Field Mice: A North Dakota Family Farm Faces the Pernicious Effects of Modern Agribusiness

Extract

In Memoriam

Adverb, preposition: a Latin phrase meaning “in memory of” or “as memory to”

My father crushed his left hand during construction of the Kingsley Hydroplant outside of Ogallala, Nebraska in 1982. Three men, my father included, were attempting to take measurements to secure a steel liner along an existing concrete tunnel that ran under the dam. The liner was 10 or 12 feet in diameter, or, as Dad says, “Big enough to drive a car through.” While trying to take their measurements, the tape twice failed to stay in place long enough for the numbers to be recorded. On the third attempt, Dad secured the tape by reaching between the concrete wall and the steel liner. A seismic bang echoed through the underground chamber moments later: a cable holding the liner in place had snapped. Feeling nothing, my father’s eyes found his shoulder and followed the length of his arm into the blackness, where his hand, pinned behind the liner, was no longer visible. The three men were 200 yards from the entrance of the tunnel, and Dad walked every foot of it before being driven to a nearby hospital.