Tag Archives: relocating to Watford City North Dakota

Do Not Speed In Watford City, North Dakota

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Do not speed in Watford City, North Dakota. The police here are very aggressive in stopping speeders in Watford City, they don’t give any leeway or benefit of the doubt, and there are many roads where the speed limit is not clearly posted. Every day that I drive into Watford City, I see that the police have someone pulled over and are writing them a ticket.

Part of what the police are doing, is trying to pay for themselves, they are trying to bring in enough revenue so that they can all keep their jobs. That is why they are so aggressive, and there is no slack given, they have to bring in enough money to pay for themselves. All over North Dakota now, there are local and state budget shortfalls.

The other thing that the police are doing, they are trying to check you out, in ways that you didn’t realize. You probably already know that they are going to check your vehicle license plate number to see if it belongs to the vehicle, or if the vehicle is stolen. They are going to check your driver’s license to see if you have any outstanding warrants, but they can also see what prior arrests you may have. Then the police are going to ask you for your current local address, that, they didn’t have. They want to know where all of these out of state workers are living locally, in case you steal something, or get into a bar fight.

In addition to observing for the smell of alcohol, slurred speech, open containers of alcohol, they are also looking for illegal drugs, drug paraphernalia, weapons, stolen property, anything that could lead to an arrest. If the police request permission to search your vehicle, you are better off saying “No”, even if you are sure that you have nothing illegal. I will tell you why.

I bought a truck from a friend of mine, because he bought a diesel truck and needed to get rid of this one. When I bought this truck, it was all clean inside, but I still found some receipts and an old registration behind the back seat. Also, there was a red pill on the floor in a crevice that was hard to reach. That red pill stayed there for about two years, until I went to work in an oil field in Texas, and saw that the police were stopping people for speeding, then taking everything out of their vehicle to search it. I could not have explained what that pill was, I don’t know if it was a hydrocodone. If it was hydrocodone, which I do not have a prescription for, in Texas, I probably would have been found guilty of possession of narcotics, and been sentenced to several years in prison. In Texas, yes, several years.

In Texas, my Idaho concealed weapons permit was valid, I checked before I left. In Idaho, a concealed weapons permit covers both firearms and knives. In Texas, I later found out, it only covers firearms. In Texas, if anyone has a knife with a blade longer than seven inches “on or about their person”, they are “guilty of possession of an illegal knife”, and in your vehicle had already been decided in court to be “on or about your person”. I would not have gotten arrested for the loaded handgun in my vehicle, but I would have gotten arrested for the fixed blade hunting knife that I bought at WalMart. I didn’t know.

Update & Current Information:  In September of 2016, Highway 23 Business on the east side of Watford City was mostly completed, with permanent clear speed limit signs installed.  The police enforcement of the speed limit on the east end of Highway 23 Business is now fair, and it is a good road.

There are still many poor white out of state workers in Watford City.  The only way that Watford City is livable, with a low assault rate, low amount of theft and burglary, low meth addiction and meth trafficking, is through constant aggressive law enforcement by the Watford Police and McKenzie Sheriff.  I don’t like being followed by the Watford Police every time I go some place, and them wanting to pull me over for something, but it kind of has to be this way as long as there are so many White Trash in western North Dakota.

More About Survival In Western North Dakota

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In the South, where I lived for most of my life, you don’t absolutely need a four wheel drive vehicle. I will concede that you might live at the end of a muddy road, and you don’t like getting stuck, but it’s not like you are going to die if you get stuck.

In North Dakota, it’s not that you own a four wheel drive vehicle because you like driving off road, you own one because you are trying not to drive off road. You own a four wheel drive vehicle in North Dakota because you are trying to stay on the road. Going off the road in North Dakota might cause you and your passengers to die, yes die.

Unlike the South, in North Dakota, most often there is no guardrail along highways where there is a several hundred foot drop, less than twenty feet from the edge of the road. On Hwy 85 just south of Watford City, even at the curves, there is a very narrow road shoulder, then a very steep embankment, then a several hundred foot drop. I know from experience, that if you get off the narrow flat shoulder, and onto a wet embankment, Don’t Move!

In North Dakota the embankments contain a clayey soil, they contain bentonite, which is far more slippery than dish soap when wet. If you are on a wet embankment, that has more than a slight incline, Just Stop! If you are just a couple of feet from the edge of pavement, stop, and keep it that way! Even if you have a four wheel drive vehicle with all four wheels locked, if you drive forward or reverse, you will begin sliding laterally, downhill, all the way to the bottom, however far that is. Let a heavy truck that is completely on the pavement, pull you back onto the shoulder from behind, while you are still only a few feet from the edge of pavement. Even then, it is dangerous for the tow vehicle. In wet or icy conditions, even a heavier tow vehicle can get pulled over the side from a lighter vehicle that suddenly gives way.

In the several winters that I have lived in North Dakota, the coldest it has gotten has been about 25 degrees below 0 degrees Fahrenheit. With a small amount of wind, with wind chill factor, it might have been -40 degrees Fahrenheit. If you had on just blue jeans and a hoodie, and tried to walk, you might have hypothermia in about ¼ mile. If you didn’t reach a warm shelter within that ¼ mile, you would die.

In North Dakota, you should do everything you can to avoid unintentionally dying in the Winter. Four wheel drive is not for monkeying around in the Winter, it is for staying on the road, and helping you get back onto the road. If you are driving out of town, you need to make sure that you and all of you passengers have warm enough shoes, clothing, and jacket to be outside for at least ½ hour, because you might be. No kids, especially teenage girls, just wearing pajamas, thinking that they are only going to have to walk no more than thirty feet to and from the car.

Unfortunately, many people do not have extra radiator coolant, aluma-seal, or tools in their vehicle, nor do they know if they have an inflated spare tire or a jack. Their preparedness plan is to try to get somebody else to pull over and help them, using their extra coolant, aluma-seal, tools, fix-a-flat, jack, air compressor, etcetera, give them ride. This plan is not always going to work.

Plan And Statistics For This Blog

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On Tuesday, April 19, this blog had 6,000 views.  I don’t mean all time, I mean on that day.

I was very happy.  I never said it in these words, but in addition to me wanting to tell people from out of state what it was actually like in Dickinson, to tell about some of the bad things going on to warn people, in addition to me feeling like I was treated like shit, I was treated like I didn’t matter.

Because I was not an “important” person at Marathon Oil, Whiting Petroleum, Occidental, Tesoro, Conoco Philips, Continental Resources, Baker Hughes, Halliburton, or wasn’t a large property investor, or wasn’t a large property developer, I didn’t matter.  However, if enough people read my blog, I do matter, I can tell what happened.

I wanted to point out some things that weren’t right.  Television news, newspapers, and magazines were leading people to believe that anyone could move to North Dakota and make $100,000 per year, which was far from true.  This false information was luring poor, unskilled people from all over the country to come here.  Unprepared for a $1,500 per month apartment, they slept in their cars at Wal-Mart, truck stops, and public camp grounds.  The solution, was to no longer allow people to sleep in their cars at Wal-Mart, truck stops, and public camp grounds.  But these people were already here, and more continued to come.

I want to write enough, so that everybody can know what happened.  As long as nobody knows who I am, I can write what the newspapers can’t write.  I don’t want to have to worry about losing my job, trying to please important people, or trying not to anger influential people.  I want to tell the truth about what happened, and what Western North Dakota is really like.

Thank you for reading my blog.

 

 

Survivalists In Western North Dakota

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Regarding people who stockpile food, water, medicine, guns, ammunition, fuel, generators, etcetera in preparation for a coming disaster or martial law, the comedian Eddie Murphy once said, “That’s real good, unless you’re not home when something happens.”.   That’s where I am at. I had all that stuff back in Idaho, but I’m not there. I’m here working in Dickinson and Watford City.

Some of my friends in Dickinson had a survivalist mind set. We would go camping in the summer, and discuss politics, the future outlook, economic survival, preparations, and other things related to survival. Early on in the survival movement, people focused on supplies, and having everything they thought they might need. As time went on, men who had been in wars, disasters, and prison, began to point out that having supplies might only be 30% of the problem. What you would mostly need in order to survive, would be to understand what would actually happen in your environment in a disaster.

As worried panicked people went to the local stores, due to long lines, shelves emptying, ATMs being out of money, people would just take what they could carry and leave. Within about a day, all stores would be empty of merchandise, with no intention of re-stocking. Probably about 15% of the population in Dickinson, and about 20% of the population in Watford City are men who are workers, who have not really set up a home with a full pantry, they probably only have about a one week supply of food. Though some older residents in town, and some families in town in Dickinson and Watford City have cupboards and closets of food, the people in town would constantly be having to fight off and fight it out with all the single male workers who ran out of food.

The long time residents of Dickinson and Watford City that live in rural areas, have one of the most ideal survival situations. The rural areas of North Dakota are sparsely populated, there are not a lot of people wandering around, especially on one’s own property. There is hardly any bushes or trees, so people can’t sneak onto your property, or up to your house. The rural people already have their own well, septic system, and out house. They probably have their own generator, and have already learned how to survive when the power has gone out for a couple of weeks in the winter during a blizzard. For the people in rural North Dakota, life would return to the way it had been about sixty years ago, except for having to shoot white trash workers from the South every day, for a while.

A few other things that make Western North Dakota an ideal survival location. There are no over crowded inner cities anywhere near here. There would be no mass exodus of savages and gangs from the cities towards the rural areas. Because the landscape is so desolate, and barren, and because it gets so cold here, Western North Dakota would have very few homeless people wandering around in comparison to the other states.

A few tips. In order to make the World a better place for everyone, a World where 1% of the population doesn’t use 20% of the oil, a World where an individual farmer doesn’t personally own 3,000 acres, it may be necessary for the government to make some changes. So when FEMA sets up an emergency operations center at WalMart, and everybody needs to come on down and register, just to make sure you’re O.K., there’s free hot coffee and doughnuts, …don’t go, unless you’d like to live in a work camp in Oregon.

Cursed Land In Watford City, North Dakota

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I am sick again in Watford City. I wrote a previous post titled “Being Sick In Watford City”. In that post, I wrote that I think there must be something wrong with the land that I am working on. I wrote that in a half joking way, but more and more I want to know what this land had been before I got here. I don’t want to give the specific location of where I am working because I don’t want to cause my employer problems and myself problems.

I need to go into the Watford City offices to inquire about what had been here. I don’t know if I should say, ”Hello. I am sick all the time, like I have never before been in my life. I am wondering if the property that I am working on is making me sick. Can you tell me if this property used to be the town landfill or dump? Did they dump a tremendous amount of DDT, Agent Orange, hazardous waste, uranium, or something like that on this property?”

Ever since I got here, a coworker has been saying that this property is cursed. I say to them, “You are just kidding aren’t you, you don’t really mean that do you?” They always reply, “No, I’m serious.”

How I found out about the Haven family murder in Watford City in 1930, was because I was trying to determine what had been on this land. I wrote the post titled “Blood Bath In Watford City”. All five Haven family members were murdered on their farm by the hired man, Charles Bannon, who was hung from a bridge over Cherry Creek. Was I working on the Haven farm? So far, from what I can tell, the Haven farm is ½ mile away from the land I am working on.

I thought that this land might have been a paupers’ cemetery, what they call a “Potter’s Field”. I spent a couple of hours trying to explain to a friend of mine that when a person dies, and their body is not claimed by friends or family, the county will bury them in what is known as a “Potter’s Field”, and there is no marking of the grave, and most often no record of the location of the body. I continued to explain, that as time goes on, everybody gets older, a town expands, and property gets sold. A property gets sold with the buyer being told it had been a “Potter’s Field”, but there isn’t a written record of the number and location of the bodies. The property may get sold again several more times, and no one remembers that the property had ever been a paupers’ cemetery. The land gets built on, with just about nobody remembering what had been there.

I Want To Beat The Chamber Of Commerce In Watford City, North Dakota

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I want to beat the Chamber of Commerce in Watford City, North Dakota. I want to tell people the truth about Watford City. I want people to have correct information before they decide to move here.

On the internet, there are articles titled, “Watford City, The Good Life Awaits”. A more truthful title would be, “Watford City, A Difficult Life Awaits”. I don’t think that it is right to lure people here with false information. Watford City is a small town with less than 5,000 permanent local residents. Most of the permanent local residents are tired of the out-of-state workers, road construction, and new development. If Watford City had had small town charm and friendliness, it got destroyed back in about 2009. The area became completely re-oriented to handle oil field operations and workers. It was like a war or an invasion.

Watford City is very cold and grey from October through April, that’s seven months. There is very little to do, day or night. The only good places to shop are Tractor Supply, and the CENEX gas station. There are very few restaurants, most of them are both bad and high priced. I strongly recommend that no one drink at bars in Watford City. The police are very eager and aggressive in stopping people for speeding and DUI.

One bad thing about Watford City, is that some of the roads were completed in a hurry, they have no street lights, no street signs, no center stripes, no edge of pavement marking, no road shoulders, and no guard rail, just a drop off to thirty feet below.

Another bad thing about Watford City is that there is a shortage of women, and lack of attractive women. The ratio of men to women is about 6 to 1 right now. In order to make things worse, some businesses in Watford City are hiring lesbians, instead of heterosexual women.

Because most of the people from western North Dakota know that there is nothing in Watford City, they will not move here to work. The majority of people in Watford City right now are out of state workers. Most of the out of state workers are poor, many of them white trash, many of them from the South.

Update & Current Information:  In April of 2016, Watford City began making road improvements, which included adding dump truck loads of dirt to the road shoulders on the Disenchanted Highway to make it safer.  By September of 2016, Highway 23 Business on the east side of Watford City was mostly completed, with permanent clear speed limit signs in place.

Due to the large amount of out of state workers, many of them White Trash, Watford City has had to implement strict law enforcement, with many City Police, Sheriffs, and Highway Patrol on duty and being very aggressive in pulling people over for speeding, DUI, suspicious behavior, any reason at all.  This is about the only way to keep large numbers of White Trash under control.  Currently, it is safe for women to be out in Watford City between sunrise to sunset.

Lesbians In Watford City, North Dakota

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There are very few women in Watford City, North Dakota. The ratio of men to women in Watford City is about 6 to 1 right now. During the oil boom, the ratio of men to women may have been as high as 30 to 1, I have read exaggerations of 90 to 1.

For the farmers and ranchers who live here, and for the truck drivers, oil field workers, and construction workers who moved here, there has been a shortage of women for company and dating. I want to know, who is the stupid asshole that keeps hiring all these lesbians?

It has got to be either some government entity, or some medical facility that is hiring all these lesbians. You, the people of Watford City have got to go down there, and say, “What are you doing! You know that there has been a shortage of women in Watford City, what are you doing hiring all these lesbians for?

Is there some lesbian human resources person in town that is hiring all these lesbians so that she can have sex partners available? You people have got to figure out who is doing this. You people in Watford City need to telephone your mayor, and go and speak out at the next city commission meeting.

Ranching And Farming In Western North Dakota

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When I first came to Dickinson, North Dakota, in 2011, I listened to a group of older local people talking.  They were saying, it was a very good thing that this oil boom came along when it did, there were a lot of farmers up around a certain area, (I am not repeating the specific area), that were incredibly poor, that were just struggling, not even getting by, and oh they were so poor, it was good that this oil boom came and saved them.

In this post, I am going to write about four farming and ranching families that I met since 2011, while living and working in Dickinson.

One of the first local people that I became friends with, was a man of about 60 years of age.  He grew up on his parents’ farm north of Dickinson.  His parents had died at least twenty years ago.  I visited his property many times.  He did not have running water or sewer at his home.  His farming equipment was worn out, and always needing repair.  He leased out most of the land to someone else to grow wheat.  There was an oil well on an adjacent property, and he received some oil revenue money from that.  The oil revenue money and the money he got from leasing the land, paid for the property tax and some of his bills.  He borrowed small amounts of money from me, a friend of mine, and another person, when he was broke, which he always paid back.  He worked different jobs.  He had had so little money, that all his teeth were bad, he was missing several front teeth, and he was never able to get his teeth fixed.  Oh, by the way, beginning in 2010 and continuing through 2014, he had been offered up to $2.5 million for his property by developers, which he would not accept.

A local man that I met in 2013, and became friends with, he had grown up on his grandparents’ farm north of Dickinson, he was in his 50s.  His family got their first indoor bathroom built onto their house when he was in the 4th grade.  A few times in the winter, in the entire house, there was no food to eat for the family of seven, they tell me about the time they found one jar of fruit in the basement, that was all they had to eat.  His mother had to pawn her wedding ring several times, eventually she didn’t get it back.  His mother and father both worked outside the home, besides running the farm.  When his parents got into their sixties, they sold the farm and moved to town.  They held the mineral rights to the land that was sold.  In about 2010 the family began receiving oil revenue checks, which the parents and the five adult children used to pay some of their bills.  My friend had never had enough money to get good dental care, all of his teeth are bad, and he is missing many teeth.  He is very ashamed of how he looks.  I got him a job a couple of times working with me.

In 2013, I was working for a contractor that did utility installations.  I had to go to a farm in the South Heart area.  The farmer that I met was in his fifties.  This farmer was alone, he had never married, and apparently he didn’t have any friends, and didn’t ever have anyone to talk to, probably for weeks at a time.  I talked to him for about an hour, even though I was supposed to be other places, because I realized that he didn’t have anyone to talk to.  I came to realize that the reason he had never married, and did not have any friends, was because he and his family had been so poor, nobody had wanted to have anything to do with him and his family.  He was very ashamed of his family house, they had never had running water and sewer installed to the house.  His mother and father were dead now.  He was alone.  Beginning in about 2010, he had a couple of oil wells on his property.  He now had two new trucks.  He had lived poor for so long, he really did not have any use for the oil well money after he bought the two new trucks.

A man that I know in his 30s, has a wife and several young children.  He lives on a ranch in the South Heart area.  Besides running the ranch, he had a full time job, and his wife also works.  He lost his job, and he became broke.  He recently got another job, and he is getting back on his feet.

I wanted to write about these four farming and ranching families to dispel some myths and misconceptions.  Farming and ranching in Western North Dakota is, and always has been very hard.  I am talking about mom pawns her wedding ring hard, one jar of fruit to eat in the entire house hard, having all your teeth go bad and rotting out of your mouth because you can’t afford dental care hard, so poor you can’t get a wife hard, so poor you don’t have indoor plumbing hard.

Note To Jessie Veeder, And Everybody, What Living In Western North Dakota Is Like

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I am still angry after reading Jessie Veeder’s website, “Meanwhile, back at the ranch…”.  Jessie Veeder is from Watford City, she writes weekly newspaper articles about living in Western North Dakota.  She is sometimes a guest on Prairie Public Radio.

I am angry with the comments women have posted to Jessie’s website.  Women from all over the United States have posted comments about how nice it must be living in North Dakota, from what Jessie writes about it.

Jessie writes about living on a ranch, and she takes photographs of horses, flowers, fields, and dogs.  Women read what she writes, look at her photographs, and comment that living in Western North Dakota must be so nice.  Attention Women!, if you are getting the impression that it might be nice to live on a ranch, not have to pay rent, not have to worry about being evicted, not have to go to a job every day, this is not how the fuck it is in Western North Dakota!

Imagine that you are man, you have a wife, a one year old and a four year old.  You have a lease for a two bedroom apartment that costs $2,000 per month.  Your wife does not work because she has to stay home with the kids.  Fisher Industries right now has a job advertisement for welders, paying $18 per hour, yes $18 per hour.  I don’t know if they are working any overtime right now, let’s say they work five, ten hour days.  That’s $990 per week before taxes, about $800 per week after taxes, about $3,200 per month after taxes.

Rent $2,000, utilities $150, cable TV $75, cell phones $50, car insurance $100, car payment $200 (piece of shit car), leaves $625 left over for a family of four, for food and gas each month, if nothing goes wrong.  That’s $21 a day total, for a family of four, for food and gas!  No money for clothes, birthday presents, Christmas presents, vacation, or savings!

Before you try to get smart and say, “You can get a two bedroom apartment now for $1,500 per month.”, people aren’t getting overtime now either, so $18 per hour, 40 hours per week, is $720 per week before taxes, $580 per week after taxes, about $2,320 per month after taxes.  After your $1,500 rent, utilities $150, cable TV $75, cell phones $50, car insurance $100, car payment $200, leaves $245 for food and gas, for the family of four, for the entire month!

On the internet, when you do a Google search for “living in Watford City” or “living in Dickinson”, you get search results back for websites titled, “Watford City, Living The Good Life”, and “Dickinson, Living The Good Life”.  The vast majority of the people in Watford City and Dickinson are struggling financially, and are worried about losing their jobs.

As far as the ranching life goes in Western North Dakota, most of the ranchers that I have known, and currently know, they are struggling financially.  One of these ranchers borrowed money from me several times, and a friend of mine several times, when he was broke.  He had asked to come to work with me.  Other ranchers that I personally know, they have had to rely on their jobs to support their families, and have become broke when they lost their jobs.

I wish that Jessie Veeder would go and talk to the wives that live in the new apartments in Watford City and Dickinson, and talk to them about what their lives are like.  Anyway, I told you, and I am going to keep telling everybody what living in Dickinson and living in Watford City is really like.

 

Jessie Veeder, The Linda Ronstadt Of Watford City

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In Watford City, there is a 32 year old woman named Jessie Veeder, who has recorded about four albums.  She writes songs, takes nature photographs, writes weekly newspaper articles, and sometimes is a guest on Prairie Public Radio.

If I remember correctly, she might have recorded her first album when she was 16 years old.  She was performing then.  When she was several years older, she began touring and playing at small venues.  Her music is described as folk and country.  According to Jessie, her music, writing, and photography, are all about the beauty of rural Western North Dakota.

You can go look at her website titled, “Meanwhile back at the ranch…”.  On her website, Jessie has several hundred photographs of rural Western North Dakota.  The subject matter of her photographs are horses, flowers, dogs, fields, old barns.  You can also read about her music.

In this post, I will acknowledge that Jessie worked hard as a music artist.  She wrote her own songs, recorded albums, toured, and performed.  Somewhere along the way she got a degree in communications and public relations from North Dakota State University.

It is good that Watford City has someone to be proud of, and someone that writes positively about Western North Dakota in the newspaper, and speaks positively about it on Prairie Public Radio.

I don’t want to be too mean about it, but I do want to be mean about it, Western North Dakota has been like being in prison for the vast majority of people for the past eight years.  And before that, it was a cold, barren, desolate, impoverished area.

Jessie, why don’t you take some photographs of the friends of mine from North Dakota whose teeth are rotting out because they never could afford dental care living here in North Dakota, because they were so poor?  Why didn’t you take photographs of all the people living in their cars?  Why didn’t you take pictures of the workers who got burned up on the oil rigs, who got burned up welding tanks, who got electrocuted at a drill site, who died opening an oil tank, who got their hands cut off, their fingers cut off?  Western North Dakota has been a shit-hole hell for the past eight years.  And before that it was poor, cold, barren, and desolate.

Jessie, why don’t you go to the new apartments in Watford City or Dickinson, and talk to the wives who live there.  Ask them how they like paying $2,000 per month for a two bedroom apartment, being on a lease and being scared that their husband is going to lose his job.  How they like having to stay inside their two bedroom apartment October through April, because it is so cold outside and there is no where to go.

Let me point out, that describing a life living on a parent’s farm, not having to pay rent, not having to worry about being evicted, not having to go to a job every day, could make Texas, Tennessee, Idaho, anywhere, seem like a nice place to live.  In Western North Dakota, the vast majority of people are living in overpriced rental housing, are struggling financially, and are in danger of losing their job and their housing.  You should write about how things really are.

Elfin Women In Watford City, North Dakota

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As you may know, Elfin women are prettier than human women. I saw one on Wednesday, and two on Thursday of last week in Watford City. Both times I was going to Taco Johns to get something to eat.

I have been sick for three weeks now in Watford City, and I think that the ground that I am working on has something wrong with it, like it is cursed, or poisonous. It has aged me about three more years in the past three weeks. I don’t feel well at all, and I don’t have any energy, and I don’t feel like mating.

Just like if you are looking for bigfoot, you won’t see one, if you are looking for Elfin women, you won’t see one. It is only when you aren’t thinking about it at all, and it is the furthest thing from your mind that you will see one. This is how it was when I met Miss North Dakota, which I wrote about in a previous blog post. Also, they see you way before you see them, and they can hide before you ever see them, if they want to.

On Wednesday, I parked my truck in the parking lot of Taco Johns, locked my door, turned around, and there one was!, right in the passenger seat of the truck beside me, not two feet away! She looked exactly like the Elfin Princess Liv Tyler, long dark hair, pale white skin, bright eyes. She looked at me just like some tree frog on a branch, and didn’t try to get away. She was barefoot, and had her feet up on the dash, just like you would expect an Elfin woman to do, can’t sit in the front seat of a truck like a human woman.

Not knowing what to do, I went into Taco Johns, and ordered food to go. I thought about it for a few minutes, and still could not figure out what to do. It’s like trying to catch a snake, if you aren’t 100% sure what you are doing, you better just leave it alone. The truck she was in was much nicer than mine. It had a Canadian license plate. She was still there when I went to get in my truck, and she didn’t look at me, which hurt my feelings. But it was because her boyfriend was only a few steps from getting in her truck, and she didn’t want me trying to propose to her right then, and getting into a fight. Like I said, they see you way before you see them.

On Thursday, I went to Taco Johns, I still wasn’t feeling well. When I opened the door and walked in, there were two blonde Elfin girls sitting at a table with some not completely grown high school boys. It is not uncommon for Elfin girls and Elfin women to go places with not completely grown boys. This is because they are safe from the boys they are with, and they are safe from strangers.

The two Elfin girls saw me way before I saw them, and again they were bright eyed and looking at me like tree frogs, with a tree frog smile. After I ordered my food, I looked at them through the window in the partition wall. Like fish in an aquarium sometimes do, they looked back at me. After I got my food, I looked at them as I was leaving, I would have liked to have looked at them longer, but it would have upset the boys, not them.

An older man once told me, “When you have a beautiful woman, and you lose her, you feel bad about it, like you’re never going to find another one. But, you turn over another rock, and look!, there’s another one!”

Blood Bath At Watford City, North Dakota

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On February 10, 1930, five miles east of Watford City on what is now the Disenchanted Highway, 21 year old Charles Bannon murdered all six members of the Haven family. Charles Bannon was a hired man who lived on the Haven farm.

After the murder of husband Albert Haven, his wife Lulia, and their four children Daniel, Leland, Charles, and Mary, murderer Charles Bannon remained on the farm. He invited his father James Bannon to come and work the farm with him.

In the weeks following the murder, the post master complained that the Haven family had uncollected mail piling up. It was noticed that there were some past due bill notices in their mail. No one in the area had seen the Haven family since February 9th. The Sheriff went to the Haven farm, and found Charles Bannon living there. Charles Bannon told the Sherrif that the Haven family had moved to Oregon, and that he was renting the farm.

In the Fall of 1930, when Charles Bannon began selling the Haven livestock and grain, the residents of the area became upset, and the Sheriff  arrested Charles Bannon for larceny. Charles Bannon was taken to jail in Williston, where his mother and his attorney urged him to tell the truth. His first confession was a lie that was not well thought out, he told the location of all the family members’ bodies, but said it was the wife who murdered the family, she paid him to hide the bodies and left. Her body was found also. Finally, Charles Bannon said that he had accidentally shot the eldest son Daniel, and when the family turned on him, he got scared and had to kill them too.

Charles Bannon and his father James Bannon were placed in the McKenzie County jail, only one mile from the Haven farm where the murders had taken place, to await trial. In January of 1931, a well organized mob of 75 men wearing hoods, arrived at the jail. They took the Sheriff  into custody, they cut the phone line, they used a large timber to break into the jail, took the deputy into custody, then broke down the jail cell door. The mob took Charles Bannon out of jail, demanded that he confess the truth, tried to hang him at the Haven farm but were denied access, so the mob hung Charles Bannon from the Cherry Creek Bridge.

Following the lynching, the Governor of North Dakota was very angry about it, and he sent several government officials to McKenzie County to investigate. The North Dakota Council of Churches also investigated. No one would cooperate or identify any of the mob participants. No one has ever been identified, and no one has ever confessed. A state’s attorney living in McKenzie County who later wrote a book about the incident, said that he believed that everyone at the time believed the right thing had been done. Charles Bannon had murdered a woman and young children at the Haven farm. At a previous farm where Charles Bannon had worked as a hired man, that family’s young girls were found dead in their burned down house after the mother and father returned home from going to the movies.

Being Sick In Watford City, North Dakota

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I have been sick for the past two weeks, and I have been especially miserable because I have been working in Watford City.  I didn’t care if I died, it seemed to me like I was already dead, this place is so strange, I must be dead already and I don’t really understand that I’m dead yet.

But just in case I wasn’t dead, I was trying not to get a speeding ticket each time the police tail gated me on the Disenchanted Highway.  If they had pulled me over, I just would have laughed and laughed, you are going to get sick now, sick like me, sick for two weeks, you’ll see, you’ll see what it’s like to be dead.

If it would not have been for the CENEX Gas Station, I would have died.  It was easy to drive up to the gas pump, walk inside and buy some Dayquil and several bottles of Gatorade without being assaulted or raped by the oil field workers, or eaten by the local people, I don’t think they allow that on the CENEX property.  The Cash Wise grocery store parking lot is a different matter, and I didn’t feel like I was strong enough to shop at Cash Wise without something happening to me.

It gives me even more of a headache to look at all the freaky people in Watford City.  I have already written about the White Trash in Watford City, the poor white people from the South that have magically come to work in Watford City, because nobody else will.  I haven’t talked about the weird freaky people in Watford City, the kind of people that make you not want to get out of your car at the gas station or the grocery store parking lot, and say to yourself, “No, I don’t need food that bad, I’ll just go home.”

I think that the weird freaky people in Watford City are a hybrid breed.  I think that some are a cross between Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder father and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome mother.  I think that these hybrids have also bred back with the White Trash.  In any case, they are not very tall, they have pale skin, they have tattoos and piercings, and both the males and the females have effeminate physique with wide hips and fat ass.  They are not indigenous to Watford City, they moved here because of the oil boom.  They can’t do really heavy labor, but they get hired to do jobs that require a lot of driving or working at a cash register.  To say that they are Transgender, does not really even cover it, and I don’t want to.  Go read about determining the sex of Parrots if you want to, then you’ll know what I’m talking about.

In the midst of my sickness, I got a new neighbor.  She is not bad looking, but she is weird, one of the weird freaky people.  She’s a lesbian.  I don’t know why, but Watford City can’t seem to get enough weird freaky people.  Fifty years ago, these people would have gotten arrested, or run out of town in North Dakota for their deviant freaky behavior, but now Watford City can’t get enough of them.

Bigfoot Near Watford City, North Dakota

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In any internet browser, type in “Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization”.  At the top or near the top of your search results should be the website.  Click on the the website.  You can look at their other stuff later, but for now, click on the section titled “Sightings By Region”.  Once that page comes up, you will see a list of all the counties in North Dakota.  You will see that there are Bigfoot sighting reports for McKenzie, McClean, Mountrail, and Ward counties.  These counties are all adjacent to each other.

Go ahead and read the Bigfoot sighting reports for each of these four counties.  Altogether, there were many children and many adults who witnessed the Bigfoots in these counties.  In some instances, the Bigfoots were sighted, day after day, by different witnesses.  Some witnesses were children playing in their yard, people in their homes, people driving down Highway 22. Some of the witnesses observed the Bigfoots for several minutes.  Many tracks were followed.

One of the field researchers for the “BFRO”, was a Vietnam Veteran, USAF pilot, and United Airlines pilot, he interviewed many witnesses for his report.  One of the other field researchers for the BFRO, who completed an entirely different investigation, said that he had more witnesses than he could interview in one day.  The different BFRO investigators concluded from all of the witnesses and evidence that there were quite a few Bigfoots that had been living in the area going back for many years.

Now, just because you don’t see any attractive women in Watford City, doesn’t mean they don’t exist.  In Dickinson, you can look for them on Facebook and find out where they work, but I have noticed in Watford City, the attractive women don’t put their photograph on Facebook.  I have seen one though, no actually I know where you can find three of them, but I’m not going to tell everybody because they will just bother them and scare them away.  Oh, what the hell, I don’t care, they work at the hotels.

Watching Mexican Work Crews In North Dakota

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In a recent blog post, I wrote that I was sorry to see Mexican work crews in the oil fields in North Dakota. I didn’t want to see English speaking workers displaced by cheaper Mexican labor. I didn’t want to see the wage rate go down in the oil fields either. After watching three Mexican work crews recently, I changed my mind.

I have worked construction in Florida, Texas, Colorado, Arizona, Idaho, and North Dakota. One of the biggest problems that I had in construction, was the dirt bag construction workers, the White Trash. Most of the construction workers acted like pirates, trying to do everything except doing the work right, and still wanting to get paid. There were some that took pride in their work, these became foremen and superintendents, but I have seen bad foremen too. In general, it seemed like construction workers felt like they were being wronged, and they weren’t going to give you their best work, especially if they thought you wouldn’t know or find out. Also, it seemed like a rush to get the work done in order to go to the bar, get drunk, get some meth, get some crack cocaine.

These three Mexican work crews that I have been watching are very good. The biggest thing is that they all get along with each other and they work together. The second biggest thing is that they shut up and work. There are about nine of them, and they all work together like bees or ants. They all stay busy at tasks, nobody has to get on anybody, they just work steady and focused. As a sign of how well they work, they all have nicer vehicles than me. It appears that they have a lot of money, because they earn a lot of money getting work done.

Not all Mexicans are like this, but I would give these guys all the work I had if I was an oil company. They are a pleasure to be around. I think that I have learned an important lesson from watching them: shut up, complete the work, and stay out of trouble. Hope I can do it.

Living A Life That You Don’t Want In North Dakota

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At the apartment where I live in Watford City, I have gotten to know some of my neighbors. In the parking lot, the license plates read: Florida, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, Wyoming,Texas. I know that these people don’t want to be here, I don’t want to be here.

I am in my late 40s now, and in Watford City, I often say to myself, “Where has my life gone?”. I am not senile yet, I know how I got here. It all started with me wanting to try to live a happier and better life. I had graduated from a university with a degree in engineering. I had lived in a large city and worked my way up, earning more and more money.  I had saved up enough money to not have to work for three years, I hated the city, and I wanted to move.

I did not want to live in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Tennessee, Kentucky, or Mississippi, because I thought of those states as being “ignorant and backwards”. Every one of those states looks like paradise to me right now. I messed up, I messed up. There was no one telling me and explaining to me that that is my culture, that is where you belong, you won’t fit in or be happy anyplace else. Most of this blog consists of me trying to figure out why the people in North Dakota are so unfriendly, inhospitable, unhelpful, uncooperative, and why the women try to look and act unattractive. Rather than me having to explain it in blog post after blog post, somebody from the South my age would just say, “Well, yeah.”, meaning, you’re not telling us anything we didn’t already know.

When I moved, I moved out West. Some small towns in Colorado were O.K., but there was no place to work. Colorado Springs was too much like the Rat Race that I had left. I lived in some small towns in Arizona, enjoyed them very much, but few places to work. Did not like Phoenix. Lived a few places in Idaho, was ready to settle down, and did. The Mormons in Idaho have a preference for Mormons, and they made it seem to me like I had made a mistake in moving there. I wished that I would have tried living in Montana and Wyoming.

Looking back at my life, it wasn’t a mistake for me to ty to live out West. It seems that I spent too much time in Idaho, when I wonder where the years went, they’re there, wasted amongst the Mormons. The bad economy in Idaho, caused me to go to work in North Dakota. For the past four years, whether in Dickinson, Utah, Texas, or Watford City, it has been small oil field towns where it is hard to find a place to stay or a place to eat. I can’t believe my life has turned out like this.

It is kind of like finding yourself in prison. You do things during the day. You go to eat. You read the newspaper. You watch TV. You read your mail. You exercise. You take a shower. But you’re not going anywhere, you’re not getting out. The people around you are mostly a reminder of your confinement. In Watford City, like prison, you can only dream about the life you once had: Waking up to a warm clear sky, looking out at harbor full of boats, people of different nationalities chattering while walking to the store, red and yellow hibiscus flowers, fig trees, sea grapes, palms, walking to a white sand beach, dogs playing, everyone smiling, everyone happy…. Here in Watford City, the best thing you have is the CENEX Gas Station: Waking up to the sound of trucks idling, the smell of diesel in the air, dirty oil field workers in a hurry to get to a location in order to smash their hand…

Somebody, please go ahead write the comment, “Well if you don’t like it, you can leave!”

A Few Good Businesses In Watford City, North Dakota

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1.  CENEX Gas Station.  The CENEX Gas Station, located right on the Disenchanted Highway, is one of the best businesses in Watford City.  In order to fulfill the need in Watford City, this CENEX Gas Station sells way more than gasoline and diesel fuel.  They have a deli that makes O.K. food.  They have a good selection of the following items that are high quality  (I’m not joking):  Chain saws, safety cones, hard hats, hand tools, power tools, mechanics tools, industrial and household hardware, tractor truck hardware.  For example, they have 36″ long pipe wrenches for sale, how many gas stations have that?  My favorite thing, is that they have a very large selection of Carhart clothing for sale.

For those of you who don’t know, especially people from the South, you can’t wear normal clothing in North Dakota in the Winter, it won’t work.  Winter jackets that you buy in the South, will not work in North Dakota.  There are a few clothing manufacturers that make work clothing, what you might even call industrial work clothing, that is meant to be worn when working outdoors in below 0 degree Fahrenheit weather,  Carhart is one of them.  Carhart makes very good quality jeans, thermal lined jeans, thermal lined overalls, all kinds of good looking work shirts, many types of very warm jackets, and also very very warm jackets.  I have sometimes been depressed working in Watford City, and the only thing that I had to look forward to, was getting off work and buying a new Carhart jacket at the CENEX Gas Station.

At the CENEX Gas Station, the prices are very fair, they are not high.  There are probably about six cashier women, they have all been very friendly.  Reminder: this CENEX Gas Station has probably saved many many dumb asses that came to Watford City not having what they needed, especially winter clothing.

2.  Taco Johns.  I hate Taco Johns everywhere else, because they take a lot longer to make your food than Taco Bell, but in Watford City, I like Taco Johns.  They make the food quickly enough, they are friendly, the food is O.K., and the food does not cost too much.

3.  NAPA Auto Parts.  The parts persons are friendly, and the prices are not high.

4.  Teddy’s Hotel and Teddy’s Lounge.  Currently, the staff is friendly, and the hotel is clean.  This is a new hotel, just a couple of years old.  The furnishings are new, and nice.  There are a few attractive women who work in the Bar/Restaurant, and some nice intelligent women who work there.  Impossible to escape in Watford City, are the oil field workers who know half as much as they should, yet talk twice as loud and twice as much.  At Teddy’s Bar/Restaurant, there is wall that blocks off the bar from half of the restaurant seating area, so that you don’t have to listen to or look at the oil field workers at the bar.  (Most of the oil field companies in North Dakota have greatly reduced their personnel, keeping only their best workers.  Most of the remaining oil field workers in Watford City are silent, tight-lipped, and restrained.  In order to not get into any trouble and keep their job, they keep their mouth shut, go straight home after work, and do not go to bars.  It is only the fools and just-got-heres that don’t know to be quiet, at a nice hotel bar.)

Note To Watford City, North Dakota

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Anyone, anywhere in the World, who does a Google search for “moving to Watford City, North Dakota”, “relocating to Watford City, North Dakota”, or “women in Watford City, North Dakota”, this website appears on the first page of search results.  Soon, the search for “living in Watford City, North Dakota”, this website will appear on the first page of search results.

Everyone will be able to get information about Watford City, from this website.  I am going to provide useful, truthful information about Watford City, so that people will know what it is like.

Women who might come to Watford City, women who work in the oil industry, work in banking, work in accounting, who are company owner wives, or oil field worker wives, would not like the living conditions here, as they are now.  If they were to arrive in Watford City now, they would find completely dark and unlighted streets at night, with no pavement markings, no street signs, no road shoulders, just an immediate drop off to 30 feet below.  Women already feel unsafe at night because the ratio of men to women is about 6:1 in Watford City.  The fear of being out at night is only made worse by roads that are dark, unlighted, with no shoulder.  Getting a car tire even one foot over the edge of pavement could cause their car to be wrecked or stuck, making them vulnerable to being victimized.

You people in Watford City have got this North Dakota attitude, “We like things the way they are.  If you don’t like it, you can leave.”  Fine, everybody is going to leave.  In fact, they just won’t come in the first place.

I will give some more examples of things that are not O.K. the way they are.  I will never forget the day I came back to Watford City, stopping at the UPS Store and getting charged $5.00 to make three black & white photocopies, the young woman in front of me getting charged $105 to mail an envelope.  Going over to a nearby restaurant to eat and walking out because the food looked like slop and cartoons were on the TV at about 130 Decibels.  I should have walked out of the second nearby restaurant that I went to.  There is a saying, “If nobody is at a restaurant, and no cars are in the parking lot, don’t eat there!”

Three times this past week, I saw the Watford City police ticketing people on the Disenchanted Highway, besides being a dangerous road, it is now a speed trap.

I have some advice for the Chamber of Commerce in Watford City, for Watford City business owners, and Watford City government.  Now that the Oil Boom is over, the only possible thing that Watford City has to offer that anybody might possibly want, is a relaxed, peaceful, not-in-a-hurry, small town lifestyle with thousands of acres of undeveloped prairie land nearby.  People want to get out of cities and congested areas, and live in an area with an unspoiled rural landscape.

The stress that you cause people, with your unmarked and unlighted roads with no road shoulders, your speed traps, your terrible restaurants with 130 decibel TV playing cartoons, your “no other choice”  high priced merchants, chases everybody away, people can’t wait to get out of your town.

Update!: Beginning in April of 2016, Watford City began making road improvements, which included adding dump truck loads of dirt to the road shoulders on the Disenchanted Highway to make it safer.  Other road improvements continue.

There are so many Watford City police, that the White Trash are kept under control all the time, it’s almost like they are in jail they are so controlled, they can’t do anything because the police are watching them so close.  So it is safe for women to go out in Watford City from dawn until dark.

Eventually, I might have to re-write this post.

People From The South, and White Trash

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In several recent posts, I wrote that there are a lot of poor people from the South that are working in Watford City, North Dakota.  I also wrote that some of the workers that I have met from the South, are very nearly White Trash.  I want to explain this.

There are no normal people from the South in North Dakota.  If a normal person from the South arrived in North Dakota, they would quickly leave.  In Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, and Tennessee, most normal people can find something to do for a living.  Many jobs in the South are not high pay, but there are other things that are important and make a difference, like being around family, friends, their church, and their community.  Husbands don’t want to be away from their wives and children, and wives don’t want their husbands to be far away from home.  Husbands don’t want to cause their wives to have to move away from their mom and dad, brothers and sisters, and many wives wouldn’t move away from their families.

Normal people from the South find something to do for a living not too far from home.  Family, friends, and their hometown are important to people from the South.  In their hometown, they feel comfortable, at ease, that they belong, that everything is going to be O.K.  Anything that comes up, they know where to go, or who to call.  Every town in the South has a consensus of opinion on acceptable behavior.  Everybody is expected to operate within the bounds of acceptable behavior.

What has always guided acceptable behavior in the South are the Protestant religions, primarily Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterians.  To make it short, you are supposed to stop and think, what would Jesus do?, what would the Apostles do?, what did Jesus teach?  The following people enforced and reinforced appropriate Christian behavior: the mayor, the city judge, the city attorney, the chief of police, the police, the preachers, the teachers, the business owners, the widow women, the housewives, and the farmers.  If you thought that you wanted to behave differently, you were highly outnumbered, and you would suffer the consequences of misbehavior, everywhere.

As towns in the South grew, and people from elsewhere moved in, it became harder for towns to pressure people into appropriate Christian behavior.  Small towns still had the ability to apply a lot of pressure to people to act right.  Even cities like Atlanta still have cultural values that are still predominantly derived from the Protestant religions.

Now, here comes the part about White Trash.  Every town in the South has always struggled with the problem  of White Trash, people that will just not get with the program.  They went to the same elementary school as everybody else, they went to the same Sunday school as everybody else, they have had a talking to by the Chief of Police, and the City Judge more than several times, but they are just always getting into trouble.  The White Trash in the South typically do the following things: shoplift, break into people’s homes, take things out of the back of people’s trucks, beat their wives, drive drunk and crash into other people, deal crack and meth, use crack and meth, litter, shop at WalMart, get into fights at bars, appear on the Jerry Springer show.  They are not wanted in the towns that they come from.  The police and the judges find that there comes a point at which they have to be more and more severe with repeat offender White Trash, everybody is just sick of dealing with them.  One of the intentions and hopes of law enforcement and everybody else, is that the White Trash will just go someplace else and be problem.

When the TV news started talking about, “Anybody can go to North Dakota and make over $100,000 a year in the oil field”, all the White Trash people in the South thought, “$100,000 per year! just think of all the Meth that will buy!”  They couldn’t load their Kia fast enough.

Watford City, I just wanted to let you know, you didn’t get the the normal people from the South, you got the White Trash, or the nearly White Trash people, and me.

Cannibalism In Watford City, North Dakota

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When I was a kid, I visited lighthouses and lighthouse museums on the Atlantic Ocean.  Most of the lighthouses that I visited were built in the 1800s and early 1900s.  Each lighthouse had its own unique spotlight rotation sequence, so that ships at sea could tell which lighthouse they were passing, look at their water depth charts, and know how far from shore they needed to stay in order to not run aground.

On the small, remote island of Hope Town, many of the inhabitants did not want their lighthouse when construction began in the 1800s.  There were frequently ship wrecks off Hope Town because the water was mostly shallow and full of coral reefs for up to one mile from shore.  Besides fishing, and sponging, shipwreck salvaging was the largest industry in that village. The furniture, cookware, dinner ware, and many other household items in many of the homes in Hope Town had come from ships that had foundered on the reefs off Hope Town.

In several recent posts about Watford City, North Dakota, I have written that there is no center of road striping, no edge of pavement marking, no road shoulders, no street lights, and no street signs.  One road through Watford City is very dark, with many curves, its name is not posted, I will refer to it as the “Disenchanted Highway”.  The Disenchanted Highway is very dark, there are no street lights, there is no edge of pavement marking, and at the curves, there is no shoulder.  If your vehicle tire goes off the road one foot, you are headed to the bottom of a ravine 30 feet below.

Do the citizens in Watford City want people to drive off the edge of the Disenchanted Highway, to their death below?  I have noticed that there is no livestock in or around Watford City.  I have noticed that there are no good restaurants in Watford City.  People are scared to go out at night in Watford City.  People from North Dakota will not move to Watford City or work in Watford City.  What does all this mean, Cannibalism!  The people in Watford City are trying to cause people to drive off the road at night so that they can eat them!  The victims are unable to call for help on their phones because they can’t say where they are because there are no street signs!  Stay away!  Stay away!