Tag Archives: Watford City North Dakota

Tiger Salamander In Watford City, North Dakota, Part II

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I didn’t mean to keep everybody in suspense over what happened to the green & black Tiger Salamander that I saw walking down the street nine days ago.  I felt bad for him because he was walking in the middle of the road at less than 1 mph, and I didn’t think that he knew where he was going.  I put him in a cardboard box, and I looked him up on the internet.

Green & black Tiger Salamanders are native to North Dakota.  During the rainy season, once each year, they get out and walk to the pond where they were born, in order to find a mate.  Then they go walking, usually on a rainy night, to go find a place to stay for the Winter.

I read about five internet articles that described what they like to eat, what to do if you want to keep one as a pet, and what they do and where they stay during the Winter.  All the internet articles downplayed the statement, “…or, they go and live in some other animal’s burrow.”

I didn’t know what to do with him.  I did not want to go buy a 15 to 20 gallon aquarium, make dry land, water pond, plant plants, go to the pet store to buy crickets every week, and have to worry about the cat knocking the lid off the aquarium, and the dog knocking over the aquarium.  You can’t change your mind about keeping him in the middle of the Winter, because you can’t take him out of the house and let him loose in the snow and freezing temperature.

When I got up in the morning after keeping him in the cardboard box over night, and looked to see how he was doing, he might have drank some of his water, but he had not eaten any of the hot dog pieces that I had cut up for him.  Later that day, I showed him to a neighbor lady, and she said, “I would like to say that he is cute, but he isn’t.”  I agree, he was creepy and hideous looking, and poisonous.

In the late afternoon, I talked to the person who owns the house where I live in Dickinson, and he said that Tiger Salamanders make good pets, although they don’t do a lot in the Winter, and when they are very active in their aquarium, they stink.  I can believe that, because I detected a stinky smell already.

When it got completely dark that night, I took the Tiger Salamander over to a field that had been in the direction of where he was headed the night before, and let him go.  There were some large dirt piles, brush piles, and debris piles, so he had many hiding places to chose from.  I did not want to take him further away, because I think that he would probably try to walk back to the retention pond to find a mate next Fall.

In the field where I let him go, there were many rabbits and mice.  These rabbits and mice already have holes and burrows.  Mice already have high pitch squeak voices, and I can picture some mouse woman shrieking at him, “Oh no! You’re not staying here!  Get out!”  Of course he’s not going to leave.  Probably for a weak, some mouse woman will be yelling at him, bitching, griping, and complaining non-stop.  Then, everybody will just have to go around him and step over him for the rest of the Winter.

Tiger Salamander In Watford City, North Dakota, Part I

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I have written many times in this blog that you can’t go out to bars and restaurants and drink in Watford City because the police will get you for a DUI right away.  Most of the people who have lived in Watford City for several months find this out, one way or another.  Just like you can’t speed or go over the speed limit in Watford City.  Most of the people just stay home.  The restaurants are not very good and the restaurant staff are weird and crazy anyway.  At the apartment complexes, many of the workers just sit in the parking lot in their trucks, listening to music, browsing the internet, or talking on the phone.  I sit in my truck in the parking lot and look at the internet.

On Labor Day I was sitting in my truck at night and I looked out the window and I saw a green & black reptile walking down the road, and I thought, “This is unusual, and kind of pathetic.”  I got out of my truck and shone my flashlight on him, and he stopped.  He was about ten inches long.  I was thinking what to do, when a Watford City Police Officer drove up and asked me what was going on.

I said to the police officer that those people right there have backed up to the dirt pile to get their four-wheeler out of the back of their truck, they don’t have a ramp, me I am trying to figure out what to do with this lizard, come and look at him.  The police officer came and looked at the lizard and said it was not native to North Dakota, someone must have had it as a pet and let it go.  The police officer left.

I took a large plastic salad bowl and put it over top of the lizard while I went to the trash dumpster to get a cardboard box.  I came back with a box and nudged the lizard to get in the box, which he did.  I put him in the backseat of my truck, and I looked him up on the internet.

I read about five articles about him.  He is a Tiger Salamander.  This particular kind that is green with black stripes, is very common in North Dakota.  How do they keep from freezing?  When they get frost on their skin, their liver starts secreting an anti-freeze into their blood stream.  In the winter, they find a place to hibernate deep in the rocks, deep in a dead tree, or in some other animal’s burrow.

In the rainy season, once each year, they walk to the pond where they were born, and try to find a mate.  When it is raining in the Fall, like it was on Labor Day, they go walking to find a good place to stay for the winter.

Where the new apartments are in Watford City, there had been a pond, but everything got changed and moved around.  It looked like this Tiger Salamander could have been at the new retention pond, because he was headed in the opposite direction from the new retention pond.  Everything was now so built up with buildings and roads, I don’t know how he even survived, especially because he was now walking down the street.

Most of the internet articles said that Tiger Salamanders live about twelve to fifteen years, and that they grow up to thirteen inches in length.  They like to eat crickets, worms, and other bugs.  If you keep them in an aquarium, they need at least a fifteen gallon aquarium with both water and dry land.

One website had a bunch of people that were very enthusiastic about Tiger Salamanders.  One woman wrote that she petted one and kissed one, then got sick, the sickest that she had ever been in her life, and that she had to sit on the toilet for several hours, with a garbage can in front of her.  Tiger Salamanders secrete a toxin through their skin which is poisonous, in order to ward off predators.  Eating their tail is supposed to be fatal.

I went looking for worms to feed him, but it was too cold for worms to be out, and I didn’t find any.  I took him in the box up to the apartment.  I took the large cap off of two Gatorade bottles, in one cap I put water, in the other cap I put some pieces of hot dogs, and I put his water and food in his box.  Because he was from North Dakota, I decided to name him Chancey Williams, after Chancey Williams who is a musician who performed at the First On First Dickinson concert this summer.  Yes, that is the correct spelling.  I felt like it was more appropriate to name a poisonous salamander that was walking down the street Chancey, instead of Chauncey anyway.

If You Have To Leave Dickinson Or Watford City To Go Work Out Of State, Part II

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I am writing these two blog posts, Part I & Part II, about having to leave North Dakota and go work or look for work out of state because this information is necessary now.  There are very few job openings in western North Dakota right now.  I spent this Labor Day weekend in Watford City, and it was like a ghost town.  On Sunday and Monday, the long drive into town on 25 mph Hwy 23 Business, I might have seen one or two other vehicles

In my previous blog post, Part I, I wrote that I recommend taking a truck or SUV out of state instead of a car if you are able, because you will be safer in a larger vehicle.  I wrote that you should have some kind of sturdy trunk or lock box, chained to a car seat.  You are going to need to take your social security card, birth certificate, laptop computer, check books, firearm, and extra cash with you, so you had better have a lock box to put things in, and one that a thief can’t break your vehicle window and take.

I also wrote in my previous blog post, Part I, that you should plan on sleeping in your vehicle while you are traveling to get where you are going, rather than trying to stay in a motel every night.  Once you get to where you are going, you had better be constantly observing what kind of neighborhood you are in.  Before you get to where you are going, you need to look at a map closely and make note of all the little towns that surround where you are going.

For instance, surrounding Dallas there are the smaller suburbs of Euless, Richland Hills, Westlake, White Settlement, Watauga, and many others.  Some of the areas around Dallas are really bad, and you needed to know where they were so you could avoid them, or if you drove into a bad area accidentally, you would know how to get back to a safe area.  At first, not knowing my way around Dallas, I stayed in an extended stay motel about twenty miles north of Dallas in the smaller college town of Denton.

If I ever have to go to work in a big city again, I would try to stay at an older mom & pop motel a good ways outside of the city.  The new extended stay motels that have been built in and around cities for workers that are just arriving or only staying for a couple of months, they cost about $700 per week, $2,800 per month, which is too much, especially if you don’t have a job.

An older mom & pop motel outside of a city will probably cost less, and if you explain to the owners or managers what you are trying to do, and you do what you said you were going to do, find a job, the owners understand that you are not there to party or deal drugs, and can be very reasonable on weekly rent.  I stayed at a mom & pop motel owned by a Korean husband & wife in Colorado for several months, and at a mom & pop motel owned by a Mormon husband & wife in Arizona for several months.  The motel owners were always there, they knew what was going on, who everyone was, and it was very safe, secure, and inexpensive compared to new extended stay motels, or apartments.

Yes, I stayed at older mom & pop motels for months.  I really enjoyed staying there.  I was in a new city, I didn’t know what the city was like, what the people were like, where I would find a job.  But I didn’t have to worry about high rent, rent deposit, a lease, or utilities.  When I did start a new job, I knew when managers or co-workers started acting pushy or crazy, “O.K., start acting crazy, I don’t care, I’ll just leave.”  And I could just leave.

I mentioned in my previous blog post that you do not want to bring your wife, girlfriend, or children with you when you go to work out of state.  At first while traveling, you will be sleeping in your vehicle to save time and money.  Then, when you get to where you are going, you need to find an older mom & pop motel, and explain to the managers or owners what you are doing, your family is back home, you are by yourself.  Your wife or girlfriend would not want to stay in an older motel outside of a city.  Your wife or girlfriend may think that you need to get an apartment.  No!  Absolutely Not!

When you have to go to work away from home, your financial outlook is probably not good.  You need to quickly find a job, spend as little money as possible, and start saving money.  When you begin a new job, management and co-workers may not like you.  You may not be smart enough, knowledgeable enough, quick enough, good enough, or well liked.  You could lose your job in a week, or a month, and not ever see it coming.  So save your money, spend as little money as possible.  Do not sign an apartment lease!  You have no idea what is going to happen with your employment.  Let your wife and children stay back in North Dakota if at all possible.  Depending on what happens in the first city that you try, you may have to try to find work in a different city, or in a different state.

If You Have To Leave Dickinson Or Watford City To Go Work Out Of State, Part I

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For the past seven months while working in Watford City, I have seen several of my neighbors move out and move away each month because they lost their job. During the past several weeks I have been looking at the internet job site Indeed.com, and the North Dakota Job Services website, for job listings in Watford City and Dickinson, and there are very few jobs.  Yes, there is a similar job advertisement for Registered Nurses that gets repeated over and over, but there always is.  Lately there is usually a job listing for a heavy equipment mechanic, an electrician, a welder, and a truck driver, and I mean one listing for one position.  The amount of jobs advertised for Watford City and Dickinson is probably the same as, or less than Bismarck, Fargo, or Billings.  At this time, more of the out of state workers will have to return home, start over again in some other city away from home, and maybe even some local Watford City and Dickinson residents will have to leave and go to work out of state.

I want to give some recommendations and warnings to people who are not experienced in having to leave home and go to work out of state, and give some reminders to those who do have to have to look for work out of state from time to time.

I can not warn North Dakotans strongly enough that it will not be easy or safe going to look for work out of state.  When I went to look for work in Dallas, Texas in 2012, the very first night that I was there in a motel, someone took a utility knife, shoved the blade in my truck tire and broke it off.   I believe that it was this angry black guy, who somehow didn’t like the Idaho license plate on my truck, thinking that Idahoans were racist.  People in Texas don’t even know where Idaho is on the map.  If you recall from the national news in July of this year, a black man shot six white police officers in Dallas.  You had better believe me that in Dallas and Houston, which are about 40% Black, that they don’t like Whites, and that they will rob you and assault you as if you were in Somalia, especially, especially because you are White and have a North Dakota license plate.

You need to obtain a concealed weapons permit while you are still in North Dakota, before you leave to go to try to find a job in states like Texas, Arizona, Colorado, or Florida.  Most states honor other states’ concealed weapons licenses.  Traveling in an area with an out of state license plate, being unfamiliar with the area, is very dangerous.  When you are driving, at a gas station, at a restaurant, or at a motel, you are very likely to be the victim of robbery or a theft.  If you are from North Dakota, I don’t know how I am going to make you understand how prevalent crime is outside of North Dakota, and how likely you are to be victimized while traveling out of state.  You need to have a firearm on your person, and in your vehicle, but you need to have a concealed weapons permit because you are more likely to be stopped by the police and have your vehicle searched with an out of state license plate.

When you go to work or look for work out of state, I recommend that you take a truck or SUV instead of a car if possible, bigger is better up to a point.  There are several reasons for this.  One, when you are in traffic and unfamiliar with the roads and highways, people will let you change lanes and try to stay out of your way more when you are in a larger vehicle.  Two, when you are unfamiliar with roads in an area, and you make a mistake, with a larger vehicle people make an extra effort to move out of the way and not get hit with your vehicle.  Three, if you have an accident, with a larger vehicle you are more likely to have a vehicle that has survived the accident and you can continue trying to find work, rather than having a car that is destroyed and having to take a bus back to North Dakota.

What I have done for the past fifteen years, whether in the backseat of my truck or the backseat of my SUV, I have a large sturdy trunk which has a padlock, and the padlock has a chain which locks the trunk to a seat frame.  A thief would have to break my vehicle window to unlock the door, but the thief could not carry away the trunk because it is chained to the seat, and it would make a lot of noise and take a while to beat the trunk open.  What crack heads and meth addicts are looking for, are certain items that are easy to grab out of vehicles, typical items in plain view:  pocket book, wallet, check book, CD collection, radar detector, laptop computer, briefcase.  I try to keep valuables and things that I don’t want to get stolen, locked in the trunk in the backseat.

I hope you know that you are going to have to sleep in your vehicle mostly when you are going to work or looking for work out of state.  When you are driving a long way, it is better to pull into a rest area and sleep for a while when you get tired, and when you feel like driving again, drive.  Planning on staying in a motel while trying to get somewhere is like planning on wasting time and wasting money.  If you try to get your money’s worth out of your motel, you are just wasting time there.  It doesn’t matter that you are wrinkled when you are trying to get where you are going, and if you look a little rough it probably actually keeps people away from you when you are traveling.  You do want to get cleaned up as much as you can before you meet people regarding your employment.

I didn’t say anything about it, because I wasn’t thinking about it because I am not married, you don’t want to bring your wife or girlfriend with you when you are going to look for work out of state, because it will not be fun or pleasant.  If your family’s financial outlook is bad enough to where you have to look for work out of state, you don’t want to take your wife or girlfriend with you and try to make it a pleasant trip, because it will cost you about four times as much: stopping at restaurants for breakfast, lunch, and dinner; staying at a “nice” motel every night.

I will cover this in more detail in Part II, but you absolutely need to leave your wife and children behind when you go to work out of state, and for at least several months after you begin working.  If you don’t do it this way, you will very likely end up worse off than if you hadn’t gone to work out of state at all.

I Am Going To Become The Person In Watford City That Drives 25 mph And Holds Up Traffic

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When I first wrote this blog post in September of 2016,   I wrote, “I am going to become the person in Watford City that drives 25 mph and holds up traffic.  I don’t want to, but I have to.  The police are making me.”

I was complaining that whenever I tried to go into town on Highway 23 Business, the speed limit was not clearly posted, the speed limit changed daily, it was usually 25 mph, but you couldn’t tell for sure.  When I would drive 30 mph into town, the people behind me would tail gate me, yet I knew that the police in Watford City were very aggressive in stopping people for going even 5 mph over the speed limit.  I would have liked to just pull over to let the tailgaters pass me, but I couldn’t because of the high concrete curb.

I hated driving into Watford City because of the tailgaters and the police.  Driving home that day on Highway 23 Business going 30 mph, I had twelve vehicles backed up behind me, but an oncoming Watford City police Suburban put their radar on me, and came to a stop in the road, in order to make a U-turn, to give me a speeding ticket.  The police Suburban was not able to get turned around because there were twelve vehicles behind me.

I wrote that I liked going into Watford City to go to the Jack & Jill grocery store, Tractor Supply, and Taco Johns, but the Watford City police were being so aggressive in wanting to pull people over for speeding or any reason, that I should probably just stay home.  I already knew that you absolutely had better not go out to bars and restaurants in Watford City at night and have any alcohol because you will very likely get pulled over by the Watford City police, they are so aggressive in stopping everyone for anything.

In October of 2016, permanent, clear, speed limit signs got posted on Highway 23 Business entering the east side of Watford City.  The speed limit signs go from 45 mph on the outskirts of town, to 35 mph just outside of town, to 25 mph as you enter town.  The Watford City police began being not over aggressive in speed limit enforcement on Highway 23 Business on the east entrance into Watford City.

I had been complaining that I was sick of the Watford City police being so aggressive in wanting to pull everyone over in Watford City.  I later wanted to go back and edit this blog post because I recognize, and want to acknowledge that it has to be like this in Watford City.  I want to explain why the police in Watford City have to be so aggressive in trying to stop everyone.

I was born and grew up in the South.  I lived in the South until I was about 3o years old.  I lived in Watford City for ten months.  I saw that most of the workers in Watford City were poor people from the South, many of them White Trash.

I know with 100% certainty, that due to the large amount of poor workers from the South, about 5,000 of them, if the Watford City police were not very aggressive in stopping drivers, getting their local address, checking for outstanding warrants, looking for alcohol, drugs, and weapons, that Watford City would be over run with every type of misbehavior and crime.

The only reason why there are not a tremendous amount of traffic accidents, robberies, burglaries, assaults, shootings, destruction of property, drug overdoses, drug addictions, drug trafficking, and gangs in Watford City, is because the Watford City police, McKenzie Sheriff, and Highway Patrol are very aggressive in Watford City in following people, running their license plates, stopping people and getting their local address, putting their information in, checking for warrants, looking the people over, looking their vehicles over, looking for drugs, weapons, and being alert and detecting illegal activity.  If you want to be able to live in Watford City without crime, you have to go along with this and put up with this.

 

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.

Watford City and the Mexicanification of Work

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When I went to work for an oil field service company in Dickinson, North Dakota in 2011, I asked the foreman why there weren’t a lot of Mexicans working in the oil field in North Dakota.  He said, “Because that is the way we want it.”  He did not feel the need to say anything else.  I had asked the question for several different reasons, he knew that, his answer just about covered everything.

When I was living in Arizona in 2005, I met a man named Todd who was 55 years old.  When Todd was in his twenties, he dropped out of Northern Arizona University, to work hanging drywall.  He got paid a little over a dollar per sheet, and he found that he could make $12-$14 per hour.  Todd liked hanging drywall, he was good at it, he was making good money.  By the time Todd was 30 years old, he was married, he had a young son, he owned a tri-plex home, he owned the the lot next to it, and he owned his own drywall business.  Things were going well for Todd.

Sometime in the 1990s, Todd started to have difficulty in his drywall business.  He was often under-bid on drywall contracts by competitors who were using mostly Mexican labor.  The Mexicans worked for less money.  By year 2000, Todd’s drywall company was out of business.  Todd could not even get a job as a drywall worker.  Companies said to Todd, “For the pay you want, I could hire two Mexicans.”

When I met Todd, he had lost everything, the only thing he had left was a 1990 Ford F350 that he had bought new, that was all he had left.  In the United States, roofers, framers, drywallers, painters, and concrete workers used to make enough money to own a home and support a wife and kids.  The Mexican workers accept less pay because the cost of living in Mexico is less, they send their earnings back to Mexico, and they themselves just rough it out here, with many people in the same apartment or trailer.

In Dickinson, back in 2011, it was recognized that these oil field related jobs were high enough paying, for men to support a wife and kids, and to have enough money left over to buy a truck, maybe a house, the way it used to be, the way it should be.  Nobody wanted to see this high wage rate messed up by cheap Mexican labor getting a foot in the door.

Somehow, the temptation was too great for building contractors in Dickinson.  Maybe not enough help was available.  A lot of concrete contractors in Dickinson began to use Mexican labor.  However, every oil field company in Dickinson persisted in using English speaking workers, even to this day.

Things are different in Watford City.  I wrote a previous post titled “Watford City Revisited”, where I stated that Watford City is so difficult to live in, not even North Dakotans will live in Watford City.  I wrote that many of the workers in Watford City are poor people from the South.  It gives me a little comfort to talk to people in Watford City that are from the South, but only a little, because a lot of these people from the South that are in Watford City, are very nearly White Trash.  They are White Trash that have decided that they want to work regularly, for the time being, unless you’ve got some Meth.

I am not really surprised that there are a lot of Mexican workers here in Watford City.  Conditions here in Watford City are very harsh, I believe that it is hard to get workers here.  But what I was surprised to see, and it alarmed me, that here in Watford City, they are having gangs of Mexicans working for oil field service companies.

I want to caution Watford City, that you are making a big, big mistake.  Once cheap Mexican labor gets its foot in the door, many more Mexicans will follow, and the English speaking workers will be displaced.  If there is a shortage of women in Watford City now, just wait until you have five Mexican males living in every apartment and trailer.  When the English speaking men are displaced from their jobs by less costly Mexicans, you will have a workforce that that makes no attempt to bring their wife and kids to Watford City, and makes no attempt to buy a home in Watford City.

Watford City, you had better watch what you are doing.  I don’t know what you did with all that oil field money, that you should have used to make road centerline markings, edge of pavement markings, street signs, street lights, road shoulders, but everybody notices that it isn’t there.  Nobody wants to drive in Watford City at night, edge of pavement not marked, no shoulder, just a deep chasm to make certain your vehicle is totaled.  You are also just about to ruin the high wage rate in the oil field for all of North Dakota.

Watford City Revisited

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Now that I have three jobs, I have to spend part of my time living and working in Watford City, North Dakota.  I have had to stay in Watford City before, and I have written about it before in this blog.

Though I have written a lot of bad things about Dickinson, Dickinson is nicer than Watford City.  I wish that I was back in Dickinson right now.  I could be walking the track at the West River Community Center.  I could be choosing between a variety of mediocre restaurants.  I could be driving on roads with pavement markings, street signs, and shoulders.

If I am “lucky”, my job in Watford City will last four or five months.  I want to be careful what I say, I don’t want to make a hasty decision, so for now, I will just say that Watford City is a shit hole.  Every bad thing that they have in the oil field towns in Utah, Texas, and Williston, they have here in Watford City.

Number one, here in Watford City, there is a shortage of women, and a lack of attractive women.  The ratio of men to women here is probably 6:1.  This is such a horrible place, that many of the workers here are from the South, from very poor areas, the North Dakotans won’t even live in Watford City.

I had to do some errands around town during the day, I had to wait in a couple of businesses with a few young women from the South.  They weren’t glamorous women, they were short and stout, they weren’t ugly, they weren’t pretty either.  They were brave, to attempt to live in Watford City, and to go out and do errands.  If I were them, I would just break down and cry.  I’m about ready to cry.

In Dickinson, women from North Dakota act hostile, angry, and unfriendly because they think some out-of-state worker is going to rape them.  In Watford City, the girlfriends and wives of the oil field workers have a look on their faces, like they know they are going to die, and they have come to accept it.  They get out of their car, and walk into the BBQ restaurant to pick up their to-go order, like it might be the last thing they will ever do.

I talked to some of the women from the South.  They are so fucking scared, that they will talk to you, they are so relieved that you are not going to rape them and kill them.  When I tell them that I live in Dickinson, and Dickinson is more normal than Watford City, like having street lights and places to go, their eyes light up, they are “all ears”, like you are talking about some wonderful place, and they wished that they lived there.

At the UPS store in Watford City, the young woman ahead of me in line, wanted to send a 9″x12″ envelope for next day delivery.  The clerk said,”That will be $105.”  The young lady said are you serious, for that little thing?  Isn’t there something cheaper?  The young lady went ahead and paid the $105 on her debit card.  (That is a day’s pay back where she comes from.).  I handed the clerk three sheets of paper to copy, she put them on the document feeder, three copies came out.  The clerk said that will be $5.00.  I said that’s ridiculous, are you kidding?

Through my Facebook Page, “Dickinson NorthDakota”, I am going to try to contact the Chamber of Commerce in Watford City, to remind them what a shit hole town they have.  I want to let the Chamber of Commerce know, that just like Dickinson, I can get every internet search for “living in Watford City”, “moving to Watford City”, “working in Watford City”, “women in Watford City”, “corruption in Watford City”, to show my site at the top of the first page of search results.  Every oil field company, construction company, business, worker, girlfriend, and housewife will read about Watford City, and not want to come here.

You really need to fix your town, it is horrible.  One of the worst places I have ever been.