The Middlewesterner

RETURN TO REDFIELD SHARON JURGENSEN FINDS YOU CAN GO HOME AGAIN

Earlier this year when Sharon Levtzow Jurgensen found my Vagabond journal entries about Redfield, South Dakota, she contacted me to let me know how much they meant to her. She was born and raised in Redfield. When her sister Jackie moved to Chicago some fifty years ago, Sharon was 19; she and her parents moved to Chicago as well. Earlier this month, Sharon and Jackie flew into Brookings, South Dakota, rented a car, and drove back to Redfield for their Redfield High School class reunions. I had hoped to meet Sharon in Redfield and interview her about the experience of going home, but ultimately that wasn't possible. Sharon agreed to keep a little journal of the experience and let me share it with my readers.

In her letter to me which accompanied the journal about her experiences, Sharon said: "I loved my trip to Redfield, South Dakota. I felt like there were not fifty years between this visit and my last one. Everybody knew me and I knew everyone. One day we were at the Senior Center and there were a hundred-twenty people in attendance, and I felt like I talked to every one of them. I should have been a politician. My sister and I did a lot of laughing and reminiscing." Here follows Sharon's journal of the trip:

RETURN TO REDFIELD
by Sharon Levtzow Jurgensen

Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Drove from Brookings to Redfield. As we entered Redfield on Highway 212, there was a big sign at the Courthouse: "Welcome the class of 1950, 1951, and 1956."

Sister Jackie is from the class of 1950, of which Mayor of Redfield Duane Sanger graduated. His wife Juanita and her twin sister Bonita were the best of high school friends with Jackie.

I, Sharon, graduated with the class of 1956, with Jerry Hanson, owner of the car dealership. Also in my class was Nancy Terry, owner of Terry's Bar. The Vagabond should interview Jerry Hanson when he visits Redfield again; Jerry is a great guy.

As I drove into town, I hollered: "Hello, Redfield. The Levtzow sisters are here. Let the party begin."

Went to Super 8 motel where Marti Thelen greeted us. I asked her what her Mother's name was and she said Marie Levtzow (a distant cousin of ours). Told her that her mother raised a lovely daughter. Marti Thelen drove my car up to the back of the motel to pick us up when they were fixing the sidewalk in front of the motel.

Thursday, September 14, 2006
Went to Terry's bar for my reunion. I spent seven hours visiting with classmates and all I had was Diet Coke. All my classmates were gracious, polite, fun, and believed in long hugs.

Friday, September 15, 2006
Us two sisters went to Rockham, town of 53 population. All my sister could say as I was driving: "I can't believe this beautiful, panoramic view." It was very windy (35 miles per hour). So all the pheasants and birds I was hoping to see were nestled down in their habitat.

The town of Rockham was desolate. We drove to our big, pink brick three-story schoolhouse (where my dad went to high school), and it was torn down. My mother also taught me in first grade and Jackie in sixth grade in that then beautiful school. Also my grandfather's general store, which sold everything, was no longer there. It actually collapsed after my Aunt Violet got out. I worked at my grandfather's grocery store where I candled eggs, filled people's containers with vinegar out of a barrel, and made ice cream floats and sundaes. It was the years 1951 to 1954 that I worked in the store.

We were the only car in sight. I looked out my rear window and said "Jackie, there is a car following us." I pulled over and a lovely lady got out and said, "I had my hair fixed in Redfield, and Colleen Hardie was in the beauty shop and said the Levtzow sisters went to Rockham." This great lady, Agatha Sherman, was our neighbor in Rockham, and Jackie and I had always baby-sat with her five children over fifty-five years ago. We went to her house for coffee and a delightful visit.

We sat in front of the house we were raised in, which actually still looked good. It has been well maintained, with a beautiful yard and many trees.

A myriad of memories went through our minds.

Sad memories - All our relatives buried in the cemetery.

Happy memories - Playing piano duets with my sister at church and at Memorial Day functions. Jackie giving piano lessons to so many Rockham children. Sharon singing at weddings.

Romantic memories - Sitting in the driveway with our dates.

Momentous memories - We entertained so many friends in that house. Mom was an excellent cook. And Dad had a great sense of humor.

Work memories - We pitched hay, corralled pigs, drove tractor, cultivated corn rows, cooked for threshing crew.

Just about ready to leave Rockham when we see this run-down two-story house that looked like a haunted house. It saddened my sister when she saw it, and she started to recite Joyce Kilmer's poem, "The House with Nobody in It."

Whenever I walk to Suffern along the Erie track, I go by a poor old farmhouse with its shingles broken and black. I suppose I've passed it a hundred times, but I always stop for a minute. And look at that house, the tragic house, the house with nobody in it.

We praise our grade school teachers for encouraging us to memorize poems and read all the classic novels. Our mother Pearl was a great teacher in the area from 1944-1954. We are excellent spellers also, because we had spelling bees on Friday.

Okay, then it was my turn to recite the inspirational poem, "The House by the Side of the Road."

Let me live in my house by the side of the road - It's here the race of men go by. They are good, they are bad, they are weak, they are strong, Wise, foolish - so am I; Then why should I sit in the scorner's seat, or hurl the cynic's ban? Let me live in my house by the side of the road - And be a friend to man.

Back to Redfield. Again my sister said the horizon, the panoramic view was so beautiful.

Now we were sitting in our car where the dance pavilion was in Redfield, by Turtle Creek. It is so sad that they didn't rebuild it. We could hear the strains of Harry Eisele, Blue Barron, and even Louis Armstrong, who had played there. We couldn't dance on Sunday, so when the 4th of July was on Sunday, they started the dance after midnight. I got home at dawn after dancing all night with Jerry Marlette. My mother was very angry when I got home at four in the morning. But I said, "Mom, I told you it was a dawn dance."

Friday afternoon we had home-made pie and coffee at the Senior Center. There were a hundred-twenty people there, and my sister and I talked to almost all of them.

Saturday, September 16, 2006
My class had breakfast at Leo's Restaurant. Again, it was so much fun. Leo's was now where the First National Bank was located when I was in high school. The salad bar was in the area where the bank vault used to be. I enjoyed working in the bank from age 16 to 18 years old. I would work after school until evening, posting checks. I even had a key to the bank because they were closed when I worked.

By 1954 my sister Jackie moved to Chicago and married her college sweetheart. My Mom, Dad, and I missed her so much, we moved to Chicago also. We were always happy in Illinois. I married a marvelous optometrist and we raised two great children. Daughter Shari is an optometrist like her dad, and son Paul is regional manager for Abbott Labs.

Jackie went from a farm community to the big city, where she taught in a private school, played classical piano on the radio, and raised three super children.

Sharon left Redfield at 19 years of age and received her Master's Degree and taught school. Also Sharon and husband Ray sang in Orchestra Hall in Chicago and performed on the Lee Phillip TV show, which in the 1960s was similar to the Oprah show.

Lee Phillip and Sharon's husband Ray went to high school together in Chicago. Lee went on to Hollywood with her husband Bob Bell, and they created "The Young and the Restless" and "The Bold and the Beautiful" soap operas.

Who says you can't go home after fifty years? As Jon Bon Jovi writes and sings:

Who says you can't go home
There's only one place that calls me one of their own
These are my streets, the only life I've ever known,
Who says you can't go home.

Who says you can't go back,
Been all around the world and that's a matter of fact.
There's only one place left I want to go.
Who says you can't go home.

It's alright, it's alright, it's alright.

NOTES FROM THE VAGABOND JOURNAL: CROSSING THE MISSOURI RIVER, HEADING INTO WESTERN SOUTH DAKOTA JULY 11, 2004

This is Part One of my report of a trip into western South Dakota on Highway 212; to understand where the middle west ends and the west begins, I wanted to cross the Missouri River and the 100th Meredian, which demarcate that line. I continued west on Highway 212 to Highway 73 where I swung north to Lemmon, South Dakota, before circling back towards Redfield on Highway 12 as far as Highway 281 in Aberdeen.

The mourning doves call.

A blue sky above, a bank of clouds to the east - the storm that came through during the night. It is 5:50 a.m. I am heading west. What shall I see? What shall I see change from this place in the middle west to some place in the western part of south Dakota? I always say the middle west ends where the Missouri River comes into South Dakota. I shall give the day to exploring the truth of my notion.

I filled the car with gasoline and got coffee at the Quick 66 in downtown Redfield. "As you can see, I'm just busier than heck," said the woman behind the counter to her lone customer.

It is 6:07 a.m. when I stretch it out past the park on Highway 212. I'm headed west into fog. A thickness of it in all directions - a quarter-mile visibility. The trees are apparitions. A meadowlark calls from a fence post. A field of alfalfa and lots of pastureland. A saddle atop of mailbox at the end of a farm driveway. This is still the Redfield area.

The smell of skunk as thick as the fog. A hen pheasant crouched along the road, taking grit. A cornfield on one side of the road, grain on the other. Then fields of soybeans. Farm fields. Then rangeland, as if this were high cow country. A pasture with a big herd of Angus cattle.

Someone has driven his van nose down into a drainage ditch along the road. No one is in the car.

Hayfield.

Hopscotch.

Soybeans with standing water.

A field of grain with heads blown down.

Zell, South Dakota.

Sheep west of Zell.

Corn, small grain, beans. Short-horn cattle and Angus. Corn, corn, corn.

Sunlight ignites the fog; it's luminous, the color of rainbow. In the rearview mirror, the eastern sky afire.

Rockham, South Dakota. "Welcome Back from Iraq, Janelle."

It smells like farm country, green things growing.

Steel bins, barn, cattle in a feedlot, cattle at pasture. A windbreak of trees - beat up, you might say. A white tower like a silo; it says "Web 23."

Visibility opens up, closes down, opens up again.

Hopscotch.

Sign: "Jackalope? Wall Drug."

Angus on range.

Highway 212 is pretty desolate, Marlin told me. He meant west of the river, I think. I wouldn't call this country desolate yet, not by any means.

I see a ridge in the distance, running north to south.

Alfalfa, corn, grain.

Miranda, South Dakota, five miles to the north, down a gravel road.

Range and big bales of alfalfa.

I'd say the fog has cleared but I might drop to it again. The intersection of Highway 212 and Highway 45. A cock pheasant crosses the road in front of me, south to north. Visibility? Several times I see haze far away.

A pair of red-tail hawks on a big bale of alfalfa. Good camouflage, dried alfalfa, bird's feather.

I have to slow to avoid hitting a hen and cock pheasant, not once but twice. So many birds - pheasants, and little song birds, and killdeer killdeer killdeer.

I'm headed north, sun to my right, ridge to my left, until it evaporates.

Bee hives, Angus, soybeans.

Everything so green. Great long green stretches, long rows, wide fields. The flat expanse.

To be continued....

NOTES FROM THE VAGABOND JOURNAL: A VISIT TO REDFIELD, SOUTH DAKOTA JULY 10, 2004

My Redfield hosts, Lyn and Marlin Flint, have taken me to watch the community's American Legion team play the team from Bryant in a weekend tournament taking place at Redfield's ballpark. Redfield is the "Visitor" in the game, batting at the top of the inning. The score is Redfield - 2; Bryant - 3.

Top of the fifth.

Come on, guys! No. 32, Aaron Ford, swings at a wide pitch. Takes a ball high and inside. Fouls one behind the screen. Takes a high pitch for a ball. Swings at a low pitch and misses. One out.

No. 9, Jeff Gruenwald - ball, ball, ball, strike called ("It looked wide!"), swinging strike, pitch foul back to screen, a swing and a miss. Two out.

No. 16, Chris Rude. Fouls a pitch straight back at the ump. Hits a Texas Leaguer over second base. One on, two out.

No. 10, Kelly Hodges. Pitcher throws to first base. Pitcher throws to first base again. Hodges hits what looks like a foul tip, but runner steals second base. Swing and a miss. Ball low and outside. Hodges hits a fly ball to right field for the out. No runs, one hit, no errors, one man left on base.

Bottom of the fifth. Hey batta, batta. You swing like a rusty gate hey. Batta batta, you bat like my sister. Ball one. Batta hits a foul. Chops one to shortstop and gets thrown out at first. One down.

Batta fouls a pitch straight back into the umpire's mask. Then a swing and a miss. A high inside fast ball. A strike out. Two down.

Batta takes a strike, chops the ball to short, out at first. Three up, three down.

Top of the sixth. Blue sky. Sunshine. A day made for comebacks. Come on, boys!

No. 48, Greg Levtzow, at bat. Takes a ball, high. Swings at a curve ball. Flies out to right field. One down.

No. 14, Keith Jandel. Curve ball comes in for a strike. Fouls one off behind the screen. Takes a ball. Takes a ball, low. Base hit down the right field line.

No. 66, Kyle Carter. Bunts foul. Takes a ball; catcher throws to first, late. Takes a called strike. Pitcher throws a passed ball, runner takes second base. Ball. Ball outside for a walk. Two on base, one down.

No. 28, Scott Jungwirth, at the plate. Fouls the first pitch off behind the fence along the first base side. Ball. Ball high. Ball high and over the batter's head inside. Foul ball. Called strike ("Hey, that was way outside!") for the out.

No. 7, Kendall Stroud. Hits a ball just foul down the first base line. ("That was just about two runs.") Called strike. Ball outside, and the runner steals third. Foul ball back into the screen. Ball, runner "walks" to second base. Call strike for the out. No runs, one hit, two men left on base.

Top of the 7th. These tournament games last only seven innings. This is it, guys! If you're gonna win it, you gotta do it now. There's no tomorrow tomorrow.

No. 32, Aaron Ford. Fouls the first pitch off behind the fence along the third base side. Hits a sharp crack between shortstop and the third baseman. One on.

No. 9, Jeff Gruenwald. Takes a ball, high. Pitcher throws to first to hold the runner. Batter knocks a foul way back along the third base side. Pitcher throws to first. Batter takes a ball, wide. Catcher throws wild down to first, runner advances. Batter swings and misses for a strike. Takes a ball. Takes a called strike for the out. One out.

No. 16, Chris Rude. Swings and misses. Swats a grounder down to third, gets thrown out at first. Two down.

No. 10, Kelly Hodges. Ball. Swinging strike. Ball outside. High lazy curveball. Foul behind the fence along first base. A swing and a miss!

The side is retired. That's the old ballgame. Final score: Bryant 3, Redfield 2.

"It was a good game," someone says.

NOTES FROM THE VAGABOND JOURNAL: A VISIT TO REDFIELD, SOUTH DAKOTA JULY 10, 2004

My Redfield hosts, Lyn and Marlin Flint, have taken me to watch the community's American Legion team play the team from Bryant in a weekend tournament taking place at Redfield's ballpark. Redfield is the "Visitor" in the game, batting at the top of the inning. The first innning has just been completed with the score: Redfield - 2; Bryant - 3.

Top of the second.

No. 66 for Redfield, Kyle Carter, is at bat. He takes a called strike, takes a ball that comes in way wide, takes another ball even wider, takes a called strike, strikes out swinging. One out.

No. 27 for Redfield, Scott Jungwirth, at bat now. He fouls off a ball that's unplayable, he takes a wild pitch, a curve ball comes in for a strike, takes a ball high and inside, another ball in the dirt. He chops one to the second baseman, is thrown out at first. Two down.

No. 7 for Redfield, Kendall Stroud, grounds to shortstop but gets on base with the wild throw to first and advanced to second on the error.

No. 32 for Redfield, Aaron Ford, the pitcher, comes to the plate, takes a pitch wide outside, hits a fly ball to left field. No runs, no hits, 1 man left on base.

Bottom of the second. Hey batta batta takes a ball inside, takes a called strike, takes another called strike, hits a foul ball behind the plate. Catcher makes the out. One down.

Batta squares up and bunts a ball foul. Hits a lazy fly to the pitcher. Two down.

Batta hits the pitch right back to the pitcher who throws him out at first. No runs, no hits, no one left on base.

Top of the third. No. 9, Jess Gruenwald, comes to the plate. He takes a ball wide and in the dirt. Swings at a pitch and misses. A fat curve falls in for a strike. Strikes out swinging at the next pitch, another curve. One down.

No. 16, Chris Rude. A swing and a miss. Hits the ball to shortstop and is thrown out at first base. Two down.

No. 10, Kelly Hodges, fouls off a pitch. Takes a pitch in the dirt. Hits a high inside pitch foul behind first base. Takes a wild pitch. Makes good contact, the ball falls in between the right fielder and the center fielder for a hit. One man on, two down.

No. 48, Greg Levtzow, hits a hard shot at second base. Error on the shortstop. Men on first and second.

No. 14 Keith Jandel, hits the ball to shortstop, who fields it and lobs it to second base for the force. No runs, one hit, one error, one man left on base.

Bottom of the third. Batta batta chops one at the second baseman who bobbles the ball. Reaches base on the error. Man on first, no outs.

Batta at the plate. Pitcher throws to first. Throws a ball, runner steals second. Pitcher throws a strike. Throws to second. Batter hits a foul ball. Takes a ball outside, takes another ball outside. Strike out! One on, one out.

Batta takes a ball, flies to left field.

Batta hits a ground ball to second, gets thrown out at first. No runs, no hits, one error, one man left on base.

Top of the fourth. The realization comes: you want to get your runs in the first inning, because things settle down after that.

No. 66, Kyle Carter, at the plate. He swings at a bad pitch. He takes a ball low and inside, in the dirt. Takes another ball low and back to the screen behind the plate. Takes a called strike, takes a ball, strikes out swinging at a bad pitch. One down.

No. 28, Scott Jungwirth, takes a ball outside. Hits a foul behind the screen. Swings at a bad pitch. Fouls a pitch off. Hits a grounder to second. Two down.

No. 7, Kendall Stroud. Strike. Hits a chopper fielded by the first baseman. Pitcher covers the base, drops the ball. Runner turns the wrong way, gets tagged out.

Bottom of the fourth. The DH batta batta flies way back, deep to left field. One out.

Batta takes a pitch way inside, hits a bobbler to third. The third baseman makes a bad throw to first. Runner advances to second on the error. One down, one on.

Batta takes a ball. Fouls a pitch behind the screen. Grounds to shortstop and gets thrown out at first. Runner from second gets thrown out at third. No runs, no hits, one error, no one left on base.

To be continued....

NOTES FROM THE VAGABOND JOURNAL: A VISIT TO REDFIELD, SOUTH DAKOTA JULY 10, 2004

It's the top of the first,

the game already underway at the American Legion Tournament in Redfield. Lyn and Marlin Flint have brought me to the ballpark to watch the Redfield American Legion team play Bryant. Redfield has a man on base. The team is the "Visitor" on its own home field; that's the (bad) luck of the draw.

The first baseman, the pitcher, and the catcher for Bryant are chasing a foul ball by Redfielder Aaron Ford. No one catches it. Jordan Johnson is pitching for Bryant. Aaron hits another foul ball down the left field line; he hits a foul then he bloops a Texas Leaguer over second base into the outfield.

Jess Gruenwald draws a walk. Bases loaded.

No. 16 for Redfield, Chris Rude, is at the plate. Johnson winds up, here's the pitch. It's a passed ball. A run scores.

Rude flies out. Another run scores.

No. 10 for Redfield, Kelly Hodges, hits a fly ball deep to center field. The man on second is not able to advance.

No. 48 for Redfield, Greg Levtzow, is at the plate. Jordan throws a high pitch and the man on second steals third. Levtzow draws a walk.

No. 14 for Redfield, Keith Jandel, comes up to the plate. Levtzow steals second base. Jandel grounds out. That retires the side.

"That man in the blue hat," the Flints tell me, "is Vernon 'Casey' Roeber." I look over at the nondescript fellow. "He was a pitcher. He's in the South Dakota Baseball Hall of Fame."

Ian Rose, No. 24, the Redfield pitcher, is warming up. He throws side-arm. Then there's a batter at the plate. Hey, batta batta! "Two pitches, two balls," Marlin says. Then Rose throws a strike. Batter fouls off the next pitch, then lines one straight back to the mound. It bounces off the pitcher, over to short stop. The batter beats the throw to first.

Rose hits the next batter with a pitch. Two men on, no outs.

The batter takes two balls, then hits a Texas Leaguer over second base. A run scores. Men on second and third. No outs.

The batter takes a ball outside. Hey, batta batta. He swings at high, tight heat. Takes a ball inside. Takes a called strike high and tight. Gets hit by pitch. Bases loaded. No outs.

Hey batta batta takes a called strike, takes a ball, is hit by pitch. A run scores.

Batta takes a called strike, takes another called strike, takes a pitch high and outside. "That's not a balk, pitcher had time called." Batta fouls one over the screen behind home plate, fouls another one straight back at the screen, takes a called strike low and tight. One out. Bases loaded.

Batta fouls one off, takes a called strike, takes a ball inside. ("That was pretty close!") Hits a pop-up just at the edge of the grass. ("Hey, that should have been an infield fly!") A run score. Two men on, 2 out.

Batta takes a pitch way inside, hey batta batta, takes a pitch way outside, fouls off a pitch, strikes out swinging. That ends the inning: 3 runs, 3 hits, 2 men left on base.

To be continued....

NOTES FROM THE VAGABOND JOURNAL: A VISIT TO REDFIELD, SOUTH DAKOTA JULY 9, 2004

This is the third and final part of our report of a tour of Redfield, South Dakota, with Craig Johnson, Economic Development Director for Spink County. I have just finished visiting with Mike Rohrbach, manager of the second shift at Synergy Solutions. Craig and I have gotten back into his pick-up; he's driving and we're talking. The day is getting hot.

Craig stood by patiently

at Synergy Solutions while I talked with Mike Rohrbach about the call center. Now Craig and I are back in his pick-up. He's showing me more of Redfield; and he's talking about health care in the community. "They're just finishing up a million-dollar expansion at the clinic and hospital, which has four doctors and two Physician's Assistants." he said. "We've got the Eastern Star Nursing home, Beverly Health Care, and Lakeside Assisted Living. People will move to a small town to retire if you have the medical facilities."

Redfield is also home to the South Dakota Developmental Center, which employs about 435 people caring for some 200 persons with severe mental/physical handicaps.

We drive past some of the Redfield Housing Authority's new "moderate income" housing - apartments of 1150 square feet renting for $640/month plus utilities. In Spink County, $640/month for rent is towards the high end of "moderate income." Housing in Redfield usually goes for about $450/month.

We drive past the Save Smart shop, owned by a young couple from Cambridge, Minnesota. The store sells discount items. The business had previously been a second-hand shop and the owner retired. Instead of an empty building, there's an on-going business. The new owners have moved to Redfield and their three girls have entered Redfield's school system. The wife's parents have moved to Redfield as well, and bought a house in town. This is how a community survives, I think - adding a little here, a little there, while holding onto what you've got. Nothing dramatic and glamorous, but essential.

"It is typical small town stuff that I do," Craig admitted. "It wouldn't make the paper in Des Moines."

As it had gotten to be "the hottest day we've had all year," Craig and I stopped for a cold beer at Chrystal Palace, a long-established drinking place in town. There were card games going on inside, and you could tell they were serious games - nobody put his beer on the table. Some young men, some old men, some middle-aged men. Some of those in the place were stopping for a beer after work, like Buck Robinson, manager of the Wheat Growers elevator I'd seen at Tulare. I can give him a call any time I'm back in Redfield and set up a tour of the elevator. I met a hair-dresser who rides a Harley. We may have seen the same motorcycle accident in the Black Hills near the Sturgis Rally several years ago. You wonder how you find such a point of common experience, but you do.

Craig asked if I'd be interested in having a steak for supper at Terry's downtown; he called his wife, Corrine, to see if she would too. We'd pick her up in ten minutes.

And so we did.

You have to go into Terry's from the alley, the same as going into Alley Cuts for a hair cut. When you enter from the rear, the place looks like the bar it is; the entrance to the dining room is near the front end and we had to walk all the way through the barroom to get to it. We took the table with a view - looking out onto the new concrete of Main Street Redfield.

Craig told me that it took the contractor one day to pour concrete for a block of Main Street from curb to curb. It was one continuous pour. Two cement trucks at a time would dump their loads into the $900,000 machine which kept edging forward and left a smoothed and leveled new surface behind it. The contractor was a man wise to the ways of public relations: he set up a table with coffee and doughnuts for the three hundred people who stopped to watch the work.

Corrine comes from a German background, and the family is in contact with relatives back in Germany. Some of those German relatives came to Redfield to visit Corrine and Craig. I suppose if I lived in South Dakota and had foreign visitors, I'd take them to the Black Hills to see Mount Rushmore; that's where Craig and Corrine took their visitors. When they got in the car to head back to Redfield, the Germans asked Craig to "take the short way home."

You have to understand, there is no "short way" across South Dakota. It is nearly three hundred miles from Redfield to Rapid City; by comparison, it is 240 miles from Berlin, Germany, to Copenhagen, Denmark; 320 miles from Berlin to Warsaw; 360 miles from Berlin to Amsterdam; 385 miles from Berlin to Zurich, Switzerland. Those Germans were not used to such distances as Dakotans find customary.

Craig and Corrine and I ate and we talked for a bit about the challenges of Economic Development in a community like Redfield. There are a lot of ideas that don't work out, for whatever reason; there is a lot of rejection. "You can't take the rejection personally," Craig said. "You can't let it get you down. You have to get up the next morning and go back at it." Craig seems to have the right mix of buoyant optimism and clear-eyed realism need for a job like his.

Craig works by himself as Director of Economic Development; he likes that. He gets judged on his results; he likes that, too. He is well-read and has an interest in local history and local stories; and though Corrine said he'd probably "like to have a job like yours," Craig doesn't think he writes well enough.

Craig and Corrine bought my supper, the seafood platter that was the day's special in a restaurant about as far from the sea as you can get. Thanks, you guys!

NOTES FROM THE VAGABOND JOURNAL: A VISIT TO REDFIELD, SOUTH DAKOTA JULY 9, 2004

This is the second part of our report of a tour of Redfield, South Dakota, with Craig Johnson, Economic Development Director for Spink County. We have just driven through the community's Industrial Park. Now we are heading back towards downtown Redfield in Craig's pick-up, and we're talking.

"We have enough $7.00/hour jobs

in Spink County," Craig said. "You need $7.00/hour jobs, but we don't need any more of those. So we're careful about what we go after. The $7.00/hour jobs are used by people who want a second income, people who want part-time work, and students. And kids will spend locally the money they make."

"General Motors and Ford are not going to waltz into Redfield with high-paying jobs for two hundred and fifty people," he continued. "We've got to do it right here. Government programs can help, but it starts right here."

"There is money available to do anything you want to do. But you have to have good management for any business to succeed - business skills and people skills. You can get the money to get you started. Something like eighty percent of new small businesses fail. Lack of capital is not the problem, it's lack of management skills."

"What I do," Craig said, "is sales - I'm selling this area. As with all sales, there is rejection and failure. You have to have a thick skin."

Craig asked if I'd seen Synergy Solutions' building out near Dairy Queen. Yes, I had. Would I like to stop in there? Yes, I would.

Synergy Solutions is a call center handling in-bound customer service calls and out-bound sales calls, "mostly for Fortune 500 companies," according to Mike Rohrbach, the night shift manager to whom Craig introduced me. Mike was born and raised in Redfield; he's been away a couple times but always comes back. He said the manager of the call center is from Hitchcock, South Dakota, south of Redfield just over the county line.

Synergy's customer service calls are usually informational and support sales retention and take enrollments. The out-bound calls might offer credit cards or conduct political campaign surveys.

The company employees about sixty-five people on two shifts. The workload is generally steady, Mike said, with spikes at certain points "such as during political campaigns." Synergy is operated by South Dakota native Corey Conklin, who now lives in Phoenix. The company has other calls centers in Phoenix, Arizona; Vestal, New York; Bemidji, Minnesota; and Milbank, South Dakota. Its website is: callsynergy.com .

Why the centers in small-town South Dakota, I wondered.

"Corey likes the South Dakota work ethic, I know that," Mike said.

Telemarketing is an industry with high turnover. Partly that's because it is non-physical work, and people might find it hard to sit at the telephone day after day, Mike said. Partly, too, it's the rejection. "No sales for a couple of days gets you down. You can't take it personally."

And, partly, I would add, the turnover may be due to the entry level pay that comes with the job. Generally the work doesn't pay enough to be a family's primary source of income, even in rural South Dakota.

What does the company look for when hiring?

"Are you out-going?" Mike said. "Can you read a script well? Can you talk well? Are you upbeat? In telephone sales, 99.9% of success is in the sound of your voice."

"Do you do interviews over the phone to see how they sound?"

"Some facilities do," Mike said. "We give them sample scripts and then role-play. The candidate pretends to call us. We pretend to be the customer on the phone."

"What training do the employees get?"

"They get general training about the company," Mike says. "We have to teach them about the TCP Act, the federal law governing telemarketing. We are a DMA member [Direct Marketing Association]. For those who work on credit card sales, the training is very in-depth because of regulations related to offering credit cards. Then the employees get trained in the specific projects they'll be working on. Some programs are lengthier than others."

Here in Redfield, Mike indicated, about ninety percent of the employees are prepared to work on any of the campaigns the call center is handling. In other, larger call centers, employees tend to specialize more in certain kinds of programs.

Synergy Solutions has state-of-the-art equipment for teleservices, Mike said.

It was shift change then, turnover from first to second shift. The folks coming in were plunking cans of stew or vegetables on a desk near where Mike and I were talking. I must have looked at him with a question mark. He explained: "It's dress-down day on Fridays. You can wear shorts if you bring in a can of food for charity. Otherwise our dress is business-casual."

I could hear some of the first-shift employees talking. It could have been your normal Friday afternoon quitting-time conversation for all I knew.

"They're working," Mike said. Two women were standing next to each other, each talking into her own headset with a customer. "Some people like to stand up and move around a little bit while they work. Others prefer to sit at the desk." To the casual observer, they might have been talking to each other, wind-down chit-chat at the end of the day.

"How do you manage what is going on?"

"We have stat screens for the employees and the projects," Mike said. "We use the stats to develop employees, not to fire them."

"We have quality coaches, too," he said. "They monitor to see what improvements can be made and to be sure we're following all the requirements for the program."

The second shift has gathered in the meeting room off to the side. Kristin, one of the night shift quality coaches, is bringing the crew up to speed on the project they'll be starting in a few minutes. I noticed that the night crew looks pretty young. "Yeah," Mike said, "most of them are in high school."

I wondered if there were differences between the day crew and the night crew beyond the matter of age. I had worked second shift in printing for fourteen years, and knew the differences between shifts in that industry were remarkable.

"The night shift is a little more rambunctious," Mike admitted. That is true to my experience. During my fourteen years on second shift, I remember waiting impatiently every day for all those day shift people to get out of there, so we could do our work, which would be done well, but not always according to Hoyle.

He said his crew is a little more rambunctious, yes; yet he also believes "the high school kids are good on any of the programs I put them on."

To be continued....

NOTES FROM THE VAGABOND JOURNAL: A VISIT TO REDFIELD, SOUTH DAKOTA JULY 9, 2004

Meeting Craig Johnson,

the Economic Development Director for Spink County, is like seeing a lost brother again after a long separation or an old friend you haven't talked to in years. You feel that comfortable.

Craig wasn't in his office on the third floor of the Courthouse in Redfield when I arrived a few minutes early. He was downstairs getting something for us to drink, a couple cans of cold soda on a day that was growing increasingly warm.

Instead of doing a sit-down interview, we decided Craig would give me a tour of Redfield from an Economic Development perspective. We climbed into his pick-up. He drove and I wrote as fast as I could, which is never fast enough, you know.

Craig was born in Rugby, North Dakota - my North Dakota focus community. He was raised in Minnewaukan, North Dakota.

"I've always lived in the Dakotas," Craig said, "except for the four years I spent in service." He was in the Air Force from 1972-1976, in munitions - bombs and ammo, "whatever an F-4 shot or dropped."

"That didn't prepare you for civilian life," I supposed.

"Not a bit," Craig said.

"You can spend your whole life regretting," he added. You only need to spend a few minutes with Craig to understand he is positive and forward-looking, not given to regrets and what-could-have-been.

When he completed service, Craig attended the North Dakota State College of Science in Whapeton, North Dakota, and was recruited from there by the power company, Northwestern. He worked for Northwestern for twenty-three and a half years, until the company down-sized in 2001. He was in Huron for seventeen years and came to Redfield in 1995.

Craig met his wife, Corrine, while he was at the North Dakota College of Science - she was a secretary at the school. "Some women smile at me," Craig said, "and most of them laugh out-loud." He and Corrine have been married for "it'll be twenty-five years in the fall." They have a sixteen-year-old son, Sam.

Craig had been involved in economic development in Spink County on a volunteer basis when he worked for the power company. The group had just successfully lobbied the city of Redfield and Spink County to establish an Economic Development position when Craig lost his job at Northwestern. "Little did I know that I was going to be applying for that job," he said.

The mission of "Grow Spink," Craig said, is "anything for the benefit of the county."

"This is an agricultural area, no doubt about it," Craig told me. The leading industries in the county are "agriculture, government, and health care." Forty-six percent of the non-agricultural employees in the county work for the government.

Craig showed me an area of town that used to be a salvage yard. The City of Redfield moved the salvage yard outside of town and Grow Spink purchased the site and has been developing a residential neighborhood in the area, to establish valuation and get the property back on the tax rolls. There are eight lots in the property. On two of them, Grow Spink put "Governor's Homes," pre-manufactured houses built at South Dakota's Springfield prison. One of those homes has been sold. One of the other vacant lots has been sold, too, and the buyer has put a house on it.

"Eleven hundred and fifty of the Governor's Homes have sold since that program started," Craig said. "The houses are nine-hundred-sixty square feet."

We drove on to the industrial park. Craig told me that when he started as the Director of Economic Development, "one of the first priorities was to get a lumberyard here. Our lumberyard had closed. I was told by some of the chains they were not interested in a town this size."

"I worked with five or six companies or individuals," Craig said, "and we reached an agreement with a fellow from DeSmet, Wendall Schubloom. He has been a contractor his whole life. He continues to do that and has two full-time employees here in the lumberyard."

We drove past the concrete plant. A truck was being filled with cement. Sand and gravel stood in piles in this direction and that. "The concrete plant had been in the middle of Redfield," Craig said. "Now it's out here in the industrial park. There is room here for the trucks and the piles of aggregate."

We turned into the driveway in front of Jessen Heating and Cooling. "They put up this new building," Craig said. The county uses a "tax discretionary formula" as an incentive to encourage building. For projects which qualify, owners pay only twenty percent of the taxes on the new construction after the first year, forty percent after the second year, sixty percent after the third, eighty percent after the fourth, and one hundred percent after year five and beyond.

Total space in the industrial park is about thirty-five acres.

To be continued....

NOTES FROM THE VAGABOND JOURNAL: A VISIT TO REDFIELD, SOUTH DAKOTA JULY 8, 2004

This is the fourth installment of our report of a visit to Redfield's train depot. The depot is being restored by Redfield's Tourism Board, which is headed by Kari Schultz. Kari is giving us a tour of the grand old building.

At some point the express freight room

had been divided into two rooms; you can see evidence of where a wall has been put in and taken out.

Kari thinks the railroad had very tight security for freight and baggage. "I was told that a lot of workers carried guns to protect the baggage or freight in their charge," she said.

Then we were walking back towards the ticket counter, through the baggage room, the kitchen, the lunch counter, the Men's Waiting Room. "We had hoped to have the depot open by now," Kari said. "It is a busy time outdoors for carpenters now, so it's not a good time for indoor work. We want to have the doors open before hunting season in the fall. Here it is, July already."

"We want to keep the ticket office the way it is, so people can see what it was like," Kari said. "Whatever city offices move in here, there won't be any 'private' offices. We may use an old, high wooden bank counter to hide computers and printers and wires and that sort of thing."

Kari talked about the future.

"The train that is best remembered," she said, "was called 'The Galloping Goose.' I went on the internet looking for it by that name and got into places you can't imagine. 'Galloping Goose' is a local name for the train, I think. It was like a trolley, a single car with an engine built into it. When it went down the track, it lurched side-to-side, that's where it got its name. We may find one of those, or possibly one of the old steam engines."

"We'd like to build an annual festival around the depot," Kari said. "It was be great to be able to offer a train ride from here to Huron, or even eight miles out into the country and back. People would like that."

So why does Kari do this work for tourism when she has plenty else to do?

"Small towns are like that," she said. "You take off one hat and put on another."

"I don't really know why I do it," she said. "It's just so much fun. If I could make a living working in this depot, that's what I'd do. Both Roosevelts and Sitting Bull came through here. Every night during the World War, the city band played on this platform, to welcome the returning soldiers and to send off those going to war."

"Imagine all the history that went on in this building," she said.

"One man in town was a young boy when the depot was being built," she said. "He told me that he poked his head in once. There were Italians in here, putting the marble in place. They didn't speak any English."

"A woman told me the depot has both happy and sad memories for her," Kari said. "She said that she'd gotten engaged on this platform, and her father dropped dead in the doorway of the express room. He was always home exactly on time for supper, the woman remembered. He didn't come home and didn't come home. Her mother sent her to find out what was keeping him, and she found him dead."

"When the old buildings are gone," Kari said, "they'll never be back."

Kari would like to enlist Kevin Costner in the effort to re-dedicate the depot. "He is supposedly quite a C&N buff. It would be nice to lure him here to take part in the dedication. It doesn't hurt to ask."

Kari locked the depot then, and we were standing outside near our cars, talking more generally.

"If you want to survive in a small community, you have to be willing to change," she said. "If you're not willing to change, you won't survive."

To be continued....

NOTES FROM THE VAGABOND JOURNAL: A VISIT TO REDFIELD, SOUTH DAKOTA JULY 8, 2004

This is the third installment of our report of a visit to Redfield's train depot. The depot is being restored by Redfield's Tourism Board, which is headed by Kari Schultz. Kari is giving us a tour of the grand old building.

We walked into

the Men's Waiting Room. The men had their separate space, for "smoking cigars and talking rough."

The eastern two-thirds of the building may have gone without heat for as long as forty years, Kari said. "The woodwork in here was very faded. There was no finish left on it. When we oiled the wood, it soaked everything in and darkened considerably. That's why it doesn't look like the woodwork in the Women's Waiting Room. It's the same wood."

"The floor in here is also in tougher shape from pallets and forklifts," Kari said.

The new heating plant for the depot has been installed in what used to be the men's restroom.

There used to be a solid wall between the Men's Waiting Room and the lunchroom just to the east of it. There were also solid walls dividing the lunchroom from the baggage room, and the baggage room from the express freight room. Anyone wishing to go to the lunchroom from the Women's or Men's Waiting Room had to step outside onto the platform to do that.

The ceiling lights in the lunchroom are original. You could see holes in the terrazzo floor where stools had once been bolted to the floor in the same U-shape as the lunch counter. There were dining tables along the windows to the north. The room has been repainted above the oak wainscoting, a deep mustard color. "That's the original color," Kari said. "We found it on the bottom layer behind some woodwork."

The floor in the kitchen is new. "The original was rotten and worn through," Kari said. The light fixtures are original, but again they don't provide as much light as we're used to today.

The walls in the baggage room are raw brick. They haven't been plastered. The feel of the room with that raw brick sends you back seventy-five years. The doors on the northside had to be replaced. Terry Taylor, a local carpenter, built the new ones to match the style of the era. "He is very interested in historic stuff," Kari said of Taylor, "and he's easy to work with."

Perhaps Kari didn't want to show me the basement but I love dark holes and saw the stairs. "A basement!"

Yes, a basement, with a sump pump running to deal with all the water of Redfield's uncharacteristically we summer.

When you enter the basement, you step into the boiler room. All that remains of the boiler now is the memory and some of the large pipes that moved steam to the radiators upstairs. Beyond the boiler room, two other rooms - the coal room on the left (south) side, the room for handling the "clinkers" from the furnace on the right side. There used to be an opening from the clinker room to a window well on the north side but that has been cemented up.

"There used to be eight feet of water standing in this basement," Kari said. "We thought some kid could fall through that opening and drown, so we closed it up."

We went back upstairs. There are insulated overhead doors at the end of the express freight office. This is going to be the depot's storage area so old doors from the depot are kept here - "we didn't want to get rid of them but we don't know where we can use them," Kari said. Marble from the men's room is stored here. There had been signatures written on the marble, men going off to war perhaps - 1919, 1920; men looking for work perhaps - 1929. A photo of all those signatures was taken before the marble was cleaned. "B & O Red" had also been carved into a piece of the stone. Also stored here, the original bar from an establishment in Athol, South Dakota, five miles to the north. The cross-bar that locks the big door form the freight room to the platform has been carved too, a secret communication from decades past that I can't decode: GJC 7ZT.

To be continued....

NOTES FROM THE VAGABOND JOURNAL: A VISIT TO REDFIELD, SOUTH DAKOTA JULY 8, 2004

This is the second installment of our report of a visit to Redfield's train depot. The depot is being restored by Redfield's Tourism Board, which is headed by Kari Schultz. Kari is giving us a tour of the grand old building.

Various individuals have promised

the tourism group they will return such items as lanterns, receipt books, telegraph equipment, and the original chalkboard for reporting on the status of trains due to arrive. "Plus," said Kari, "we're getting donations of other things from that time period - 1914 to, say, 1940." And they are trying to facilitate the return of some of the depots original baggage carts, too.

Will that put the tourism group in competition with the Spink County Museum?

"No, that's not the intention," Kari said. "We need to draw interest to the depot so that we can promote other things in the community, such as the museum."

Some people have suggested that the museum should move into the depot, Kari said, "but that would only be a lateral move, it wouldn't give them any more space." Working with the Museum to get rotating displays in the depot would actually help create more space in the museum, she suggested.

"I'd like to see this location become a state-designated tourism center," Kari said. That would mean some state funding of the operation would be available, and maybe there would be state interns available to help staff the center. "It would mean a little more backing and a little more funding and providing us with interns would take off some of the pressure for staffing."

From my own experience, I know that any project will have both supporters and nay-sayers. How has the tourism group garnered support for the project?

"Every chance I got, I talked about it," Kari said. "I asked people to come see it."

The agricultural economy is struggling, Kari noted. The economic times are tight. "We have free overnight camping in a park at the edge of town. We are promoting that this year for the Sturgis Rally. Redfield is half-way between the Twin Cities and Sturgis and would be a natural place for people to stop."

Further, she said the state of South Dakota is encouraging businesses in an area to put together packages that will let visitors do several things in the area "for all-one-price." The state will then advertise that package on the tourism web site.

Kari and I stepped into the depot's ticket office, which looks pretty much the way it always has. The false dropped ceiling that had been put up in later years has now been removed, and the high window that was boarded up is once again letting the sun shine in. A furnace that was added later has been removed. The telegraph desk remains, with the original holes intact, where wires ran through and equipment was attached.

The original ticket counter and map counters remain, the rich wood gleaming with the oil of human contact.

The depot was used as a railroad depot from 1914 to 1961. After 1945, only the ticket office and the Women's Waiting Room were still in use by the railroad, and the rest of the building was leased out.

After the railroad closed the depot, the building was bought by Dakota Best, a feed and seed company, which used it to house an office and displays and to store feed.

"Here, look at this," Kari said. She showed me a small campaign card: "Peter Norbeck for Governor."

"We found it tucked behind some woodwork," she explained. It could have been there eighty years or more.

"I've read that the railroad employed over five hundred people in Redfield at one time," Kari said. "The trains would blech soot onto clothes out on the clothes, and people would have to take them in and re-wash them, but nobody complained because the railroad was family."

"Someone told me how the railroad took care of its own," she said. "If men were injured or killed, the railroad helped the family. A man in Redfield was injured and wouldn't be able to work again. The railroad set his wife and family up with a boarding house in town, so they'd have an income."

Kari showed me several photographs of three young women who worked for the railroad and who spent some time at the depot on their way from Watertown "to the Blackhills, maybe." The photos were taken only a few years after the depot opened. What is interesting in them is how much of the background can be seen - the depot itself, the train tracks, the platform for passengers, light fixtures, and so on.

There was a time that three trains a day left Redfield for Omaha; that two morning trains and two evening trains left for the Twin Cities.

Kari also showed me a picture of the depot's lunch room, which had been operated by Millie and Fred Stern. The family has donated some items to the project that had originally been used in the lunch room - cream pitchers and so on.

"Do you now know more about railroads than you ever intended to?" I asked.

"Yes," Kari said, "but there is so much more to know."

To be continued....

NOTES FROM THE VAGABOND JOURNAL: A VISIT TO REDFIELD, SOUTH DAKOTA JULY 8, 2004

Kari Schultz met me at the Redfield train depot

at 4:00 p.m. She was going to show me the old building and talk about the effort to restore it and make it the centerpiece in Redfield's push to develop tourism. Kari is the chair of Redfield's Tourism Board and she wrote the grant proposal for acquiring and restoring the depot. The city received the entire amount requested in their grant proposal for the $444,000 project. The city must contribute 18.05% of that amount for the project, or about $80,000; of that amount, Kari expects about a third will be "in-kind" donations of labor to restore the building. You can bet that volunteers are keeping careful track of the hours worked, and the type of work they did. The value of the in-kind contributions is calculated using the Bacon-Davis Wage & Hour Guidelines; different kinds of in-kind work has different value - carpentry work is valued higher than scrubbing floors, for instance. Those who have donated in-kind labor include the Jim Valley Snowmobile Club, the Boy Scouts, the Tourism group itself, various groups of women from the community, "and a lot of individuals."

When you walk into the depot's "Women's Waiting Room," the original golden oak woodwork takes your breath away. The building was dedicated in 1914, built by the Chicago-Northwestern Railroad. They spared no expense - hand-hewn oak beam ceilings, oak doors and window trim, oak wainscoting. The building had plumbing when it was built.

How did Kari get involved in the project?

About three years ago the city council appointed her to the Tourism Board. She had been visible in the community already, working on various projects over the twenty-one years she and her husband Stan have lived in Redfield.

"The Chamber is one group in town," Kari said, "and the Tourism Board is another. Both of them work for Redfield. At this junction of Highways 212 and 281, where our restaurant is, we see the tourism. A lot of our customers are tourists." Maybe that's why she is interested in the potential in promoting tourism.

"There's a story one of the state's tourism officials told," Kari said. "He was in a store and the owner said he didn't see what good promoting tourism would ever do him. The tourism fellow took the businessman outside and showed him a car parked right in front of the business; it had out-of-state plates on it. 'That's not a tourist,' the store owner said, 'that's just some guy passing through.'"

That's the wrong attitude, Kari thinks. Anytime someone "passes through," that's an opportunity to put money into the Redfield economy. "You want to give those who are passing through a reason to stop," she said, "and then you want to give them a reason to come back."

Kari is the director of Redfield's Rainbow Daycare and had written a number of grant proposals over the years, so she was prepared to tackle the grant proposal for the depot. "It was a great deal of work to prepare the proposal, in terms of hours of work," Kari said. "We had to document everything we were requesting. We had to do all the footwork for the project before we wrote the grant. We had to confer with the carpenters - what will it cost to do this, to do that."

The depot was structurally sound but it needed a new roof. "You couldn't throw any old roof on," Kari said. The depot had been put on the National Historic Register at some point in the past. In historic preservation, if you don't have to replace it, you don't; you restore it or rebuild it. "If we have to replace," Kari said, "we need to use something that is as historically accurate as possible."

The doors from the Women's Waiting Room to the platform outside clearly had to be replaced. "You could see daylight through them," Kari said.

The light fixtures in the Women's Waiting Room are original, but they don't provide much light to the room. Those in the Men's Waiting Room are not original, but are in an appropriate historical style.

The reason we got the grant for this project," Kari said, "is that the depot is to become a tourist information center. That is its primary purpose. Some other city offices may be put into the depot as well, offices that could be set out in the open, as there will be no structural changes to the building. Grow Spink, Redfield's economic development effort, may be one such candidate for the depot. All of Redfield's tourism efforts are volunteer; having other offices in the depot will help increase the number of hours it is open to the public.

"We want to get it open," Kari said. "We need to get the landscaping done; we need to get signs up. People want to get in here and see it. I would be in here working, people would see my car out front and stop in to see what was going on."

To be continued....

NOTES FROM THE VAGABOND JOURNAL: A VISIT TO REDFIELD, SOUTH DAKOTA JULY 8, 2004

Tulare, South Dakota, is about ten miles south

of Redfield on Highway 281. Dakota Air Spray is just north of the town, east across the highway. The big operation is the Dakota Wheat Growers elevator along the railroad tracks; it has a grain business, a fuel oil business, and I see anhydrous ammonia tanks farther to the south. The office is separate, a building on Main Street, across from the Tulare Lockers. Next to the South Dakota Wheat Growers' office, a Bar With No Name but a Schmidt Beer sign above the door and two Budweiser signs in the window, one with a pheasant and "South Dakota" lit up, the other with "Open." The Bar With No Name needs no name because everyone in town knows where it is and what it serves, a name out front would be superfluous. And if there is anything we don't want to be, middle western as we are, it's superfluous.

Next to the locker plant on the north side of the street, there's a quonset-shaped building with "Martin and Earl Hoffman - Post 292 - Tulare, SD" above the door. Just to the west of that, Mrs. Louie's Cafe - "Come On In - Home Cooking, Home Made Pies, Catering, Senior Meals, Meetings & Parties - Service With a Smile."

Heartland State Bank is the new low brick building just to the west of Mrs. Louie's. West of that on the same side of the street, a couple old buildings that seem to be doing little more than marking time.

Back on the south side of the street, next to The Bar With No Name, is a frame building with "The Hair Doctors" across the front. West of that, a pole building set back a little ways from the street. One has to assume this is the city building, though it is not identified as such. A flag flies at the flag pole in front of it. There is a hollow cylindrical pillar along the sidewalk to the entrance; a small sign on it says: "City Drop Box." There's a big boulder in front, with pre-historic-looking rock art inscribed deeply. I am not sure the patina is old enough to confirm the art's authenticity.

To the west of the city building, on the corner, an old white building, Corner Grocery.

Across the cross street, on the other corner, the United States Post Office, Tulare, South Dakota 57476.

In the middle of the intersection stands a kind of public billboard. Today's messages on the east side of the sign: "Bridal Shower for Tawny Bottum, Sunday, July 11th, 2:00 at T.U.C. - Bring a recipe to share - Everyone Welcome" and "It is illegal to shoot fireworks in Tulare City Limits." On the west side: "Post Office Lobby Open 24 Hours" and "July 10th Dave Brooker Night at Huron Races."

Between the Corner Grocery and a Masonic Temple to the south of it, there's a wide driveway where, you have to think, fire trucks come out of the big overhead doors. On the Masonic building, a little sign says "Zenith Lodge No. 202 - Oasis Chapter No. 148."

A block west of downtown stands an old wooden church. There's a stone monument in front, with a likeness of the building inscribed in it. Salem United Church of Christ - Built in 1911. The site and history of Salem U.C.C. congregation:

o 1883 - This parish was organized as the Evangelical Lutheran Church.
o 1934 - The name was changed to the Evangelical Reformed Church.
o 1957 - The Congregational Church Council merged with the Evangelical Reformed Synod and we became the United Church of Christ.
o 1965 - The Tri-Church was organized to share a pastor with St. John's U.C.C. and Methodist Church.
o 1997 - The three churches joined to form the Tulare United Church.
o "Together we shall continue to promote progress and joy in faith." - Matt. 18:20.

Across the street from the old wooden structure, three crosses and three bells as a single emblem in front of a new church building.

I know that the Tulare School has joined with the Hitchcock School; that last year for the first time the school building here in Tulare housed all the high school students from both areas, and the school in Hitchcock takes the grade school students of both communities. So far as I can see, there is no name on this school building to identify it. That would be superfluous. It looks like a school building. Every autumn kids go back to school there. What else would it be? We don't like to restate the obvious. There is a baseball diamond and a football field adjacent to the school, nearest a building that looks as if it houses the gymnasium or basketball court. Hitchcock is just over the county line into Beadle County, seven miles to the south and five miles east of here.

Kitty-corner across town, two squat buildings with a sign in front - "Tulare Housing Assn, Inc." This is USDA- financed housing. There is a "For Rent" sign in a window of one of the buildings. I see lights on in one of the units of the other building, so they appear as if they're being used.

On the far southeast corner of town, along the railroad tracks, a small park with picnic tables and play equipment. On the southwest corner of town, the Bethany Bible Baptist Church - "Speaking the Truth in Love."

It is as I'm leaving town that I see the sign: "Tulare - Little City - Big Heart."

To be continued....

NOTES FROM THE VAGABOND JOURNAL:A VISIT TO REDFIELD, SOUTH DAKOTA JULY 7, 2004

I'm up and have said hello

to Lyn and Marlin Flint, with whom I'm staying. They didn't get home last night til after 11:00 p.m. I'd already come into the house and climbed into bed and fallen fast asleep by then.

This observation from something Marlin said: How well those fireworks stands do depends on how much rain the area has had. If it is a dry year, people don't buy fireworks because the risk of grass fire is too great. This year they have had enough rain that the fireworks business has been pretty good.

*

I went to Alley Cuts this morning to get my hair cut and my beard trimmed. I had my hair cut at Alley Cuts when I was in Redfield last year too. They have moved from their space that fronted on an alley (hence the name) to one that fronts on Redfield's main street. I had to go in the back door anyway - Main Street in Redfield has been torn up for some time: new sewer and water has been laid; the sidewalks have been widened; the street is getting a new concrete surface.

The building that Alley Cuts now occupies is one they've bought from Marlin Flint. This is where Marlin, like his father before him, operated an appliance business. The business was successful. Why? One long-time resident of Redfield has told me: "I wouldn't buy an appliance or a TV from anyone else. When you bought from Marlin or his dad, it worked; and if it stopped working, they could fix it."

Marlin has told me about the sign his father had posted in the store: "Labor charges: $2.00. $2.75 if you want to talk to me while I'm working on it. $3.50 if you want to help me fix it." Marlin says there never was anything so frustrating, when he was doing a favor for a fellow who wanted his appliance fixed right away, than having the guy fiddle with the pieces laid out in sequence for inspection, re-installation, or replacement. Once, back in the days when a quarter was real money, he gave one such fellow a quarter and said "Why don't you go up the street and buy somebody a cup of coffee."

When I appeared at Alley Cuts from the back room, one of the women was trimming a boy's hair, the other was talking on the phone. I was directed to the empty chair - "She'll be with you when she finishes on the phone."

There were two main topics of conversation in the place today. One was a trip this coming weekend to Sioux Falls, to watch one of the women's children play ball - should they go on Saturday or Sunday or both days. The other conversation was about the manager of a softball team. The manager was talking about "coming out of retirement" to replace the team's current pitcher. "She's 50 years old. Those 19-year-olds will beat her up." It would be a bad move, and it would piss off the current pitcher, and you don't like to go to the state play-offs with your pitcher pissed off.

Being the somewhat clumsy oaf that I am, I was astonished that the woman cutting my hair could talk and cut hair at the same time; and my hair cut looks good. She did a nice job trimming my beard, too. And she was gentle in the way she talked about the fact that I was WAY overdue for a haircut and trim. "It looks like it has gotten away from you."

The same woman also confirmed that this year has been wet enough that people didn't have to worry about starting fires with their fireworks. She volunteered this information. It's clear that the threat of fire from fireworks is something the people here pay attention to, something they talk about. It is seldom a concern in our part of Wisconsin, so if you're looking for differences between one area and the other, this is one of them.

To be continued....