Saturday nights in early Hannaford were very special. Chores done, the farm families, mostly of Scandinavian descent, cranked up their Model T's and rushed into town ostensibly for weekend shopping. While the kids thrilled to Charles Chaplin or William S. Hart at the Groven Hall movies, parents picked up the needed groceries. This done, the promenading began, up and down the streets; not for exercise, mind you, but just because it was the thing to do.
A typical Saturday night in the early 1920s, would find dozens of people casually strolling from the Hannaford Mercantile, past Crane-Johnson Lumber Co., Cotton's Restaurant, Otteson's Drug Store, Asher Anderson's Implement Shop, Aarestad Brothers & Troseth Hardware, Stafne's Pool Hall, and down as far as Sinclair's Furniture Store and return. At Jackson's Store they would make a right turn and amble by the Olaf Johnson Hardware, Nordeng & Alm Meat Market, Barber Shop, Pool Hall, and the Nordeng & Alm Hotel.
Every few yards the strolling would be interrupted as neighbor met neighbor. Even though they had visited by party line phone earlier that day or shared haying or harvest work during the last couple of days, they always greeted each other warmly and excitedly. Long parted friends meeting unexpectedly could extend no more genuinely sincere a greeting then two close neighbors coming face to face in Hannaford, always with enthusiasm: "Nei! Nei! Er du i bjen i kveld?" meaning "No! No! Are you in town tonight?"
It might move someone these days to wonder if every someone being so greeted might have responded in the same sense and manner of speaking: "Nei! Nei! Jeg er ikke i bjen i kveld. Er du?" meaning "No! No! I am not in town tonight. Are you?"
Source: Hannaford Area History North Dakota Centennial 1889 - 1989 Page 257