2016-06-13 19.20.48From a few days in North Dakota, and a quick camp in the Badlands — a tent along the river under the big sky, stars, buffalo, smores, snakes — and snaking through Theodore Roosevelt National Park, taking a few deep breaths through a car window thoroughly rolled down, climbing and descending, sitting and thinking, some sleep, some drinks, some mud, many wholly good moments in my heart.

 

Wallace_Christen_WWI_Draft_Edited copy

My then 26-year-old great-grandfather, Wallace Christen’s WWI draft registration card, dated June 5, 1917. At the time he was a farm laborer in Plaza, Mountrail County, North Dakota. I do not know much about Wallace — he passed away suddenly in his early 30s in a work accident. Remembering today.