A Dark and Stormy Night

Friendship is one of the great mysteries of life.  It is difficult to define, because every friendship is different.  Yes, we can try to find the common denominators, but they don’t always hold.  I might have a friend I turn to when I really need to talk or make a decision, because he listens well, and knows when and when not to give advice.  I might have another friend who is a terrible listener, but I go to him when I just want to have fun and forget the problems of life.

My parents, Edrei and Ruth Erickson, and the family who took my younger brother and me into their home when my parents died, Ansel and Dorothy Haukness, were friends (10/16/2015 Post). In fact, I would call them “best of friends.”  As I was growing up, they lived right across the street from each other.  They were friends as couples, getting together for whist parties or to play couples golf.  I even remember one time we vacationed together as families.  But most of the time, when I think of their friendship, I think of the friendship between Ruth and Dorothy, and Edrei and Ansel.

You could find Ruth and Dorothy dropping by each other’s houses for coffee, often with other friends they had in the neighborhood.  They were involved in various community organizations together.  But what I think of most often is their involvement in church, and their commitment to following Jesus.  Both of them loved the Bible, and led the Women’s Circle Bible Studies, as we called them at the time.  Dorothy was even trained to be a Bethel Bible Series teacher, and Mom and I actually took that series together.

During the months my Mother was dying from cancer (09/11/15 Post), Dorothy was there by her side, as a true friend would be.  I have no idea how their conversations went.  No doubt they included Mom’s worries about what would happen to Alan and me when she died

Ansel and Edrei were twins; twins by different parents.  They were both born on August 19, 1911, Dad in Canada, Ansel in North Dakota.  Dad became a U.S. citizen on September 15, 1925.  Fate would bring them both to Maddock, North Dakota, a farming community of just over 700 people. 

Both Dad and Ansel were great storytellers, and they referred to the night of their births as having been a “dark and stormy night.”

Ansel ran the dry goods store in town.  Dad moved to Maddock to take over a furniture store. He was a schoolteacher by training, and would eventually return to that profession, but decided to try his hand at business.

I think of Edrei and Ansel as buddies.  Oh, what fun they had together!  Every mid-morning and mid-afternoon they headed to Hunter’s Barber Shop for coffee and, as they would put it, “to solve the world's problems.”  They hunted together in the fall, and argued over who shot the biggest and most pheasants.  But their greatest joy was playing golf together.  That meant every Thursday at the Maddock Country Club, a nine-hole, sand-green course, with no water system, which meant, most of the time, playing golf in a pasture (without the cows --they were just over the fence, which was the out-of-bounds line on holes 5 and 6).  Part of growing up, I remember well, was checking to make sure the Foss bull was not in the pasture when you crawled the fence to retrieve your wayward drive.  And the highlight of the year, each August, was going to Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, to stay at the Haukness cabin and play in the Pine to Palm Golf Tournament.

Like buddies often do, Ansel and Dad never tired of teasing each other.  Dad was much bigger than Ansel and could hit the golf ball a lot further.  He loved to hit a big drive, and then, when Ansel moved to the tee box, say to him, “Ok, Ansel, show us what you can do.”  On the other hand, Ansel was a much better chipper, and loved to outmatch Dad in that part of the game.

One time while hunting geese one of them happened to end up lying in an area where a flock of greater Canada geese flew over, and knocked down four of them with three shots.  To this day I am not sure which one it was—I think Ansel—but they sure liked to rib the other.

One day my Mom backed our car out of our driveway and hit Ansel’s pickup parked in his driveway.  Dad went over to Ansel and chastised him, saying, “You know Ruth needs lots of room.  What were you doing parking in your own driveway?  She needs that space also.”

One day Dorothy asked Ansel to plant a tree, and Ansel asked Dad to help.  They raced to get it done before going out golfing.  Dorothy eventually went out to see how they had done. She found that they had planted the dead tree trunk used to keep the live tree straight, which was, in turn, still leaning against the wall in the garage.

Dad’s battle with cancer lasted almost a year (08/12/15 Post).  Ansel was always there, to stop by and visit at home, or to drive Dad to Bismarck for radiation treatments.

The day Dad died, I still remember the sound of the doorbell ringing around noon.  Mom opened the door, and there stood Ansel, tears streaming down his face.  He didn’t say a word; he just held out his hand to Mom.

I don’t know what kind of conversations went on between Ansel and Dad during that last year, or between Dorothy and Mom as she was dying.  What I do know is that the friendships these four neighbors had helped my parents in both life and death, and that Ansel and Dorothy gave my parents the best gift any friend could: volunteering to take us two boys into their home and family.

Dorothy died in 2004, at the age of 87.  Ansel died in July of 2008, a month short of his 97^th birthday.  To the very end I was able to visit with Ansel, never hearing enough of the stories he had to tell, especially of his adventures with his friend, Edrei.  As with all stories, history makes its sure move towards legend, and the factual truth may get lost in the translation.  But, as Ansel loved to remind us, “Do you want the truth, or do you want it interesting?”  To which I would add, “Do you want the exact details, or to be touched by meaning?”  And one of the most meaningful things we experience in this life is the gift of friendship.

(Ansel and Me, Age 96)