Somehow I managed to squeeze in more travel during my high-school tenure with North Dakota than the other four places combined. It’s probably more of a happy accident since everything over there is “distant.”
This next journey was made possible through my membership in Close Up, the high school club for nerds who are into Current Events and/or how the government functions. I managed to join mid-year because my friend Darren was a member. Besides, I come from a rather political family (the Irish side drove the wagon for Lincoln to speak from when he campaigned in Wapella, IL) and I had time to kill before my first class. Being a graduating senior disqualified me from going to Washington, DC earlier in the Spring. I had been there in 1980 anyway, I didn’t feel like I was missing out.
I did get to go to the state-wide gathering in Bismarck which focused on the judiciary system. Unlike the Feds and big states with ongoing, operational legislatures (California, Illinois), North Dakota’s only met on the odd-numbered years and usually wrapped up early, hence we learned the greater details about the ND Supreme Court because they were always in town. Seems comical. I wish it were now since this stay is definitely in the sway of the Teabagger movement. Too bad, I met their new (at the time) Attorney General, Democrat Nick Spaeth and thought he had a future at the National level. Sadly he didn’t as the Republicans gradually took over; Spaeth lost in 1992 for the governorship and now I see he teaches at the University of Missouri.
Back to the trip. Overall it was pretty cool. The program brought in students from all over the state. I shared a room with a couple guys attending (I think) Red River which is in Grand Forks…whoa, the big city (population 66K then). We spent most of time listening to presentations and lectures from numerous speakers, usually attorneys. The major topic was the so-called insurance crisis of the mid Eighties and all these outrageous lawsuits/settlements. A defense lawyer dispelled it as a myth by pointing out how the alleged crisis was coinciding with oil prices plummeting the previous Christmas, thus Big Insurance needed an excuse to jack rates since their investments went South. I’m sure the man’s comments were wasted on the majority of the attendees who were looking forward to the scheduled trip to the mall later in the day.
I wasn’t a completely serious fuddy-duddy neither. Our school’s chaperone Ms. Oihus said to have fun so it took the guilty edge off scoring the latest copy of Spin and playing a few video games.
For all the razzing I gave North Dakota, I still came away with some newfound respect toward the place after seeing how it had similar legal woes like the big states. Getting a couple nights away from school and home didn’t hurt.