She had learned to value the wind; her father always swore about it.

At least she learned to value a breeze. Still days bring on the insects and humidity
and air pollution. The dust from the road hangs in the air and the stink of diesel and oil and chemicals hangs around.

The Dakota prairie does not have a smog problem and every tree planted on the upwind side of the farmstead is “worth its weight in gold. Prairie people predict the weather. Three days of wind out of the east will blow up a rain for sure.

It was windy that day, very windy even by North Dakota standards. “Blow your cap off if you don’t have it cinched down” they say. It is too windy to spray – too cold to go for a walk, at least this time of year.

Over coffee uptown they were remembering days like this. One guy remembered the night it blew so bad out of the northwest that it blew a single freight car all the way from Portal to Minot.

A lot of damage gets done on days like this.. The wind doesn’t give up when it finds a loose shingle or a roof board or an unlatched door. "Relentless," she mused.

“It’ll blow the hair right off your head” he said.

She sat quietly listening to the wind whistle and howl. She was remembering the day they buried her mother on the hill north of town.

Jim stopped her as she headed toward the car, leaning into the wind. “Hellofa wind, straight out of the west. “We’ll remember the day we said goodbye to the classy gal from Montana.”

Marcia Nygaard Olney