Tag Archives: would you move to Dickinson North Dakota

Does ND District 37 Know Or Care How Inappropriate And Corrupt It Looks?

On Saturday January 7, I saw a Facebook post made by former North Dakota Representative Luke Simons, explaining that the ND District 37 Republican Committee was having a District reorganization meeting this morning at 10:00 a.m. at the Blue 42 Sports Bar & Grille in Dickinson. Luke Simons’ complaint was that he had not seen or heard any notice beforehand that this meeting was taking place, as if there was an attempt at secrecy going on.

I read the Dickinson Press newspaper every day. Most articles, notices, and announcements are repeated in the Dickinson Press newspaper for several days, but I never saw an announcement for the ND District 37 Republican Committee meeting. Nor did I see any announcement on Facebook, or anywhere else. I have to agree with Luke Simons, this does look like there was no notification published where ordinary citizens would see it, as if they didn’t want ordinary citizens to know.

This lack of notification, may in itself not seem so bad, but if you become aware of a few more elements involved here, it gets worse. Back on September 20, 2022 former ND Representative Luke Simons obtained a copy of the ND District 37 Republican Party by-laws. In reading these by-laws, Luke Simons discovered several elements which appear to be inappropriately exclusionary:

    • In order to become a member of ND District 37 Republicans, and vote at District 37 Republican Committee Meetings, for such things as election of officers, you must first present yourself in-person at a meeting.  But how can you present yourself at a District 37 Republican meeting in-person, if there is no Public Notice beforehand when and where these meetings will be held?
    • When you present yourself at a ND District 37 Republican meeting, and pay your $60 dues, you can’t vote at that meeting, not until your application has been reviewed and approved at a later date after the meeting is over.
    • A person’s ND District 37 Republican Party membership application can be rejected, at the discretion of the ND District 37 Committee.
    • A person’s ND District 37 Republican Party membership can be revoked, for such reasons as “putting the Republican Party in a bad light”, at the discretion of the ND District 37 Republican Committee.

In my opinion, the absence of a clear Public Notice ahead of time when & where the ND District 37 Republican Committee meeting will take place, combined with the necessity of going to this meeting to be able to join the ND District 37 Republicans, not being allowed to vote at the ND District 37 Republican Committee meeting until the next meeting, if your application is approved at the discretion of the Committee, if your membership isn’t revoked at the discretion of the Committee, are barriers that attempt to block, control, and limit who participates in Dickinson politics.

Further, this ND District 37 Republican Committee meeting held at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday morning, was held at a Bar & Grille owned by the District 37 Republican Committee Chairperson, Mike Lefor.  Chairperson Mike Lefor and the other Committee members might have felt comfortable at the Blue 42 Sports Bar & Grille, it may have been convenient for them, but I question the appropriateness of this location for several reasons:

What if a group of Republicans in Dickinson, say for example Evangelical Christians, did find out where the ND District 37 Republicans were having a meeting, arrived on time, completed their application for membership, paid their membership dues, were approved for membership, weren’t revoked, and had the intention of challenging Mike Lefor in voting for a new chairperson, or bringing opposition to a position Mike Lefor supported.  Is opposition to Mike Lefor or his positions possible in Mike Lefor’s restaurant, with his customers, supporters, bar staff, wait staff, cooks?

It’s probably convenient and comfortable for the ND District 37 Republicans to have their Committee meeting at Blue 42 Sports Bar & Grille, owned by their Chairperson, in part because it’s just one more additional barrier to the Committee members being opposed.  But in my opinion, this shouldn’t be, there can’t be such a strangle-hold on participation in politics in Dickinson.

Why am I reporting this, why am I pointing this out, why am I explaining this?  Maybe because the Dickinson Press newspaper office in Dickinson is owned by the ND District 37 Republican Committee Chairperson Mike Lefor, and you aren’t going to hear about this anywhere else.

There is much, much more to the story about politics in Dickinson.  This is just the tip of the iceberg.  With the help of either the ineptitude or blind-eye of the Dickinson Press newspaper, there is so much going on in Dickinson that has crossed the line of small-town politics into what should be half a dozen different investigations by the North Dakota Attorney General or the U.S. Justice Department into legal impropriety.

A tangled web, but not so tangled that its strings can’t be seen for where they start, where they meet, where they end:  Federal funding, State funding, County funding; Federal legislation, State legislation, County legislation; Advance planning, scheming, support, politicking, alliances, collusion, strong-arming, manipulation, quid-pro-quo, payoffs; individuals, businesses, organizations, associations, non-profits, committees, commissions, directors, employers, employees; all part of and involved in transactions that cross the line of legality, into illegal, improper, unethical activity.

The Nicest Vehicle For Sale In Dickinson North Dakota

On Tuesday evening I drove my 1994 Toyota Land Cruiser to the Upin Thai restaurant in Dickinson to pick up a Red Curry Chicken that I had ordered. I bought this vehicle in 2014 in Bismarck from the owner of Bearscat Bakery for $4,500. Since then, after driving and learning more about it, I have been in love with Land Cruisers.

From time-to-time I look on BisMan Classifieds for Toyota Land Cruisers for sale, and I bought two more 1992 models that were located in Bismarck, one in 2016 and the other in 2020. I even used to look for them on nationwide salvage vehicle auction websites, because they can withstand substantial front end or rear end damage and still run & drive fine.

For readers who are not familiar with Toyota Land Cruisers, the Toyota Motor Company intentionally and knowingly over-built Land Cruisers in comparison to its other vehicles which were already good quality, so that they would be trouble-free in very remote harsh environments such as Vietnam, Thailand, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Phillipines, Africa, Australia, South America, and the Middle East.

In almost every country on Earth, male children and adults know what Toyota Land Cruisers are, not necessarily as a status symbol, but as a way to get to or from some place that is very difficult to reach. The U.S. is likely the only country where most people do not know what a Land Cruiser is, because U.S. roads are modern and in good condition.

I was very surprised on Tuesday night, to see a 2001 Toyota Land Cruiser for sale, across the street from the Upin Thai restaurant in Dickinson, North Dakota:

The empty lot where this Toyota Land Cruiser was parked, which actually turned out to be the Lexus/Luxury version, is owned by Ray’s Auto Electric. At the end of this video, the contact phone number shown on the passenger-side window is for Ray’s Auto Electric. In 2018 I bought a 2000 Toyota 4Runner on this lot from Ray’s Auto Electric, that has been a good vehicle for me. This 4Runner had come from an auto auction needing some repair that was done by Ray’s before I got it.

The reason why I am saying that this is the nicest vehicle for sale in Dickinson right now, is because it is. Though it currently has 207K miles on it, and an asking price of $13,500, over the next ten years and 200K miles, it should only need normal maintenance like oil changes, brakes, and maybe a fuel pump. Upon further research, this 4.7 liter V8 engine does have a timing belt, not a timing chain, and it is strongly recommended that the timing belt be replaced every 90K miles.

At the end of ten years and another 200K miles, it should be worth about $5K-$10K because its body & chassis will still be solid, and its engine & transmission serviceable. ( Some 1990s Land Cruisers with over 200K miles currently sell for 60% of their original price. )

Altogether you would get a very safe, reliable, comfortable, good looking vehicle with only $8K total depreciation over ten years and 200K miles.

In comparison, a new Jeep Wrangler, Jeep Cherokee, Chevy Suburban, Ford Explorer, Ford Bronco, or a new Dodge truck would experience about $30K-$40K depreciation over ten years and 200K miles. And be more likely to require an expensive repair along the way.

Please read this much better article by someone else:. “Why I Chose A Used Lexus LX470 Versus A Brand New Ford Bronco” https://www.insidehook.com/article/vehicles/used-lexus-lx-470-review

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRqrr1cq/

Talking To A Local Business Owner Who Is Leaving North Dakota

In 2013 when I returned to Dickinson, North Dakota after working and living in Texas for a year, two older acquaintances of mine recommended to me that I visit a particular business in this area, because they thought that it was a very unique and interesting place. Over the next eight years, I heard other people talking about this business, I saw a few mentions of it in regional newspapers, and posts about it on Facebook.

It wasn’t until the summer of 2021 when I began taking motorcycle rides that had no purpose other than sightseeing and exploring, that I first visited this business that I had been hearing about for years. The building was not a disappointment or a let-down, it was as unusual and unique as everyone had described. The owner was an interesting and likable person, and I wished that I would have visited this place sooner.

There were a few reasons why I didn’t stop at this business in the 2014-2020 timeframe, mostly having to do with this blog that I write. I had written about a young woman that I liked, she sometimes came here, and I didn’t want to run into her. I was not wanting a confrontation with her, nor for her to get the idea that I was stalking her. Then, in 2016 I wrote a blog post article defending a 20 year old young man in Dickinson, who in my opinion was being over vilified for having sex with a young high school girl. This article of mine enraged some women, who in addition to loudly criticizing this article and me, began to organize, collaborate, and make plans against me.

It became apparent, that people, groups, and businesses who looked me up on Facebook, whose profiles showed up under “People You May Know”, were just as likely or more than likely a potential enemy, rather than a friend. Viewing some of these Facebook pages and profiles, I could see negative comment threads regarding me and my blog post articles. This business that I had wanted to visit, a few of its employees and associates had looked me up on Facebook, so I stayed away. not knowing whether they were interested in hearing what I had to say, or hated me.

When I finally did visit this business in the summer of 2021, I had a chance to speak to the owner without having given my name, or much information about myself. He had some of the same interests as me, and I talked with him for more than an hour. I believe that by the time I left, he probably figured out who I was. I was glad that I had been able to meet and talk to him, without my reputation preceding me, or anyone clamoring to lash out at me. But I did realize that I should rarely or never come back here.

When I later read a Dickinson Press newspaper article from back around 2013, which was an interview with this business owner and his wife explaining who they were, where they had come from, how they bought this business, what they had done to it, what they planned to do with it, I realized that I had mistakenly thought that this building had existed in this condition for many years. I had thought this building was used for this purpose since the 1930s or 1950s, I had no idea the amount of restoration and re-purposing work he and his wife had put into it.

They didn’t just take over a business, they built this business. This wasn’t just a business purchase for them, this was a complete life change for he and his wife, something that they had been contemplating and looking into for several years, before moving to North Dakota to buy this property and begin renovations that took three years to complete, doing most of the work themselves. They were not wealthy people, they put everything they had into this, all of their own money and what money they could borrow. All of the money had to go towards building materials, there was not enough money to hire contractors, they did the work themselves.

One week ago, I was shocked and stunned when I saw on Facebook that this business was for sale. This was their dream, this was their life, they’ve been building this business for the past twelve years, how can they sell this?

I talked to one of my coworkers about this, he already knew, other people had told him. I talked to one of the City Commissioners about this, he already knew also.

I immediately wanted to ask this business owner what happened, why was he doing this. I would have asked his wife if she was there instead of him. I had to wait until I wasn’t working, and go there when it was not a busy time of day for them.

A couple of days ago I went to this business at about 3:00 p.m., and there was only one other customer, who was not currently engaged in conversation with the owner. The owner instantly recognized me, partly because I was carrying a motorcycle helmet, and he asked me if I was riding my BMW motorcycle. I told him yes, he could ride it if he wanted to.

He probably would have taken my motorcycle for a ride, had it not been for the other customer, who now came over to join the conversation. Out of politeness, and knowing the other customer much better than me, he kept the conversation mostly in line with what this other customer was familiar with.

Soon, I said that I had seen the advertisement for this business being for sale, why was he selling? He explained about his wife and kids, a kind of logistical inconvenience. When he said that he had already moved to a different state, his wife and kids were there now, I knew that there was more to this. It would have been easier to move a few miles to solve the problems that he had described, not move to an entirely different state.

I said that where he had moved, was being over-run with Californians, didn’t he know that North Dakota was the last safe place? The things that I began explaining, he knew what I was talking about, but he didn’t add to my analysis. I hadn’t meant to be rude or inconsiderate, but I hadn’t realized that the other customer wasn’t following along. I had kind of misjudged the other customer as someone who had also worked and lived in many other states.

After it was too late, I realized that I had apparently alienated and possibly offended the other customer, who was a local person. I looked him over more carefully, in preparation for a possible fight or punch coming my way. I hated this feeling of having tried to discuss something, find out something, and instead nearly getting into a fight. It seems like the majority of the time when I go someplace and interact with people in the Dickinson area, they don’t know what I am talking about, and I regret the interaction.

After the other customer left, the business owner said to me, what is universally understand by people who move here from out-of-state, “I am not from here.”. I said, I know, but you have already made it past where everybody is trying to find out where you are from, who you are, what you are going to do, to where now you are an employer of local people, are a part of the local economy, bring revenue to this community. He just shook his head.

It turned out that I already knew and understood the reasons why he and his wife had decided to sell their business and leave North Dakota. But I was interested to find out. Maybe there was some other reason, maybe there was something better somewhere else.

Especially for women from some place else, western North Dakota is a very difficult place to live. Here, women don’t have very many places to go either by themselves or with friends. Not only do women have few places to go, they have even fewer places that they would WANT to go. 50 miles to Walmart? 50 miles to Walmart in January when it’s -40 degrees Fahrenheit outside?

Something I need to remember and keep in mind, to never say very much, attract attention, interact with others, or stay inside very long in North Dakota with a nice motorcycle left parked outside where I can’t see it. I was so lucky that the local person who I probably offended, didn’t at the very minimum knock it over when he left.

Southwest North Dakota’s Strange Way Of Handling The April 2022 Blizzard

On Saturday, April 9th, a co-worker said something to me about heavy snowfall forecasted for this coming Tuesday. Recently I had been looking at the weather reports for a few days ahead, but I hadn’t noticed that snow was expected. Temperatures for the past week had been in the 50s, and I thought that winter was over.

I had planned on driving my 1982 diesel Mercedes on the long drive to work for the remainder of the spring, summer, and fall because it gets about 25 mpg. This vehicle is not good at all in the snow, because it only has six inches of ground clearance, it’s rear-wheel-drive, and the front end is very heavy. I am glad that someone said something to me about snow, I fear that I might not have realized what was going to happen in time to know that I needed to drive a different vehicle. I thought about what could have happened, having to drive one hour to work, not being able to make it home after work, becoming stuck, inconveniencing other people, and looking like an idiot.

On Monday I put a full tank of gas in my 1997 Dodge 1500 4×4. I bought this truck for $2,000 a couple years ago after seeing it on Facebook Marketplace. I believed that this was a good deal, even though I recognized that this truck either already had or showed symptoms of everything that had gone wrong with my 1996 Dodge 1500 4×4, including a variety of transmission peculiarities, headlight malfunctions, intermittent starter problems, and more. But, I had already learned several work-arounds for what was wrong, and I had faith in this truck, though it was far from trouble-free. I am emphasizing that there is nothing special about this truck.

At the grocery store on Monday, I noticed that the parking lot was much fuller than normal. Inside the store, almost all of the bread was gone. People were stocking up on groceries in preparation for this winter storm. When I looked at Facebook, TikTok, weather reports, and news services on Monday evening, there were notices and discussions about the blizzard that was supposed to begin at 6:00 a.m. Tuesday morning and continue through 6:00 p.m. Thursday evening.

On Tuesday morning at 3:00 a.m., it began to snow. When I began driving to work at 5:00 a.m., the streets and highways had not been plowed at all, not once. The blizzard wasn’t supposed to start until 6:00 a.m., so I hadn’t expected there to be so much snow accumulation right away. The depth of snow, amount of blowing snow, and greatly reduced visibility, made driving difficult. I was glad that there was no one else on the roads at that time in the early morning.

My initial impression, was that the snowplows in the several counties that I drove through on my way to work, hadn’t started plowing yet, because the blizzard had just started. As Tuesday went on, I spoke to co-workers, checked the news, weather forecasts, and Facebook, and I noticed that citizens, the North Dakota DOT, and Law Enforcement were advising everyone to stay home for the duration of the blizzard, if they did not have to be out.

Readers may be wondering, why was I at work? I have been working at this particular 100-acre industrial site for the past five years, which is manned 24 hours per day, every day of the year, including every holiday. If someone from the company that I work for wasn’t on site performing hourly reporting/documentation, we would all lose our jobs, not just the people who didn’t show up.

On Tuesday evening, I was able to drive home. There were some snowdrifts on Hwy 22, and visibility was reduced at times, but conditions were nearly the same as what a driver would encounter during a typical North Dakota winter snowfall with high winds. Wednesday morning was when some of my co-workers began calling in saying that they could not get out of their driveway because the city streets had not been plowed, or they made it out to the highway, but the highway had not been plowed.

I realized on Wednesday morning that I was possibly going to have to stay at the industrial site where I work for a day or two, to fill-in for co-workers who could not get there. I stopped at a rural small-town gas station to fuel up my truck again. At this gas station, 9 times out of 10 the card reader on the gas pump will not process my debit card, and I have to go inside to pay. But this gas station was closed now, because of the blizzard. Luckily, my newest credit card worked at the pump. However, there was large diesel Chevy 3500 truck towing a large equipment trailer that was parked at an adjacent pump, not pumping diesel, not running, that looked to be stuck there because the fuel pump card reader wouldn’t work.

Later on Wednesday, an older co-worker of mine called and said that he could not come to work, not because the roads weren’t plowed, but because he could not get fuel for his large Chevy 3500 dually, because his local small-town gas station was closed. He and his wife did not have a credit card or debit card. ( Some readers will know and understand why some people don’t have a credit card or debit card, while other readers will not know or understand.)

Between Wednesday and Thursday, three of my co-workers were unable to make it to work, one because city streets were not plowed, one because highway was not plowed, and one because he could not get fuel, the gas station was closed. A fourth co-worker got stuck going home, because the city streets were not plowed. I had to stay at work to cover two shifts for other people, in addition to my own work shift.

When I was able to leave work to go home on Thursday evening, at the same time that the blizzard was supposed to have ended at 6:00 p.m., the roads that I took for the first 30 miles were icy, but not covered in deep snow. Unexpectedly, when I got to within 20 miles of my house, Hwy 22 was closed by a Sheriff and Highway Patrol. There was a tractor-truck & trailer, and two small Kia cars behind it, bumper-to-bumper at a complete stop on Hwy 22, without their hazard flashers on, waiting to be rear-ended, just sitting there about 300 feet from what looked like an accident.

I drove up to the where the Sheriff was standing, and then I could see that something like a Chrysler 300 sedan was stuck or stopped at a snowdrift in the road. There were no emergency vehicles, tow truck, or snowplow anywhere. All the Sheriff had to say was, “Hwy 22 is closed.” I turned around, and while driving back, I stopped and told the male driver of the first Kia car, “There’s a snowdrift, the road is closed, going to be closed for a while.” As I started driving away, I heard this man in the Kia yelling at me out his open car window, “Fuck you, you mother fucking cocksucker.”

I think that the man in the Kia was yelling and cursing at me, because he was wanting to ask me when the road would be clear, and how to get where he was going, but I had no answer for him, I wasn’t in charge of this, and there was no alternate route that I could tell him. Shortly after this, I saw that my Dodge truck transmission overheat warning light was on, so I had to pull off the road at a turn-out and stop. With the slightly bad transmission in this Dodge truck, I can’t drive the whole way home in 4wd-high, or with the overdrive enabled.

I went back to the industrial site where I worked. I looked on the internet, and I could not find any clear answers on what highways were open, what highways were closed, and when closed highways would be open. I hated to even try, but I was tired of still being at work, so I set out attempting to go a different way which I knew would be much, much worse.

I drove 20-35 miles west on a small highway that was icy and had bad snowdrifts, to get to Hwy 85 that had flashing signs saying it was closed, drove 45 miles on closed Hwy 85 that was very icy, with very bad snowdrifts, to get to another very icy, worst snowdrifts-of-all highway for 20-35 miles. Along the way, I saw a couple of 4-wheel-drive vehicles that had gone off the road and became stuck, but no one was still inside them.

I was thinking and realizing, that just because that Chrysler 300 on Hwy 22 couldn’t make it past that one snowdrift when I was 20 miles from my home, I had to turn around and drive 90 miles the other way, and go through at least a dozen snow drifts that were as bad as that one on Hwy 22, but in the dark. If that tractor-truck & trailer behind the Chrysler 300 would have been in front of it instead, that snowdrift would have been obliterated enough for everyone behind the tractor-truck & trailer to get through.

Being upset and dissatisfied with what had happened over the past three days, I was puzzled at how southwest North Dakota had handled this blizzard. It can snow in North Dakota from October through April, often times for days and weeks in a row throughout the winter. Starting out with completely clear & dry roads on Monday April 11, why was it such a big deal and difficult job that snow plows couldn’t run on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday?

To put it a different way, North Dakota has to cope with snowfall from October through April, it can snow for days and weeks in the winter, how could the snowplows in North Dakota be overwhelmed from just three days of snow in April? The highways in rural areas did not have an accumulation of deep snow due to the high winds, the problem on the rural highways was snowdrifts in certain places. It appeared to me that one single county snowplow making one pass per every 1-2 hours would have adequately dealt with the snowdrifts.

The other thing that was very upsetting to me, and handled wrong in my opinion, was that every small-town gas station and rural emergency services building was closed. If I would have had to pick up a stranded motorist on Hwy 22 or Hwy 85, where would I take them? What would I do with them? I couldn’t have taken them very far, Hwy 22 and Hwy 85 were closed, remember?

It appeared to me, that for some reason, the snow plows were held back from going anywhere, or prevented from doing very much on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday in certain counties. I don’t know what political fight was going on, or if some type of statement was trying to be made, by making sure that roads would be closed, instead of open.

Here are a couple of Facebook comments from Friday, from people wondering the same things that I was wondering:

Connie O. H.,  “Are the county plows out on the county roads?”

Thomas J. S., “It was a big snowstorm, and certainly a serious challenge to life and limb, but IT WAS NOT a “blizzard” by the definition used by the National Weather Service…The people of North Dakota know what a blizzard is, and this storm lacked 2 of 5 required parameters.”

The more I thought, “What would I have to do with a stranded motorist? Take them back to my house, feed them, find them a place to sleep?” Then I realized, that’s why all of the small-town gas stations were closed, the owner/managers/workers didn’t want people being dropped off, having no place to go, and having to stay inside a gas station & convenience store that normally closes at 6:00 p.m. Like Daytona Beach during Black Spring Break, all of the businesses in North Dakota close during a blizzard.

In order to understand how much North Dakotans really do not want to help other people, here are some quotations that I copied and pasted from Facebook:

Ryan B., “They should have let them sit there. There is no reason official’s should risk their lives for stupidity.! Before anyone says you don’t know their reasons let me help you I don’t care!”

Lisa K. to Ryan B., “EXACTLY!! It was all about THEM! Now they have put other peoples live in danger because they were a-holes!”

David H., “Lots of warning should of just let them sit.”

Jason B., “Its like camping….for morons.”

Pam S. A., “stop defending these fools”

Joyce S. P., “…our first responders should NOT be expected to risk their lives because of someone elses stupidity and gross neglect of common sense…there needs to be a huge fine AND jail time for any and all that require a rescue like this UNLESS it was truly a matter of life or death that caused them to be out on the roads.”

Elizabeth K., “Shame on those people that put others at risk!”

Bob B.K., “And Why were they out on the roads???? GOOD GRIEF!! People must think that it will never happen to them.”

Mavis T. B., “Some people have absolutely NO common sense.”

Dana S., “Had to travel during a no travel warning didn’t they.”

Rock T., “You know the old saying. There’s a blizzard coming, let’s drive around and get stuck so people can risk their lives saving us!”

Do North Dakotans even know that there are heavier snowfall areas than North Dakota?  Alaska, the mountains of Colorado, Utah, Washington, and Oregon have much heavier and more frequent snowfall than North Dakota.  Do people in AK, CO, UT, WA, and OR want to deny drivers who get stuck in snow assistance?  Probably not, because it is a common occurrence for drivers to get stuck in the snow in winter.  And these states make an effort to keep the roads clear, even when it is snowing and the wind is blowing.

Explanation Of Depression And Suicides In Dickinson, North Dakota

A few days ago I saw an article titled, “Stark County officials notice an increase in suicide cases”. I am going to share the link to this article, but there is very little substance to it, and not much information: https://www.kfyrtv.com/2022/02/05/stark-county-officials-notice-increase-suicide-cases/?fbclid=IwAR2Hxlq8d2PDe8I6mHqgABe56vQVZhcm-EcO3IpxUlqdQrrsBZ-oCoMTtEM

I am going to explain some of the causes for depression and suicide in Dickinson, which not only do city officials, politicians, leaders, organizations, associations, and citizens not ever acknowledge or talk about, they all actually contribute to the problem!

Western North Dakota is very sparsely populated, there are fewer than 800,000 people in the entire state of North Dakota. From November through April, for these six months the weather is usually very cold, grey, with sustained high winds. The very low population, and very bad weather for most of the year adversely affect people, culture, and social interaction.

Some of the results of very low population, low socialization, and prolonged bad weather are: The ratio of men to women is 3:1 ; the women who are here try to have an ugly appearance and a nasty personality; the attractive women with good personalities leave the state; high rate of alcoholism; high rate of illegal drug use; employment of people with repeat criminal history; very low education level; local Police dealing with everyone as if they are all criminals; Catholic Church trying to take advantage of the situation by making things worse, manipulation, and control.

Men in Dickinson are faced with literally everything I mentioned in the paragraph above, on a daily basis. When men go to work in the morning, have any work break during the day, and when they get off work in the evening, they will most likely never see a nice looking woman for weeks on end. However, every day they will see overweight, misshapen women, with jack-o-lantern faces sneering, leering, glaring, and trying to act like burly men.

At work, trying to complete work is often dangerous and frustrating. It’s having to deal with co-workers and management who have very low education level, criminal records, who come to work under the influence of drugs and alcohol, whose focus at work is not on the job at hand, but getting high and drunk as soon as possible. Their actions endangering everyone else, their stupidity causing failures, their mistakes they try to blame on others, the success of others they try to take the credit for.

Because of the extremely low education level in Dickinson, the high number of criminals being employed in Dickinson, the high rate of illegal drug use, the high rate of alcoholism, the Dickinson Police take the approach that everyone in Dickinson is a criminal, drug addict, and driving under the influence, and they don’t hesitate to stop and question everyone as often as possible, as if they are prisoners in a prison.

If a man working in Dickinson did try to socialize in one of the few ways possible, by going to a bar, the Police in Dickinson note every vehicle parked at bars, and try to follow and stop the vehicle for any reason possible. If a man tried to meet a woman on the internet in Dickinson, if the woman was attractive, 95% likelihood it’s a fake profile created by the Dickinson Police in order to entrap someone.

Everything that I have described so far, the Mayor of Dickinson likes it this way, the Chief of Police likes it this way, the Chamber of Commerce likes it this way, the business owners like it this way, the Catholic Church likes it this way. Why do I say this? Because none of them ever, ever admit to what is going on, try to change what is going on, but only help to continue it. The majority of people in Dickinson being uneducated, in the criminal justice system, with a fat ugly nasty wife, turning to alcohol, and illegal drugs, a controlled wage-slave likely to have an early death so that they can’t draw any benefits.

The Catholic Church in Dickinson helped to create and perpetuate these miserable conditions in Dickinson in order to maintain power and control over people, and also because the Catholic Church is ruled by Satan, whose purpose is to torment people. The Catholic Church encouraged and fostered: a low education level; women to be sloven, overweight, nasty, contentious, and bitter; people to use alcohol and smoke; people to engage in crime, illegal drug use, and gambling. All of these things are a stumbling block for people, keep them in a state of torment and trouble, prevent people from becoming self-aware.

The Catholic Church in Dickinson has plotted, planned, and schemed to get politicians, the Mayor, the Chief of Police, the Chamber of Commerce personnel, School Board personnel, organization and association personnel, County Commissioners, City Commissioners, State Representatives to go along with it’s program of controlling people by making them miserable, uneducated, criminal, substance addicted wage-slaves.

The Catholic Church built the new St. Alexius Hospital in Dickinson, which is a jobs-program for Catholics, and another mechanism of control used by the Catholics. At this time, the Catholic Church in Dickinson has a scheme to control mental health services in Dickinson: through planting politicians at different levels who have been placed to direct and control funding; through planting personnel within organizations, associations, and groups; through control of the facilities to be used.

Everything is set up in Dickinson for ordinary working people to be as miserable as possible, and if they turn to health care or mental health care in Dickinson, it’s like running into the hands of your captors.

( Note: If you go to a business in Dickinson, especially a hospital, clinic, or mental health facility, and you see ham-fisted, cankle-calf, no-neck, battle-axe, jack-o-lantern, nasty, burly women, get out! It’s Catholic controlled, and ruled by Satan himself! )

So in summary, it’s Satan and the Catholic Church schemes in Dickinson that is causing depression and suicides, it’s part of their plan.

North Dakota Still Gets The Rejects From Texas

For those of you who don’t know, western North Dakota experienced an oil boom from 2007-2015. Prior to the oil boom, small old one-bedroom apartments here rented for $300/month and the average hourly wage was about $10/hr. By 2011 the same small old one-bedroom apartment rented for $1,200/month and the average hourly wage was about $15/hr.

Partly because it was a rumor that sounded good, and partly because of greedy real estate agents, property owners, business owner, and politicians, the false statement was repeatedly announced on the radio, television, internet, newspapers, and magazines that everyone arriving in North Dakota was making $100K per year, with no education or experience.

People from all over the U.S. came to North Dakota looking for work because of the false $100K/year rumor. From what I saw, heard, read, and experienced working in North Dakota from 2011-2021, the people who came here from out-of-state to find work during the oil boom, 80% of them left within a year. Most of the out-of-state workers found that getting a job, keeping a job, and working at a job was nearly the same thing as where they came from. The hourly wage was 1-1/2 times what they had been making, there was much more overtime required, the working conditions were a little worse, but income taxes, cost of living, and quadrupled rent prices made the whole out-of-state migrant worker thing not worth it.

During the western North Dakota 2007-2015 oil boom, the majority of out-of-state license plates on vehicles in this area were Idaho plates, followed by Washington state. Tied for third most common out-of-state license plates were probably Utah and Oregon. Idaho had many unemployed or under-employed able-bodied young male workers experienced in operating farm equipment, driving tractor trucks, and working in all of the construction trades. Same thing in Utah as in Idaho. In Washington state, the economy was bad, and there were a bunch of no-good, drug-addict, ADHD dirt-bags who came from Seattle to North Dakota to get in the way, not show up for work, steal, and continue their drug use.

The fourth most common out-of-state license plate during the North Dakota 2007-2015 oil boom was probably Texas. Texas was experiencing its own almost identical oil boom during this time. One of the reasons why there were so many Texas license plates on trucks here in North Dakota was because the oil companies, service companies, and suppliers were moving personnel around through Texas, New Mexico, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Utah, and North Dakota as needed.

What drove or caused the 2007-2015 U.S. oil boom was the price of oil being over $100/barrel. In 2015 when the price of oil fell below $60/barrel, and stayed there, that brought about the end of the U.S. oil boom. From 2015-2018, I estimate that about 30,000 workers left North Dakota. That might not seem like a lot, but the entire population of North Dakota is only about 750,000 people.

Since 2018, people living in western North Dakota have come to the realization that the oil boom is over, and there has been a slow, sometimes bumpy, sometimes reluctant return to normalcy. One of the “bumps”, has been idiot people, especially real estate agents, trying to sell houses that no one wants, no one needs, and no one has the money for, for twice the amount of money that they are worth, as if there is still an oil boom going on.

One of the other things that is holding up the return to calm, settling down, and normalcy, is the obnoxious reject people from Texas still coming up here. The grunge dirt-bag drug-addict ADHD people from Washington state have quit coming, the gypsies from Michigan have quit coming, and these two states are less than 1,000 miles away. Texas is 1,200 miles away, why do these people keep coming up here?

The answer is, the people who can’t get a job anywhere in Texas, can’t find anywhere to live in Texas, they figure that they will drive up here to North Dakota and nobody will notice that there is something wrong with them, that they are stupid, incompetent, and that they don’t know how to act right.

Whenever I go someplace in Dickinson, and I see someone doing something really stupid, abnormal, rude, inconsiderate, obnoxious, which makes me wonder what is wrong with them, I kind of hang back, watch them, see what vehicle they go to when they get ready to leave, and here we go, they just keep walking closer and closer to that vehicle with the Texas license plate, I knew it!, white trash from Texas!

In the past couple of weeks when I have been driving on rural two-lane Highway 22 outside of Dickinson, which has very light traffic compared to what it used to be, I try to not get over 70 mph because that seems to be the cut-off point that the North Dakota Highway Patrol will tolerate. I know from years and years of driving each section of Highway 22, where the Highway Patrol vehicles park on the side of the road, on the other side of hills, at turn-outs. Several times recently, someone has passed me going 80 mph, right where I know the Highway Patrol often hide, and as they pass me I see that Texas license plate.

Sunday afternoon I was driving south on rural two-lane Highway 85 coming into the very small town of Amidon. The speed limit drops down to 45 mph as you approach Amidon, and then the speed limit is 25 mph for 1/2 mile through the town of Amidon. When I slowed down to 45 mph, the silver Honda Accord behind me quickly pulled into the oncoming traffic lane, and sped up past me, all the way through Amidon where the speed limit is 25 mph. Yup, it was people from Texas.

The same thing happened when I was driving through the very small town of Regent on Saturday afternoon. All the way through downtown Regent, the speed limit is 25 mph. A silver Toyota Tundra had to pass me in downtown Regent, and as it went past me I saw that Texas license plate.

There is a reason why all of the small towns in western North Dakota have a speed limit of 25 mph through downtown, they don’t want there to be any vehicle or pedestrian accidents, and there is no reason to be speeding through downtown. But the people from Texas are ignorant white trash.

For the past month, whenever I have seen something abnormal happening, the majority of the time it has been someone from Texas. I am very thoroughly convinced that the reject people from Texas come up here to North Dakota because things were not working out for them in Texas, because they are stupid. So keep an eye out for people with Texas license plates in North Dakota.

The Secret Pine Forest Of Western North Dakota

It was about six years ago that I first heard of the secret pine forest of western North Dakota, and that was one of only two times that anyone would ever speak to me about it. Men in their 60s-80s who had worked and traveled through western North Dakota for their entire lives would pretend that they knew nothing about it.

For those of you not familiar with western North Dakota, there are very few trees. You can pull over to the side of the road on an interstate or highway, stand outside of your vehicle, turn in a full 360 degree circle looking miles away toward the horizon, and count fewer than a dozen shabby trees.

Western North Dakota is mostly tree-less vacant prairie grassland, or desolate barren badlands with wind-eroded buttes, canyons, and desert ravines with a few mesquite trees. It was not surprising to me that North Dakotans wanted to keep the pine forest a secret. I didn’t even know if there actually was one.

Since I bought a more reliable motorcycle in the Fall of 2020, I have been taking motorcycle rides that have no other purpose than to explore western North Dakota. Usually I do either a little or a lot of research before I go somewhere on my motorcycle, because not only is it very easy to get lost, run out of gas in the middle of nowhere, but if I were to become injured or stranded in the sparsely populated areas of western North Dakota, it would be so much more likely for the local people to kill me.

You don’t ever want to stop where anyone is around or a vehicle is approaching out in the middle of nowhere in western North Dakota, because the local people will come over and ask you what you are doing and try to determine if “you’re not from here.” See, if you keep going and don’t slow down, the local people might think that you were invited or are related to someone in that area, but if you come to a stop, they are going to try to find out. Don’t ever, ever get caught trying to take a picture of something on someone’s property!

I accidentally, unintentionally found the secret pine forest of western North Dakota about one month ago, but I was too scared to come to a stop and take pictures of it because I didn’t know my way around that area. I had to wait several weeks before I could travel through that area again on my motorcycle, in order to not draw any attention. Here are some photos, which I had to take very hastily:

Here are some other trees from this same area:

When I was riding my motorcycle to this area traveling north on a red scoria chip road, I saw in my side mirror that there was a pickup truck coming up fast behind me, so I pulled over to the side of the road to let this pickup truck pass. I had to ride another five miles traveling north before I had to make a left turn onto a different, smaller road. After I had ridden another several miles west on this much narrower road, there was an oncoming pickup truck driving fast towards me, that I had to pull over to the side of the road to allow it to pass.

I rode another several miles west on the narrower road, before I turned south onto an even narrower road, which I thought could have been a private road. When I came up to what appeared to be private property consisting of a house and shop building, I turned around in order to try to get back quickly to what was most likely a public road.

When I reached the public road, I stopped to take my motorcycle helmet off because it was very hot, and I wanted to take some photographs of the pine trees. Here came the same pickup truck for the third time. I hadn’t realized that this was the same truck that had come up behind me going fast, had gotten ahead of me and turned around to pass me oncoming, and had now come up from behind me to meet me for a third time.

This time I was stopped and off my motorcycle, which allowed the opportunity for the person driving the pickup truck to stop and find out if “you’re not from here.” The driver of the pickup truck let me know that I was going to have problems if I was there when it got dark. I had a North Dakota license plate on my motorcycle. If I would have been driving a vehicle with a California license plate, or if they would have seen me taking photographs, they probably would have phoned, radioed, or met with their neighbors to make a plan to shoot me, dig a hole, drag my vehicle away, and bury everything.

Confronted By A Ranting Mentally Ill Person At A Gas Station In Dickinson North Dakota

During this past week, I wrote three blog post articles about a frightening experience that I had when I stopped in the small town of Mott, North Dakota at 12:10 a.m. to read a road map. Twice, someone emerged from the dark vacant street to approach my vehicle and I had to quickly drive away.

I went on and on about how I didn’t know what these people who approached my vehicle intended to do, I probably would have shot them if they had jumped inside my truck, I hadn’t been paying enough attention to my surroundings, why can’t the North Dakota DOT mark the routing for Highway 21 West with road signs so people don’t have to pull over in Mott to look at a map.

A person named Ray who lives in Maryland, who had been a long-haul truck driver for fifteen years, he wrote a comment a couple of days ago saying that in his experience, one of the most frequent places to be the victim of a robbery and/or assault is at a gas station while pumping fuel, getting out of your truck at a rest area, or using the public bathrooms at a rest area.

I believe that Ray pointed out, that while pumping fuel at a gas station, you have your hands full with the fuel hose and nozzle, and you are watching the pump to see how many gallons of fuel you are getting. At this moment, you are occupied with what you are doing, and aren’t able or inclined to drop what you are doing and walk away.

Today, Saturday afternoon, I went to a hardware store on the north side of Dickinson to buy several different bolts that were missing from a 1972 Yamaha motorcycle that I had just bought. I had to remove bolts from the motorcycle, take them inside the store, determine what size and thread series they were, buy something that was as close as possible to identical, and then go back outside and see if it fit correctly on the motorcycle, which I had in the back of my truck.

I had to go in and out of the hardware store about four times. On the fifth trip inside the store, some of the last things that I needed were 2-cycle motor oil, Heet fuel line water remover, and an engine air filter. When I found almost everything and went to the cashier to pay, there was an elderly gentleman who had decided that he would discuss a store catalogue of shelves with the cashier, not ask his questions to one of the two unoccupied floor-walkers, but take his time with the only cashier on duty. So I put the items that I needed down and I left, I couldn’t stand waiting and watching this unbelievable shelf consultation any longer.

I was hot, tired, hungry, and thirsty, but the next place that I went was a very busy auto parts store, where I bought the 2-cycle motor oil, and the Heet, but I forgot to buy a drink because I was trying to see if they had an engine air filter for my motorcycle. I made up my mind that I was going to go home, not look for an engine air filter anymore today, because I didn’t want to be around people anymore, I was in a bad mood.

I drove south, and I had to stop at the T-Rex Gas Station in the T-Rex Shopping Plaza to get fuel in my truck. The T-Rex Gas Station is in the middle of Dickinson, and it is one of the cleanest, safest gas stations in Dickinson. I parked on the outside of the very last gas pump, because I didn’t want to be around people, and I didn’t want to be blocked in.

After I had scanned my debit card, entered my debit card pin, got the pump to turn on, and began filling my truck tank, I noticed a man about 45-50 years of age, wearing an orange high-visibility construction worker shirt, walking across Main Avenue, yelling and ranting, heading in the general direction of this gas station.

From the middle of Main Avenue, and for the whole time he was walking, he did not cease yelling, cursing, and ranting. The first things that I could understand what he was saying, was something like, “They took everything from me, they took all of my shit.” I didn’t know if he had just been robbed, kicked out of where he lived by his housemates, if he had been evicted, or what.

It was hot outside, it must have been very uncomfortably hot walking on the street and pavement, especially if something bad had just happened to you, like you had all of your shit stolen. This guy continued to yell and curse, and he was now headed straight for me, with his fists clenched, his jaw clenched, the veins in his neck popping out.

From what he was yelling, it kind of appeared that he was looking to fight anyone that he came across at that moment. I was not in a good mood. I was not wanting to be approached by any pan-handlers asking for money, or anyone wanting to start an altercation. I became kind of enraged myself, to where I was not going to wait for this guy to get to me, I was wanting to beat the shit out of this guy before he even got to me. I thought what board or pipe did I have in the back of my truck to beat him with.

This guy changed course about 75 feet from me, and headed north. He began yelling, “I don’t care if I die, I don’t want to live anymore.”, and who knows what all else he was yelling. I was upset about this incident, this guy yelling non-stop, coming at me angrily like he was going to attack me, me wanting to beat the shit out of him, and then hearing him say that he didn’t want to live anymore.

It is not hard to say that this this man was mentally ill, the way that he was ranting the whole while he was walking. The way that he was behaving, the things that he was yelling, I don’t have much doubt that he was wanting to fight whoever he came across. Did he want to hurt someone, did he want to get into a fight, did he want to go to jail because he had no place else to go, did he want someone to hurt him so that he could sue them, did he want someone to shoot him and kill him?

Did he turn away from his approach towards me because he feared losing the fight, being blamed for the fight, or because he realized that the gas station had security cameras?

Even though I had decided 30 minutes prior to this that I was in a bad mood, didn’t want to be around people anymore, didn’t want to keep shopping for an air filter, just wanted to go home, parked at the farthest gas pump to not have to deal with people, if I would have not waited for this guy to walk up on me and hit me while I was between the gas pump and my truck, and knocked him down before he got that far, the Police and maybe even witnesses would have blamed me.

It would not have mattered how much I explained that I was stopped at the gas pump putting fuel in my vehicle, whereas this guy was crossing the street approaching me angrily yelling with clenched fists, he has no vehicle and no gas can, he had no reason to be walking all the way across Main Avenue to get here to this gas pump where I am, except to attack me, the Police Officer would probably arrest me if I knocked this guy down first. I wasn’t going to be slammed to the concrete first, I could see what was about to happen.

In the past, I have seen some mentally-ill strange acting people at the gas stations in downtown Dickinson, but usually not ever at this T-Rex gas station. I thought about it, the gas station beside the new Family Fare grocery store, on the north side of the interstate, near Menards, this gas station is not within a residential area, and has probably the least amount of pedestrians nearby, and probably the least amount of low-income people, so I will try to use this gas station from now on.

Note: For the past several years, I have noticed that many women will pull up to a gas pump, and not get out of their vehicle to pump gas until everyone close to them at the other pumps has finished pumping gas, gotten back in their vehicle, and left. I used to think that these women were being ridiculous, no one is going to grab hold of them and try to abduct them. Now I kind of see how they feel, they don’t want to be in the middle of pumping gas and have someone take this opportunity to approach them. Now that I think about it, many of these women get back inside their vehicle while the pump is running, they won’t even stand outside their vehicle.

Overpriced Houses In Dickinson, North Dakota

During the past year, nearly half a dozen times I have been tempted to write this blog post article about overpriced houses for sale in Dickinson, North Dakota. I was even thinking about writing a weekly or bi-weekly article titled, “This Week’s Award For The Most Overpriced House In Dickinson”.

What got me going, was that there was a 5br/3ba house for sale in Dickinson that was listed for $600K. I thought, $600K? $600K for a house in Dickinson? Who are these people, where do they think they are, and what are they thinking? Did the real estate agent talk them into this?

Before I go any further, I need to explain to readers who live outside of this area, that Dickinson experienced the North Dakota oil boom from 2007-2015. During the first several years of this oil boom, housing prices and rents doubled. But by 2011, housing prices and rents had quadrupled.

When the price of oil went from over $100 per barrel in 2014, down to less than $50 per barrel in 2015, that killed the North Dakota oil boom. Oil companies began to shut down oil wells that were producing, and cease drilling operations because they could not make any profit on oil when the price was below $60 per barrel.

Initially in 2015-2016 there many oil field workers and even many non-oilfield workers who were let go from their employment. Many of these workers left, because these people could not see that there was any work for them in this area. This exit migration of people at the end of the North Dakota oil boom created an instant surplus of housing for sale and for rent.

Beyond 2017, it became more and more clear every day that the oil boom was not coming back to North Dakota. More people continued to move away from this area, which caused the local economy to shrink a little more.

In this area of western North Dakota, it is sparsely populated, with barren vacant grasslands where the wind sometimes exceeds 100 mph, and the temperature in Winter falls below -50 degrees Fahrenheit. This is not a desirable place to live for most people. In North Dakota, there is no beach, professional sports teams, car racing, motorcycle racing, horse racing, or hardly any kind of entertainment or place to go.

With the exodus of people from the Dickinson area after the end of the oil boom, the surplus of housing, most of the high paying jobs being eliminated, no one wanting to live here or move here in the first place, how could someone try to get $600K for their 5br/3ba home, that was not even very nice?

I was going to mock and ridicule this homeowner and the real estate agent who listed this home for $600K, but I wanted to look into this situation a little more to find out what was going on. I am glad that I did look into this more closely, because what I found was that this wasn’t just a matter of these people being stupid, it was also a matter of the homeowner being desperate.

I used the address of this home for sale, to find out who the owners were. Once I found out who the owners were, I looked them up on the internet, including the North Dakota court repository. Unfortunately, when there is a divorce/child custody/child support court case that gets contested and moves through the court of appeals, many of the details get reported in the public record. This was the case here.

I was able to find out that a young, newly married husband and wife in their mid to late twenties purchased this home early in the North Dakota oil boom, around 2009-2010 I think it was. The husband had an unusually good job for someone his age, with an oil company here in Dickinson. I believe he was earning about $125K per year.

Off the top of my head, I think that this couple separated and filed for divorce in about 2014, just before the end of the oil boom, that no one knew was coming. His child support assessment was something like $30K per year. Then in 2015, due to the price collapse of oil, he lost his job, and the oil company the he had been working for filed for bankruptcy.

This ex-husband who was now in his early 30s, who had lost his job with an oil company, he was not able to find another job. He began the process of legally appealing his child support determination, because he had very little money, no income, and probably a large amount of legal fees.

I was glad that I found out who these home owners were, so that I didn’t mock and ridicule them in a blog post article. Their circumstances required them to try to get as much as possible from the sale of their home. However, still, what the fuck were they and their real estate agent thinking? Who in Dickinson has that much money? Maybe a medical doctor, but why would a medical doctor want to spend $600K on a house in Dickinson that isn’t even very nice?

What this particular real estate listing did at that time, was immediately inspire some other dumb-ass in Dickinson to list their rather ordinary unappealing older home for $600K. Some people in Dickinson thought that this was a “thing” now.

I would kind of like for homeowners and real estate agents in Dickinson to paint a picture for me of the imaginary buyer they have in their heads that is going to race from Los Angeles straight to Dickinson with $600K in cash. Why Dickinson?, in North Dakota?

Some time has passed since I became discombobulated by the $600K house “thing” in Dickinson. Until today, when I looked up a house that just went for sale around the corner from where I live. Where I live, a year ago I was able to buy a small, plain, one hundred year old house on a double lot for $50K. The larger house that I had looked at a few blocks away was $85K. A few months ago, a very nice 4br/2ba home one block away from me, the asking price was dropped to $80K. So I wanted to know, how much was the house that was just listed for sale near me?…….Over $400K! What!

Why does this matter to me? I have asked myself why this matters to me, why does this bother me, and I have realized four of five reasons. My first reason, is that I have seen this kind of thing before where everyone begins to believe that their house is worth double, which mostly just results in first-time home buyers needlessly being excluded from buying a home. It doesn’t result in everyone being able to sell their house for double, it results in very few people being able to sell their house, and first-time buyers not being able to afford any house.

Reason number two, between the 1940s to the early 1980s, single-family homes in blue-collar neighborhoods cost on average, twice the annual family income. Once real estate investors and real estate agents began to normalize grabbing up and trying to profit off of normal human beings trying to live in a home, not only did they cause the single-family home to cost on average three-four times the annual family income, mom had to begin working full-time, then by the 1990s both mom & dad had to work overtime in order to afford a single-family home.

Reason number three, real estate agents are not the smartest people in the World, they are often so greedy that they can’t even think normally or rationally. If a real estate agent really thought this situation through, where there is a nice 4br/2ba home a couple of blocks away for $80K that hasn’t sold in the past several months, several other nice 4br/2ba homes nearby at less than $150K that have not sold, and a couple of huge, 2-story, nice looking, recently updated homes at $400K that haven’t sold in over a year, why would a real estate agent think that there is a demand in this area, buyers in this area, or buyers with money in this area?

Reason four, I can’t understand why a home owner would go through the effort of listing and trying to sell their home, and create a situation where a sale is almost impossible. If the home owner wants to move away and start a new life somewhere else, needs the proceeds from this house sale to pay for a new house somewhere else, or needs to sell this house to pay off debt, why would they sabotage themselves by setting the price so high to make a sale impossible?

Lastly, I wonder what goes on in other people’s minds. What is their understanding and perception of reality? Do they know and understand that the oil boom is over? Do they know that very, very few people in this area earn over $100K per year? Can they look around and see the houses that surround them, that almost all of the houses that surround them are less than $200K houses? Even if there was a medical doctor who could afford over $400K for a house and was looking, why would this doctor purchase a house in this blue-collar neighborhood where the houses range from $50K-$200K?

I Understand More Now The Hostility And Why People Are Not Wanted In Dickinson North Dakota

Because I have written about many different subjects which caused readers to find my website for different reasons, some new followers of my blog post articles may not know why I am writing about Dickinson, North Dakota.

I had lived in Florida, Virginia, Colorado, Texas, Utah, Arizona, and Idaho before I travelled to North Dakota when I was in my early 40s to work here during the 2007-2015 oil boom. For people who were not here, they may have no idea what this oil boom was like.

Prior to 2007, the two largest towns in western North Dakota, Dickinson and Williston, each had a population of about 15,000 people. By 2011 both Dickinson and Williston had each added about 10,000 male workers from out-of-state. Rent and housing prices doubled, then quadrupled. Housing was at over 100% capacity, people were paying rent to sleep in tents in people’s backyards.

I had never been around people who were so hostile, unfriendly, uncooperative, not helpful, nasty, un-Christian and usurious as the local people in Dickinson, North Dakota, especially the women. Initially, and continuing for years afterward I have tried to understand why the people in Dickinson were like this.

Some of my early understanding of the people in Dickinson was valid: The local people in Dickinson were descendants of German and Ukrainian immigrant homesteaders who were historically not friendly people; These Catholic immigrants had been indoctrinated by the Catholic Church principles such as the supremacy of the Pope, the importance of Mass and Communion, but not Christian principles such as treating other people with kindness; Due to the very harsh and barren conditions in North Dakota, charity and hospitality was something that the local people could historically not afford to offer.

I probably need to explain to readers who have never been to North Dakota, that the landscape is primarily empty grassland prairie with very few trees, or badlands filled with almost barren sandstone hills. The immigrant homesteaders who arrived in the 1890s and early 1900s had to build their small houses out of stacked grass sod, and burn dried buffalo dung for heating and cooking. Survival was so difficult, food and supplies were so short, that the practice of charity and hospitality was not possible, and not passed down to this day.

Very soon after arriving in Dickinson in 2011, I realized that there were very few attractive women here. During the next several years I began to understand that attractive women had not made the trip to western North Dakota during the homesteading immigration years of the 1890s through early 1900s. Attractive women were able to escape this fate by employing their charms either back in Germany and Ukraine, at the port of entry cities on the east coast, or somewhere else along the way like Minnesota prior to reaching North Dakota.

Still to this day, attractive women will not come to western North Dakota. If an attractive female is born in western North Dakota, they leave this area after high school, because larger cities are more appealing to them and offer them much more opportunities for higher education, employment, dating, socializing, entertainment, and shopping.

After living in Dickinson for more than several years, I began to realize that its makeup was about 10% white-collar, 30% blue-collar, 40% semi-skilled labor, and 20% naer-do-wells. About 25% of the people in Dickinson have had a history of Meth use, and about 25% of the people in Dickinson have been arrested before. With more than half of its population below the blue-collar level, the Police in Dickinson treat everyone within Dickinson like inmates in a prison work camp, subject to being stopped and questioned at any time.

During the oil boom when out-of-state workers were lured here by false claims that everyone was making $100K per year in the oil field, most of these individuals did not stay for more than a year because it was so difficult and unpleasant living here. Housing was very difficult to obtain and it was very expensive, the climate was extremely cold and windy, the local people were unfriendly and hostile, co-workers were uncooperative and undermining, there were no attractive women, there was nothing to do except go drink in a bar, and the Police circled the bars and restaurants waiting for people to leave in order to give them a DUI.

When the oil boom ended in 2015 due to the price of U.S. oil dropping below $60 per barrel, most of the out-of-state workers left western North Dakota. I thought that North Dakotans were very stupid for blowing the chance to have permanent long-term growth and a larger improved economy. Why would you treat people so shitty, that no one would want to live here? If North Dakotans hadn’t tried to rip these people off so bad with quadrupled housing prices, many of these people would have tried to become permanent residents.

In 2018 I began seeing in the news, more and more articles about people leaving California in large numbers in order to relocate to places like Arizona, Texas, Utah, Idaho, and Montana. The people in California were trying to get away from severe traffic congestion and long commutes to work, high housing prices, high property taxes, high state income taxes, crime, drugs, a large homeless population, excessive government over-regulation, and an abandonment of traditional Christian family values. I don’t blame anyone for wanting to leave California, it’s turning into a disaster.

In 2019 I was a little surprised to see more and more articles about the quickly rising housing prices and housing shortage in Boise, Idaho due to Californians moving in. At first, Californians were paying cash for the asking price of houses for sale in Boise, but by 2020 Californians were in bidding wars with each other, making competing offers above the asking price for houses in Boise. Local people in Boise could not afford to buy a house anymore, they were outbid by Californians.

Boise is not a spectacular city, the things that it offered were low crime, low cost of living, no serious traffic congestion, no pollution, and normalcy with traditional Christian family values and civility in the people who lived there.

I thought to myself, if only the people in Dickinson had not tried to rip-off the out-of-state workers so bad, been so hostile and unfriendly, arrested them for DUI, practically tried to run them out of town, Dickinson could have had growth like Boise and Bozeman. What a shame.

A couple of months ago I had to return to my home in Idaho after having been gone for a year and a half. The reason why I had to leave Idaho in the first place was because there had been a slow-down in the economy in Idaho following the 2008 housing-crises/mortgage-default nationwide downturn cycle. The economy in the small town where I lived and the larger town close by offered few employment opportunities and very low wages, but the quality of life was very good. It was peaceful, laid-back, with low crime, and simple outdoor activities and recreation.

When I was travelling on the interstate highway to get home in March, there was very little traffic in Idaho, the least amount of traffic that I had ever seen. However, when I entered the rural county where I lived in mid-morning, this was the most traffic that I had ever seen on this rural county highway. There was new development everywhere, I was shocked.

When I got to my house, I saw that the 80-acre farm field directly across the street from me had been developed into 1/2-acre lots with large $500K houses. In this small town, there were hardly any people who could afford houses like this, these houses were for Californians.

For the next several days, when I drove into town to handle business at the county office complex, get things at the hardware store, buy groceries, pick up take-out food, I noticed that everyone was in a hurry, pushy, aggressive, driving fast, equal to how people in Phoenix and Salt Lake City behave where there are over a million people, but this town has less than 5,000 people.

I could read the writing on the wall, this rural small town was changing, it didn’t take much, just a hundred Californians moving in. The area where my house was situated in the county, my neighbors to the west, north, and east had lived on their 5-acre or larger properties for twenty years or more. These were rednecks who were truck drivers, heavy equipment operators, building contractors, and mechanics. In my yard and in their yards were work trucks, hobby cars, equipment, travel trailers, truck campers, even horses, cows, and drag-line cranes. How long would it be before the $500K house Californians to the south of us began complaining to the county that we needed to get rid of everything on our property?

I began to feel that it was pointless for me to plan on returning to my home in Idaho to live, it was quickly changing into something that I never wanted it to be, or expected to happen in my lifetime. Even as fucked up and unpleasant as western North Dakota is, I felt that at least there isn’t any traffic, development, or change happening.

It began to dawn on me, that even though I hardly ever gave North Dakotans any credit for being intelligent, I mostly saw them as backward, ignorant, uneducated, short-sighted, and not seeing the big-picture, maybe North Dakotans had the right idea to treat people like shit and try to run them off.

About five months ago, there was a local man named Schmidt in his 90s who left a couple of mean nasty comments explaining to me that many North Dakotans did not want out-of-state people here, that they were going to mess things up, and that in the long-term the local economy could not sustain very many new people here due to the nature of it being primarily rural and agricultural. That the oil boom brought people here, who could not do well here after the oil boom went away.

I will acknowledge now, that even though people in western North Dakota are not very educated, and they didn’t explain themselves very well, somehow they knew that they had to try to discourage the out-of-state workers from thinking that they were going to move here permanently, because once the oil boom went away and there were too many people living here, it would be impossible for all of these people to survive in a simple small-town rural agricultural economy.

The other thing, that the not very educated, not very articulate North Dakotans didn’t explain very well, but knew, is that they didn’t want their way of life to change. By being mean, usurious, unfriendly, hostile, unhospitable, uncooperative, not helpful, and having ugly women, they kept people from staying here or wanting to come here. No new development here, don’t come here.

I used to write that by me pointing out what was wrong with Dickinson, by writing the truth about Dickinson, that if I could get people to see this, that this would be a step towards change for the better. I have begun to accept the reality that I do not like people, I don’t want to be around people, the fewer people that I have to deal with the better. By the people in Dickinson being so mean, hostile, and unfriendly etcetera, this has caused people to leave this area and not want to come to this area. Previously I thought that this was a mistake, but now I don’t think so anymore.

The Wonder Of Western North Dakota

I want to write about one of my impressions of western North Dakota, which I will describe as wonder. I do not want to romanticize western North Dakota, or give anyone the idea that it is quaint, picturesque, amazing, incredible, or awe inspiring. To me, it is frightening and tragic.

A few days ago, a person who read my blog post article about UFOs being seen in the New England area of North Dakota in the 1970s, to such an extent that the Air Force came to town, told the witnesses to shut up about it, and set up a base outside of town, this reader left a comment saying that this Air Force station was in “Havelock”.

I looked up Havelock, and to my surprise, this place was just a few miles southeast of New England, I had never heard of it before. Here is some information from Wikipedia:

In April 1907, the first Moravian settlers arrived to this area in the vicinity of New England, North Dakota. They were visited by Moravian Bishop Karl A. Müller for the first time in the summer of 1908, and four years later, on October 17, 1912, a congregation was organized.  At this time, there were only 12 communicants and 2 children living in the community. This congregation operated and constituted the bulk of the small community’s membership until September 4, 1921.  A post office called Havelock was established in 1910, and remained in operation until 1948.

I have lived in this area of North Dakota for the past eight or nine years, and I had never heard of Havelock.  Looking this up on Google Earth maps and satellite view, there is no longer any town or any buildings in Havelock, just a few farms.  Census data gave the town’s population in 2018 as 20 people.

The settlers in Havelock were from Moravia.  I had only ever heard of Moravia three or four times in my life, I had to look it up.  Moravia is a historical region in the east of the Czech Republic and one of three historical Czech lands, with Bohemia and Czech Silesia.  Moravia was a part of Austria-Hungary from 1867 to 1918.

Prior to moving to Dickinson, North Dakota in 2011, I had very seldom heard of Bohemia either, but a few miles north of Dickinson, there was a group of Bohemian immigrants that had settled “New Hradec” in 1887.

One of my older friends in Dickinson had grown up in New Hradec and had gone to elementary school there, and he told me about the school children being scolded for continuing to speak Bohemian, and that some of their parents did not speak English.  When looking up U.S. Census data for New Hradec, it was noted that “the U.S. Census was never conducted in New Hradec”, what???  There were as many as several hundred people living in New Hradec from 1900-1960, which is a normal sized North Dakota town.

Getting back to the subject of the town of Havelock, settled by Moravians, not Bohemians like New Hradec where they continued to speak Bohemian and were avoided by the U.S. Census, the town of Havelock published a newspaper titled, “The American German”, with some columns written in German.  This newspaper was in publication from 1915-1918.  Jeez, that was during WWI with Germany.

Havelock and New Hradec sound pretty mysterious, don’t they?  What happened to them?  To put this into perspective, the more successful neighboring towns are Lefor population 80, Regent population 130, and New England population 600.

To some readers, the tone of this blog post article may seem that I am making fun of the towns of Havelock, New Hradec, Lefor, Regent, and New England, but I am not.  I have a sense of wonder about all of this, but not in a fairy-tale way, but in a frightening and tragic way.

I didn’t say this yet, but the town of New Hradec was the only documented immigration of Bohemians from the Crimea to have settled in America.  And, the town of Lefor has the highest percentage of residents of Hungarian origin of any zip code in the United States.  (Remember, Moravia and Bohemia were part of Austria-Hungary.)

What is even more telling, is that there are many more towns in this area that no longer exist, towns that I had never heard of before, towns that once had a church, school, post office, and stores.  Sometimes the only thing that still remains, is the town cemetery.

Here are some examples:

Town of DeSart southwest of New England:  Ora and Anna DeSart homesteaded in the area in 1905. They had nine children.  The DeSarts had come from Iowa.  Ora DeSart established a Post Office  in 1906.  About 75 people lived in DeSart at its peak in 1920.  The town had a store, bank, and dance hall.  By 1960, only six people lived in DeSart.  What remains of DeSart today is its cemetery.

Town of Daglum northwest of New England:  Settled in 1900 and named for John Daglum, who erected the first store in which he established the Post Office in 1906. Many of the Daglum settlers were Norwegians, who had first settled in Beresford, South Dakota, before coming here.  Daglum had its own school from 1907 to 1961, when it became part of the New England School District.  What remains of Daglum today is its Lutheran Church and its cemetery.

Town of Bessie near Amidon:  Can’t find hardly any information other than it existed.

Town of Chenoweth near Amidon:  Can’t find any information other than a newspaper was published in Chenoweth from 1910-1924, called “Slope County News”.

Whetstone Township north of Reeder:  I found the Whetsone Butte Cemetery while driving.  The only information I could find was, “Whetstone Butte Cemetery is located in Whetstone Township, section 27. No church was built here, people met for church services in the school house, one mile to the north.”  I did find the large old school house, it is still there.

Pierce, unincorporated southeast of Amidon:  Pierce is an unincorporated community in Slope County.  Pierce is 15 miles southeast of Amidon. The community was initially named Reno after Marcus Reno a Civil War officer, but was later renamed for local residents, the Pierce brothers.  The only thing there now is a church. 

So what happened to everyone, where did everyone go?  Why don’t these towns exist anymore?  These immigrants came from Moravia, Bohemia, and Scandinavia to settle here and farm, did they fail, did they die?

In 1785 Congress passed a law called the Land Ordinance, and later in 1787 this law was added to by the Northwest Ordinance, which among other things, required that new U.S. territories be surveyed and divided into townships that were six miles square.  Each township was to be divided into 36 sections, each one mile square.  One mile square is equal to 640 acres.

The Homestead Act of 1862 granted parcels of land to homesteaders that were 160 acres in size, which is one quarter of a 640 acre section.  What this means if you can picture this in your mind, or look at a Google Earth satellite map, is all of those one mile square sections of land that you see, each homesteader family was granted a corner piece, 1/4 of that one mile square piece of land.

Theoretically, if a township consists of 36 sections, and each section could have four homesteader families on it, you could have 144 homesteader families in a township.  These homesteader families typically had about five persons, so that’s a population of 720 people.  The North Dakota townships didn’t get completely filled with homesteaders, but a peak population of 300 people in the early 1900s was not uncommon.

The homesteader families having large numbers of children,  a school being built, a church being built, a Post Office being established, a general store being opened, all were catalysts for early growth of these townships.  Just talk or plans for a railroad line to be built near town would cause the town to grow.

Some of these towns reached their peak population in the first half of the 1900s.  When WWI broke out in 1914, and the Selective Service Act of 1917 conscripted adult males to go fight in Europe, many of these farmers or sons of farmers were killed and never returned to their North Dakota homesteads.

When WWI ended in 1919, ten years later came the Great Depression.  Even in remote North Dakota, community Banks failed, Bank depositors lost all of their money, farms went into foreclosure and farmers were kicked off their property, community general stores went out of business because people didn’t pay their bills that were owed or have money to buy anything.  Crop prices dropped.  Just about every North Dakota small town had people leave during the Great Depression and their populations dropped.

When the U.S. got into WWII in the early 1940s, all males between the ages of 18-45 were subject to compulsory military service.  The War took North Dakota farmers to their death in Africa, Europe, the Far East, and the South Pacific.  After WWII, most of the small North Dakota towns saw a steady decrease in population.

Due to modernization in the U.S. leading up to and following WWII, the attitudes, values, beliefs, outlook, and habits of American people changed.  As shown and advertised on television, radio, movies, newspapers, and magazines, “advances” in science, technology, farming, and industry made hard physical labor “a thing of the past”.  Americans could now enjoy a life of ease with many modern conveniences, where machines did all of the work.

If you think about it, in 1900 before the automobile, towns like New Hradec, New England, Lefor, Regent, Havelock, DeSart, children walked or rode horse wagons to their local school, parents worked on their own farm, families walked or rode horse wagons to the local Bank or local store, and on Sunday everyone went to the local Church.  You couldn’t just get up and go to Dickinson for something, a horse wagon ride would take at least a couple of hours one-way.

When automobiles became more widely available to North Dakotans in the 1920s, families could travel to larger towns like Dickinson to do their banking, shopping, seek medical treatment, personal services, dining, and entertainment.  The small North Dakota towns didn’t have to be completely self-reliant anymore, for better or for worse.

With the larger, more capable, more powerful, more efficient farm equipment that came into use after WWII, North Dakota farm families did not need to have as many children to perform farm labor, or require adult children to remain on the farm in order to accomplish all of the work.  North Dakota farm families shrank in size as they had fewer children, and allowed adult children to move away to pursue an easier and more comfortable lifestyle.

In order for readers to get a very good picture of what life was like in these small western North Dakota towns, I would have liked to have included some newspaper articles from the newspaper “Slope County News” dated 1911-1915, but the woman who retrieved them from micro-film archives and transcribed them, says that they can not be copied.

By clicking on the following link, you can read very interesting news stories of events, marriages, births, accidents, fights, and bizarre deaths in New England, DeSart, Amidon, Chenoweth, Bessie, and Bowman 1911-1915:  http://files.usgwarchives.net/nd/slope/newspapr/slconews/1911-15c.txt

Warning About A Great Depression Coming To Western North Dakota

There are many people who will wish that I didn’t write this blog post article, for a number of reasons. But I will explain why I am doing this.

For the most part, I do not like North Dakotans, primarily because of how they treated out-of-state workers during the oil boom from 2007-2015, quadrupling rents, gouging, taking advantage, being hostile, unfriendly, uncooperative, and undermining to out-of-state workers.

But two “wrongs” do not make a “right”. Just because North Dakotans acted totally non-Christian towards others, does not mean that I should behave the same way. If I myself have any values, morals, ethics, principles, understanding of right and wrong, a sense of justice and injustice, then I should act accordingly.

I am writing this blog post article to help western North Dakotans, to warn them ahead of time, so that they have a chance to adjust and prepare, because I don’t think that they know what is going to happen.

The “Great Depression” occurred from 1929 through the late 1930s. The two main causes of the Great Depression were the U.S. Stock Market crash in October of 1929, and a severe drought that devastated farming in the early 1930s.

Shortly after the stock market crash, where stock market investors lost most of their investment money, there became a mistrust of financial institutions, so most people sought to withdraw their money from Banks. Because Banks loan out more than half of their deposits, there was not enough money in the Banks to pay all of the depositors when they showed up to withdraw their money. Many Banks failed, became “insolvent”, and many people lost all of the money that they had in their savings and checking accounts. There was no FDIC insurance back then.

The stock market crash, the failure of many large and small Banks, people losing all of their money in investments, losing all of their money in savings and checking accounts, was followed by high unemployment, property foreclosures, evictions, repossession of equipment and vehicles, a huge drop in crop prices paid to farmers, farm foreclosures, then there came a severe drought that ruined many farms in the Great Plains.

You can read about the Great Depression here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression

Why western North Dakotans will soon face a disaster as large as the Great Depression, where many things went wrong all at once, is as follows:

  1. The North Dakota oil boom of 2007-2015 ended when the price of oil fell from over $100 per barrel, to below $40 per barrel.  With an oil company’s costs to drill and maintain an oil well, they could not produce oil at a profit when the price of oil was below $40 per barrel.
  2. The price of oil dropped in 2015 because of a World over-supply of oil, over-production and price-dropping by Russia and OPEC countries.
  3. The number of operating oil well drill rigs in North Dakota dropped from nearly 300 in 2014 to less than 10 currently.  Each operating drill rig in North Dakota creates 100 associated jobs, so nearly 30,000 jobs were lost.
  4. The out-of-state oil field workers leaving western North Dakota caused a contraction in the local economies.
  5. In January of 2020 began the effects of the coronavirus, World-wide travel bans, U.S. travel restrictions, non-essential business closures, banning of events, prohibition of public gatherings, resulting in more contraction of economies and layoffs.
  6. The coronavirus travel bans and shut-downs causing even more of an oversupply and less demand for oil.

The Biden Presidency January 20, 2021

  1. Immediate cancellation of the Keystone XL Pipeline that passes through Montana and South Dakota adjacent to North Dakota that would have created thousands of high paying jobs for North Dakotans.
  2. Imminent ban on hydraulic fracturing, which is the only method to extract North Dakota oil profitably.  Which means no new oil wells in North Dakota, no more oil revenue for land owners, no more oil tax revenue for the State of North Dakota, no more oil field jobs for North Dakotans, no out-of-state workers coming to North Dakota. 
  3. The Biden Presidency causing a shock to the stock market, investing, small businesses, business expansion, new construction, and new hiring.

The above lists are meant to show all of the bad things that are happening at the same time to affect western North Dakota.  One of the things that financial analysts and economists wrote about the Great Depression, is that the pessimism, fear of spending, fear of borrowing money, and hoarding of money made the Great Depression even worse and caused it to last longer.

This blog post article warning western North Dakotans about a coming Great Depression may be unwanted by many people because it could cause the kind of pessimism and fear that some scholars claim made the Great Depression even worse.  In general, Politicians, Mayors, Chambers of Commerce, Real Estate Agents, and Business Owners do not like this kind of talk.  However, in my opinion, these aforementioned groups like for people to be as unknowing sheep waiting to be fleeced.

I believe that it is necessary for the well-being of people, to be notified as far in advance as possible of a coming disaster, so that they will have the chance to prepare and think about what it is that they will do.

I don’t know if it will do any good or not, but in my next blog post article, I will try to discuss some strategies and recommendations that people might use to better survive the Great Depression that is coming to western North Dakota.

Why Third World Women Are More Feminine

When I was growing up in a small east coast town in Florida in the 1970s and 1980s, I took attractive women for granted.  Because of the year-round warm, laid-back, fun beach environment, beautiful charismatic women who could have lived anywhere, chose this area to settle-down, date, marry, and start a family.  I went to elementary school and high school with the daughters of these beautiful, agreeable women.

What spoiled me even further, was when I graduated from high school, I received an academic scholarship to attend a very expensive small private college in Virginia.  55% of the students were female, and most of them came from wealthy families in the northeast.  These young women were very healthy, attractive, well-mannered, nicely dressed, well-groomed, polite, and friendly.

My God, what a contrast from back then and there, to where I am now, living in the gulag of Siberia.  The women here have been bred for bitter-cold, freezing-wind, and hard labor.  Their short stature, cankle-calves, no-neck, ham-fists, built for pulling wagons, slogging through the mud clenching ropes in their teeth.  Staring, glaring, leering, and sneering, snarling, “We didn’t ask you to come here!”

I have tried to explain the difference between women here in western North Dakota compared to women elsewhere.  I have gotten the impression that 30% of readers don’t believe me, and 30% of readers don’t care, leaving about 40% of readers who take some interest, as if there is something to be learned about women.

From time-to-time I have shared some explanation of women provided by other people.  A couple of days ago, I saw a YouTube video made by a creator who calls himself “Coach Red Pill”.  After watching the video which I share below, and several more of his videos, I find this person to be slightly irritating because his repetition of his points does not always provide as much clarity as it does tedium.  However, in this video he does have some very good insight:

I found it to be true, that women who realize that they need men for their survival, make a conscious and considerable effort to be attractive and agreeable.  Also, women who realize that in order to enjoy an affluent lifestyle they will need the resources of men, they too make a great deal of effort to be attractive and agreeable.

On the other hand, women who do not expect to need the resources of men, because either their husband, ex-husband, or the government will continue to provide for them, they let their appearance go, become sloven, and disagreeable.

The Chamber Of Commerce, Real Estate Agents, And Employers Are Not Telling The Truth About Dickinson North Dakota

For a little over six years I have been writing about Dickinson, North Dakota and trying to explain it. In many ways, Dickinson is not normal, and not like other places.

Perhaps the main reason why Dickinson is different from other places, and not normal, is that the local people here truly do not like and do not want people from out-of-state moving here.

I will explain it like this. I grew up south of Daytona Beach in the 1970s-1980s when this city’s population was about 50,000 people. The biggest part of Daytona’s economy was tourism, entertainment, and real estate development.

Everyone in Daytona was accustomed to tourists from across the U.S. and around the World, visiting for such things as the beach, warm weather, NASCAR, and bike week. Many of these visitors decided to stay and try living in Daytona for a while. More than half of the people living in Daytona were not originally from Florida.

When I graduated from College and moved to Tampa, it was similar to Daytona in that half of the population was not from Florida, and a large part of the local economy was real estate development.

When I lived in Flagstaff and Phoenix in my mid-thirties, half the population of these cities was not from Arizona. Everyone was accustomed to meeting and interacting with people from all across the U.S. , and occasionally foreign countries.

Let me show you some of the census data for the growth of these cities:

  • Daytona     population 1980  50,000       population 2020   70,000
  • Tampa        population 1980   271,000     population 2020   400,000
  • Flagastaff   population 1980   35,000      population 2020   75,000
  • Phoenix      population 1980   790,000     population 2020   1,700,000

What I was trying to show with the above data, was the continued growth of these cities, that growth and real estate development was probably the main ingredient that fueled their economies.  Not only did growth happen, but it was welcomed, it brought prosperity.  What this small table of data above does not show, was the literal doubling and quadrupling of the populations on the outskirts of these towns, that is where the real growth occurred.

Getting back to the subject of Dickinson, that Dickinson is not like other places, that Dickinson is not normal, I have tried very hard to explain this, but I have not been able to convince everyone.  A few days ago, a lifelong North Dakotan submitted two comments to my blog website.  I looked this gentleman up, he is approximately 84 years of age.  Due to his age, disposition, and nature, he did not hold back with his thoughts and beliefs.

The two comments that I received from this elderly Dickinson man, are very important in letting out-of-state newcomers know where they stand and what to expect in Dickinson.  As you will see, the true feelings of many local people in Dickinson are not pro-growth, pro-development, and welcoming to newcomers:

“Why don’t you just end your blog. You are obviously not from Western North Dakota. Your blog comments are disturbing/unsettling to us locals. It is not your job to change ANYTHING around here. Way more than enough damage has already been done. It is time to get things back to where they were before all the influx of outsiders coming here to “make things better for us”. The state of our social and economic situation is far worse now thanks to outsiders like you. Take yourself and all the niggers you love back to your home town. We do not need to be diluted by you and your selected kind. GO AWAY!!!”

“This is in response to “Mr Name Withheld” (Dickinson58601.com), let’s call him Tex, and his rant concerning how ugly North Dakota girls are, how stupid North Dakotans are and how terrible the Catholic Church is.
Tex is correct in describing Western North Dakota as wind swept, cold, barren, unattractive, unyielding, hostile, etc. It is not a vacation destination. That is why the people are the way they are. It is a hard life and everything is EARNED and earned the hard way.
But goes on to say that he is going to remain in Dickinson after expressing his profound hatred of Western North Dakota and the locals.
Firstly the local females are not here to lay down for slime ball Texans/Niggers or fans of those types. They are ours as we are theirs. And if they do we shame them. Isn’t it enough that you have been offered a TEMPORARY job here to work until it is over and then you LEAVE! So we are being told by Tex we have to provide Tex with a bed mate as well. Bring your own while you are here sir.
Then Tex starts sharing his vast wisdom about the history of North Dakota’s oil booms. And how stupid we are for not accepting everyone that wants to come here and exploit us. True, the oil companies have been given free rein to be out of control by our state regulators only so the State can collect the measly taxes, while the Texans not only own the oil companies and reap the wealth but bring in their Texas workers to do the work for the most part. ALL the wealth is hauled back to Houston. This, agreed is a seriously monumental problem that NEEDS to be addressed soon. There was always a local group of us that worked the North Dakota oilfields from 1978 to 2005 and were treated status quo as per what we did. As things changed we were blatantly eliminated/discarded for reasons possibly implemented by our newly intelligent state regulators. Allowing this to continue is not very intelligent!! In fact it is stupidity. And then turn around and tout the ‘North Dakota SMART crap”. That is a serious complaint of ours!!! At this point we do not need outsiders here and yet they remain, there are plenty of area people to take care of the jobs available. We don’t need anymore “smart” Texans here, GO HOME TEXANS, don’t trip or get tangled up at the cattle guard-just keep moving back to where you came from or anywhere else. There is a reason people hate Texans. Texans think everyone loves them and are puzzled when they are not welcomed with open arms. Texans are fucking everywhere and are everywhere to exploit others!!!!
Tex also spends a lot of space complaining about how the drug/narcotic community in North Dakota is mistreated. You Tex are most likely are a drug criminal with all this wisdom and those complaints. Maybe that is why you say you will not leave, you are a drug felon and are not allowed to cross state lines.
Then Tex complains about how hostile North Dakotans are to outsiders and that is why the population doesn’t grow. Firstly when most of these outsiders arrived here they conducted themselves as if they had never been across the county line before. To them it was a free for all, riot, melee. Yes we live in a remote low populated area and intend to keep it that way. There is no spot here for hillbilly Texans.
To touch on Tex’s hate of the Catholic Church. It has been here since the beginning and yes the Germans, Ukrainians, Russians, etc. populate the parishes. What religion are you Tex? Are you a Baptist or some other mindless robotic Evangelical that is stupid enough to think that backing the Jew’s/Zionist’s evil will make you “chosen” and ensure entry into the promised land???
Before our final thoughts, just what were the Dickinson city leaders thinking when all these Blacks were allowed to infest the town? Were they looking for population growth no matter who came in? Did they think it would make Dickinson appear to be a progressive, modern looking town? It is obvious THEY have never experienced life beyond their county line other than a vacation or surfing the net. If so, they forgot to consider the big picture. Dickinson is where it is, Dickinson is what it is, Dickinson will continue to be what it has been. The only way to change it is to pay people to come here or set up a Siberia sort of prison to force people to come here. There is only so much that can be done with Dickinson. Dickinson City authorities must be keenly aware they are playing with fire in who they condone residency to. To “experiment” with this African bringing in thing WILL backfire. This whole scene is an embarrassment to locals and non locals alike. Almost all these blacks have a home somewhere where they came from. OK, now there have been black births in Dickinson. At that point these blacks are now natives of Dickinson. City leaders, do you realize just what you have now created in a small, poor place that is not capable of answering to or supporting the DEMANDS that will soon arise. Nice job Dickinson Dolts. That’s what happens when people are put in positions long before they are qualified to fill them. They govern on emotions and by what they absorb from television.
And finally no there is not oil laying in formation in every state Tex. You said every state has oil and North Dakota should not be so proud thinking they are unique. Again Tex you say a lot of off-the-wall things, we will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you meant oil in Auto Zone or O’reily’s.
Overall Tex we stress that if you hate Dickinson as much as you convey. Move back to where you came from and take all the Texans/Southerners/Niggers with you. In fact why don’t you just go away period.
But in reality, with some of the things you say, we believe you are actually originally from the Dickinson area or very nearby. You just got in trouble and turned Texan on us.
As a note, Texans and Niggers come in all shapes, sizes, colors, etc. To be labeled a Texan/Nigger is not a compliment. It is a term that describes an undesirable quality, attitude and way of approaching non Texans. Texans are disliked everywhere, de facto HATED!!”

I think that this Dickinson resident who submitted these two comments above has the right to his opinion and to freely express his thoughts, feeling, and beliefs.  The local people in Dickinson might have been better off if they stated and published these common beliefs before, during, and after the North Dakota oil boom of 2007-2015.  By publish, I mean via newspaper, radio, television, internet, mayor, chief of police, city commissioners, county commissioners, everywhere.

The Chambers of Commerce, real estate agents, and employers should or could be honest with people from out-of-state, but they are not going to.  They are going to continue to try to lure people here with false information, which is just going to result in unhappiness for the newcomers and the local Dickinson residents.  Local Dickinson residents do not want growth and development.

How People Are Illegally Denied A Firearm Purchase In Dickinson North Dakota

In my previous blog post article, I wrote about how the manager of a gun store in southwest North Dakota was illegally using gun buyers’ personal information from their NICS paperwork that was kept on file at this store.

Although firearm purchases were being handled by store employees, who had the gun buyer complete the NICS paperwork, and then called the NICS system while the customer was standing there, at a later point in time after the customer had left the store, the manager of the store got into the gun buyers’ files, and used their personal information to look them up on the internet.

Some readers are thinking, “So what, what difference does that make?”  To many gun buyers, they believe that the Second Amendment To The U.S. Constitution where it says “the right to keep and bear firearms shall not be infringed” means what it says.  People who buy guns from an FFL licensed gun store know that part of the law now is that the store must have the gun buyer complete the NICS paperwork, the store will call this information in to the NICS center, and will receive the response “Proceed”, “Delay”, or “Deny” the purchase.  Many gun buyers don’t like this, but this is the process now.

What is not part of the process, is other people at a gun store who are not involved in the gun sale and NICS personal information transmittal, to later go back through gun buyers’ files and look them up on the internet.  If you read my previous article, all gun store employees must complete and sign and FFL Form acknowledging that they can not use the NICS information for unauthorized use.

The reason why I wrote the previous article and am now writing this article, is because a friend of mine has been prevented from purchasing a firearm for the past 2-1/2 months because of the actions of this particular gun store manager in southwest North Dakota.

My friend who is in his early 50s, in March-April of 2020 he completed classroom instruction, written tests, shooting tests, paperwork, photo submittals, fingerprinting, and FBI background check in order to receive his North Dakota concealed weapons permit.

One advantage of obtaining a concealed weapons permit, is that it certifies that the background checks have been completed, and that the permit holder is legally authorized to own firearms.  Usually, the NICS check and the FFL gun store firearm purchase proceeds much more smoothly if the buyer has a valid concealed weapons permit.

In May, my friend with his new North Dakota concealed weapons permit was able to purchase a 9mm handgun in Dickinson without any NICS delay.  In June he purchased a smaller concealed carry .380 handgun with no delay.  In July he had to return his newly purchased .380 handgun to the manufacturer due to a defect.  In August this manufacturer sent my friend a replacement 9mm handgun in lieu of repairing the defective .380 handgun.

In September my friend attempted to purchase a .22 rifle from a gun store in southwest North Dakota.  He was told by this gun store that his purchase was delayed by NICS, but no reason was given.  My friend could not understand this delay, nor could I, nor could his other friends.  He had a valid North Dakota concealed weapons permit, this should not have happened.

At first, when my friend was finally able to contact an actual person at NICS, they told him that he was purchasing too many firearms, that he would be delayed until the end of September.  Then, throughout October my friend was delayed in purchasing any firearm.  Then throughout November my friend was delayed in purchasing any firearm.  Being prevented from purchasing any firearm for September, October, and November, this isn’t really a delay, it’s a denial.

What happened?  How did my friend who obtained his North Dakota concealed weapons permit in May, who was able to purchase one handgun in May, one handgun in June, and receive a replacement handgun from a manufacturer in August, why did he become banned from purchasing any firearm by NICS immediately after attempting to purchase a .22 rifle from a gun store in southwest North Dakota?

My friend, myself, and his other friends began to believe that the gun store where he tried to purchase the .22 rifle had “Red Flagged” my friend.  By “Red Flagged”, we mean that the gun store made some kind of written or verbal statement to the NICS center that my friend was prohibited from owning firearms, such as being mentally ill, mentally incapacitated, a drug-addict, currently facing criminal charges, convicted of domestic abuse, or some such thing.

When I began talking to this gun store manager, that is when he admitted to me that he was going back into gun buyers’ files, and using their personal information on the NICS application to look them up on the internet, to see who they were, what they were doing, and decide what he was going to do to them.

Because of this gun store manager’s actions, my friend has been unable to buy any firearms at any gun store in Dickinson for the past 2-1/2 months, though he has a valid North Dakota concealed weapons permit.

If you are a gun owner in Dickinson, you need to think twice about trying to purchase a firearm from a gun store in southwest North Dakota, because a store employee could just Red Flag you to NICS after going through your personal information and looking you up on the internet.

Southwest North Dakota Gun Dealer Illegally Uses Buyers’ Personal Information

About one month ago, the manager of a store that sells guns in southwest North Dakota told me that he had gone into his store’s paper work files of gun buyers, looked at the personal information provided by a gun buyer on their NICS form, and performed an internet search of this person on social media.

The reason why this store manager told me this, was because he did not know that this was very illegal, and strictly prohibited conduct of a licensed FFL gun dealer. Below is the Federal Government Form that FFL gun dealers and their employees must sign:

Federal Firearms Licensee (FFL) Officer/Employee
Acknowledgment of Responsibilities
under the
National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS)

Being an officer or employee of the following named Federal Firearms Licensee (FFL):

Name of FFL ___________________________FFL Number______________
Business/Trade Name (if different from FFL name)_____________________
FFL Address City___________________ State__________ Zip____________

I, the undersigned, hereby acknowledge that I have read and understand
my obligations and responsibilities under the NICS as an FFL officer
or employee, as detailed in the FBI outline: Responsibilities of an
FFL under the NICS. In consideration of being permitted access to NICS related information as part of my employment, I accept and agree to
comply with these obligations and responsibilities. I further
acknowledge my legal obligation to the NICS, my employing FFL, and
affected firearms transferees to safeguard all NICS-related information
to which I may be exposed and to protect it from unauthorized use or disclosure. I also acknowledge that all communications with the NICS
Section, including telephone or electronic, are subject to monitoring
and/or recording by the FBI or its representatives, and that my
participation in any communications with the NICS Section constitutes
my consent to such monitoring and recording.
Officer/employee signature __________________
Officer/employee name __________________
Date signed __________________
Witnessed on behalf of the FFL by:
Witness signature __________________
Witness name __________________
Witness title/position in FFL __________________
COMPLETED COPIES OF APPENDIX A TO BE RETAINED BY FFL
DUPLICATE LOCALLY AS REQUIRED

If you wish, you can look up this FFL Form and other information using this link: https://ucr.fbi.gov/nics/federal-firearms-licensees/ffl-acknowledgment-of-responsibilities-under-nics

For those of you who do not purchase or own firearms, what I am writing probably does not matter to you. For those of you who do purchase and own firearms, many of you are probably leery of providing a record of your firearm purchase to the Federal Government, because it could eventually lead to more Federal Government regulation, rules, and laws concerning this firearm.

Many people who purchase and own firearms believe that the original and complete wording of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, where it says, “A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”, that this means that there should not be any interference, obstruction, blocking, delays of people lawfully obtaining firearms, but the NICS process is interference, obstruction, blocking, and delays.

If people want to purchase a firearm from an FFL gun store, they are required to fill out the NICS paperwork, which includes Full Name, Date of Birth, Social Security Number, Drivers License Number, Current Home Address, Phone Number, and I believe Place Of Birth. This personal information is usually transmitted to the NICS center via a telephone call from the FFL gun store employee while the gun buyer is present.

The purpose of the NICS process, was to quickly determine if the gun buyer is legally prohibited from purchasing a firearm. The most common reason for a person to be legally prohibited from owning a firearm is previous conviction of a felony.

From the Federal Government Form for FFL gun stores that I included a copy of above, it states that the FFL gun store employees must read and sign that: “I further acknowledge my legal obligation to the NICS, my employing FFL, and affected firearms transferees to safeguard all NICS-related information to which I may be exposed and to protect it from unauthorized use or disclosure.”

The manager of this FFL gun store in southwest North Dakota, telling me that he went into the file of a gun buyer, after their NICS had been called in, after they had left the store, to collect their full name, date of birth, and current address to go look them up on social media to satisfy their personal curiosity, is exactly the Unauthorized Use that is never supposed to happen.

To put this another way, what if you went to a hospital for medical treatment, and you supplied your name, date of birth, social security number, current address, and other personal information as required. Hospital staff who receive this personal information are not supposed to go look the patient up on Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, Realtor.com, to find out where they work, who they are in a relationship with, how much money they make, what kind of house they live in, to satisfy their own personal curiosity. The same principle would apply to people who work at a Bank who have access to your personal information.

I notified the two owners of this FFL gun store by e-mail, including a copy of the Federal
Government Form for FFL gun stores that prohibits unauthorized use of the NICS personal information provided by gun buyers, but they did not respond.

Because I received no response from the owners of this southwest North Dakota gun store, the following day I called the ATF in Fargo that handles the licensing and regulation of firearms dealers in North Dakota.

To me, this is just another example of ignorance and corruption in North Dakota. The manager of this gun store, not only did he not know that it is illegal to use gun buyers’ personal information for his own entertainment, enjoyment, and curiosity, he doesn’t see this as unethical or inappropriate. Neither do the two owners of this gun store.

I Don’t Like Dogs, But I Will Probably Have To Get A Dog

When I was growing up, my family had about four Chinese Pug dogs, one English Bulldog, a white German Shepherd, a Terrier Hound, and several Pit Bull dogs.

All of the dogs were allowed in and out of the house as they pleased, the house screen door was always broken and hanging open.  I wrote in previous blog post articles that the door hanging open allowed opossums, squirrels, bats, snakes, and mice inside of the house.

The dogs were allowed on the sofa, chairs, benches, in everyone’s bedroom, and on everyone’s bed.  My mother was not into cleaning, the house stank, animal hair was everywhere, and it was dirty.  The Black maids that my parents hired didn’t work for us very long.  Looking back on this, why would anyone not become exasperated trying to clean some place like this?

When I became a teenager, I became sick and tired of how dirty the house was.  All on my own, I would sometimes scrub all the filthy stained white baseboards, white window trim, dark red wallpaper, door frames, door trim, door handles, paint the light colored porch railing and pickets, and paint the dark blue porch boards.  Everything was so filthy and disgusting, I couldn’t take it anymore.  And, it was embarrassing.

I never, ever wanted to live someplace like that again.  I hated the urine and shit stench smell from the yard that surrounded the house.  I hate it when I go to visit other people at their house, and there is that urine and shit stench smell from a dog in their yard.

I don’t like dogs, I don’t want a dog, so why would I get a dog now?

During the last several months, on again and off again, I have had people complaining about my blog post articles, some of them becoming quite incensed, to where they attempted to publish my name, photograph, and address.

I do not care, and these people do not care if my name, photograph, and address is published, what they actually want is to cause other people to come to my home and try to harm me and my property.  They don’t want to do it, they are not going to do it, they want to try to persuade other people to do it for them.

I do have security cameras installed which record my property continuously, and I do have motion detectors on my property which are programmed to zones on an alarm box.  But I am not always going to be home.

I am probably going to run a 1/4″ diameter steel cable along the ground from the back of my property to the front of my property to act as a runner for a dog chain.  The dog chain I will make about 20′ length, I believe.

For legal liability reasons, I will have to post “No Trespassing” and “Beware Of The Dog” signs at every entry point to my yard.  Then I can try to find a large, mean, aggressive dog.

The City Animal Shelter is probably not going to have any mean aggressive dogs available for adoption.  I believe and have been told that when they receive a dog like this, they classify them as un-adoptable, and euthanize them almost immediately.

I am not looking for any pure-bred dog necessarily, probably not a Doberman or German Shepherd.  Something like a mix-breed Rottweiler or a mix-breed Mastiff.

I can not be friendly with this dog, and I can not allow other people to be friendly with this dog.  This dog must distrust people, and respond to people with unwavering aggression.

The type of people that the complainers to my blog post articles hope to incite to do violence or property damage, are feeble-minded idiot criminals who will not even think to read my blog post articles for themselves, but will take someone else’s accusations as fact, and giving them the right somehow in their idiot minds to go commit crimes.

So I have to go acquire some poor dog, who will never receive any love or affection from me or anyone else, who will be chained outside all day, every day when it is -50 degrees outside this winter in North Dakota.  It’s not coming inside, I don’t like dogs.

Sure, the naer-do-wells will probably put some broken glass or poison in ground beef and toss it to my guard dog.  That will be funny, won’t it?  I won’t care, I don’t like dogs, I’ll just go get another dog.  And if someone ever gets past my guard dog, the dog’s punishment will be a bullet through the top of its head.  The dog had one job to do, that was the only use I had for the dog, if it can’t do its job, it’s done.

See, you fucking scheming women thought that you were going to make me miserable.  I am not going to be bothered.  But whatever poor dog that gets chained up in my yard from now on is going to have a miserable, painful, short life because of what you have caused.

A Reader Asked Why Don’t I Leave Dickinson North Dakota

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a blog post article that described a bad experience that I had with a local bank in Dickinson, North Dakota.  This was the third time that I had had problems with this local bank.  This was the third time that I had written a blog post article complaining about this local bank.

When I write blog post articles criticizing things that happen in Dickinson, often times I receive comments from North Dakota readers disputing that anything wrong, unjust, or unfair happened.  When I get comments like this, it’s like the same incident happening all over again, because another person can’t see that they are in the wrong, and it also demonstrates even more clearly that North Dakotans do not know U.S. law, or what normal behavior is.

Inevitably, when I explain things that happen in Dickinson, North Dakota that are bad, I get comments from North Dakota readers saying, “Why don’t you just leave?”  One answer is, why should I leave, why don’t you North Dakotans start acting right, that would be a better solution for everyone.

I will give two examples of what I mean.  I wrote a blog post article about some undercover Police Officers in Dickinson asking to play a game of pool with me at a bar in 2011.  Before long, they were asking me again and again where they could buy drugs.  I am not, nor have I ever been, a drug user or a drug dealer.  I have never been charged with any crime.

There are all kinds of local people in Dickinson who are known, repeat offender drug users and dealers, who get arrested again and again, and are never kept in jail or sent to prison.  However, me not being from Dickinson, and having no involvement whatsoever in drug use or drug dealing, the Police were trying to set me up as being a drug dealer.

Prior to me moving to Dickinson, I had received an academic merit scholarship to go to college, I graduated with a degree in engineering , I had worked as an engineer and been successful in other occupations, and I had never been in any trouble.  But the Dickinson people wanted to try to ruin my life because they have this perverse hatred for people from somewhere else, especially educated people.

The second example I will give, is about a small young man from Nepal, who came to Dickinson to work his way through college to become an accountant.  After working in convenience stores and assisted living facilities while attending Dickinson State University, he graduated with a degree in accounting and he got a good job after graduation.

Once this young man was out of school and had a good job, he was lonely and tried to meet women.  There is a great shortage of women in Dickinson for a number of reasons, this is well known.  He eventually began searching dating sites and elsewhere on the internet in order to find a woman to date.

The Dickinson Police placed a fake advertisement or fake profile on the internet, posing as a woman who wanted to meet a man.  The Nepalese man began communicating with this woman, and out of the blue the Police made up the fact that this fake woman was under 18 years of age.  The Nepalese man stated that he would never have a relationship with a woman under 18.

The Police persisted in contacting this man, trying different ploys to get him to meet this supposedly minor fake female.  He never did show up to meet this fake female, but the Dickinson Police arrested him anyway, and charged him with Commercial Sex Trafficking of a Minor, which carries a twenty year prison sentence.

Like me, here was this educated professional person, from somewhere else, who had never been in any trouble, and the Dickinson Police were trying to set him up, to completely ruin this man’s life.  The local Dickinson people just love this, they hate people who are from someplace else, especially educated people.

These are just two examples.  I have written nearly 1,000 blog post articles that are full of bad things happening and being done in Dickinson.  So when North Dakotans ask me why don’t I just leave, I feel like a better solution would be for North Dakotans to stop doing wrong.

Is Dickinson North Dakota A Good Place To Live

After my experience yesterday in Dickinson, North Dakota trying to make a bank deposit, I am a changed person.  It’s like I have been nearly drowning in a lake, treading water, trying to keep my head above water, and I finally sank and my lungs became completely filled with the filthy, ignorant, inbred, backwards, ugly, hostile water, as I was submerged in Dickinson.

Or, it was like being ass-raped in prison while you were minding your own business and not expecting it, going to the local bank in Dickinson, and once again having your entire day, outlook on life, expectation in people, trust in people, expectation of normal behavior, and trust in institutions ruined.  Prison and Dickinson are the same, the same perverse, primitive, ignorant, law-less shit happens.

Let’s just face it, you are never going to be able to have an enjoyable day in Dickinson.  You are never going to be able to go to any business in Dickinson and get what you came for.  You are never going to meet any nice, enjoyable, interesting people.  You are never going to see an attractive woman in Dickinson.  You will never be left alone by the Dickinson Police, prison guards.

Every day in Dickinson, from the time that you wake up in the morning to the time that you go to bed at night, there will be fat, ugly, Jack-O-Lantern women standing outside smoking a cigarette, driving by in a Chevy Tahoe smoking a cigarette, working at every store that you go to.

Have you ever read about women who get raped, how they handle getting raped?  They say that they try to leave their body, that they are not even in their body, they are not experiencing what is being done to their body, they are not here.  That’s how you cope with living in Dickinson.

This is how I have to live in Dickinson.  You people here are so fucking stupid, ugly, inbred, ignorant, uneducated, dirty, incompetent, law-less, and backwards, that no one normal in their right mind wants to be here.

More Problems With Banks In Dickinson North Dakota

It has come to the point, that I don’t even want to name this Bank in Dickinson, North Dakota where I keep having problems.  I have already written two previous blog post articles about this Bank.

At first, when I opened an account with this local Bank in Dickinson more than three years ago, I thought that the customer service was going to be superior to the nationwide Bank, Wells Fargo, that I had become frustrated with in Dickinson.  I was wrong.

My first blog post article complaining about this local Bank in Dickinson, was that they were treating me like criminal white-trash when I was trying to open an account.  They directly said to me, “We have to perform a credit check on you, before we will allow you to open an account at our Bank.”  And when I asked if a debit card came with this checking account, they said to me, “If you get denied for your checking account, you won’t get any debit card.”

I didn’t like hearing this kind of talk.  At the time, I had accounts at three different Banks.  I had never been overdrawn on an account in my life, never missed a credit card payment, never missed a car payment, never missed a rent payment.  Why was this person at this Bank treating me like this?

The second blog post article that I wrote complaining about this local Bank, was when this same person at this Bank told me, that their Bank was not liable for forged or stolen checks.  I explained to this person that my understanding was that Banks are liable for reimbursing account holders for forged or stolen checks, otherwise, why would anyone keep money in Banks, and that this is what the FDIC insurance on Bank accounts is for.

I had to spend a lot of my own time researching Banking laws, getting down to reading about the Office Of The Comptroller Of The Currency, which regulates Banks.  Yes, Banks are legally required to reimburse account holders for “improperly paid” checks, for such things as forged and stolen checks.  Why didn’t the person at this local Bank in Dickinson, even know the Banking law?  Is this entire Bank, and the Bank owner crooked?

After this, I went and opened an account with the nationwide Bank, US Bank, in Dickinson.  I asked the lady that was opening my new account, what was her understanding of the law regarding forged or stolen checks.  She replied with almost these exact words:

“At US Bank, if you report to us that there has been a forged or stolen check drawn against your account, we require that you file a Police report immediately about this check fraud and theft.  That way, the Police can begin investigating immediately.  US Bank will then reimburse you the money that was stolen from your account.  US Bank will conduct its own investigation, in addition to the Police investigation.  If we determine that there was no involvement or wrong-doing by the account holder in this theft, this matter is closed with the account holder.”

That is exactly what I wanted to hear.  The nationwide US Bank was following U.S. Law, whereas the other local Bank in Dickinson was not.

When my father died in April of this year, I was told by the representative of his estate, that I would be getting two large checks, and one smaller check.  The first check was to close out his savings account.  The second check was to close out his investments.  The third check was to close out his checking account, which would be done after all of his final bills had been paid.

I had four different Bank accounts that I could deposit these checks in, and it sure as hell wasn’t going to be the Bank that said they were not responsible for forged and stolen checks.

When I did receive the first two checks settling the estate of my father, I called ahead to the Bank manager explaining what I had, and that I wanted to come inside the Bank to complete these deposits.  I said that I understood that there would be a seven to ten day hold on these checks.  I said to the Bank manager that I did not want any Bank teller asking me where I got these checks, what they were for, or treating these checks like they were fake checks, or stolen checks.  The Bank manager cut me off, saying, “No, no, no, no one here is going to do that to you.”

Today, I received in the mail unexpectedly, a check that was partially closing out my father’s checking account, as there were probably going to be no more bills.  This check was for a little over $10,000.  In order to spread the money out amongst my four different Bank accounts, I wanted to deposit this check into the local Bank in Dickinson that I had had bad experiences with.  This check wasn’t for that much money, there shouldn’t be any problem just making a deposit.

I had not expected to be making a Bank deposit today, so when I went to this local Dickinson Bank, I had to ask the Bank teller for a blank deposit slip.  I went over to a counter space, and completed the deposit slip for just a deposit of this one check, no money back.

I explained to the Bank teller that I had an account at this Bank, I just wanted to deposit this check, and I handed everything to her.  I wasn’t expecting any problems.

Within about one or two minutes of handing this deposit slip and check to this Bank teller, she was on the telephone beside her, saying to me, “I have to verify if funds are available.”

This was not good.  I am fifty-one years old now, a Bank teller does not need to make a phone call to determine if “funds are available” on a check that is being deposited.  I have never had this happen to me before in my life.  Either a check will clear the Bank that it is drawn upon within a period of a few days, or it won’t.  Her phone call was more to determine if this was a fraudulent, fake, or stolen check.

I was becoming angry, because this check was clearly printed with the full name of my father and “Attorney At Law”, with his address on the east coast, and it was made payable to me his son, with the exact same name and Jr.  My Bank account with this local Bank in Dickinson, has my full name, which is the same full name as my father, but I am a Jr.

The young lady Bank teller was on the phone for five minutes, but she received no response.  She asked me what this check was, and I said that it was from my father.

What I became concerned about, besides me being angry, was that this Bank teller was not very smart.  If I told her that my father had died, in her Sherlock Holmes detective mind, she would say, “Ah ha!  How could your father write this check, if he is dead?”

I would then try to explain, that my father didn’t write this check, it was the representative of his estate who wrote this check to me.  “Ah ha!” she would say, “You admit that this check has been forged!”

This young Bank teller went walking around the Bank in search of some kind of manager that could approve the deposit of this check.  I asked the nearest Bank employee if I could speak to the Bank manager, I was becoming very angry I said.

There was no Bank manager available.  The young Bank teller got back on the telephone, and I heard her say something like this check was suspicious, or that I was suspicious.  Meanwhile, the Bank lobby cleared of all employees, and I was expecting the Dickinson Police to arrive at any moment.

I looked at my cell phone, in order to retrieve the email that the representative of my father’s estate had sent to myself and my sister explaining the plans for the distribution of the estate, and the checks that he had planned to send out.

Eventually, an assistant manager was located, by the Bank employees who had evacuated the Bank lobby.  I walked back to the assistant manager’s office, and I explained to him that this transaction was just for a deposit of a check from my father.  I wasn’t trying to get any cash back, I was just making a deposit.  Your Bank teller was acting like this was a fake, fraudulent, or stolen check.

I explained that I knew that this check could take seven to ten days to clear.  I wasn’t trying to get any cash back, nor was I expecting for this money to be available.  Why was your Bank teller trying to call, supposedly to determine if “funds were available”?  You were treating this like it was a fake or stolen check, and I am very angry, and insulted.

The assistant bank manager explained that perhaps the Bank teller was trying to find a way to not have a seven to ten day hold on this check, but she should have explained that she was doing this, or explained that there would be a seven to ten day hold.

I said to the assistant Bank manager, that I shouldn’t have to explain to your Bank teller, and all of the other Bank tellers and people in your Bank lobby within in ear-shot, what this check is for, it is none of their business, but you can go ahead and read this explanation here on my phone, and I handed him my phone.

He walked back out to the Bank tellers with me, he told the Bank teller to process this deposit, it was for the estate of my father.  The check was deposited, I was handed the receipt, and I left the Bank.

I was angry and insulted, and this Bank deposit took about 20-30 minutes.

You might want to ask me, why didn’t I just explain all of this to the Bank teller in the first place?  For one thing, it is none of her business, and none of the business of everyone standing within forty feet of me who can hear.  Next, I realized that this young Bank teller was not very smart, if I had told her that my father had died, she would wonder who wrote this check and who signed it?

Then, since this Bank teller was on the path of being a detective, was she going to become a legal expert too and say, “Wait a minute, did this go through probate?”, “Wait a minute, does your father’s representative have legal power of attorney?”,  “Wait a minute, did you pay taxes on this?”

The God damn fucking problem of young Bank tellers asking questions, is that they shouldn’t be asking fucking questions!!!!  If a check is payable or processable, do it, don’t try to be a fucking detective!