A sentimental journey

 This week I traveled four hours up to South Dakota to watch grandkids' baseball games, visit with the family and doing some reminiscing.  Spending time with the kids and grandkids is always fun and the time is always too short.  The memories are priceless.

Since Barbara was working on a church project, I traveled alone this time -- unusual for us to be apart for more than a day.  It became a sentimental journey since I had a couple days alone to prowl the backroads and places I used to live.

My first stop in Parkson (our home from 2021-2024) was to visit Kristina, who has been ill.  The visit was short to drop off some coffee, meet Cammy (Kristina's English Bulldog) and chat a little.  Then it was off to Mitchell to check in and then attend the first baseball game for Westyn at Emery.

Wednesday morning I met my brother, Terry, in Mitchell at The Mercantile for breakfast and to update each other on our lives.  Upon leaving Mitchell, I discovered the "low-pressure" light on the dashboard, and so after visiting the cemetery in Alex I returned to Mitchell to Graham Tire, where the crew there quickly and efficiently replaced a right rear tire that had picked up a screw somewhere.  

Then I headed east to visit Canistota and Montrose -- towns I lived in after selling the newspapers and before I met and married Barbara.  In Canistota I drove down Main Street to find the former Ortman Hotel gone, with a few new businesses.  Several Amish residents were walking the streets -- still a familiar sight was it was 25 years ago when I lived in Canistota.  The Amish come from various states to seek treatment at the famous Ortman Chiropractic Clinic.  

I drove down the street (Pine) where I lived for about 4 years.  The house was still there but looking rather forlorn and neglected.  Right next to it sat the tiny, decrepit building that looked just the same was it was when I lived in Canistota.  After a few minutes in town I drove east and then north to Montrose, where I lived around 2003-2005.

My former home on State Street was a big, beautiful corner lot with a huge, three-stall garage and a backyard that any kid would have loved.  The tree out front had grown huge.  When I drove around the lot I noticed that the white lilac bush I had planted there so many years ago was gone!  No longer there.  There was an old riding lawnmower sitting there with grass growing up around it, appearing to have been no longer used.  I wondered whether that was the same riding mower I bought and used when I lived there all those years ago.  

Looking at the north side of the house reminded me of how I used to pack hay bales against that side before each winter to try to block the north wind's bite.  Keeping the water pipes was freezing in winter was a continual battle while I lived there.

I continued my drive around Montrose and noticed that the General Store was closed.  How many years ago it closed I had no idea.  Probably not something that happened very recently.

I drove west out of town on Hwy. 38, recalling how I used to jog out of town on this highway.  Passing through Salem, I had extra time so I drove through Spencer (much of which was destroyed by a tornado years ago when I lived in Canistota), and then I drove into Farmer past where I went to school in 1968-69, although the school is no longer there.  Only the quonset hut that held the auditorium is still there, along with a school memorial that lists Farmer High School's graduates.

On my way to Mitchell I also drove through Fulton, where I used to stop during my newspaper days to check on ads at Fulton Elevator.  I also drove past my good friend Barry's house.

After watching Gavin's team play Wednesday night, I drove to Sioux Falls on Thursday to look around at Scheel's, and then walk the bike path that I jogged on for many years.  Getting up on the bike path at Elmwood Park surely brought back memories.  For so many years I jog 6 miles every work day on the path -- three miles north and then three miles back.  

The day was hot with a strong south wind, so the walk out was pleasant with the wind at my back.  Crossing the bridge near the Elmwood Golf Course, I continued north, meeting several bicyclists, one woman on a unicycle, and several bikers with those laid-back tricycle-type trikes.  A couple miles out my back was hurting plenty and, recalling I had no water with me, I decided I may have to cut the trip a bit shorter than I'd planned.  So I walked to the bridge on the path's far northwest corner where the path turns east near the airport and National Guard Armory.  I turned around and headed back against the wind.

A blister was forming on my right foot, I was thirsty and my back hurt plenty.  Finally, at 12:30 I returned to the RAV4, some 2:04 after I'd set foot on the bike trail.  

Dusting off a memory

🌾Dusting off a memory

It’s funny how certain smells can bring back the past in an instant — lilacs in May, burning leaves on a cool October evening, or even something as simple as grain dust. Every time we go out of town we drive past a grain elevator, where the smell of grain dust carried by the south wind triggers that memory of growing up in Alexandria.

That dusty, earthy smell always brings me back home -- the New Farmers Grain elevator where Dad spent his working life. And like his dad before him, he worked grain elevators. For our family, grain dust wasn’t just something that clung to clothes; it was part of the rhythm of who we were.

Dad walked the six blocks to the elevator every morning, no matter the weather. He’d walk home for lunch, then back again, and during harvest season we often didn't see him until long after dark. I didn’t think much of it then — that was just what dads did — but looking back, those long days were the backbone of a small town’s economy. He was 6'1", steady, and dependable, the kind of man who fit naturally behind the scale desk, weighing trucks as they rumbled in loaded with grain.

I loved going down to the elevator. That place had its own ecosystem: grain and feed signs hanging on the walls, stacks of seed and feed bags in the back room, sparrows darting in and out of the bins as if they were part of the crew. And always, always, the smell — grain dust hanging in the air like a memory waiting to be triggered decades later.

Dad would bring home old grain reports that were blank on one side. To him, they were scrap paper. To me, they were the perfect place to write out baseball statistics, lineups, and imaginary box scores. I probably wrote out a whole season’s worth of games on the backs of those reports. What a thoughtful gesture it was for dad to bring me those sheets.

Every year the elevator sponsored “Supersweet Day,” when farmers came in for refreshments, snacks, and a look at new products and order seed. It was part open house, part community gathering, part sales pitch for the next year’s crops. As a kid, I didn’t care about any of that — I was there for the cookies and the chance to wander around the elevator like I belonged there.

And in a way, I did. That elevator was as much a part of my childhood landscape as the school, the church, or the ballfield. It was where Dad spent his days, and where I learned that work wasn’t always glamorous but it mattered.

So when we leave town and the wind carries that familiar grain‑dust smell, it’s more than nostalgia. It’s a reminder of where I came from, of the men who shaped me, and of a small South Dakota town where the elevator wasn’t just a building — it was the heartbeat of the community.

The Darkroom Hours I Can't Get Back

 

The Darkroom Hours I Can’t Get Back

If I’m honest, my biggest regret from my newspaper years has nothing to do with deadlines, budgets, or the chaos of small‑town publishing. It’s the hours—upon hours—I spent in the darkroom. Those Monday nights were the worst of it. While most families were settling in after supper, I was hunched over trays of developer and fixer, coaxing images out of film for the schools and the newspapers.

The darkroom was a world of its own: dank, windowless, and always carrying that sharp chemical smell that clung to my clothes long after I stepped back into the light. And layered on top of the tedium was the uncertainty. I never knew whether the photos would turn out—whether I’d captured all, some, or none of what I needed. Every roll of negatives was like a Christmas gift, waiting to see what treasures—if any—were hiding on that strip of film. I didn’t get my answer until the rolls were developed and hung from the clothesline above me, each frame slowly revealing its secrets as I impatiently waited for the negatives to dry. Then came the ritual at the enlarger: bending over the easel, focusing, cropping, judging. Dodging the dark areas, burning the light ones, trying to coax a sharper, truer image out of whatever the camera had managed to catch. Developing film, printing photos, waiting for each sheet to dry—it was slow, meticulous work. Necessary work, yes, but work that stole time from the five children waiting upstairs.

Photography today is laughably simple by comparison. Instant images. Instant feedback. Instant everything. Back then, every photo cost time—time I didn’t realize I was spending so freely.

I will forever regret the long nights that pulled me away from my family. I can only hope they’ll forgive me for the moments I missed. And maybe, someday, I’ll learn to forgive myself too.