2022, Family, History, Uncategorized

Trending

47 Comments

On Saturday I texted a friend the following:

Bruce, are you aware that the photo of your grandfather weeping at the signing away of the land for the dam was circulating on Reddit today? Here is the photo. It was taken in 1948 when the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation in North Dakota was pressured into signing away their land for what ultimately became the Garrison Dam.

My son tipped me off to this on Saturday morning, being aware of North Dakota history and the family history of our friend. 70,000 people had already viewed the photo by then. Another friend of mine who had no idea about my connection to the family also posted the photo on Facebook.

Bruce had no idea what Reddit was, and hoped it wasn’t a bad thing. I told him it wasn’t, and that he should let his grandchildren know, as they would understand how it worked and could help him navigate the site and see the photo and the comments.

I don’t know if I would take kindly to my family history to be trending on social media. This blog and Facebook are the only two social media platforms I belong to, and I rarely post anything on Facebook. I just keep it to stay connected to people I know who I rarely get to see.

Have you every been trendy? What social media platforms do you belong to? Have you ever visited any of the large dams built in the western US for water and land management?

47 thoughts on “Trending”

  2. Facebook but have 38 friends most of whom I block. They insist I be their friend but don’t seem to notice I don’t use it. My immediate family, except my sister has now it seems disowned me, and I use it for group communication on the messenger part and I keep track of three close friends . Sandy and I have received 19 cards, only 2 of which had a note on them.
    I toured the Grand Coulee when I was 9. Seen the one by Pierre. Don’t remember any others.
    Clyde

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  3. I’ve visited Hungry Horse near Glacier Park in Montana.
    Instagram, rarely used.
    No Twitter but I might put a bid on it after Musk bankrupts it. I’ll go as high as $44,000.00

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  4. I’ve never been knowingly trendy, at least as an adult, and would be dismayed if I discovered that I had stumbled into trendiness.

    If the Trail can be considered social media, then that’s my limit of social media engagement. I’ve never been on Facebook and it disappoints me that so many of my acquaintances have migrated there instead of using group emails as we once did but not enough to lure me into Facebook. Back before Facebook, I used to participate in a few Usenet discussion groups, which were mass email groups centered around a discussion topic.

    I think I visited Hoover dam when I was about 10.

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  5. I’ve been to Hoover Dam, many years ago with a client. However, having seen the movie San Andreas with Dwayne Johnson, I don’t think I’ll ever want to go up on the dam again. Or any dam for that matter!

    Just WP and FB for me, although my Facebook use is not very robust. I only have about 50 friends (on purpose) and although I do the occasional like, and the really occasional comment, I think I post something maybe once a year. Like Clyde I have a lot of people who insist that they only communicate on Facebook, but then they don’t actually communicate. Kind of stinks.

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  6. If I ever was trendy, I missed it.
    I’m on Facebook, but I go in spurts – ignore it mostly for a couple of weeks, then hit a day with lots of stuff I feel like sharing. I try to stay away from politics, and like to post stuff that’s unique, informative, or makes me laugh out loud. Cats and dogs get a lot of play, and cool nature photos.

    Can’t remember visiting one of the big dams, but may have seen one in passing..

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  7. My parents took me to the Hungry Horse Dam when I was quite little.

    The Garrison Dam flooded the best farm land the tribe had along the Missouri River. They were given much inferior land higher up. Bruce told me when he was a little boy he and his grandfather would check every day how far the water had come up after the dam was in place.

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  8. I’ve been to the Hoover Dam and Grand Coulee (though I was so young I barely remember it). And back in 1962 we stopped at the Fort Peck Dam on our way to Seattle. I was really disappointed to find out it was an earthen dam – not impressed. I don’t think we saw the spillway.

    I do have a FB account with less than 200 friends. I post occasionally. It’s a nice way to keep up with my two young great nephews as well as out of town friends and family. I do not have and never will have a Twitter account. I joined Instagram in order to see photos of my great niece but have never posted anything on it.

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  9. Rise and Shine, Baboons,

    I find that header picture to be just heartbreaking. It appears that he fully understands that he was forced to give up his family’s heritage. It makes me sick to see that.

    The only time I was trendy was when I was diagnosed with breast cancer just as it was gaining notoriety and people were starting to openly discuss it as a threatening disease, then fundraise for research. I would have gladly passed on being so trendy.

    I have been to Hoover Dam twice. My uncle used to take us to Gavin’sPoint Dam on the Missouri River near Yankton SD to play in the water and give our mothers a break from children who needed to be wild and crazy. Iowa also put a dam in the DesMoines River to develop the Saylorville Recreational Area. They did this in the 1970s when the dam was in the middle of farm land. My ex-husband and I camped there in the middle of a cornfield with the cows. People thought they were crazy. Fifty years later that has developed into a huge attraction. I drive over the dam when I visit my mother.

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  10. Trendy?? What’s that? Never tried to be. Never want to be. Too busy doing my own thing.

    I’m on too much social media because that’s what authors are “supposed to do.” FB, Twitter, LinkedIn, this blog, my website, and my newsletter. I post mostly about books, book events, other authors, my books, reviews, and some PSA-type stuff–Interesting Consumer Reports or AARP articles, PolitiFact articles, Big Brother Big Sister happenings, etc.

    I find myself using FB, Twitter, & LinkedIn less these days. The time needed to help sell books is far too much, and it’s difficult to measure the effectiveness. Haven’t even tried ads for any of my books on FB, Amazon, or Goodreads.

    Looks like I’m like many others here who have seen Hoover, Grand Coulee, and Ft. Peck (yes, a bit underwhelming). I may have driven past a dam or two in KY or TN connected to the Tennessee Valley Authority.

    Chris in Owatonna

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    1. My son is on a job hunt, thinks he has a good one about nailed down, partly the result of linkedin.
      OT: just now, finally, four days later, sample for Sandy’s UTI was taken to the lab by me. Now we wait for culture. Three days I think. Oncall nurse did not answer Friday, Saturday, Sunday until 6 p.m. and this morning until 9:30

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  11. I don’t have accounts in many places–only Facebook, a forum or two, and Archive of Our Own, which doesn’t count as social media. My roommate and landlady both have Tumblrs, since they’re active in fandoms, which I have not been for quite some time. The Facebook pagan community was so irritating I’m afraid Tumblr paganism would make my head explode (I swear, these children seem to think smudging with sage is the answer to everything from bad dreams to full-on demonic possession, and they’d rather ask total strangers what *they* think the gods are trying to say than do a freakin’ divination to find out directly…). I actually get most of my interaction from blogs like this one and John Michael Greer’s, which has a terrific commentariat.

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  13. I’ve seen that photo somewhere before and it is heartbreaking.

    I haven’t traveled much so I don’t remember many dams. I remember looking down on a dam as the plane I was on descended into Phoenix. I don’t know which dam it was.

    I’m on fb, this blog, and the NextDoor app for Northfield. I spend too much time on fb but I do like the interaction with friends who are far away. I try not to post political things but sometimes it’s irresistible in our country’s current quagmire. I know better, but I do it anyway. There is an addictive quality about fb. I have tried to get away from it but I always get sucked back in. I need a life.

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  14. The photo should be prize winning; it speaks so much.

    I try not to be trendy. But once upon a time I unwittingly joined the ukulele bandwagon without realizing it.

    I’ve never seen any of those dams. We have an earthen dam on the farm, my folks had built with cost sharing money in the mid-1970’s to control Erosion. It doesn’t hold any water to make a pond, it just holds back heavy rains or snow melt.

    The city of Rochester built seven dams as part of a fund control project after the 1978 flood caused millions of dollars of damage to town. Those dams created reservoirs, not “lakes”, “reservoir’s” behind them. One of those is in our Township and a few years ago there was quite a debate to open it to public fishing. According to the original language, it was not supposed to be open. But of course no one could find the actual paperwork that said that. I happen to be chairman of the Townboard at the time. Didn’t want to be trendy then either. It took a couple years for the furor to die down, and it is a public fishing area now.

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  16. There was a reservoir in Blue Mounds State Park near Luverne that people liked to swim in, even though it was contaminated by the run off from the hog operation owned by a school friend’s dad across the road. A bad storm took out the dam, and the DNR wisely chose to let the river go back to its natural state and not replace the dam. Therevwas some grumbling about it. The city has turned a former gravel pit in the middle of town into a very lovely lake with a really nice beach. The water is clean.

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  17. I am on FB, and though there are many things about the platform that annoy me, I can honestly say that I would not be nearly as well informed, or in ongoing contact with friends all over the world, if it weren’t for FB. For instance I wouldn’t know that “our” Lisa is in Belize at the moment. Nor would I know that Barb – the alpine goat farmer – and her husband Steve have sold their farm near Barnum and have moved to an apartment in Duluth. I also wouldn’t have become alarmed when a couple of months went by without a post or comment from an old friend. When I checked into the reason for her absence, I discovered that she was dying of cancer. She has since passed.

    I post whatever I feel like, including political content, and don’t feel any compunction to explain or apologize for it. I know that not everyone I know and communicate with share my political beliefs, my taste in music, or what I find funny, humorous, or amazing. If someone takes offense at something I’ve posted, I’m fine with them speaking up or simply scrolling on by. Over the years I’ve blocked three people, and been blocked by another three. More importantly, I’ve been of support to friends during really difficult times, and lifted their spirits as they have done for me. All in all, I think of FB as a forum full of interesting people that I enjoy being in contact with. Granted, there are some assholes, too, but I generally avoid engaging with them.

    In addition to this blog on WP, I also follow another couple of blogs that only post intermittently. I also follow a couple of individuals who publish “content” on Substack. I exchange the occasional text with a few friends, but only if they have iPhones, that way I can generate and send my texts from my laptop.

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  18. The Island Park dam between Moorhead and Fargo was a lowhead structure also known as a “drowning machine”. The turbulent water below it set up circular current that was difficult to escape. Several boaters died at that site before it was removed. I waded across it multiple times to get to the Island Park swimming pool. At the time, the surface was rough concrete. Eventually, slippery, green stuff grew and I didn’t want to touch green stuff. The danger of drowning didn’t cross my mind. My sensible sister always refused to take the shortcut.

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      1. As VS can tell you, thank you for the special VS card, VS, today is my birthday. My son and or daughter post that fact on fb, which produces responses from people. Today 27 people commented. This year comments as usual came from the independent TV producer and from four Engish teachers scattered across the country and several other wonderful former students but this year from several students who were not my prize students but who said complimentary things. Those are special, to know you have reached students you thought you have failed. Right now, I need to hear such thigns, a weakness I know to need it, but I do.

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        3. Happy birthday, Clyde. Glad to know that you had birthday greetings not just from the usual suspects, wonderful as they are, but also from a couple surprise ones. It is always heart warming to be reminded that we have made a difference.

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  20. I have certainly never been a trendsetter, and I don’t tend to be very trendy either.

    I agree with others, that photo is powerful. Heart rending, really.

    In addition to the two locks and dams on the Mississippi in Minneapolis and St. Paul, I’ve seen – but not visited – the Hoover Dam in Colorado, and the Coolidge Dam in Arizona.

    I used to visit the lock and dam near the Ford Bridge with my friend Ken on our Wednesday outings. It was in an area that held a lot of memories for him, even though the lock and dam itself had minor interest as far as he was concerned. He liked pointing out all of the bike paths along the River Road where he used to ride his bike. The apartment building where he lived when he first met his wife, Eva, was on our way to Cecil’s Deli, one of the places we’d stop for a bite to eat. I love how our daily questions bring memories of old friends back to life for me.

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  21. Well, seeing all the responses about dams and my own consideration/reading, it seems as though trying to control water is the ultimate challenge for humans. All efforts are stopgap at best. Acknowledged that there have been positives but negatives as well. Too late for me but a graduate study would be wonderful. On second thought, I believe I’m halfway to a doctoral thesis.

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  24. i’m hanging on by a thread with all this trendy stuff I used to have a guy that worked for me that kept me on top of all that today. I do some Facebook I do some Instagram I do some Twitter not anymore and I basically just try to hang out the best I can being trendy is something that might come in handy as I get my vintage clothing store back up and running now that vintage clothes have become trendy but it’s not my nature I used to think Elon musk was a great guy not
    any more

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  25. Pingback: Trending – rosdahal

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