Summer, 2025

Over the years, the wife and I have typically spent a chunk of the summer traveling to far-off places, one of the options available to teachers who claim the season for renewal and refresh. This summer, however, was a different story, with one thing after another claiming time and energy to such a degree that neither of us left South Dakota at all. Not even Minnesota, only a half an hour awy. It's no tragedy, not spending part of the summer traveling, but there's a different weight to it, a feeling as though we've been pinned down by events and people in need. Being home for the entirety of the summer gave us time to watch a sad destruction unfold next door, as an empty lot next to ours has had its entire stand of trees removed, and it now is a vast expanse of dirt and crushed saplings, all its mature trees, including some century-old cottonwood trees, pushed over and plucked out by workers in heavy machinery that too was parked next door all summer. In the aftermath, we now can see the houses and sheds and hear the children and vehicles of people who live more than a block away, who were once hidden and silenced by the trees and shrubs in the now-empty lot. Our back yard seems smaller now, somehow, though we can see further, hear more. In our country, the sense is that if you own a piece of land, you can do with it as you wish. No notice to us was given of the plans next door. Machines showed up one day and the destruction began. It took weeks. Meanwhile, the deer and rabbits and other wildlife that lived in the small forest, adjacent to our own stand of trees, now have to find a new place to be. So our summer, our staying at home and watching that destruction, has given us a close and visible counterpart to the national destruction of agencies and institutions that have served the American people well. There on the news another agency is gutted, and another tree falls next door. Each day, another attack on the country's systems, another swipe at the lot next door. There will be another summer. Soon, houses will appear in the chopped-up parcel next door, and we'll live on. But it won't be better.

Gathering with Friends to Watch

Sometimes a big spectacle can bring people together in good ways, even if it's just on the TV. You sit around and as the event unfurls, you chat and give it the attention it deserves. Sunday's Super Bowl LIX was an event that lent itself to talk more than attention on the screen. What talk there was about the game moved to prior disasters in the contest, for example the 1985 game between the New England Patriots and the Chicago Bears. The Patriots got off to a 10-O start, but then the Bears ran roughshod over them the rest of the game, including a TD run by the Refrigerator. And more such discussion about clobberings in the big game. So, the Chiefs championship shirts and caps get sent off to faraway places (why Estonia and Latvia?) and confetti rains down on the Eagle victors. Maybe next year the Vikings will pull through. Or the Lions.

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.