A note about what follows:

I've been writing for a while now, not knowing how to tell this story - or if I even should. My talk with Beth and her mom was really fascinating, but also incredibly personal. I never got her express permission to share it, though she did let me record the whole thing. I stopped partway through as the conversation veered away from the Tower, and much of what's to follow is technically irrelevant, though I've lost sight of what exactly it is I'm out here for, so in terms of my personal experience, it may be very relevant. 

It's long, the longest post by far, and I apologize if it rambles. I considered maybe moving it to another section of the website, but that didn't quite feel right either.

Here's a brief summary (skip if you want the raw version unspoiled): After about 15 minutes of discussing the Tower with Beth's mom, Karen, I'm pulled into a fascinating and revelatory conversation with Beth, who is a talented photographer and artist, is remarkably well read, who consumes information voraciously, who uses the internet the way I'd imagine people who developed the internet hoped it would be used, who talks about architecture like an architecture grad, who speaks of Shakepeare and Kurosawa, and who, of course, has a tragic story for being here, on the farm with her mom, a story that I can't help but think about as I leave the house 4 hours later and find myself unable to focus during my last day at the Tower. 

You can skip to part 3, or you can read on.

Part 2: Beth Bateman

I walk up to the main house, unsure whether to use the front, side, or back door - each about the same distance from the driveway, oddly enough. I try the back and give a knock. From behind me, I hear Beth call out.

"Marco! Hi, I'm Beth."

She's wearing blue denim pants and a Carhartt sweatshirt. She's younger and taller than I imagined over the phone, wearing her hair in a single braid, often over her shoulder. Her eyes are cool blue and she wears no make-up. I can't place her age because she's not trying to fight it. There's not a trace of grey in her hair, though she looks tired. She leads me in through the side door, into a tiny vestibule. As the door opens, an orange cat runs out, and Beth points to the scratches on her arm. 

"I've been trying to tame that one. He's a new addition."

Inside the vestibule, stairs lead up to the main house and down to the basement. Over the phone, she had shown some reserve at the thought of having me over, saying "I hope you don't mind a mess". She reiterated that thought now.

I enter through the dining room, and would stay there for the next 4 hours, catching only a glimpse of the living room, kitchen, bathroom and pantry through the narrow door frames. It's messy, she wasn't lying. There's an old treadmill and TV right by the dining room table. There are piles of mail and papers on various surfaces. The room I was in may have been rectangular but it was hard to tell. Large bookcases and armoires flanked each wall, filled with objects and books and mementos. I set my bag down by the cloth-covered table, which could seat 6 comfortably if not for the portable TV and pill bottles and laptop and, again, papers (just papers, hard to tell exactly what kind).

"Meet my mom, Karen. Mom, this is Marco!"

I peek through the doorway to my left, into the kitchen. A short, stout woman in her 70's or 80's stands at the sink, using a crutch to walk. She turns around and smiles broadly from ear to ear. 

"So you're Marco!" 

(I wonder what kind of impression I make. I haven't trimmed my beard in weeks. I left the cap in my room - figured that would be more respectable. My hair is messy and curled from the wind. I don't look put together, but they didn't seem to care much.)

We shake hands and move towards the table. Beth offers me coffee and I gladly accept. I ask if I have their permission to record the conversation (I do). Beth warns me that I'll have to ask my questions and then just let Karen ramble on and on. She doesn't ramble. At all. I don't know what I expected, but she's remarkably lucid and vivacious. Sharp. We take a seat, Karen at the head and I beside her, the treadmill and living room behind me. I start the recorder as Beth fixes the coffee. Through the door frame I spot a respirator by the couch in the living room, where more piles of stuff are neatly stacked between furniture. The TV is on - stays on for the duration of our talk.  

This is what Karen tells me, recalled from the first hour that I recorded: 

She married Buster Brown in 1978, which is when she moved to Elm Bend Farm. When the Tower was erected in '64, she was finishing up nursing school in Minneapolis. She doesn't tell me much I don't already know. We talk about the collapse of that other Tower, how helicopters from a nearby military base would tour people around the towers, sometimes trying to make the tower sway by hovering near it. During one of those times, the blades caught on the guy-wires, crashing the helicopter and killing all 4 on board, bringing the tower down with it. Buster knew something had gone wrong because they were milking cows in the barn when the power went out. He ran over to help free a man who was trapped in the control room, surrounded by a mess of burning steel. 

Throughout this story, Beth would chime in to add details or corrections. She mentions the Dead Men, another name for those massive 40' anchors, and how horses could bring the towers down by scratching their backs against the wires at just the right frequency, citing Galloping Gertie (the Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapse) to sell the point. She pulls out the poster she had promised me, which features Katy High, Miss Tall USA from 1964. In a stupefying feat of unlikely cross-promotion, the broadcast call letters were changed from the original KEND to KTHI - Katy High. They were later changed to the current KVYL when NBC took over in the 90's. Here's the poster is all it's glory, graciously photographed and cropped by Beth herself. 

I should note that, when Beth says she took photos of the poster for me, I was kind of skeptical. She offhandedly mentions that I probably have better equipment. When I see the crops, I'm impressed. That's not the last time she'll impress me. 

I remark how I couldn't believe they managed to dig this poster up. Beth tells me her mother's memory is still in good shape, that she remembers where everything is. I look around the room and find that surprising, but later, after the recorder has gone off, Karen starts pointing to objects and explains what they are, what stories they hold, and I suspect every object in this house has a story, that what looks like a mess to me is a roughly curated family history.

After a while, having exhausted my questions, Beth says "I don't know if we have a whole lot more to add other than... I got pictures of the weather! I love clouds."

15 minutes in, the questions about the Tower end, and the real conversation starts. She shows me photos on her laptop, and they're kind of incredible. The subjects themselves are obviously photogenic, but Beth has a good eye, shooting close-up after close-up, framing them as abstracts. She says she's documenting them for paintings she hopes to do one day when she has more time. I ask if photography is a hobby of hers, and her answer foreshadows what's to come:

"Not... well, it's more point and shoot. I don't claim to be a photographer. That takes more time than I got. But I do... when I find things, I like to record them."

I ask her what camera she uses, and she fumbles the answer, saying something like "Oh some Canon Eos something". If you look at the photo at the top of this page, you'll notice it's a 7D, a damn fine camera, the one I've used for the last 7 years before up(down)grading to my Sony. 

We go through more cloud photos and I'm stunned. We talk about one in particular and she describes it as having "an architecture of it's own." I tell her she should do something with these. She ignores the comment. I tell her she mentioned she was in elder care on the phone, carefully trying to figure out what she does out here. She points to her mom and we laugh as I understand what she meant. At this, Karen comments:

"Well somebody said 'why don't you move into town" and I said 'why would I move into town'? I see the sunrise in the morning and the sunset in the evening. I've got beautiful skies full of stars. Why would I move into town? You don't see that stuff in town."

After that, she gets up to rummage in the next room as Beth and I look through more photos. She comes back with a framed drawing. It's a landscape, intricately detailed. My reaction is, "Oh, what's this?"

Karen replies, "A drawing. A fantasy drawing."

"By?"

From behind me, Beth says, "Me."

I turn to Beth, incredulous, "You drew this?"

"Yep. Ballpoint Pen. I had a lot of time waiting." 

I figured later upon replaying the tape that she must have meant waiting tables. I ask to take a photo, impressed once again by this strangely articulate and talented woman. She says not to bother, she has a high-quality copy she can give me, which she signs and hands to me in a clean folder. 

As we're looking through more photos, all taken from the front yard, she laments the loss of a tree that was cut down, noting that it had the most interesting bark pattern. She apologizes for being fascinated by the weirdest things, and I tell that I understand, that I'm in North Dakota to see a fucking tower (I omit the expletive in her presence). This sets her off. She opens a folder to show me photos of Westminster Abby's ceiling, noting how the structure is clearly expressed and that she likes seeing that in architecture. 

What? Who the hell is this person and what's she doing in the middle of Nowhere, North Dakota.

She shows me more photos of various spaces, noting the quality of light, the recently restored mosaic floors, the medieval symbolism embedded in the iconography. She shows me photos of recently uncovered megalithic structures in Russia, photos of similar structures in America. She shows me beautiful abandoned subway stations. I ask if these are her photos and she says that no, she just pulls stuff she's interested in off the internet.

She then talks about her husband, how he used to be a truck driver, how he would explore old caves of archaeological interest, describing him as a less educated Indiana Jones. She talks about how she would join him on rides across the country and venture off the beaten path, finding herself picking up sea shells and rocks from roadside ditches. 

I ask her if she'd often join him, and she replies that no, she would take care of his two kids.

"His kids?"

"Yeah, his, from a previous marriage. Well, I mean, they're my kids. I consider them mine."

"Do you have any of your own?"

"Nope, never did." She trails off. 

"She collects animals instead." Karen chimes. 

"Easier to deal with."

Her computer background is a still from Labyrinth, starring David Bowie and a young Jennifer Connelly. I ask her about it and she's surprised that I even know the movie. She says she loves fantasy. She'll later quote C.S. Lewis as we discuss pride and humility. She'll bring up an interaction with a South African man that looked like a villain from a soap opera, and we'll discuss the nature of evil. That leads into a conversation about Shakespeare, and when I admit that I haven't read much, that in Quebec we read Molière instead, she says, incredibly, "Well, have you seen any Kurosawa films? That's Shakespeare."

Again, what the fuck is this person doing here, where the closest town is Blanchard, population 26. 

And I start to consider that question more seriously as we keep talking about all of these different subjects. I ask her how long she's lived here on the farm with her mother, and she does the math: 10 years. She's been here since 2007. We keep talking - about ancient cultures, about language, about schizophrenia and talking to yourself. At that she makes a self-deprecating joke about her age (something she often does) and starts laughing. Karen and I join her, and as our laughter fades, Beth's grows in intensity, and it seems for a few seconds that it would turn into sobs, but she catches herself, tapering off instead, leaving the room in discomforting quiet. We keep talking, about weather patterns and WW1, about the best way to escape quicksand (if you're curious: lie flat on your back, increase your surface area, and slowly shimmy your legs free) and amidst the whirlwind of non-stop information, I hear Beth speak the words that drown out the rest, the context lost on me now as I replay them over and over in my head, the exact phrasing impossible to forget:

"... well, that's what happens when your husband tries to bash your head in with a vise grip."

My face drops and I look to Karen, who looks away. Not knowing what to say, I ask, stupidly, "Ex-Husband?" 

"Yeah, ex-husband."

"Right, I mean, I wasn't sure." 

I follow that with "I'm so sorry." 

"Yeah, he decided to become a meth addict in his 50's."

And suddenly I think about how, from the way she spoke of him - in the past tense, with a certain fondness, and never using the word 'ex' - I had assumed he passed. Then it occurs to me that maybe that's how she chooses to see it, that it's easier for her to imagine the man she loved died long before he fell into addiction, before he tried to kill her with a vise grip.

I think about that, no longer paying attention to the conversation, about how you don't compare a violent, abusive ex to Indiana Jones, that she did indeed once love him, and that he must have, at one time, been good to her. I think about how this curious woman, thirsty for knowledge, must have been happiest on the road, adventurous husband at her side, off in those ditches, exploring, discovering, learning. I think about why she moved out here, that it wasn't to provide care for her mother, who tells me that only a year ago she was mowing the lawn herself, who even now seems lively and mobile. Beth looks out the window several times, asking aloud "What do you think? We too tired to go in to town?", having planned a trip to the grocery store, and I think about the 'we' in that sentence, how it's not just a turn of phrase. She kept making vague comments about her health issues, never with any specificity, and I wonder how close her husband got to his ultimate goal.

And then I realize that none of this might be true - all projection and speculation - but I can't help but let my mind wander after hearing those words, and I couldn't possibly ask her to confirm my suspicions, because I wasn't honest with my intentions: that I was there mostly for her, that from the first message she left, from the moment she properly pronounced a name that even most professors stumble on, that right then I felt like there was a story here, that there was something about this woman, another contradiction amongst the many I've experienced here. I pretend to be interested in the Tower, but most of my questions had been answered by Lyle just a few hours earlier. "Why would an architecture student would want to hear my story?", she would wonder. Why do I? I can't justify it to myself, and I couldn't begin to justify it to Beth. So I don't pry, because it's not my place to. Instead, I let her go on.

She talk about where they were living when it happened, in Columbia Falls, Montana, and how it's a bad place. She talks like a character in a noir film. 

"I think it's the weather. It just gathers there."

"It's where people go to escape their dirty past, and they tend bring that dirt with them."

"It's the type of place where if you meet someone at a bar, you don't ask for their name, you ask what they're called."

Is she letting her husband off the hook? It's not his fault, it's just circumstance. Wouldn't have happened elsewhere. If even half of my suspicions are true, I can't blame her. To know that the man you married had murder in him all along is too much to bear, I think. 

Eventually, we steer the conversation back to the things Beth in interested in - there's a seemingly endless supply of those. The sun is falling quickly and though I try to end the conversation, feeling like I've overstayed my welcome, cutting into their lunch time, Beth keeps talking, and I can't help but participate. She mentions that she's actually quite shy, but that she feels like I'm able to follow her stream-of-consciousness style of thinking (her words), that I seem to get her. And though it's not my place to feel sad for her, I can't help it. 

Before I stopped the recording, almost 3 hours ago by now, I asked if I could photograph her and her mom. Beth is cool with it, but Karen is self-conscious, instead offering an older photo of herself. I take a picture of it, refusing to keep it, feeling like they've already shared enough with me. Beth insists that she get one of me. She catches me trying to tame my hair as I look into the bathroom mirror. She laughs and says "don't worry, you've got the windswept look." She takes a photo, but then tells me to hold my camera up. I do, and she explains that "portraits are more meaningful when they contain a bit about who the person is, what they like - like your camera. You take it everywhere and it's a part of who you are." Before this, the camera had stayed in my bag, and I only pulled it out now, to take her picture. It was either a lucky guess, or she's incredibly intuitive. And despite her willingness to be photographs, she's clearly uneasy. I take two photos. One blurry one, and the one at this top of this page. It's not a great portrait, but I can't bring myself to pry more than I already have, so I put the camera away. Below is Karen, in her Tilley, posing for a church photo. 

I leave after spending 4 hours with them, promising to say goodbye after I've finished at the Tower. It's 4pm and I've got maybe 30-40 minutes before the sun sets. My plan was to spend the afternoon capturing more footage. I had asked for permission to walk around their property to take some photos, and as I do I find myself distracted. I walk through those fields around the tower, fairly confident that I won't get shot, and try to record some video, but I'm phoning it in. I walk to my car and try to warm up for a bit before taking some photos of the Dead Men. I can't stop thinking about Beth and her mom, and about how ultimately pointless this whole endeavor may be. I wonder, now, about why I felt like I needed to write this all down, why it affected me so much, and I think it's once again to do with my preconceived notions. When I dropped that letter in their mailbox, when I still saw their property as something creepy, out of horror film, I imagined the people who lived there would be unwelcoming, skeptical of this academic city kid. I imagined they would be uneducated. I made more snap judgments, the same judgments I made when talking to Schantel. And I think the part that bothers me the most is that, despite being bright, sharp, and incredibly talented, Beth still fell victim to circumstance. That in the end, where you're born matters. And that thought depressed me as I tried to take photos of a tower that was suddenly a backdrop instead of a main character - my whole reason for being here feeling inane.

I stop by Beth's house to say goodbye on my way out, to thank her one last time. I pull into the front yard, and before I even kill the engine, there she is, walking up to join me. It's dark out, but the floodlights bathe us in warm, yellow light. We stand side by side, exchanging a few last words as we watch the Tower lights. She asks me what I'll do when I finish my thesis. The question catches me off guard, as it always does. I don't tend to think far ahead. We talk about theory versus practice, and about what kind of designer I want to be. We talk about the stars, how clear they are from the farm, how the best place to see them is in the desert where she used to travel with her husband. She insists that I keep in touch, that she hates when people disappear after their brief visits, and I can't help but feel bad, knowing I came for a story and got what I wanted, feeling like a vulture. I wonder how many other people simply pass through, never to be heard from again. I decide right then that I'll send her a copy of my thesis, whether she features in it or not, and I wonder what she'd think if she read this. 

After a while, the conversation simply tapers off, and we watch the Tower beacons pulse.

"It really is something, if you think about it."

And at that I feel somewhat justified in being here, knowing that Beth can feel the same wonder that I feel. 

She pauses.

"Not much to look at though."