One of the families that we were friends with was the Day Family. They weren’t members or anything, but I worked with the husband (don’t remember his name) and David was good friends with their little girl. I think her name was Carla, but not sure. (Karen: correct me if I have it wrong) One day, David is suddenly missing. We looked and looked for him. He was about 3 or 4 at the time. Then we found out that Carla Day was mssing as well. We were just starting to panic when someone spotted them walking across this big open field that was next to the apartment houses. About a mile away from the apartment there was this old hotel. You could see it easily from the apartments. I’m not sure if it was open or not, but Carla and David had decided to walk over and check it out. It would have been a long walk if they had made it, but we got to them first.
There are a couple things I remember most when I think about North Dakota. One is, of course, the winters. The coldest code I have ever felt in my life, I felt in N.D. We were leaving a New Years Eve Party over near Langdon somewhere. I think it was on the M.S.R. base. I checked the temperature and it was -42 degrees. That’s actual temperature, not wind chill. Some friends of ours left the same party that night and their car broke down before they go home. Luckily someone came along and saw them and rescued them. They would not have survived the night even inside a car at those temperatures. White out conditions were common in that area. The snow would blow and since the land is so flat, there is nothing to stop it. It would blow across the roads and in no time at all, you couldn’t see a thing. But, it was always fun to go to town to shop. The cars would all pull in nose first at the curb so they could plug in their cars. And those who didn’t have block heaters would just leave the cars running. You could drive down the main street of Cavalier and drive through a constant cloud of exhaust. Many of the parked cars were sitting there running. No one ever worried about anyone stealing the car. It just didn’t happen.
Dad