I've Been Everywhere

 

From Sea to Shining Sea: Been There

I’ve lived in nine states — and visited every state west of the Mississippi and most to the east. I’ve missed the Carolinas and a few corners of New England, but I’ve seen enough of America to know this: every place has its own personality. Some whisper, some shout, some surprise you, and some stay with you long after you’ve moved on.

What follows isn’t a travel guide. It’s a memory map — the things that stuck, the things that shaped me, and the things I still see when I close my eyes.

South Dakota — Where The Story Begins

Born and raised there, and later returning for a decade to run the Alexandria Herald and Emery Enterprise, South Dakota is the state that built me.

East River is rolling hills, rich cropland, and horizons that stretch farther than your worries. And home to the World's Only Corn Palace! West River is rangeland, the haunting moonscape of the Badlands, and the Black Hills rising like a promise out of the prairie. It's Mount Rushmore and the Crazy Horse Memorial.

It’s a place of honest seasons, steady people, and land that teaches you patience, resilience, and respect.

Washington — The Evergreen Cathedral

Tacoma and Fort Lewis introduced me to the Pacific Northwest:

• Pine forests

• Mild temperatures

• Rain that seems to fall more days than not

• Flowers that bloom like they’re showing off

And the rain — that deserves its own explanation. In the Pacific Northwest, you can see it raining without actually feeling it. It’s so light it becomes a fine mist, almost like the sky is exhaling.

There's Seattle and the Space Needle, and then there’s Mt. Rainier — invisible most days, but when the clouds finally part, it appears like a revelation. A mountain that doesn’t just sit on the horizon but owns it.

Minnesota — Familiar Ground

Minnesota felt like South Dakota with:

• More lakes

• More trees

• More towns

• And winters that take themselves seriously

• More mosquitoes

For a time, I drilled with my National Guard unit in St. Paul, and that gave me a front‑row seat to one of Minnesota’s great cultural truths: if the Vikings were playing at home, you planned your day around it. You either beat the rush before the game ended or you braced yourself for traffic filled with thousands of fans — some upbeat, some downcast, all of them determined to get home at the same time.

Minnesota was familiar, comfortable, and steady — a northern neighbor with a similar soul.

Colorado — The Rockies as Neighbors

Colorado Springs and Fort Carson gave me:

• Cheyenne Mountain, a massive, steep-sided block of granite that casts long shadows across the post in the late afternoon.

• Hailstorms that arrived like uninvited guests.

• The memory of climbing Pike’s Peak with my friend Lauryn (“Goat”), who lived up to his nickname.

Colorado is a place where the mountains aren’t scenery — they’re part of your daily life.

Texas — Sun, Sand, and the Borderlands

Fort Bliss gave me a different kind of beauty.

El Paso is one of the sunniest cities in America — the kind of place where you expect blue sky every morning and usually get it. It sits right across the border from Juárez, Mexico, close enough to see the lights at night. And yet El Paso itself is remarkably safe, year after year one of the safest large cities in the country.

What I remember most:

• Sand, sand, and more sand

• Mesquite bushes that look older than time

• Sandstorms that turn the sky brown

• Tarantulas crawling out after heavy rains like desert inspectors

A stark, sun‑baked landscape — rugged, honest, unforgettable.

Tennessee — The First Taste of the South

Tennessee was my introduction to southern living — Millington, just outside Memphis, where the humidity hits you like a warm, wet blanket the moment you step outside.

Fields of cotton. Kudzu covering everything. That southern drawl. "Bless your heart." Armadillos -- deceased, roadside warriors. Memphis' Beale Street. Flowers blooming in November. Baptist churches or Waffle Houses on every other corner.

In the South, it seems every river's name is at least four syllables -- like "Loosahatchie, " near Memphis, or "Tallahatchie" in Mississippi. But my all-time favorite was located near Biloxi, Mississippi -- the Tchoutacabouffa River -- pronounced “CHOO-tah-kah-buf," from the Biloxi tribe's word for "broken pot."

Mississippi — The Gulf Coast Years

My second‑longest home was the Mississippi Gulf Coast — a world of its own.

Trees everywhere. Spanish moss hanging like nature’s lace. Crepe myrtles blooming in colors that look painted on. Azaleas. Winters so mild you can sit outside in December in shorts. Summers so brutal the air conditioner never stops running, even at night.

And the rain — not gentle, not polite, but sheets of water.

One night I drove to pick up Barbara from class at the community college. The ditches were overflowing. A pickup was already swallowed by water. Our Toyota Sienna pushed through a parking lot with water up to the radiator. Somehow — and only by the grace of God — we made it home.

And hurricanes. The day I reported to the shipyard in Pascagoula to inprocess for my new job, Hurricane Isaac was bearing down on the coast, so I was sent home mid-morning, only to return a week later with luckily little damage. But we learned that time for Mississippians is measured as being "before (Hurricane) Katrina or after Katrina." And when we arrived there in 2012 the effects of the 2005 hurricane could still be seen. Ironically, in our almost six years on the Coast, we never experienced a hurricane.

And on clear days, the drive along Highway 90 from Pascagoula to Biloxi gave you postcard views of the Gulf. The sun shimmering on the peaceful water, gulls and pelicans flying overhead. Trawlers heading out to find the day's catch.

And in nearly six years there, I never saw a single snake. Alligators, yes. Snakes, no. A small miracle.

What we did have were the little green lizards — fast, harmless, and apparently convinced they were part of the family. They’d sun themselves on the patio, cling to the siding, and every so often dart inside like they were checking on us.

Then came the crawfish feeds — a Gulf Coast tradition I never quite embraced. Those tiny orange creatures get dumped on long tables by the pound, steaming hot and seasoned. You pick them apart to get the “delicious” innards, and my boss -- a seasoned Southerner -- once told me, with a straight face, that you have to “suck the head” to get the full taste experience. That alone was enough to make me question my life choices.

And nothing compares to Mardi Gras season on the Gulf Coast. Parades up and down the shoreline, floats rolling by as riders throw beads, candy, cups, doubloons, and trinkets. Some parade organizers spend the entire year planning their routes, costumes, and throws. And the brightly colored king cakes — purple, green, and gold — are a staple of the season. We enjoyed those parades immensely.

Before we even visited Mississippi on that job interview, we watched Ray Stevens' "The Great Mississippi Squirrel Revival." That set the tone for our years in Mississippi.

Mississippi was beautiful, unpredictable, and unforgettable.

Missouri — The Ozarks and Branson’s Hills

Southern Missouri is all hills, curves, and stone. It's the Ozark Mountains.

In Branson, you can’t drive anywhere in a straight line without driving around a hill. The road from Springfield to Branson rises and falls like a roller coaster. Rock formations appear around bends like natural sculptures.

It’s rugged, wooded, and full of character.

Nebraska — The Cornhusker Heartland

Nebraska feels like South Dakota’s cousin:

• Crops, especially corn

• Small towns and wide fields

• A rhythm of life tied to agriculture and weather

And if you live in Nebraska, you are automatically a Cornhusker fan. The big red “N” is everywhere: on flags, lawns, garages, mailboxes, barns, and homes.

We’ve attended four games at Memorial Stadium, each time joining nearly 90,000 Nebraska fans — all of them pumped up, loud, loyal, and dressed in Husker red. The experience is like nothing else I’ve ever been part of. Ninety thousand people cheering in unison, the stadium shaking with energy. What a blast. And the most polite fans I've known, even when I was wearing South Dakota State blue/yellow when we played Big Red.

Nebraska doesn’t brag, but it doesn’t need to. It knows who it is.

Nine states -- all unique. All memorable.

 

April 19: Twin Tragedies

April always brings a certain restlessness to the Plains — the thaw, the wind, the sense that seasons are shifting. But April 19 carries a weight all its own. Thirty‑three years ago, two tragedies unfolded within hours of each other, hundreds of miles apart, yet forever linked in my memory.

One was an act of domestic terrorism that shook the nation. The other was a plane crash that broke the heart of South Dakotans.

The tragedies are forever linked for me — as a newspaperman, as a South Dakotan, and as a father trying to explain the unexplainable.

Walking the Oklahoma City Memorial

Last December, Barbara and I spent two hours walking the grounds of the Oklahoma City National Memorial. Even after all these years, the place feels alive with quiet voices — survivors, first responders, parents, children who grew up without the people they lost.

The numbers still stagger the mind: 169 lives taken. 684 injured. A third of the Murrah Building destroyed. 324 other buildings damaged or destroyed. 86 vehicles. An estimated $652 million in damage.

But the numbers aren’t what stay with you. It’s the empty chairs — large ones for adults, small ones for children — each one a life interrupted. It’s the stories told in the visitor center, where you hear the voices of people who woke up that morning expecting an ordinary Wednesday.

You leave knowing you’ve walked on hallowed ground.

A Second Tragedy, Closer to Home

But on that same day in 1993, while the nation was trying to understand what happened in Oklahoma City, South Dakota was grappling with its own loss. Governor George S. Mickelson and seven other state leaders were killed when their private plane went down in Iowa near Dubuque.

I was the editor of the Alexandria Herald and Emery Enterprise then. Small‑town newspapers don’t have the luxury of emotional distance — your readers are your neighbors, your friends, the people you see at the post office and the grocery store. When tragedy hits, you write with the weight of knowing exactly who is going to read it.

In my column that week, I tried to capture what Governor Mickelson meant to ordinary South Dakotans. I wrote about the way he treated people — not as voters, but as neighbors. I wrote about the time he made our family feel seen in a way only genuine leaders do. And I wrote about the hole his loss left in the state.

I wrote the following in my newspapers on April 22, 1993:

"(Governor Mickelson) touched everyone's life in South Dakota in many ways. George S. Mickelson certainly touched our family in a personal way. I will always remember our visit with the Governor five years ago in Pierre.

We were wrapping up a vacation weekend, and stopped at the Capitol lake to feed the ducks and tour the Capitol building. Since it was a Sunday, we were alone as we wandered down the halls, looking at the paintings and admiring the artwork.

We ran into Governor Mickelson as he entered his office -- clad in a flannel shirt and faded blue jeans. He explained that he was supposed to be out snowmobiling, but he came in to get a little work out of the way. He asked where we were from and then his eyes lit up as he told our kids about his job as governor. He invited us into his office, where he had each of the kids take turns sitting in the Governor's chair. He then showed us the conference room, and the desk that was first used by Governor Mellette.

The Governor gave each of the kids a memento of their visit -- a gold lapel pin showing a grazing buffalo and reading, "South Dakota 1889-1989."

He took great delight in telling the children about his job, and they were delighted to receive such attention. They explained to the Governor that they had just been outside feeding the ducks and geese in the pond beside the Capitol.

He then told us about a confused goose who had built her nest at the pond late in the fall, and how he and his family watched after her, and fed her as she sat on her nest during an early snowfall. They cared for her and looked out for her.

Likewise, Governor Mickelson cared deeply for and looked out for South Dakota. He was a great statesman, a caring and intelligent man who dreamed of building a stronger South Dakota.

In more ways than one, he made a lasting impression on me.

We, along with all South Dakotans, mourn the deaths of our governor and several of this state's business leaders."

Six weeks later I sent that column along with a personal note to Governor Mickelson's widow, Linda Mickelson. Attached is her gracious and thoughtful reply:

Remembering Mr. Bjerke

 

That machine was just my type

                                The type writing machine, patented September 26, 1899, No. 633,672.

I’ve had a fascination with typewriters ever since I took Mr. Bjerke’s typewriting class as a sophomore at Hanson High School. Little did I know that learning to use a typewriter would become the most valuable skill I would ever acquire. No offense to Mr. Genandt or Mr. Sayles -- my math and physics teachers, respectively, but I just haven't gotten the mileage from algebra or physics that I have from learning to type. I’ve used my keyboarding skills every day of my life — as a journalist, an administrator, and as a public affairs specialist. Not many high‑school classes can claim that kind of longevity.

My introduction to the typewriter, however, was anything but confident. Those massive, metal Royal typewriters -- grey with green keys -- sat on each desk under Mr. Bjerke's watchful eye like iron beasts. Imposing. Impressive. Intimidating. And to make matters worse, the keys had no letters on them. That’s right — blank keys. You had to know what lived under each fingertip. Put your hands on the wrong home row and you produced instant gobbledegook, the kind that earned you a slow head shake and a “tsk, tsk, tsk” from Mr. Bjerke as he hovered over your shoulder.

But what an accomplishment it was to complete the 60‑second time trial with no (or very few) errors. And here was the tradeoff: go fast and you risked carelessness — an extra letter here, a stray keystroke there — or slow down and produce neat, error‑free lines at the expense of that blessed speed. It was a daily gamble. Still, the thrill of not depending on “hunt and peck” to compose my thoughts was worth every risk. And nothing beat that satisfying ding as my classmates and I reached the end of another line — sometimes inspired prose, sometimes incomprehensible gibberish. Yikes.

My fascination didn’t start in that classroom, though. It began earlier, when my dad — Alexandria’s city auditor — inherited a huge work desk and an ancient Underwood typewriter. That machine looked like it had survived two world wars and a tornado, but to me it was magnificent. Heavy. Mechanical. Important. My fixation only grew from there.

By the time I reached South Dakota State, we budding journalists had graduated to the IBM Selectric. What an improvement. A lighter touch, faster typing, and that magical little typeball that made us feel like we were living in the future. And then, before I graduated, the computer arrived. Typewriting met keyboarding. Goodbye white‑out, eraser shields, and carbon copies. No crumpled up balls for the wastebasket. Hello editing, saving, and printing without smudges.

To this day, I compose my thoughts on a keyboard, and I silently thank the inventor of the typewriter. That clunky Royal in Mr. Bjerke’s classroom set the course for my entire professional life. Not bad for a nervous sophomore staring down a machine with blank keys and a teacher who could spot a misplaced finger from across the room

A Southern Welcome

 Moving to the mid‑South in 2011 was like stepping into a parallel version of America — familiar, but tilted just enough to make me feel like a tourist. As we drove into Millington, Tennessee, just outside of Memphis, a day ahead of the moving van, the landscape shifted from the corn and soybeans of the upper Midwest to endless fields of cotton. White bolls stretched across the horizon like snowdrifts that had somehow survived the August heat. Cotton bales sat in neat rows, wrapped in bright yellow plastic, looking for all the world like giant loaves of bread waiting to be delivered.

The houses fascinated me too — built right on top of the ground, as if the earth were warm enough to trust. No basements. No frost line. Just brick and siding resting on soil. And the roads — narrow, tree‑lined, shaded in a way that made every drive feel like entering a green tunnel.

But what struck me most were the churches and the Waffle Houses. In the Midwest, you'll see a church here and there. In Tennessee, you could find three before you finished a cup of coffee. And Waffle Houses? They multiplied like rabbits. You could practically navigate by them: turn left at the Waffle House, go two blocks past the next Waffle House, and if you reach the third Waffle House, you’ve gone too far.

Big, beautiful churches and sprawling acres of facilities that confirmed the South's claim as "the Bible Belt." And the Waffle Houses are a southern institution. Walk into a Waffle House and step back into the days of the small-town diner, with stools at the counter to sit and kibitz with the waitress, or grab a booth in the cozy confines. Watch the cook make your waffle or eggs behind the counter. You want coffee with that?

And then there was kudzu — the creeping, climbing, smothering vine that looked like it was plotting to take over the county. Trees, telephone poles, abandoned sheds — nothing was safe.

And armadillos — the South’s most confused little mammals. I’d seen them before, back when we lived in Branson, where they loved to wander into our yard at night and forage for grubs. By morning, the lawn looked like it had come down with a case of chickenpox. They never meant any harm; they were just hungry, armored little diggers doing what armadillos do.

In Tennessee, though, it was not unusual to see armadillos lying belly-up by the roadside. It became part of the Southern landscape, right up there with kudzu and Waffle Houses. Their little, armored bodies weren't enough to withstand the faster, deadlier automobiles. They were everywhere, poor things, and they never seemed to win their battles with traffic.

It was charming, bewildering, and endlessly entertaining — my first real introduction to Southern life.

.

 

Part 5 — Waiting...

All of this — the treadmill in the living room, the stair‑stepper under the desk, the standing platform, the constant awareness of how long I’ve been sitting — is leading toward one date on the calendar. In August, six months after the pulmonary embolism, I’ll meet with the cardiologist again for an echocardiogram and a venous ultrasound.

Those two tests will tell the story of what has (or hasn’t) changed since that February afternoon when everything turned upside down. The echocardiogram will show how well my heart has recovered from the strain of the clots. The ultrasound will check whether anything new has developed in the veins.

I’m not anxious about the appointment, but I’m aware of it. It sits quietly in the back of my mind, like a mile marker on a long run. You don’t stare at it the whole time, but you know it’s coming.

Until then, I keep walking. I keep moving. I keep doing the small things that add up to a healthier routine. And I keep reminding myself that recovery isn’t a finish line — it’s a way of living.

 

Part 4 — Learning to Live Differently

The treadmill has been a fixture in our living room for the two years we’ve lived in Aurora. It’s not exactly a piece of décor Barbara dreamed of showcasing, but she’s been incredibly patient with me. She knows what it represents — not just exercise, but stability, discipline, and a way of life I’ve carried with me since high school.

After the pulmonary embolism, I was home for a week or two before I found my way back to my routine. I was out of rhythm, out of sorts, and frankly a little shaken. But eventually I stepped back onto that treadmill and returned to my three‑miles‑a‑day, six‑days‑a‑week habit. And I’ve stayed with it ever since.

Physically, I haven’t noticed any lingering effects from the blood clots. But mentally? That’s a different story.

The experience made me acutely aware of my own action — and inaction. Barbara wondered whether another medication might have contributed to the clots, but I can’t shake the feeling that my long hours sitting at the computer played a major role. I’d sit down “just for a bit,” and spend an hour or two or three there. No movement. No circulation. Just stillness — the exact thing I now know can be dangerous.

So now, every time I sit down — at the computer, in my recliner, anywhere — a thought flashes through my mind: What am I doing? Am I causing another clot to form? Xarelto helps reduce the risk, but it doesn’t silence the worry.

To counter that, I’ve made changes. I now keep a small stair‑stepper under my desk, and I use it constantly while I work. My desk also has a raised platform, so I can stand while typing, and I do that far more than I ever used to. These aren’t dramatic changes, but they’re meaningful ones — small, steady habits that keep my legs active and my mind at ease.

I’m learning that recovery isn’t just about healing from what happened. It’s about changing how I live so it doesn’t happen again.

 

Part 3 — Life Goes On

Once I settled into the routine of Xarelto, the warnings started feeling like more what they really were:--precautions. Important, yes — but not reasons to live in fear.

I hadn’t had a serious automobile accident in more than twenty years. I don’t use power tools. I’m not out climbing ladders or juggling chainsaws. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that while the risks were real, they were manageable. I just needed to be aware, not afraid.

For a few weeks I stuck with the electric shaver, mostly because the discharge papers made it sound like a single nick from a razor could turn into a crime scene. But after a while, once the initial anxiety faded, I went back to my regular safety razor. And you know what? Nothing dramatic happened. No uncontrolled bleeding. No emergency room visits. Just one or two tiny nicks — the kind anyone gets — and even those barely bled. Not even from shaving either.

Life, as it turns out, does go on.

I was learning that recovery isn’t just about the body healing. It’s about the mind recalibrating. It’s about realizing that you can’t bubble‑wrap yourself forever. You take the warnings seriously, you adjust where needed, and then you get back to living your life.

And that’s exactly what I began to do.