In Minot, North Dakota, a small town stuck
to the frozen plains, ice spread like ferns across
the windowpanes and formed stalactites from rain
gutters and eaves. Snow molded around buildings,
buried hedges and barbed wire fences. Tall spruces
and pines, planted in rows, kept the wind from ripping
through the prairie. My second grade teacher, Mrs.
Olson, told us about the Ice Age, the way a great
glacier inched its way south over eons to scrape
the plains flat, then melted and carved out the badlands.
She never mentioned that every square mile for miles
outside of our town, men waited below ground in silos,
even in below zero weather. They waited for orders to
turn a key, to send their minuteman missiles to ground
zero. There were air raid sirens and drills, but we
never crouched under our desks, never steadied
ourselves under the beams of a doorway. We
donned parkas and Snoopy hats, tugged at mittens
strung through our sleeves with yarn, and marched
single file outside, the red bricks of Longfellow
Elementary framed by the sky, intensely blue and full
of ice crystals, an occasional plume from a jet
high up in the atmosphere. Mrs. Olson waited with us
silently, as if we were in church, and when the sirens
faded, she counted us, and led us back inside.
Sometimes the snow fell indifferently down, and even
our own boots turned the soft white powder into ash.
Sean Ward
Because he has to do something in his free time
