A comedy of errors

A little off the top

By Ethan Smith

We all make mistakes, but most of you, I'm sure, don't have nightmares about them.

I do.

Sometimes I lie awake at night wondering if I left out the "l" in "public" in a big headline. Those are the things that keep editors awake at night.

One thing's for sure — you learn how to say "I'm sorry" when you work for a newspaper. It's amazing how quickly you can diffuse a situation by saying those two words, not just in my line of work, but in life in general.

Some people are pretty understanding about mistakes; others aren't. While getting yelled at for mistakes we make is a frustrating part of the job, it pales in comparison to the frustration of getting yelled at for other people's mistakes.

There's usually one or two misspelled names on the sports rosters we grab at the beginning of each season, and if a well-intentioned person emails us the new list of officers for non-profit XYZ, there's bound to be one there, too.

You'd be amazed at how many men don't know how to spell their mother-in-law's name on a birth announcement.

Mistakes, and the resulting corrections, can be good though. One woman told me that she knows we are accountable to the public because we print corrections. She said she'd worry more if she didn't see any corrections, so seeing them instilled more confidence in the paper. I'd never thought of that before.

Editors take pride in having an error-free paper. It's how we judge ourselves. Having said that, striving to have a 100 percent, error-free newspaper is an admirable goal, but one that probably is unattainable. No matter how hard we try, I suspect one or two mistakes slip through each week, although I don't always find them when I go back and re-read the paper after it comes out.

And the best you can hope for is that they aren't the glaring kind — the kind that keep you up at nights. While I can remember one or two mistakes in headlines, it's the ones that almost made it into print that make me cringe. Or laugh.

My first painful, public grammatical error came way back in the late '80s. I was visiting my high school English teacher so she could give me a book I needed to read for extra credit. Ever the brown-nosing C+ student that I was, I stood in the middle of her living room, gazed around, put on my best "I need a B in this class" smile, turned to her and said, "You have a very homely house, Mrs. Austin."

"I think the word you are looking for is 'homey,'" she replied, after she had stopped laughing enough to regain her breath.

I knew then that my best bet to succeed in life was to just stand there and look pretty, and keep my mouth shut.

One out of two ain't bad.

We've had one or two snafus here at the Leader, but the really big ones that we caught before going to press are a lot more interesting. I have a mental list of some of my favorites that we caught in time, and some we didn't.

(Be advised, if you are easily offended by racy words then you should skip the rest of this column.)

I think my all-time favorite was last summer, when our intern, Talia, noticed that we had a small article about the Elks golf tournament, and something about season passholders. The only problem was we'd left out the "p" in "passholders."

I'm sure the Elks do a lot of things, but probably not that. Fortunately, that didn't make it into print.

Another crucial one was "Ladies golf resluts." I've never been hit with a 9-iron but I probably would have deserved it there. That one made it into print.

One time we had a photo of a young woman handing out T-shirts to promote her cause, and I accidentally left out the "r" in "shirts." Caught that one at 11:30 p.m. just as the page was being sent to the press. Lord have mercy.

My reporters aren't immune. I have one who constantly types "defiantly" instead of "definitely." My sports editor submitted a story a few weeks ago in which he mentioned "the thong of the crowd."

You just never know where your sports editor's mind is going to be on any given day. I didn't have the heart to ask him if any visible lines had formed in the crowd. (OK, Ethan, that's enough.)

I don't wish ill on anyone, but I have to admit that I take some small satisfaction when I see mistakes in other papers around the state. It proves to me that other people are human, too.

My former boss at the Hungry Horse News in Columbia Falls is starting his own newsletter about Glacier National Park, and he's having a little reception to launch the newsletter. They had a little blurb in the paper about it last week, in which the public was invited.

Sure enough, he'd left out the "l."

Morris Bjorge, Homestead-era historian

Among other things

Paul Fugleberg

Lake County lost one of its few remaining homesteaders last week with the death of Morris Bjorge, 90. For years Morris ranched on the family homestead in Garcon Gulch. His experiences over the years resulted in many anecdotes of historic value. He loved to share his pictures and accounts of many of those happenings.

We appreciated his willingness to share those incidents with the Flathead Courier and later the Lake County Leader. He provided several items and pictures to be included in my book, Proud Heritage, An Illustrated History of Lake County, the Lower Flathead, Mission and Jocko Valleys. (Less than 10 books remain in print for sale — one at the Sandpiper Gallery, and a few more at the Polson-Flathead Historical Museum and Miracle of America Museum).

Among his anecdotes was the story of how his father obtained the homestead in Garcon Gulch. The Flathead Reservation was opened to settlement by proclamation of President William Howard Taft on May 22, 1909. Prospective homesteaders registered between July 5 and Aug. 5 of that year for the homestead lottery. Applications, limited to one per person, had to be made on official General Land Office forms and notarized in either Kalispell or Missoula.

Among other things, an applicant had to declare intent to use the land as a home and for settlement and cultivation, not for speculation or in the interest of other persons. More than 81,300 persons registered for the land lottery. Three thousand names were selected in the first drawings, but only 403 of the first 3,000 names drawn made the required down payment and selected homestead sites.

Another 3,000 names were drawn and there still remained much available land. So those land were thrown open at midnight on Oct. 31, 1910, to a "stampede" of prospective homesteaders.

And this is where Morris Bjorge's father, Martin, came in. Here's how Morris described the stampede:

"What a race it was … It was pitch dark and it rained all night. The Land Office was a long way off — in Kalispell and its opening hour was 10 a.m.

"Five single young men — John Silde, Asmund Ekriem, Oskar Skarkerud, William Bjorge and Martin Bjorge — joined the race. They left their tents at midnight, on foot with kerosene lanterns lighting the way, and headed for the Land Office. One by one, the lanterns went out and the party became lost in the woods above Big Arm. When they finally reached Dayton, they met Capt. Angus MacDonnell, who they previously hired to take them in the tugboat, the A. Guthrie, to Somers where they caught the train to Kalispell. They arrived just as the Land Office opened.

"Next there was the mad rush to purchase supplies and building materials and return to their claims. When the Bjorge brothers returned, they found several squatters had moved onto their claims. Some offered resistance and were taken to court…"

Between 1906 and 1910 the majority of the Pablo buffalo herd had been rounded up and shipped to Canada (the American government had opted not to buy the animals from Michel Pablo — a story in itself). However, for several years afterwards homesteaders frequently encountered critters that had escaped capture.

Morris said that the stray buffalo tore down fences and drank water meant for cattle.

He said, "The bison would hang around with the milk cows so I couldn't get the cows home for milking. One day, they stayed around the schoolhouse and we couldn't get home until dark. Sometimes we'd meet them on the road and we would have to detour to get home."

Word spreads fast

Amazing how fast word gets around — scary, too. Last week in this column we printed Nils Rosdahl's quest for wood type and numbers. The next day I received this message from Nils:

"Somehow one of the journalism professors at San Francisco State University picked it up and put it into the College Media blog and it ran nation-wide. I already got a call from a professor at Boise State University who had a great lead as he had seen a box of type at the Idaho Ice Caves for $20. However, I called them, and it had sold a few days ago. Rats! But perhaps I'll get other leads. If the Montana Publishers have an organization, maybe it could go in their newsletter."

If you know where some wood type is available, call Nils at (208) 667-7368, (208) 769-3228, or his cell phone at (208) 661-1657, or email him at nils_rosdahl@nic.edu

Incidentally, Nils had donated one box, not two boxes, of wood type to Lloyd Schermer who decorated one wall of the new U of M Journalism Building with block letters.