Tag Archives: relocating to Dickinson North Dakota

How Businesses Treat People In Dickinson, North Dakota

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I want to write a brief, to-the-point post about how businesses in Dickinson treat people.  In addition to giving out-of-state people some information, I would like for the Dickinson Mafia to think about this.

The following businesses in Dickinson that I have dealt with have been fair:

Dan Porter Toyota, Charboneau Dodge, Parkway Ford, R&R Repair, have all been fair, their prices were only 10% to 15% higher than ordinary towns not in the oil field.  The personnel were reasonable.

Ace Hardware, Macs Hardware, and Runnings have a good selection of quality merchandise.  The prices are not high.  Mostly, the personnel were O.K.

Most of the stores in the Prairie Hills Mall have normal priced merchandise, the personnel are O.K.  The Prairie Hills Mall Cinema is O.K.  Herberger’s has nice clothes.

The West River Community Center is one of the nicest indoor recreation centers in the United States.  It is moderately priced.  In the summer, Patterson Lake is a nice large outdoor recreation area that is moderately priced.

There is a large selection of fast food restaurants that are not high priced, McDonalds, Burger King, Wendys, Arbys, Taco Bell, Subway, Dominos, and the King Buffet.  There are a few inexpensive restaurants with good food, like Don Pedros.

There are more than enough grocery stores now, three Family Fares, Cash Wise, Wal-Mart, and the Family Dollar.  These stores have normal prices.

Having just written the list above, it would seem like everything is O.K. in Dickinson.  Most of the things that people want or need, are readily available in Dickinson, at reasonable and fair prices.  Except for housing.

What I want to point out to the Dickinson Mafia, is that everyone, everyone who moved to Dickinson felt like they were being taken advantage of, and they were very angry and resentful about it.  I explained in several previous posts, that the property owners, property managers, and property investors, had cost increases of approximately 50% after 2007, but they increased the housing prices by 400%.

Even though most of the businesses in Dickinson had fair prices and were reasonable, everyone who moved to Dickinson felt like they were being taken advantage of.  If it would not have been for the property owners, property managers, and property investors, many of the people who moved to Dickinson for work would have thought that Dickinson was as good a place as any to stay, buy a home, and raise a family.  Instead, most of the out-of-state workers planned on staying here only so long as the oil field work lasted, because they felt like they were being taken advantage of.

Dickinson would have been better off if people thought of it as a place to settle down.  Many people made up their mind that they weren’t going to remain in Dickinson because the price of housing was just too high.  All of the oil field workers who left Dickinson will remember for the rest of their lives, how cold it was, and how they got ripped off.

Problem Women Moving To Dickinson, North Dakota

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In many previous posts, I wrote that there had been a shortage of women in Dickinson, and a lack of attractive women in Dickinson. I also wrote that the women in Dickinson had all decided that they were going to be overweight, not in shape, that they were not going to wear nice clothes, get their hair done, get their nails done, or act friendly, because they did not want men bothering them or wanting to have sex with them. I was writing about the women from Dickinson. The women from Dickinson don’t want any kind of attention.

One year ago, I was working as a subcontractor in Dickinson, at a large business that employed many women. After a couple of weeks of working there, I asked this one woman who was older than me, who I had to exchange work information with hourly, why her coworker was so short with me. She said, “Don’t you dare tell her that I said this, she is just nutty and crazy, she told me that she sold her house and moved here to Dickinson, to try to find a guy working in the oil field to get hooked up with. She had heard there were so many single guys in Dickinson. But as you can see, she ain’t very good looking, and she’s a crazy bitch, so it hasn’t worked out for her, and now she’s just an angry person.”

I recall those words now, because I recently encountered an angry young woman working in the restaurant where I often eat. I have been going to this restaurant since 2011. I know the owner, and about 10 out of the 13 people who currently work at this restaurant, plus many of the former employees. I talk to the waitresses some, I know where they are from, and a little about what is going on with them in their lives. I don’t make fun of them, and I don’t say anything lewd or crude to them. Some of the waitresses talk a lot, some don’t. Some of the waitresses talk a lot about their personal life, some don’t. Some want to be friends, some don’t. However, I have in the past met women who have recently moved to Dickinson, who begin working at this restaurant, who have blackness and darkness in their background, demons, and it is only a short amount of time before they start acting evil.

About four months ago, there was a pretty, petite young woman about 25 years of age, who came to work at this restaurant. She is unmarried, and has a young daughter. At first, she seemed to be making friends with some of the staff and some of the customers. She dated one of the customers briefly after she started working at the restaurant, I don’t know why, he looks just like the Devil. Currently, another customer is asking her out, he is an O.K. person, but he is not handsome. More and more over the past weeks, her countenance has grown angrier and angrier, she acts angry, she says that she is angry, and that she hates her job. As of several days ago, she is not speaking to me, and she acts like she is mad at me, like I have done something to her.

This makes me very uncomfortable, because she acts like I have done something to her. It makes me very uncomfortable, because I have seen this play out before. I have seen women that are so full of anger and hate, that they try attack someone around them, usually a male, but because they are small, they attack some man using a scheme or false allegations. I know a little about this young woman’s background, it appears that she got into some trouble and a bad lifestyle in Wyoming, her family had some relatives that had come to work in Dickinson, so they thought this would be a good place for her, they thought she would meet some guy working in the oil field. The problem is, it didn’t take long for her to start acting crazy here too.

I can think of about eight additional women that I have met, that have traveled from several states away to be a bartender or waitress in Dickinson, and they hate their job, they hate their customers, they dislike their coworkers, they hate being here, and they hate their life. You might think that it would have been easier for them to stay where they were, but no, it wouldn’t be, because they were unable to keep or get a job where they were because they had a bad attitude and acted crazy.

I have met women working in other industries in Dickinson and Watford City, that have traveled from several states away, that act like they have got something mentally and emotionally wrong with them. Just like the older men who never learned a skill or trade, or never did any work competently, drove across the country thinking they were going to get a $100,000 per year job, crazy women came out here thinking they wouldn’t be crazy anymore or people wouldn’t notice.

The Sons Of Dickinson, North Dakota

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I do not dislike the Sons of Dickinson. In this blog post I am not going to make fun of them. I am merely going to describe them and point out who they are.

The Sons of Dickinson are the boys who were born between 1970 to 1990. Between these years, these boys’ childhood experiences were not completely shaped by either the second oil boom or the third oil boom.

At the end of the second oil boom in Dickinson in 1983, economic conditions in Dickinson were poor and most of the people were poor, just like they had been for most of Dickinson’s history. The boys who grew up in Dickinson during this time were not spoiled, their families did not have a lot, and their families were not arrogant. In school, kids did not have expensive clothes, and the girls were not wearing yoga pants or short shorts. Though the families were poor, the children had a “normal” growing up. Material possessions, having things, and making a lot of money were not the primary focus of the families.

The Sons of Dickinson range in age now from 26 to 46 years old. They are characterized by being nonaggressive, nonjudgmental, nonargumentative, quiet, and mild mannered. They hold ordinary jobs in Dickinson, which they perform dutifully and without complaining. One of the “giveaways” or “tells” that they are a Son of Dickinson, is that many of them have a nice newer $40,000 truck that would typically be beyond the reach of someone with an ordinary job.

Though the Sons of Dickinson grew up poor, with mothers and fathers who both had to work to provide for their families, once 2007 rolled around, and the third oil boom in Dickinson occurred, many of these working class families benefitted. Through owning a small business, being an experienced trades person, owning a little bit of property, or owning a farm with an oil well on it or next to it, many working class families in Dickinson benefitted. The Sons of Dickinson were not business owners, entrepreneurs, or land owners, they were nonaggressive, mild mannered people, who were employed in ordinary jobs. It was their parents who owned a small business, practiced a skilled trade, owned a little bit of family property, or owned a family farm with an oil well on it or next to it.

This is why you will see and meet in Dickinson, men between the ages of 26 to 46 years old that are very mild mannered, nonaggressive, who work at a low paying job, yet drive a $40,000 truck. They are nice, you won’t dislike them, you will just be unable to figure out how they do it:

A one bedroom apartment in Dickinson is $1,500 per month, plus $200 per month utilities, that’s $20,000 per year on housing.

If you are working in Dickinson, it is easy to spend $20 per day on food, and $50 per week on gas, that’s $9,000 per year on food and gas.

Whether it’s medical, dental, car insurance, new car tires, new laptop computer, or traveling somewhere, you spend another $2,000.

So, before taxes you need to make close to $40,000 per year in Dickinson, even if you are not married.

Given the above cost of living, how can someone in Dickinson who makes less than $40,000 per year, afford an extra $8,000 per year on truck payments?

The answer is, Mom and Dad. In some cases, 26 to 46 year old males in Dickinson still live at home with Mom and Dad. This is not unusual in Dickinson. You have got to remember that there is a shortage of women in Dickinson, and a lack of attractive women, many men in Dickinson never have a girlfriend or a wife, so they just continue living at home. A second scenario is that a Son of Dickinson lives in a home or trailer owned by Mom and Dad, or another family member, and their rent is free or at a reduced rate. The third scenario is that there is oil revenue money, or property revenue money coming to Mom and Dad, and they disperse some of this money to their adult children.

I have lived in Dickinson for 3-1/2 years now, and I have seen all three of the scenarios above. It does not bother me, because most of the Sons of Dickinson are not arrogant, pushy, or aggressive, they just work at their job, they don’t complain, in fact they are even friendly in a reserved way. I do not see anything wrong with Mom and Dad helping out their adult sons, when their sons are not jerks or troublemakers.

German Catholics In North Dakota Part III

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In the South, during the 1700s and 1800s, there was slavery.  Wealthy people on farms and plantations owned black people, and forced them to work for free.

In order to be wealthy enough to own slaves, you were not a stupid person, you were likely educated.  I have wondered what kind of thought process occurred in an educated person’s mind, in order to reconcile, the fact that you owned other people.  Three general possibilities:  You believed that blacks were so inferior, that they did not have the same rights as whites;  You believed that according to the Bible, slavery had existed, and it was allowable;  You didn’t let the thought of moral right and wrong guide what you did.

I can see atheists deciding that they would not worry about moral right and wrong, and participate in slavery because it would not be in conflict with their religious beliefs, they have none.  But slavery was not engaged in by atheists alone.  The South was predominantly Christian Protestant.  I see that the root of the slavery problem was not that people in the South did not worry about moral right and wrong, it was that their sense and understanding of moral right and wrong was warped.

The Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation, De-Segregation, Integration of Public Schools, the Civil Rights Movement, all happened in order to bring equal and fair treatment to people in the South.  Me, I have to admit, that one of the underlying causes of the resistance to change was that the Christian Protestant beliefs in the South did not squash the prejudice and hate in people’s minds, like it should have.  In other words, people in the South were predominantly Christian Protestant, but they were filled with hate, and they should not have been if they were in fact followers and believers in Christianity.

Now, I want to point out a similar problem that the German Catholics have had.  Over in Germany in the 1930s, the people were predominantly Catholic.  In Germany, there became an out of control hatred of the Jews.  The Jews were forced by law, to wear the Star of David on their clothes.  They were mistreated, ridiculed, and abused in public.  The Jews were forced to relocate to crowded ghettos, their homes, property, and land were taken.  The Jews were later relocated to work camps and concentration camps, and forced to work as slaves.  Many Jews were worked to death, starved to death, or were killed in the gas chambers.  The Catholics in Germany, if they were truly following and believing in Christianity, they would not have allowed this to happen.

At the end of World War II, there were two entities that were authorized to create identification papers and travel documents for refugees in Europe:  the Red Cross, and the Catholic Church.  It is now known historical record and fact, that the Catholic Church officials created many false identification papers for Nazis that were known to be war criminals being sought by allied forces for prosecution for atrocities against the Jews.  The Catholic Church provided false identification, false documents, aid, and assistance to known war criminals, to allow them to escape to other parts of Europe and South America.

It was not that Germany was full of atheists, it was full of Catholics.  How could you be a Catholic, and think that rounding up millions of Jews, taking their property, and killing them, was the Christian thing to do?  The Catholic Church itself even helped the war criminals escape prosecution, and escape from Germany.

What the Christian Protestants did in the South with slavery was wrong.  What the Christian Catholics did in Germany was wrong.

The De-Segregation, forced Integration of Schools, and Civil Rights Movements that occurred in the South in the 1960s and 1970s were recent actions that occurred to battle continued prejudice, discrimination, and hatred in the South, that had not been successfully eliminated by Protestant religions.  The Protestant religions in the South are partly to blame for allowing and enabling many Christians to live with hateful ideas and hateful practices.

Right here in Dickinson, the Catholic Church is greatly to blame for allowing and enabling these Catholics here in Dickinson to mistreat and take advantage of out-of-state workers.  The Catholic Church, which is one of the wealthiest institutions in the World, had the resources, to help the many thousands of people who came to North Dakota and lived in filth and squalor.

Again, go and look at the Real Estate Multiple Listing Guide in Dickinson, and look at all the happy smiling faces of the realtors.  They have no remorse for taking advantage of the out-of-state workers.  People traveling here to Dickinson, with hopes of finding a good job, and providing for their families back home, only to find that one-bedroom apartments were $1,500 per month, homes that had once been $700 per month, were now $4,000 per month.  Many workers slept in their cars at Wal-Mart, many workers slept in their cars at Tiger Truck Stop, many workers slept in tents at Patterson Lake, or in people’s back yards.  Real estate agents and property developers did not want any man-camps, they wanted to keep prices high!, they wanted to get rich!  They, and the Catholic Church did not want any homeless shelter, these homeless people don’t matter.  The Catholics in Dickinson greatly mistreated the out-of-state workers.  It was not that the Catholic Church or the Catholics did not have the resources, means, and ability to help, it was that the Catholics in Dickinson have hatred towards others.

German Catholics In North Dakota, Part I

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I went to Catholic School, first through fourth grade, Sacred Heart School.  My first grade teacher was Sister Louise.  Sister Louise used to beat us severely.  Mostly she would use her bare hands to slap our faces, but she also beat our palms with a paddle-ball paddle, and she also had a long wooden rod for other types of beatings.

I believe that most of the kids’ parents did not believe how bad she beat us.  Justin, Jonathan, and George all talked to me about it later in High School, “Can you believe that shit, that shit was fucked up.”  All I could say was, “Yea, I know.”

There were other stories of physical harm done to kids at Sacred Heart.  I do remember some students who did not return to Sacred Heart after the first day or the first week of school, these were the kids whose parents believed them.

Now days, the police would have been to that school, the first day, and taken teachers away in handcuffs for assault and child abuse.  We, all of us, could easily win a class action lawsuit today against the Catholic Church for the physical abuse that was done to us.  I could write pages and pages of instances of physical abuse at Sacred Heart School, both of me, and of my classmates.

Putting the above aside for a moment, I want to talk about something else in the Catholic Church that I became aware of as a young teenager.  A friend of my father had been a comptroller for a very large Catholic organization for many years, so many years, that he was trusted.  Many Catholic priests had come to this comptroller with the same “problem”.  These priests had accumulated over a million dollars in personal assets, and they did not want anyone to know or for anyone to find out.  One of the ways in which this was happening, was through relatives and parish members bequeathing things to them in their Wills.

My mother was disgusted, that throughout our state, our country, the World, the Catholic Church solicits offerings, alms, donations, from the poorest of the poor, the people that are barely surviving, and yet the Catholic Church is one of the wealthiest institutions on Earth.  The Catholic priests are millionaires, yet there are many poor people in their parish, who have a hard time paying for food, rent, and utilities.

I started off this blog post the way I did, so that I could state that I know there are some things wrong with the Catholic Church, and Catholic culture and values.  Here in Dickinson, North Dakota, the Catholic Church is, and has been the primary cultural and societal influence.  When there was no oil field, when the German and Ukrainian settlers first came to this area, the Catholic Church was very, very important, and it always has been.

The reason why I am writing about all of this now, is that I want to say that going to Mass, going to Confession, saying Hail Marys and Our Fathers, is not really getting it done as far as instilling human decency in these Catholic people here in Dickinson.  I want to point out again, that the people here in Dickinson really treated out of state workers very badly during this last oil boom.  The people who mistreated the out of state workers the most, were the real estate agents, the property managers, and the property investors here in Dickinson.  Not only did the real estate agents, property managers, and property investors make the rent and housing prices quadruple, they helped to make sure that there was a scarcity of housing and no inexpensive housing alternatives, by making sure there were no new trailer parks or man-camps constructed outside of Dickinson.

If you read the Bible, what you are supposed to do if you are a Christian, you will read sayings and teachings of Jesus and the Apostles.  Jesus once said, so as you do to the least of my people, so do you to me.  Therefore, if you are a Christian, you should watch what you do, to everybody!  Jesus didn’t say, so as you do to the people who are from this area ….

There is a big flaw in Catholicism, if you go to Mass every Sunday, and you do not know some simple teachings from the Bible.  “What profiteth a man that he gain the whole World, yet lose his soul?  Or, what shall he give in exchange for his soul?”

You can go and look at the Real Estate Multiple Listing Guide in Dickinson, and you can look at the smiling photographs of the realtors in Dickinson, good good Catholics all!  People who have connections, and can really get things done!  Yet there is no homeless shelter in Dickinson.  Did I mention, that the Catholic Church is one of the wealthiest institutions in the World?

There are probably some Catholics reading this right now, and they are probably screaming,  “We don’t have to help people!  We don’t have to help anybody!”  If you don’t like this post, you are sure to not like the next post, “German Catholics In North Dakota Part II”.

Temptation In Dickinson, North Dakota

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Last summer, I got a telephone call from a homeowner lady, requesting an estimate for work on her house.  From the address she gave me on the telephone, I knew the neighborhood, it was a nice residential neighborhood.

The following day, when I was driving to the specified address, as I got closer and closer, I was saying to myself,”Please don’t let it be that house, please don’t let it be that house.  Fuck, it’s that house.”  I had been to this house before when I was working for another contractor.  I had had to take the fence down, in order to get equipment to the back of the house.  Trees, bushes, a shed, and the fence had all been in the way.

I didn’t remember meeting the homeowners, but I remembered the back yard very well, and I didn’t want to work at this house.  When a yard is taken care of meticulously, as a contractor, you know that you are going to have to be so careful not to damage anything, and that the homeowners will not be forgiving about damage to anything.

I met the homeowner woman, and she was very beautiful.  She was about one inch shorter than me, she was my age, she had beautiful long dark hair, brown eyes, was very thin, and was in very good physical shape.  She kind of looked like Kate Middleton, the Duchess of York, but she was prettier and in better shape than Kate Middleton.

About the only time I can keep my wits when I am around a beautiful woman, is when I am completing a work estimate.  I am more focused on assessing how difficult the job is, how many hours it will take, what equipment I will need, how much I will have to pay my helper.  I do notice attractive women homeowners when I am trying to figure out my estimate, but I just don’t pay that much attention.

By the time I was done writing my estimate, the homeowner lady and I were in the dining room.  Her house was just as clean inside, as her yard was meticulously taken care of outside.  I was standing about ten feet from her, when her husband came in the front door.  The homeowner lady began immediately explaining to her husband what I was doing there.  I could tell that she felt some urgency in explaining this to her husband right away.  I could tell that her husband was surprised, and concerned.  Her husband was polite and cordial to me, which was what you would expect from a professional person who was the manager of a business.

Her husband was a nice looking man.  He was a little bit taller than me, a little bit skinnier than me, and he was not as weather-worn as me.  I felt that the two of them looked like they belonged together, they made a good couple.  As I talked to both of them for a while, I found out what they did, and that they had three children that were just getting out of high school.

I started working at this house.  I talked to the homeowner lady some more.  I found out more about her.  I liked her more.  I liked everything about her.  I wanted her.  It is one thing when I am attracted to a young lady because of her physical appearance, but I just don’t know what they are like, or what they will become.  A woman like this, you can see what they are like, and you can see what they are, and you can like everything about them more strongly.  In their home, you have a chance to talk to them privately, without interruptions, and sometimes they express feelings that they do not share with others, for various reasons.

Working as a contractor, I had been in this situation once or twice before.  I meet a beautiful housewife, and I like her a lot.  We talk while I am working, and we begin to like each other more.  I have had to decide what to do before.  I think of the problems that I would cause, for the wife, the husband, and the children.  If I really like this woman, why would I ruin her life?  I wouldn’t.

I could not take the place of her husband.  They have been together for at least twenty years.  They have three kids together, that are just getting ready to begin college.  They are going to have a hard time paying for three kids in college at the same time.  They both need to be working together in order to support their kids.  I couldn’t afford to put these kids through college.  I couldn’t afford this house.  I can’t take the place of her husband.  I’m not going to ruin her life.

This is one time, that I want to be careful what I write in this blog.  I don’t want to be a jerk about this subject.  The truth is, that at some point in their lives, women are ready for somebody to come along and “ruin everything”, because they just can’t stand it anymore.  They have the right husband, the right house, in the right neighborhood, and kids that are getting ready to graduate and go off to college.  Everything is so right, they are just sick of it, and they want something else.  Maybe they feel like it is killing them, they are getting old, they are always doing everything right.  They wish someone would just wreck it so bad for them, that they wouldn’t have to keep going like this.

As I was leaving the house that day, the teen aged son was just coming home from school.  As he got out of his friend’s car, he was glaring at me with a querrying look.  I said, “Hey”, as I went to my truck.  I made sure that I did not have any kind of grin or smugness, no sign of happiness.  I knew what he was thinking.  No, I didn’t have sex with your mother.

 

Reasons Why I Dislike Property Investors, Property Managers, and Real Estate Agents

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In many of my blog posts I have expressed anger towards property investors, property managers, and real estate agents in Dickinson.  I want to explain this.

People need to have food, clothing, and shelter.  These are necessities that people must have.  I believe very strongly that it is wrong for individuals to try to buy up necessities intended for other people, so that they can then overcharge for these necessities.  In other words, I think that it is absolutely wrong for anyone to come up with any type of scheme to buy up, control, inflate the price, and over charge for basic necessities that would normally be inexpensive if it weren’t for greedy people trying to manipulate supply, availability, and prices.

Just because a person can conceive to do something, and then go do it, does not mean that it is right.

During the 1700s and 1800s, people went over to Africa and caught blacks, sold them as slaves, and then forced them to work for free.  In the United States we already argued, fought, and had a Civil War over this.  Now, 99% of people believe that you can’t catch other people and own them.  But, if there wasn’t a law against it, people would still be trying to catch and own slaves in the United States, because some people are so greedy, they disregard right and wrong, moral and immoral, just and unjust, like the Property Investors, Property Managers, and Real Estate Agents here in Dickinson.

In the 1800s and early 1900s, children as young as 8,9,10 years old, worked in factories, twelve hours a day, seven days a week, in dangerous and unsafe conditions.  To many business owners, there was nothing wrong with this, that is why they did it in the first place.  Even to this day, business owners like to say, “Supply and demand, free markets, let the market place decide, capitalism.”  Letting business people do what they want, resulted in slavery, child labor in factories, 12 hour work days every day of the week, unsafe and dangerous work conditions.  If it weren’t for the Emancipation Proclamation, Child Labor Laws, Federal Wage Laws, and OHSA, all of the things that I just mentioned would be still going on today.

The scheme has also occurred to greedy business people, that they could buy up necessities, so that these necessities would not be available to other people, and then they could overcharge for them.  What would happen if wealthy business people bought all of the food, all of it?  What if the wealthy business people then decided that you should pay $2.50 for a can of beans, carrots, or peas?  This may happen one day, because there is no law against it.  But just because someone can do it, does that make it right?

In the beginning of the United States, single family homes were built for single families to live in.  Probably early on, some single family homes were occupied by renters.  Renters are easily subject to being taken advantage of.  In some areas of the United States, single family homes were occupied by share-croppers, which was even more perilous than being a renter.  Being at the mercy of someone else for your housing, existed from the beginning of the United States.  However, after World War II, people were nearly free from other people controlling their housing, and we could have stayed on that course, had it not been for greedy people getting involved.

After World War II, due to advances in manufacturing, technology, engineering, agriculture, and energy transmission, the standard of living in the United States was the highest it had ever been.  A husband could work outside the home for eight hours a day, forty hours per week, and he could afford to purchase a home for his family to live in, buy furniture, buy an automobile, and pay for all of his family’s necessities.  The same kind of business minds that brought us slavery and 10 year old children working in factories, went to work on how to take advantage of people.

Business people began to think, why not buy single family homes as an investment?  Everybody needs a place to live, why not buy single family homes, and charge more for rent than the mortgage payment?  As long as you can rent out a single family home for more than the mortgage, property tax, and insurance, it pays for itself, and in fifteen or twenty years, it will be completely paid for.  If this is the  case, why not buy ten single family homes, rent them out, and in twenty years, you will have ten homes that are completely paid off?  One reason not to do it, would be that you are driving up the single family home prices, and preventing ten families from owning their own home.

There is a saying, banks loan money to people who can prove that they do not need a loan.  There are people that have high incomes, that are able to pay for all of their necessities and still have a great deal of money left over each month.  They can prove to the bank that their own home is paid for, they have a large amount of money in savings, and that they have several thousand dollars of extra money each month after their necessities are paid for.  The bank is happy to give them a mortgage on several single family homes, they can easily afford the monthly payments, plus, they are just going to rent them out anyway, for more than the monthly mortgage.

A young husband and wife, with no savings, and not very good employment, is not able to make a down payment on a home or be approved for a mortgage.  This same husband and wife, as they become older, if they have had a period of unemployment or medical problems, they may still be unable to make a down payment on a home or be approved for a mortgage.  This same husband and wife in old age, have spent all of their earnings raising children and helping other family members, they may still be unable to make a down payment on a home or be approved for a mortgage.

I read a real estate investment book that was published in the 1980s.  In this book, there were charts of single family home prices in cities like Orlando, Phoenix, Oklahoma City, Omaha in the late 1970s.  The charts showed that in these cities, the average single family home price was approximately twice the average annual salary of an individual in that city.  The charts also showed that the monthly rents on the average single family home were slightly higher than the monthly mortgage amounts. So if you were a real estate investor, it made sense to buy as many single family homes in those cities as you could find.  This real estate investment book also pointed out, that as time passed, you would have more and more equity in your single family rental homes, and could use this equity to borrow against in order buy more single family homes.  Also, as time went by, prices on everything go up, if your mortgage payment on your single family rental home stays the same, and you increase your rent every year, your “positive cash flow” on each home increases every year.

When I was reading this real estate investment book that was published in the 1980s, it was 2005.  At that time, the average single family home price in places like Orlando and Phoenix was now three to four times the average annual salary of an individual in that city.  Why did the price of single family homes go from twice the annual salary of an individual to three to four times the annual salary of an individual?  I will tell you why, because all of the real estate agents and property investors that were fucking around in the single family home market trying to get rich, that made the price of single family homes double.

An ordinary single family home, is just a place for a working husband and wife to have kids and raise a family, in an ordinary neighborhood, where other working people are doing the same thing.  There shouldn’t be any reason for local attorneys, doctors, and dentists, to be trying to get their hands on as many ordinary single family homes as they can.  There shouldn’t be people in New York City and Los Angeles trying to buy as many single family homes as they can in Omaha, but that is what is happening.  The real estate agents take it upon themselves, to bump the listing prices on $100,000 homes in Omaha, up to $115,000, because the real estate investors in New York City and Los Angeles will still buy them, they don’t know, they don’t care that much either.  The working husband and wife who finally saved up enough to afford the down payment on a $100,000 home, ask,”What the fuck just happened?”, when the price goes up to $115,000 the next week.

Real estate agents like to help inflate the price of housing, because their commissions are based on the price of housing sold.  Real estate agents also like to help inflate the price of housing, so that they can tell potential buyers that they had better buy now, prices are climbing, if you buy now, your house will be worth 10% more in two years.  The prices of single family homes went up and up because there were so many real estate investors trying to buy multiple single family homes.  The real estate investors did not really care that the single family home prices were quickly rising, they thought that this was good, they would have equity in their homes more quickly, they went ahead and paid the high prices.  Ordinary working people that were desperate to own a home, went ahead and entered into huge mortgages that they could barely afford to pay, ridiculously high mortgages based on their modest incomes.

The housing crash came.  Many ordinary working people could not afford their ridiculously high mortgages on their single family home.  Due to slumping employment, many ordinary working people could not afford high rent.  Real estate investors that owned multiple single family homes, had some tenants move out, some tenants get behind on rent, some tenants negotiate lower rents.  Real estate investors came to be unable to afford the mortgage payments on multiple rental houses when tenants moved out or failed to pay rent.

Real estate investors never should have been involved in single family homes that were intended for ordinary working people to live in and raise families.  Real estate agents were willing accomplices in making single family homes unaffordable to ordinary working people.

If rich business people could do it, they would buy up all the food, all of it, and not let you have it unless you paid two or three times what it cost them.  They don’t care how much suffering they cause.

The real estate investors, property managers, and real estate agents in Dickinson did not care how much hardship they caused people in Dickinson during this past oil boom.  Rents on homes and apartments were increased to four or five times what they had been before the oil boom.  Wealthy people, people who owned property, real estate agents, property investors, property managers, they all lobbied and made sure that no man-camp or trailer park was built in Stark County, in order to ensure that there continued to be a shortage of housing, and no inexpensive housing alternatives.  I knew many people who slept in their vehicles, in the cold, in 2011, 2013, 2014, and 2015 because they could not afford to rent an apartment in Dickinson.  This is also why there is not a homeless shelter in Dickinson, the people with money in Dickinson didn’t want people to have any place to stay if they couldn’t afford to pay the extremely high rents.

Building My Home In Dickinson, North Dakota

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In my previous post, I wrote that if I won the lottery, the first thing that I would do, would be to build a homeless shelter in Dickinson, partly because it is needed, but mostly because that would be what people in Dickinson would hate more than anything else.  The second most hated thing that I could do, would be to build the house that I will describe below.

In Dickinson, just as you are leaving town going north on Highway 22, Baker Hughes and Halliburton have each recently built $10,000,000 facilities on the east side of the highway.  Fortunately for me, on the opposite side of the highway, there is a 100 acre parcel of land that is available.  On the top of the hill, overlooking Baker Hughes and Halliburton, I would build my large house.  It would be a three-story Victorian house, identical to the Adams Family house, the one that was occupied by the story book characters Gomez, Morticia, Pugsley, Wednesday, Lurch, and Uncle Fester.

As it was being built, I am sure that everyone in Dickinson would be saying,”What the fuck is that supposed to be?”  Everyone would slow down entering or leaving Dickinson, saying,”What the fuck is that?”  Late at night, I would stand out on the balcony, and everyone driving by would slow down and look, and say,”Jeeze, what the fuck is he doing?”

I haven’t figured out if I would have a pond out in front, but I have to have some reason to have gargoyles with water shooting out of their orifices, out in the front yard.  Maybe I would have a family burial plot out in the front yard, and I could have a fake funeral with mourners every week, that would slow traffic down on Highway 22.  That would give the people in Dickinson something to talk about,”Why is he burying somebody every week?  I think he is killing them!”

I think that I would like to hire a couple of young ladies, to act as hostesses at my home, who would wear lavish dresses like the ones worn on plantations in the South during the 1800s, who would say to every male guest entering the home, in as much as a southern drawl as possible, “Why hello, are you in the aawwwl business?  Can I get you a draaank?”  I think after a while, it would drive everybody up the wall.  I would invite people over to my house, just to have the hostesses ask them for about the fifth time,”Are you in the aawwl business?”

Downhill from my house, I would have “Shanty Town”.  “Shanty Town” would be a retirement village for impoverished, old, disabled oil field workers.  Old bent-over black men, old one-armed white men.  The outside of their shacks, would look rickety and broken, but this would be just for appearances sake.  Inside the shacks there would be a nice modern kitchen, bathroom, living room, and bedroom, with central heating, cable television.  I really would want a nice place for poor old disabled oil field workers to live in, but I would explain to them,”Look, I want to make a statement, and get people’s attention, that the oil companies hire people to do these dangerous, hazardous jobs, and then when they aren’t needed anymore, they just throw them away.  I want you to have the chance to tell people.”

There would be a turn-off the highway to Shanty Town, big enough for tractor trucks to turn-off and park.  It would be a roadside attraction, there would be a sign beside the road, “Boiled Peanuts”, and there would be a cauldron of boiled peanuts, where old black men and crippled-up white men would ladle out boiled peanuts into styrofoam cups for all the red-neck truck drivers.  I would call all over the country to animal shelters looking for three-legged cats, and three-legged dogs, to have enough raggedy looking animals hobbling around Shanty Town.  At night time, when cars drove by, they could see the faint orange glow from the wood fires burning in 55 gallons drums, flickering on the white bed sheets hanging from the clothes lines.

All I want is for everyone in Dickinson to say,”Man, I wish that guy never would have moved here!”

 

 

 

 

Pros and Cons for Staying in Dickinson, North Dakota

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For those of you who have not read my blog before, I am not from Dickinson.  I have lived in Dickinson for about three and a half years now.

I write this blog to provide useful, truthful, helpful information about Dickinson, North Dakota, primarily for people from out-of-state.  I sincerely recommend that you do not come to Dickinson at this time.

I want to warn people from out-of-state, do not use the last of your money to get here, thinking that you will get a job, and things will be O.K.  There is no homeless shelter.  The people who live here were not very hospitable to begin with, and they are especially not hospitable now, because they have grown tired of out-of-state oil field workers and construction workers.

If you are not from here, have no money, and have a hard-luck story, the people here will have no sympathy for you.  You can freeze to death in your vehicle, and they would not care.  If you are down-and-out, have no money, you will very likely not get a job in Dickinson because people will look at you like a bum, a vagrant, an undesirable.  Everyone here is sick and tired of people showing up and wanting help.  The economy in Dickinson is not doing well right now, there are many people who are from here who are struggling now.

If you are from out-of-state, and have enough money to travel to Dickinson, rent an apartment, and look for work, I want to warn you that you might be better off remaining where you are, or doing more research on other areas of the country.  I want to point out some things that you will experience, that you are probably unaware of.

The population of Dickinson right now is probably about 25,000 people.  Most of the residents are from here, they went to high school here, and they have a lot of family members here.  The residents here don’t really like people from out-of-state.  They are suspicious, resentful, jealous, and hateful to people from out-of-state.  There are some values and cultural differences, different beliefs, and different educational levels.  This is about the third time I am saying it in this blog, if you want to know what Dickinson is like, you need to watch the movies “Grapes of Wrath”, “Deliverance”, and “Planet of the Apes”.

I had to go back and edit this blog post, I have so many stories about interviewing and working for companies in Dickinson, what a nightmare, it was taking up the entire blog.  I have to leave out my examples for the time being, about what living and working in Dickinson is like.  It is also literally painful and angering, to write about, and re-live my experiences in Dickinson, it is like writing about what it is like to be in prison.

I am going to switch now, and tell you the reasons why I stay in Dickinson.  I look at the internet job advertisement sites “Indeed.com”, “Careerbuilder.com”, and “Monster.com”.  I search for jobs in the state where I have a home, and I find very few jobs.  I find very few jobs, and low paying jobs.  It refreshes my memory about how ridiculously low the pay is back there, and what it is like to run out of money.  I would be stupid to think that I could go back there now.

I have lived and worked in seven different states.  I have been paid well in large cities, but I can’t stand living there.  The several areas that I loved living in, I could not make any money.  I listen to people’s experiences, advice, and recommendations about where to live.  I read news articles about living in different areas.  Most of what is published about good places to live, is a bunch of shit, because it is contradictory to what I experienced there and contradictory to what other people who actually live there describe.  In short, I can not find any valid information that indicates there is any good place to live in the United States at this time.

In Dickinson, I have my “job, job”, where I am not very busy right now.  Then I have my “self-employment job”, where I am not very busy right now.  And now, I have my “third job”, which I am just starting.  At least I have three jobs.  I am better off here, than the state where I came from.

 

I Want To Beat The Chamber of Commerce In Dickinson, North Dakota

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I want to beat the Chamber of Commerce in Dickinson, North Dakota.  I want to get to you, before they do.  I want to tell you the truth, rather than have you listen to lies and bullshit.

The individuals in the Dickinson Chamber of Commerce may not be bad people, but they have a job to do, and that job is to lie to you about Dickinson.

When I first wrote this blog post in November of 2015, the housing prices in Dickinson were very, very high.  Extremely high.  This was the result of greed, lack of human decency, and stupidity.  There was this lie going around that everybody in the oil field was making $100,000 per year.  In the five years that I have lived in Dickinson, I have only ever met three people who made over $100,000 per year in the oil field.

The Oil Boom was over in western North Dakota by the end of 2015, due to the price of oil falling from over $100 per barrel down to $40 per barrel.  Many oil field jobs went away, and many out of state workers returned to the states where they came from.  Once the apartments, manufactured home parks, and trailer parks in Dickinson became less than half occupied, the rents throughout Dickinson dropped greatly.

During the Oil Boom, the people in Dickinson were not friendly, not helpful, and not cooperative.  Now that the Oil Boom is over, the people in Dickinson are even meaner, in part due to increased competition for fewer jobs, and also because they want people to leave Dickinson.

The people in Dickinson dislike people who are from someplace else, and they also dislike each other.  Anything you say to people in Dickinson, will probably make them dislike you more.  If you arrive in Dickinson now, you are better off staying away from people.  Remain in your hotel, or your home, there isn’t anything to do or anywhere to go anyway, and you will likely be followed and stopped by the Dickinson Police.

There is a shortage of women in Dickinson, and a lack of attractive women.  The ratio of men to women in Dickinson is probably 3:1.  The Dickinson Police Department try as hard as they can to not allow prostitution in Dickinson, though it is needed.  The Dickinson Police create fake advertisement for women wanting to have sex, and then arrest people when they show up.

You can not safely go out to bars or restaurants in Dickinson at night, because the Dickinson Police try as hard as they can to arrest people for DUI.  In Dickinson, the Police are so eager to arrest people for DUI or other charges, that they will follow you and stop you for any reason that they can think of.  The Police try to encourage people to leave Dickinson.

In Dickinson, all of the restaurants have employees and servers that don’t like their jobs.  All of the restaurant employees think that everyone else is making over $100,000 per year, and they aren’t, and they are mad about it.  The servers are disappointed and can’t understand why people don’t spend $50 per meal and leave them a $20 tip, like they all heard about.  How are they ever going to make $300 a night at Applebees like they planned?

There is not a lot to do in Dickinson.  It is cold and grey from about October through April, at least seven months of cold weather.

The oil field work has been reduced by about 80% over the past several years.  Most of the oil field workers who lost their jobs went back to the states where they came from because housing prices were so high here, the people are unfriendly, there is a shortage of women, you can’t go out to bars or restaurants at night, the restaurants have terrible service, there is not a lot to do, the Police encourage people to leave Dickinson, and it is cold for at least seven months of the year.

The people in Dickinson, and the employers in Dickinson, hate people with an education.  The employers in Dickinson would much rather hire someone with several felony convictions, than someone with a college degree.  In Dickinson, your supervisors and co-workers will be people convicted of robbery, theft, assault, and drug charges.  Perform a Google search and look up your company owners, managers, and personnel on www.ndcourts.gov/publicsearch/default.html before you accept a job with a company in Dickinson.

What do I want?  I want the truth to be known.  I had thought that Dickinson could change, but once the Oil Boom was over, the local people in Dickinson became ever meaner.  I had not realized that the local people in Dickinson were on their best behavior during the Oil Boom.  All I can do now is warn people what Dickinson is like.

Meeting Miss Rodeo North Dakota, Codi Miller

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I have written a lot about the shortage of women, and the lack of attractive women in Dickinson, North Dakota, but today I will write about meeting Miss Rodeo North Dakota, Codi Miller in 2014.  I don’t want to say exactly where, and how I met her, because I like her and want to protect her.

I was out in a remote area, when I saw an attractive young lady.  I thought she was a little plain, because she was wearing no make up, a T-shirt and jeans, but I liked her.  When I spoke to her, I did not know if she was out of high school.  I was careful in speaking to her because I thought that she was possibly still in high school, inexperienced, innocent, naïve.  She did seem very sweet and innocent.

As I looked at her behind her eye glasses, and listened to her talk, I realized that she was not plain, she actually had almost model like beauty.  At the same time she was telling me that she was from Amidon, and that there were only about forty kids in her entire school growing up, I was thinking to myself, “My God, she doesn’t even know that she is beautiful, she doesn’t know, nobody ever told her.”

I asked her about herself, what she liked to do.  I found out that she had graduated from college.  I was beginning to feel like a dumb ass, because I had mistakenly believed that she was so young, completely innocent, and naïve.

After I had asked her some more questions, I realized that she was Miss Rodeo North Dakota.  Then I felt like a complete dumbass.  I had fooled myself, and she let me.  I did not let on that my mind was having to completely re-orient, I was dumbfounded.  Codi had a slight smirk.  Though Codi was enjoying the joke of me mistakenly thinking that she was a simple country mouse, and I was confused, my mind and thoughts quickly began to process that her being in her early twenties and Miss Rodeo was potentially  better for me.

As I was talking to her to find out what kinds of things she liked to do, I was planning on asking her out on a date, I was looking forward to taking her out.  I was much older than her, but she did not seem to care, she was talking to me.  As we were talking, she lay on her back, continuing to talk to me, we were alone.

Sometimes, I thought that it would be nice to be on a deserted island with an attractive actress or model.  It would be possible to get along, without her having to worry about what other people thought, without her worrying if I was up to her standards, or without her worrying if I was successful enough.  These things wouldn’t matter on a deserted island.  This is how it was with Miss Rodeo North Dakota, we were getting along fine, I wished that it would never end.  But someone drove up to us after about fifteen minutes, and she had to go.

I said to her,”You are like two completely different people.”  She said, “I know, sometimes I’m Rodeo Codi, and sometimes I’m just plain Codi.”

When I got home, I looked her up on the internet.  I saw many of her pageant photographs, where she looked stunning.  I saw her swimsuit photographs, and I saw that she had a perfect body.  In person, when she was wearing a T-shirt, I had not realized that she had such nice large breasts.  I had no way of knowing that she had a tight, flat stomach, perfect bottom, perfect legs.  I was very impressed with her photographs, but I felt a little worse.  It seemed that she was too glamorous for me, out of reach, not obtainable.  I was happier when she was just being herself, just plain Codi, I thought that we could date.

I wrote her a couple of letters, trying not to say much of anything, especially not saying that I liked her and wanted to see her again, just trying to be funny.  I offered to send her some opossums, but she didn’t write back, maybe she didn’t want any opossums.

How this relates to my blog, I have to say that I have met a few attractive women in Dickinson, but they are scarce.  The Miss Rodeo North Dakota that I met looked beautiful and glamorous in her modelling photographs, she was attractive in just jeans and a T-shirt in-person.  She was friendly, funny, entertaining, and easy to talk to in-person.

2nd Post About Prostitution In Dickinson, North Dakota

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This will be the second blog post that I have written about prostitution in Dickinson, North Dakota.  The first blog post that I wrote about prostitution, was written about six weeks ago.

So far, I have written approximately thirty-four blog posts.  In about half of them, I mention that there is a shortage of women in Dickinson, North Dakota.  There are way more men in Dickinson than women.  I think that the ratio of men to women here in Dickinson is probably 3:1.

Since 2011, I have lived in Dickinson for about thirty-two months, almost three years.  For about the first year, I did not think that there were any attractive women in Dickinson.  I thought that few attractive women were born in Dickinson due to the make up of the local population and the cold weather.  I thought that if there were any attractive women born here, they probably moved away right after high school graduation.  But for the first year that I was here, I mostly worked on oil field sites outside of town.

When I came back to Dickinson in May of 2013, I worked in town more.  When I went to the grocery store during the week, before 5 p.m., I saw some attractive women.  I also saw a few attractive women at the West River Community Center during the week, before 5 p.m.  It turns out that there were a few attractive women in Dickinson, but they were trying not to be seen out in public when the men got off of work in the evening.

The women that I saw at the grocery store and the West River Community Center before 5 p.m., who were attractive, I got the impression that they wanted to be left alone, that they did not want to be bothered, and that they were trying their best to get home before 5 p.m.  I felt sorry for them, they kind of acted like deer.  I think that about 80 percent of them must have been married or were in a committed relationship, and that the other 20 percent were just not wanting to mate.

After 5 p.m., you did not see hardly any attractive women in Dickinson.  You did not see hardly any attractive women in the bars.  From my own personal experience, and from what I saw other men doing, after work, the only attractive women you could talk to in all of Dickinson, were maybe a few bartender women, maybe a few waitresses, and maybe a few convenience store clerks, that was it.  There was a bartender girl that I liked, she did not want to talk to me, I told her that I liked her, but she never would talk to me.  I think that she liked me a little.  In 2011, on some nights this bar would serve about three hundred people, I think that she made about $300 to $400 in tips on those nights.  One night, about an hour before closing, a young guy said to her, that he would pay her $500 to have sex with him, he was serious.  She said,”It will cost you more than $500 to have sex with me.”, and I think she too was serious.

I nearly got into a lot of trouble going to this bar to see her.  One night she made me so mad, that I went outside and turned off the electric power to this bar, and went home.  Another night, she was flirting with this guy in front of me and letting him feel her, I had already warned the guy that I really liked her. I waited for him outside, when he went to his truck, I blocked his truck in with my truck, so that he could not leave.  He was much bigger than me, and he had two guys with him.  He realized that I was very angry, that I had blocked his truck in so that he could not get away, that I probably had a gun, and that I was possibly going to kill him.  He never came back, and she never fucked with me again.

I thought about it the following day, and some times after that.  I was ready to kill the guy.  I had only come to Dickinson to work.  Back home, I had a house on five acres, cars, trucks, motorcycles, everything I had ever wanted to have, but I almost lost it all, and would have spent the rest of my life in prison for shooting a guy at bar because he and the bartender girl had disrespected me, and angered me.

I can not explain everything that makes me who I am.  I know that I have some things in common with the other construction workers, oil field workers, and truck drivers that have come to Dickinson to work, especially those over forty years of age.  It is likely that at some point in our lives, each of us has had successes and failures, good jobs and bad jobs, plenty of money and lack of money, happy homes and broken homes, being in love and being lonely, feeling optimistic and feeling hopeless.  We have all had to deal with ups and downs in life, disappointment, and personal tragedies.  It is not that I can not deal with difficulties and problems, or handle not getting what I want, I have had to deal with these things many times.  But in Dickinson, I had left my home, my friends, and the day-to-day life that I liked.  I had left a place that I enjoyed and felt comfortable in, to come to a place that is cold and inhospitable.  I had had to deal with the shortage of housing in Dickinson where they wanted $1,500 per month for an old, small one bedroom apartment, that amount of money would rent a nice 3 bedroom/2 bathroom house back home.  I was acting as a foreman, getting to the shop early to load all the tools, equipment, and material, hooking up the trailer, going and picking up the DUI and drug probation crew workers around Dickinson, getting the job started, laying out the work, solving problems, pretty much what I had done in the past as a superintendent and project manager, but the local company that I was working for wasn’t paying me as a foreman.  I had to deal with local people, co-workers, site contractors, and company owners who were hateful and uncooperative.  So every morning that I woke up in Dickinson, I was already dealing with about six or seven adverse life conditions, just by being here.  Adding on top of that, working for a shitty company, not being paid very well, not ever seeing any attractive women, being ignored and disrespected by the bartender girl, and being disrespected by some guy, made me angry enough to want to kill the guy.

I went home for several months.  Then I went to work in Utah and Texas for a year.  I returned to Dickinson in May of 2013.  I knew that I should probably stay out of bars in Dickinson, and I did mostly stay out of bars.  I had a job as a foreman, it paid O.K.  I soon began to enjoy my work.  After work, and on the weekends, I could not find any attractive women.  I went to Patterson Lake on nice sunny days, and there were no attractive women there.  I went to a new upscale bar and restaurant in Dickinson called “Players Club” several times, the bartender men and women were not friendly.  I tried to speak to a waitress that I thought was very pretty, and she did not like me talking to her at all.  I went to work at a different company that had a very cute and smart girl working there that I liked, she did not want to talk to me.

In my previous blog post about prostitution in Dickinson, I wrote that the first time that I ever had any interest in internet dating sites, was when I came to Dickinson.  There was such a shortage of women, I could not find attractive women anywhere.  I looked at five different internet dating sites for women within 100 miles of Dickinson, and there were very few attractive women.  All of the attractive women had a list of requirements that I did not meet.  I looked and looked on the internet dating sites for women in North Dakota, and then I looked at the profiles of women in other states.  After I had read the profiles of about several hundred women, I found that they all had a list of requirements that would be hard for me to meet, I thought that they were being unrealistic.  In addition to me thinking that the requirements that these women had were unrealistic, and unlikely to be met, I felt that women were fucked up for even getting the idea in their head that you could make such unilateral and inequitable demands from another human being.

Some out-of-state truck drivers told me to go look on the website “Back Page” under escorts.  When I looked at the escorts, some were sleazy, some were not.  Even if you had to pay $250 per hour for an escort, it was beginning to appear to be a much better idea to pay for a prostitute for company, than to waste any  more time trying to find women in Dickinson or on an internet dating site.  Also, from the several hundred profiles of women that I had read, I could see that these women would have griped and complained about everything, wasted my time, tried to get everything they could from me, made me feel inadequate, and would have caused me all kinds of problems.  The only thing stopping me from hiring an escort was that it was not appealing to me to be with a woman that had already been with several guys that day, and I did not want to get arrested.

In 2014, I began to do work where it was important for me not to get into any kind of trouble, or I would lose my job.  I had to stay in Bismarck in a nice business hotel for a couple of weeks.  Most of the attractive escorts on the website “Back Page”, were based in Bismarck.  I was so tempted.  I had a belief that this particular hotel would have absolutely not liked having a prostitute walk through the door, and getting asked to leave this hotel, which was being paid for by my employer, would have caused me to lose my job.  I was also aware that police often try to entrap people by creating false advertisements for escorts on the internet.

In my previous blog post about prostitution, I wrote about seeing on the evening news in Dickinson, that the Bismarck police had placed an advertisement for an escort on the internet, and that they had received sixty calls for an appointment.  They were only able to arrest sixteen of the callers when they showed up to meet the prostitute because they ran out of time.  I was very angry about this.  I just got done explaining in this blog post how difficult it was for me to meet women in Dickinson, there was a shortage of women.  Women in Dickinson did not want me talking to them.  I had gone to a bar many times because I liked the bartender girl, and got so mad that I nearly got into a lot of trouble for turning their electric power off, and for nearly killing a guy.  I tried to see if I could find a girl by looking at five different internet dating sites, and there were very few women in this area.  The police are so fucking god damn stupid, what the fuck do they think they are doing?

What caused me to write this second blog post about prostitution, was what I heard from a friend of mine this week.  My friend is a construction foreman in Williston.  The project that he is working on has about one hundred workmen every day.  The company that he works for, has had most of their workers working ten hours each day, seven days a week, for the past three months.  One unmarried out-of-state worker on this project, looked on the internet for an escort.  He arranged to meet her at a restaurant.  When he got to the restaurant, it was a set-up, the police were hiding in the bathroom, when he had said enough, the police came out and arrested him.  His name was published in the newspaper, but nothing about where he worked.  He had to request time off from his company to appear in court, he was fired from his job.  I think that this was very unfair.  If you are an unmarried out-of-state worker, and you have worked ten hours a day, seven days a week, for the past three months, and you live in Williston or Dickinson where there is a shortage of women, you have not been able to meet women.

Why are you even alive if all you are going to do is get up, get dressed, drive an hour to your job site, work ten hours, drive an hour back home, eat, take a shower, and go to sleep, day after day after day?  If you work construction every day like this, you don’t have the time or the energy to do anything after work.  One day you stop and get groceries after work, one day you do laundry after work, one day you do dishes and cleaning after work, you are too tired to do much else, and there isn’t time.  Well, I guess this guy has some time now, he got fired from his job.

More About The Dickinson Mafia

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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.

Oil Field Speculation in Dickinson, Part I

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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

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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

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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

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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

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(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.

Culture Shock In Dickinson, North Dakota

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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.