Safe at Argonne

Yesterday, for an outing with the wife's father Tom, we headed north from Howard to De Smet, where we cruised around town looking for the familiar places for them, and a first for me. I'd been there before, but never driven through downtown. We cruised by places where Tom's father in law, the wife's grandfather, lived and volunteered, and where his wife grew up. We passed a familiar park, locations where things once were and are no longer. Then we lunched at the Oxbow restaurant, with familiar food, chicken fried steak, roast beef sandwich, Oxbow ruben sandwich. And we learned about who died and who hadn't yet. Then we hit the road again headed for Carthage, with a pause at what used to be Manchester, where a category 4 tornado obliterated the town and made the news nationwide. 6 casualties, 1998. Now only a memorial marker identifies the town. Then on to Carthage, another town slowly marking time as it declines. One memorial there is a sign that identifies the many churches that were there and are no more. Still, the Cabaret, a small-town restaurant with a cosmopolitan name opens some evenings and weekends and features specials for those in town and those in the area who are in the know. Another small restaurant sits across the street. Is it still open? The fields around Carthage are empty after the tractor-trailer rigs left town upon finishing filming "Into the Wild" back in the day. But Lake Carthage still offers some recreation, and a few fishermen brave the ice, not sure how thick it is, but reluctant to drive out to see. From Carthage we turn to gravel to seek out Argonne, still on the map but with no residents, no standing, just a sign telling how the town thrived along a railroad and tipped its hat to World War I vets when it changed its name from St. Mary to Argonne for the soldiers lost there. We drive along a grassy path past a tree with homemade signs marking 3rd Street and Elm Stret. The car bumps along dragging its belly along the ridged trail, grass sweeping the bottom. We look down 3rd Street, but the winter heat wave has turned the frozen trail to mud. Finally, we stop at the one standing structure, the bank vault from a defunct and departed bank building. Its iron door hangs open, offering whatever treasures it now holds to any visitor to Argonne. We stop a moment for photos, and we drive on, searching our memories for who lived where and when, the map of remembrances faulty and faded, the familiar elusive, the past a windy cloud of dust behind us as we continue.