they possibly can. To get an idea of what it will be like in Dickinson, you need to watch the movies “Deliverance”, “The Grapes of Wrath”, and “Planet of the Apes”.

Getting a DUI in Dickinson, North Dakota

October 1, 2014UncategorizedBars in Dickinson, bars in Dickinson North Dakota, Dickinson Police, drinking in Dickinson North Dakota, DUI in Dickinson, DUI in Dickinson North Dakota, going out in Dickinson North Dakota, Living in Dickinson, Living in Dickinson, North Dakota, Moving to Dickinson, North Dakota, out of state worker in Dickinson North Dakota, police in Dickinson North Dakota, relocating to Dickinson North Dakota, what is Dickinson North Dakota Likename withheld

I have thought about it, and probably the most important thing that I could tell someone from out of state, is that you have to be extremely careful not to get a DUI in Dickinson, North Dakota. In fact, if you have come here to make money, you should probably not go to bars in Dickinson at all. It seems like that must be the intention of the police in Dickinson, they should probably just go ahead and make bars illegal.

Bars have parking spaces for automobiles. People drive automobiles to bars. People have a couple of drinks, and get in their cars to drive home. The police have already seen your car in the parking space at the bar. Maybe you are driving too fast, too slow, you did not come to a complete stop, you changed lanes without using your signal, you had a headlight out, you had a brake light out, your license plate light was not working, they could not read your license plate, your license plate was expired, you were not wearing your seat belt, something, you are stopped by the police.

You are asked if you have had any alcohol to drink. If you say yes, I had one beer, you have just given the police officer probable cause to ask you to step out of the vehicle to take a field sobriety test. At this point in Dickinson you are probably going to be arrested for DUI and are going to jail. Once you said that you had one beer, you have just given the police the first piece of evidence of guilt for driving under the influence, you have just admitted that you have been drinking. The field sobriety tests are just additional pieces of evidence to be used against you in court. You will be placed under arrest for DUI and you will be taken to jail. At the jail your blood alcohol level will be tested by breathalyzer or blood test. You will be given the opportunity to post bail. You will have a court date set. From what I have been told by people that I have talked to in Dickinson that have been arrested for DUI, all of the attorneys in town want $3,000 paid in advance to defend you. If your BAC was below .08, maybe you will be found not guilty.

The law in North Dakota is that you can be convicted of a DUI if your blood alcohol level is greater than .08. But you have to remember that in North Dakota, you are just a piece-of-shit, out-of-town, oil field trash, piece-of-shit construction worker. They don’t want or need any piece-of-shit construction worker or oil field worker driving around, trying to rape their women, ruining their town, probably trying to kid nap their children. Dickinson was nice before you got here. Make them pay that $3,000 to my cousin the attorney, we got ten of them boys this month, boy we is making some money now, and we ain’t even working on no oil rig.

Hey, I know that you would rather be back home where it is warm, back in your own home with your wife, your kids, your family, your friends. It would be nice just to be home mowing your own lawn, changing your oil in your driveway. Here in Dickinson, because you are tired of work, you are lonely, there is nothing else to do, you don’t know anybody in Dickinson, you don’t know anywhere else to go, you go to a bar. You might only have a few drinks. You get a DUI on your way home. You know that you are going to lose your job, you know that you really don’t have an extra $3,000 to throw away. But you have to have the whole North Dakota experience, first you get fucked paying fifty percent of your take home pay for an apartment, then you have to work out in the -20 below freezing weather, there aren’t any women, there isn’t anything to do, now you’ve got a DUI on your record, you are out $3,000 for an attorney, thousands of dollars more in court fines, fees, and the mandatory substance abuse counseling sessions, you have lost your job, and probably your apartment, and probably just about everything you own if you were making payments on a vehicle or anything else. Hey it’s “Legendary North Dakota”, you come back now, you hear.

Night Life in Dickinson, North Dakota

(This post was re-written and updated on 4/18/2018 in order to provide current information.)

I am going to start at the north end of town, and work my way south, in naming the bars and restaurants that serve alcohol in Dickinson, North Dakota.

But before I begin listing places where you can drink alcohol, I want to tell everyone the most important thing that they need to know about Dickinson, and that is, that the Police in Dickinson try as hard as they can to arrest people for DUI, like no other place that I have ever been.

Many bars and restaurants, will provide customers with a free voucher for the Camajur Bus Service and Taxi Service to get a ride home. Even without a free voucher, the Camajur Bus or Taxi Service is very cheap, and I recommend using it.

Players Club – On the north side of Dickinson, just south of WalMart, is the Players Club sports bar and restaurant. This building and restaurant, was built and is owned by the Fisher Group. This sports bar is probably more upscale for Dickinson, and professional people and their wives would feel comfortable in the bar area. The formal restaurant dining area is completely separate from the bar area. Though you could expect that the formal restaurant would be suitable for an important business dinner, birthday dinner, or anniversary dinner, I would recommend to anyone in Dickinson who is planning a special dinner, to telephone the restaurant manager before hand, to emphasize that you are planning an important dinner, and ask if there was some way to help make sure that you would not be seated beside over intoxicated or rowdy people.
- For any nice restaurant in Dickinson, I am going to have to give this warning, that if you are planning an important business dinner, family dinner, a date with your wife, or a date with a girlfriend, you are going to have to take steps yourself, to make sure that your dinner is not ruined by construction workers or oil field workers. The young or inexperienced wait staff in Dickinson, will not hesitate to seat a group of intoxicated and rowdy males, beside a business meeting, family dinner, or couple on date, so you will have to do something about this yourself.
The Crossing – On the north side of Dickinson, on State Avenue, this upscale bar and formal dining restaurant was built and is owned by Seth Murphy, owner of SM Fencing and Energy Services. From what I hear, this is the most expensive bar and restaurant in Dickinson, and that it is very nicely furnished. I will not go there, because I do not like the owner and his wife. If you work in construction, or if you work in the oil field, and you have a big pay check, please gather your friends together, have some drinks before hand, and then go try the Crossing bar and restaurant.
Grand Dakota Lodge – On the north side of Dickinson, southwest of the Prairie Hills Mall, is the Grand Dakota Lodge. The Grand Dakota Lodge is probably one of the nicest hotels in Dickinson, with a bar, restaurant, several lobbies, conference rooms, and indoor swimming pool. This hotel is a fairly safe, comfortable, indoor environment.
Elks Lodge – Just south from the Grand Dakota Lodge, the Elks Lodge in Dickinson has recently downsized, has sold the upstairs to their building, in order to move into the basement of the building. I don’t know what they are doing.
New Life Pentecostal Church – Just south from the Grand Dakota Lodge, the New Life Pentecostal Church has recently purchased and renovated the upstairs of the Elks Lodge building. Live music and entertainment on Wednesday night and Sunday morning. A place to meet friendly people in Dickinson.
El Sombrero Restaurant – On the north side of Dickinson, just south of the Prairie Hills Mall. Just average Mexican food. A restaurant with a small bar. At this restaurant, you can experience not being waited on, which was a common experience for myself, my friends, acquaintances, and other people that I have asked.
El Puricatan Restaurant – On the north side of Dickinson, just south of the Prairie Hills Mall. A small Mexican restaurant with a wide variety of authentic, good, unique Mexican food, for reasonable prices.
Astoria Hotel – At the intersection of I-94 and Hwy 22, is the Astoria Hotel, which is one of the nicer hotels in Dickinson. The very large ballroom is often used for shows, parties, and events. There is a recently opened restaurant and bar inside the hotel, adjacent to the main hotel lobby. A fairly safe, comfortable, indoor environment.
Applebees Restaurant – At the intersection of I-94 and Hwy 22, is Applebees Restaurant.
Sakura Japanese Restaurant – On the north side of Dickinson, across Hwy 22 from the Prairie Hills Mall, is the Sakura Japanese restaurant where you can order sushi, or watch your food being cooked at your table top hibachi by an entertaining chef.
Sanfords Pub And Grub – On the north side of Dickinson, adjacent to the Sakura Japanese restaurant, and surrounded by newer hotels, is Sanfords Pub And Grub sports bar and restaurant. A fairly normal and fairly safe sports bar. I believe that it is O.K. for wives and children.
The Wurst Shop – On the north side of Dickinson, behind Sanfords Pub And Grub and Sakura Japanese restaurant, is the Wurst Shop which serves bratwurst, hot dogs, sausage, and other meats that they create and process right there on the premises. Though they might not serve alcohol, this food is something interesting to try in Dickinson.
Buffalo Wild Wings – On the northwest side of Dickinson, at the new Menards and Family Fare shopping center, is Buffalo Wild Wings. This Buffalo Wild Wings is a fairly large sports bar and restaurant, which I believe is O.K. for wives and children.
Army’s West – On the south side of I-94, just west of Hwy 22, is Army’s West Sports Bar. This bar, which is owned by Dan Porter of Dan Porter Motors, sometimes has live music. Though adults of all ages go to this bar, it is sometimes the most liked bar of the Dickinson State University college students.
Mavericks Saloon – On the south side of I-94, next door to McDonalds, is Mavericks Saloon which is a fairly normal and safe bar.
Red Coach Lounge – Across the street from McDonalds, inside of the Motel 6, adjacent to the motel lobby is the Red Coach Lounge.
King Buffet – On Main Avenue, in the T-Rex Shopping Center, is the King Buffet Chinese restaurant, which is a fairly large buffet style restaurant. You can have fresh food prepared on a hibachi, at no additional cost to the buffet.
JDs BBQ – Across the street from the West River Community Center complex, very close to DSU, is JDs BBQ restaurant, which is a medium sized restaurant, with fairly good food, and it is safe for families with children.
Liquid Assets – Across the street from the West River Community Center complex, very close to DSU, is Liquid Assets, which is a fairly large sports bar.
The Spur – On the west end of Villard Street near DSU and downtown Dickinson, is The Spur bar, which is as medium sized bar.
The Paragon Bowling Alley, Diner, and Bar – Near the west end of Villard Street, DSU, and downtown Dickinson, is the Paragon Bowling Alley, Diner, and Bar. During the day, the diner and bowling alley are fairly safe for women and children. Once it gets past about 8:00 p.m., the Paragon begins to fill with more adults and college students who are interested in drinking, and it becomes less suitable for families and children.
Blue 42 – In the heart of downtown Dickinson, on Villard Street, is a new sports bar owned by Mike Lefor, called Blue 42. It is a medium sized sports bar, which is currently fairly popular.
The Rock Bar – In the heart of downtown Dickinson, on First Street, is a small bar owned by the Kathy Fisher family, called the Rock Bar. This is a fairly calm and mellow community bar, which has outdoor sidewalk seating during the Spring, Summer, and Fall. The Rock Bar is usually the sponsor for the downtown Thursday Summer concerts which sometimes bring thousands of people to downtown Dickinson.
Odd Fellows Lodge – In the heart of downtown Dickinson, on First Avenue, is the Odd Fellows Lodge. Though the Odd Fellows Lodge is active throughout the year, their main effort is organizing and operating the downtown Thursday Summer concerts in Dickinson, which host well known bands and music performers.
Bernie’s Esquire Club – In the center of downtown Dickinson, on First Street across from the Post Office, is Bernie’s Esquire Club, owned by the Bernie Marsh family. This is a medium sized bar, which is a little like a biker bar, but also like a community bar. In the Spring, Summer, and Fall there is outside sidewalk seating. Bernie, his wife, his sons, and his daughters operate the bar, and if you are very lucky, you might even get to see Marinna Marsh.
Brickhouse Grille – In the center of downtown Dickinson, on Villard Street, across from the old train depot is the Brickhouse Grille and Lounge, which is owned by Mike Riesinger. The restaurant is located inside a restored historic building, with one bar located downstairs, and a larger bar located in the lounge upstairs. This is Dickinson’s nicest fine dining restaurant, and there is a dress code requirement.
Eagles Lodge – In the heart of downtown Dickinson, situated between the Post Office and Villard Street, is the Eagles Lodge. In Dickinson, the Eagles Lodge is open to the public. There are lunch specials for dining in the afternoon, but in the evening the Eagles Lodge is primarily a community type bar.
Southside Bar – Located on Broadway Street, on the south side of Dickinson, is the Southside Bar, which is a fairly large bar, frequented mostly by local working class people. I advise non-local people to not come into conflict with local people in this bar.
Upin Thai – Located on the south side of Dickinson, on Main Avenue, is the very small Thai restaurant, which is used mostly for take out, called Upin Thai, which has very good and unique Thai food.

More Culture Shock In Dickinson, North Dakota

October 1, 2014Uncategorizedcultural differences in Dickinson North Dakota, Culture in Dickinson, culture in Dickinson North Dakota, education in Dickinson North Dakota, Education in North Dakota, hatred for educated people in Dickinson North Dakota, Living in Dickinson, Living in Dickinson, North Dakota, Moving to Dickinson, North Dakota, People in Dickinson, school in Dickinson North Dakota, school in North Dakota, what are people like in Dickinson North Dakota, Working in Dickinson, working in Dickinson North Dakotaname withheld

In the South, where I grew up, education is valued and respected. If a person was a teacher, a preacher, a doctor, a lawyer, or an engineer, they were respected. I believe that there were several reasons for this. Church and the Bible were important in the lives of people in the South. The preacher was looked upon as a person with higher learning, as wise, as having sound judgement, as someone to be respected. The preacher, nor the citizens, would tolerate disrespect towards a preacher. Similarly, teachers were looked upon as someone with higher learning, as wise, and having sound judgement, as someone to be respected. Doctors were very highly valued, they were treated with respect and were treated as very important people.

Anyone in the South, would hope that their child would grow up to be a teacher, a preacher, a doctor, a lawyer, or an engineer. It was good that a child would grow up to be knowledgeable, well read, knowing about the world, able to make informed decisions, to be able to practice their profession where they chose, to not be tied to a place, or to be limited in life by the lack of understanding or lack of knowledge.

I did very well in school, my classmates who liked me were proud of me, my classmates who didn’t like me wouldn’t deny that what I had done was good, that I would go to college, that that was good. When I was going to college and working, my co-workers whether they liked me or not, they would not disagree that what I was doing was good. When I graduated with a degree in engineering and went to work as an estimator, engineer, superintendent, and project manager, my employers and co-workers either acknowledged, or did not disagree that the engineering education and learning was important.

When I got to North Dakota, I found that the people here have disgust and hatred for people with an education. In about the middle of 2013, there was a national newspaper article, that said North Dakota had the highest percentage of people in the United States with less than an 8th grade education, and, that North Dakota had the highest per capita beer consumption. That explained a lot.

As I explained in my previous post, I have been to the North Dakota pioneer museums, life was very hard in North Dakota, the early pioneers in the late 1800s and early 1900s lived in houses made of grass sod because there were no trees to make lumber. They had to burn dried animal dung for heating and cooking. Whole families of six to ten people lived in houses that were less than 300 square feet. Life was very hard in North Dakota, even into the 1950s and 1960s. What good would it have done for a man or woman to gain higher learning if they were going to have to fight the land and the cold to survive. There would not have been a way to spare children from daily labor necessary for survival, for them to have the time to do a great deal of studying. There would have not been any money to send children away to college.

If a man or woman did start to learn about the world, about what life was like in London, Paris, New York City, or Miami, and were interested in that sort of life, would they remain in North Dakota, and once they were away, and knew what it was like to have a toilet, would they ever want to return to Dickinson? I imagine that the people who had the aptitude for college and were able to leave Dickinson, might not have wanted to return because there were not any job opportunities for them, suitable marriage opportunities, cultural or social opportunities, just a very hard bleak life of farming with seven months of winter.

So the reason why most of long time residents in Dickinson hate people with an education, is because they do not have an education. They never saw the need for it, it had nothing to do with their way of life, or they wanted more education, but did not get it, and now they are bitter about it. The people who got an education probably do not come back, I know how they feel, it is very frustrating trying to live and work with the highest beer consuming/lowest education level people in the United States who hate people with a college education.

Culture Shock In Dickinson, North Dakota

September 30, 2014Uncategorized58601, barren western North Dakota, cultural differences in Dickinson North Dakota, Culture in Dickinson, Dickinson, Hospitality in Dickinson, lack of hospitality in Dickinson North Dakota, Living in Dickinson, Living in Dickinson, North Dakota, Moving to Dickinson, North Dakota, North Dakota, poor life in Dickinson North Dakota, relocating to Dickinson North Dakota, unfriendliness in Dickinson North Dakota, what are people like in Dickinson North Dakotaname withheld

I am originally from a small town in a southern state. One of the elements of culture where I am from is hospitality. I believe that two reasons why hospitality was important and apparent in the south, was due to the protestant religions such as Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian, and due to readily available resources. I will try to explain this.

The protestant religions teach foremost the belief in Jesus, God, and doing what Jesus and God have instructed. Jesus taught about giving and kindness to others. As a brief example, Jesus was with his apostles and they witnessed church goers as they made offerings, one man gave a substantial amount, one woman gave only a penny or two. Jesus asked the apostles who gave the most, they answered that a particular man had given a substantial amount. Jesus said, no, the woman who gave the few pennies gave the most, because she gave all that she had. As another example, Jesus was invited to the home of a wealthy man, and upon everyone being seated, the household was embarrassed when a harlot showed up, and began to wash Jesus’ feet, and I believe I remember she dried his feet with her hair. The house guests thought that this woman was trash and that Jesus should not have had anything to do with her, however Jesus pointed out that no one else had offered him the courtesy of washing his feet when he had entered this home, the woman was showing him reverence and kindness. So, in the South, where they believe in the Bible, they try to incorporate what the Bible says into their day to day lives. I will give an example.

I had a friend named Joseph who was from Georgia. Joseph was 35 years old, he had a wife and a daughter. He was a self employed tree trimmer, and he was poor. In the winter of 2009 when the economy started to go bad, he had to go to the food bank, because he did not have enough money to buy food. In the spring and summer, he got by O.K., but just barely. I stopped by his house at about 5 p.m. one evening when he had just gotten home from doing a tree job, he had stopped at Dominoes Pizza and bought a large pizza. He asked me if I would like some pizza, I said no, thank you, I had already eaten, but the real reason was that I knew that that pizza was just enough for him, his wife, and daughter. Just then, two young Mormon missionaries stopped at his house, Joseph and I both knew them, and talked to them from time to time. Joseph said, “Hey you guys are just in time for some pizza, would you like some pizza?” They said, “Oh yeah, great, thanks.” and they ate half his pizza. There was just enough left for his wife and daughter after the missionaries left. The rented house that Joseph lived in was very small and bare. I had already passed through the kitchen and saw that there was not any food in the house, just maybe an almost empty bag of old bread, maybe a can of beans. I said to Joseph, “Well, it looks like they ate all your pizza.” Joseph said, “Oh, it don’t matter, I’ll find something else to eat.”

The second reason why people in the South have hospitality, is that they have been accustomed to having resources available. In the South, trees are plentiful, so it is not difficult to get wood for furniture, firewood, or housing. Domestic animals like chickens, cattle, pigs, and goats are not difficult to keep. Wild animals like rabbits, possums, squirrels, turkeys, alligators, and fish are not that difficult to come by. So, it was not that difficult to survive, you could afford to be hospitable, even if you were poor, it was not like you were going to die.

In North Dakota, things were different. I have been to North Dakota pioneer museums, and have read and seen the exhibits. I have talked to older North Dakotans about how things were growing up around Dickinson. The pioneers that came to North Dakota in the late 1800s and early 1900s lived in small grass sod houses, the walls were constructed entirely of grass sod. The houses were small partly because there was not a lot of things to burn to heat them, dried animal dung was collected to burn for heating and cooking. I have been inside some of these houses on old farms outside of Dickinson, they were very small, very primitive, maybe a 10’x12′ room adjoined to another 10’x12′ room, and whole families lived in them. I have talked to people who said that even growing up in Dickinson in the 1950s, that many people still had out houses. It was common for the mom to keep the roll of toilet paper, that children were not given toilet paper, if you wanted toilet paper, you had to go and ask, and that you might be given three sheets. Apparently life was brutally hard in North Dakota until recently, there had been a scarcity of basic necessities. If you talk to people about it, you will begin to understand that hospitality was something that was not done, it was so hard for a family to survive, there wasn’t hospitality.

In the eight months that I lived in Dickinson in 2011, and the sixteen months that I have been living in Dickinson currently, it was not until I understood how hard life had been in North Dakota, that I realized this is one of the reasons why the residents in North Dakota are not hospitable and friendly, and why they don’t even know that they are not hospitable and friendly.