This is Part Eleven of my report of a trip into western South Dakota on Highway 212 to Highway 73 where I swung north to Lemmon, South Dakota, before circling back towards Redfield, along Highway 12 as far as Highway 281 in Aberdeen. The challenge was to understand where the middle west ends and the west begins; the Missouri River and the 100th Meredian demarcate that line between. Today we continue heading east along Hghway 12 between Walker, South Dakota, and McLaughlin.
All this rangeland again,
and cows.
Mile after mile of the same. This greenness. It has been hour after hour. Not desolate, but like desolate. Another open vista, too much loveliness.
The land is getting rougher: As with an old man who can't get his pants on, you don't want to try and tuck in his shirt; just let it be.
Now I'm thinking about my Grandpa Allen, whom I've never met; and about my Grandma Allen. So much has been lost. I'm angry at the loss, and angry at my sadness about the loss. Dammit, Tom, look for what is, not for what can never be again. Yet the ghosts want to speak to me. If only I could take dictation.
McLaughlin, South Dakota. Sign: "Beef - Our Steak in the Future." I turn into town, scoop the downtown, U-turn back to the highway. The corn outside of town, I have to confess, doesn't look to bad. The farmboy bites his lip as he says that.
McLaughlin's airport has an asphalt landing strip.
Buttes everywhere, like they grow on trees or something.
Wheat. Wheat. Green.
Whose land is this? This is Indian reservation, almost all the way back to Lemmon. The Standing Rock Indian Reservation.
Bales of hay crowd a field.
Sign: "<-- Mahto 3."
The hay grows thick here. This year, moisture.
Sign: "Wakpala 8." From here a view that dazzles and maims. Oh my. I fall into the loss of it. It silences me for a mile or more. There are worldly folks, jaded souls, who think they have seen everything. They have not seen this. Oh my.
Lake Oahe has no water showing here where the sign for it stands. Corn to my left as I climb away from where the water would be.
Sign: "Little Eagle -->."
Up and down. You approach the river on bended knee.
I've lost the railroad tracks once again, and I don't know when. Tom, you think you are SO observant: you don't see squat.
Who is it who said that writing is like undressing yourself in public? That might have been Craig Johnson the other night at supper, Craig Johnson, the Economic Development Director for Spink County, South Dakota. Yeah, I think he'd said something about maybe wanting to write, except it was too much like undressing in public.
To be continued...
...and blogging is like going naked to a costume party. (I think I said that.)
Posted by: dave | November 08, 2004 at 07:49 PM
Nakedness is a kind of costume, ainna?
Posted by: Tom Montag | November 09, 2004 at 06:08 AM