The World's Only Corn Palace

Having grown up in Alexandria -- just 12 miles from Mitchell -- experiencing the "World's Only Corn Palace" was nothing special. After all, we played basketball games there, went to concerts there, drove past it on Main Street almost constantly. And, of course, "Corn Palace Week" was the annual week-long festival in early September that included a Main Street midway plus a variety of entertainers who performed on the Corn Palace stage. Over the years, some big names played the Palace -- Bob Hope, Jack Benny, Red Skelton, Lawrence Welk -- and some not-so-big names, like Carrot Top. It was always mildly interesting to see each year what theme would be adopted for the murals that adorned the Corn Palace. The murals were crafted from naturally-colored corn and other grains and native grasses. The Corn Palace's Web site claims that 13 colors and shades of corn are used for decoration, including red, brown, black, blue, white, orange, calico, yellow and green. Each ear is then nailed in place to create a scene. The corn murals are stripped at the end of August and the new ones are completed by the first of October. The designs are created by local artists. From 1948 to 1971 the artist Oscar Howe designed the panels. Calvin Schultz designed the murals from 1977 to 2002. Since 2003, the murals have been designed by Cherie Ramsdell. No new mural was created in 2006 due to an extreme drought. Kitschy? Yeah. Oh, the Corn Palace has been the butt of its share of jokes. It has been called "The world's largest bird feeder." And I recall a professional wrestler many years ago announcing on television that he would wrestle his next match at "The Popcorn Palace in Mitchell East Dakota." Ah, but it still had a special place in our hearts. And we loved playing basketball games on the large Corn Palace floor. We usually would have one or two regular-season games there, and then district and regional tournaments as well. It was close to home. It was almost our second home court. The Corn Palace is visited every year by more than 500,000 folks. I recall so often driving down Mitchell's main street and seeing tourists with their cameras in hand, gazing at the murals. I just didn't see what all the fuss was about. It was built back in 1892 when Mitchell was home to 3,000 residents. The Palace was conceived as a gathering place where city residents and their rural neighbors could enjoy a fall festival with extraordinary stage entertainment – a celebration to climax a crop-growing season and harvest. The present Corn Palace was actually built in 1921 as a larger, more permanent, purposeful structure than its two predecessors. According to its Web site, "Today, the Corn Palace is more than the home of the festival or a point of interest of tourists. It is a practical structure adaptable to many purposes. Included among its many uses are industrial exhibits, dances, stage shows, meetings, banquets, proms, graduations arena for Mitchell High School and Dakota Wesleyan University as well as district, regional and state basketball tournaments. USA Today named the Corn Palace one of the top 10 places in America for high school basketball. " On May 7, 2005, Garrison Keillor hosted his "Prairie Home Companion" show from the Corn Palace, opening with a song about Mitchell and including many references to the Corn Palace during the show. It's got its own listing in the book, "1,000 Places to see Before You Die." But the utility of the Corn Palace has been called into question now, and it's the topic of much conversation in Mitchell. How important is it to Mitchell's economy? Should it be remodeled and if so, how much should be spent? The former became a discussion topic when the city was considering building an events center near the Hwy. 37 bypass. That idea was eventually rejected by voters. So how important is the Corn Palace? Well, it's nearly synonymous with the city. After all, the sports teams are named the "Kernels." The local AM radio station used to have the call letters KORN. It would just be weird without the Corn Palace in Mitchell and part of its identity. Kitschy, quirky or not.

Reading the Bible

Although I never thought to put this one item on my "bucket list," it should have been there at the very top. For the last four nights, Barbara and I have been reading the Bible. I have found I have a desire to read it, to understand it, to read God's Word and how it applies to our lives. I've read many good books over the years -- hundreds if not thousands -- but none with more relevance to the age in which we live. And, sadly, I have so little knowledge of what lies within the Bible's pages. So this week we began reading in the Book of Proverbs. Barbara tells me that this book was written by Solomon, son of David. I have to depend on her knowledge because I am admittedly woefully ignorant of the Bible's teachings. As we read Proverbs, occasionally we comment on a passage's applicability to our lives, or we may remark when a proverb is repeated sometimes in several different ways. In my years growing up at home, Mom and Dad always made sure we attended weekly Mass, the occasional mission services, Stations of the Cross, and we recited the Rosary nightly during Lent. I thought I was a pretty faithful Christian. But my knowledge was sadly lacking. I had ignored the Bible. My interest has been piqued in our Sunday School class. Barbara and I attend an hour-long class prior to Sunday's worship service. We have been studying the Gospel according to Luke, and I am impressed by the knowledge and foresight of our class members' interpretations of its text. I offer little so as not to display my ignorance. You know the old saying, "It's better to be silent and thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt." I couldn't even tell you in what order the Bible's books are presented. My knowledge was pretty much limited to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Anyway, I have great admiration for our instructor, Ron, who leads us through the weekly passages, offers thought-provoking questions and guides our discussion. There is so much more to learn when delving into Jesus' life with other interested followers. Before we began this class, the Bible was, for me, mainly a decorative addition to a coffee table or a receptacle for written family histories. I have always wanted to read the Bible, but to pick up a thick book in small print with thousands of footnotes and pages and pages of maps and commit to reading it was a daunting task. And when I opened it I was intimidated. How would I ever be able to understand what I read? This class has stirred my interest and helped me get beyond the "fear factor." Several weeks ago we attended the funeral of the great man who taught our Sunday School class before the ravages of cancer became too great for him to continue. Ernie was our instructor for only a couple times since we joined, but his knowledge of and love of the Bible was evident in the extensive notes and thought-provoking questions he posed to us. We were told that Ernie had read through the Bible seven times. Seven times! Here was a man who so loved God's Word and was committed to helping others understand and appreciate it that he read it over and over and challenged his Sunday School class to probe deeper into the ministry of Christ. When Ernie passed away, Barb and I waited in line for 45 minutes to express our sympathies to his wife and family. Ernie had touched so many lives. His example also made a deep impression on me and made me wonder why I am not more like that. So I am hopeful that we will continue to spend some time every night to read the Bible. Barb can tell me her thoughts, and eventually I'll probably get comfortable enough to share mine. But having read the first 20 chapters of the Book of Proverbs means there's a whole lot more reading to do. I hope and pray that I have the love, conviction and passion to read and absorb it.

Integrity and sports -- strange bedfellows

Integrity is a trait in short supply nowadays. Reading news stories these days, there are a lot of folks showing a shocking lack of integrity. Even more shocking is our willingness to let people "off the hook" as easily. Not only people in supervisory positions but the general public. "What he does in his private life is his business." Hey, as long as coach keeps winning ball games, who cares if he a) cheats on his wife; b) pads his account with illegal money; c)smokes/shoots/snorts drugs; or d) sets up a "bounty system" to make a sporting event a 'life-altering' experience? Is integrity missing from the job description? The latest case involves University of Arkansas head coach Bobby Petrino, who came under scrutiny last week after crashing his motorcycle with 25-year-old Jessica Dorrell on board; she is a university employee that he had hired and was formerly a member of the Razorback volleyball team. Petrino reportedly first lied to athletic director Jeff Long and said he was alone on the motorcycle. But later when it was about to be publicly announced that he had had a passenger, "Petrino released a statement ...(that) he didn’t want to admit the female passenger was with him on the bike because it was an 'inappropriate relationship,'” according to one news report. Petrino is married with four children. "My concern was to protect my family and a previous inappropriate relationship from becoming public,” he had said. Long placed Petrino on administrative leave just as spring football practice were drills were set to begin. What is the greatest mistake here? Is it Petrino's for an embarrassing accident involving a 25-year-old university employee not his wife? For lying to his athletic director and withholding the truth? Or is it ours for giving sports a free pass on the integrity issue? A Fox Sports Poll asked "Should Bobby Petrino be fired at the University of Arkansas?" As I write this, 52 percent of the 59,142 voters say "yes." Thirty-two percent say "no" and 17 percent say it's too early to tell. Pete Fiutak writes: "To be totally honest, after all the horrors of last year, as long as a college football controversy doesn’t involve the alleged sexual assault of children, I’m good. But beyond that, as long as the University of Arkansas and athletic director Jeff Long conduct a thorough investigation and aren’t kowtowing to the element that cares only about a winning football team, this should be a matter between Petrino, his family, Jessica Dorrell and her friends and family." Yes, and if integrity isn't a trait to be valued at the University of Arkansas, they can just sweep this under the rug. "Compared to recent college sports scandals, what Petrino did is a Petrino problem," Fiutak wrote. "While he represents the University of Arkansas, most of the parts of the story don’t and shouldn’t affect the school and are of a more personal nature than on a football coach level." Yes, consider it a "Petrino problem" and go on with the work of building the Hawgs' top-tier Division I football program. Integrity was already left bloodied on the professional field. Some 22 to 27 members of the New Orleans Saints National Football League team were found to have participated in a slush fund that paid bonuses or "bounties" for deliberately injuring opposing players or knocking them out of games. Former defensive coordinator Gregg Williams was suspended indefinitely for his role in "Bountygate," and head coach Sean Peyton received a year-long suspension without pay. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell also levied an eight-game suspension of General Manager Mickey Loomis and it's six games out for Assistant Head Coach Joe Vitt. Punishment for the players is yet to be announced. Maybe they should take the opportunity to hire themselves a good lawyer. Yes, football is a violent game. Picture the menacing Bears linebacker Dick Butkus or the gap-toothed Packers' Ray Nitschke, uniforms covered in blood, and know that violence is synonymous with the game itself. But deliberately trying to injure others is a crime, and paying to hurt others is a mob tactic. Remember Oakland Raiders cornerback Jack Tatum, known as "The Assassin," whose hit on New England Patriots receiver Darryl Stingley in a 1978 preseason game left Stingley paralyzed from the chest down. And after ending Stingley's NFL career, Tatum went on to write three best-selling books narcisistically titled "They Call me Assassin" (1980); "The Still Call Me Assassin" (1989); and "Final Confessions of NFL Assassin Jack Tatum" (1996). Maybe the 'win-at-all-costs" pressure is just too great to expect coaches and players to be angels. Ohio State University head coach Jim Tressel resigned in 2011 after the NCAA investigated multiple violations. They included several players selling memorabilia to a tattoo parlor, a suspicious connection between football players and Columbus-area car dealers, and Tressel himself admitting he withheld information concerning ineligible players in 2010. Last year, Yahoo! Sports investigated University of Miami booster Nevin Shapiro's claims of dealings with Hurricane players, which reportedly involved cash, prostitutes, entertainment in his multimillion-dollar homes and yacht, paid trips to high-end restaurants and nightclubs, jewelry, bounties for on-field play (including bounties for injuring opposing players), travel and more. Oh, but the list goes on and on. Carl Sandusky at Penn State (and JoPa's passive role). O.J. Simpson. And baseball's Barry Bonds. Mark McGwire. Sammy Sosa. Roger Clemens. Skating's Tonya Harding. The PGA's Tiger Woods. But all is not lost. There are exceptions and I wish they were the rule. Take Tim Tebow, now of the New York Jets, who was featured in a Super Bowl ad a couple years ago emphasizing the importance of human life. On Easter Sunday, a crowd estimated at 15,000-20,000 heard Tebow at the Celebration Church's Easter on the Hill prayer service in Georgetown, TX. He encouraged worshipers to share their Christian faith publicly. “My biggest prayer is to kind of make that cool again, for a high school kid to get on a knee and pray and it’s not something that’s unique or different and that it’s O.K. to be outspoken about your faith,” Tebow said. Wow. A fresh voice. A voice linking integrity and faith to sports that are so lacking and thirsting for it, especially when our younger generation is playing the game, yearning for role models and watching our every move.

At what age happiness?

Every day I like to scan the stories on both Yahoo! and MSN.com. There's always some interesting reading there. But what caught my eye today was the story headlined "Study: 33 is the best age." There was a picture of actress Kate Hudson (known to many of us as Goldie Hawn's daughter). The brief article read, "Shake off your 20s—the best is yet to come. According to a new study by British social networking site Friends Reunited, 70 percent of survey-takers over the age of 40 said they were not truly happy until they'd reached 33. Actress Kate Hudson, who turns 33 this month, is in luck!" I had to think back to 33. For me, that was 1988. I was in my first year of operating the Alexandria Herald and Emery Enterprise. Melissa was 7, Kristina was 4, and Andrea was 2. Jessica and Brandon hadn't joined the family yet. Happy? Yes, I was happy -- happy to have a business, doing what I loved to do, with a beautiful family. I'd reached my goal. I'd bought my hometown newspaper and I was running it the way I wanted to run it. And I was doing it all -- writing news, feature and sports stories, editing submitted copy, typesetting, taking photos at sports and news events, selling advertising, proofreading, laying out the newspapers, writing headlines, even taking the newspapers to Madison to be printed. Heck, I was even writing out subscription cards to send to readers. My parallel military career was going smoothly. By then I was a captain in the Minnesota Army National Guard. But my favorite title, and the one I loved answering to, was "Daddy!" When I read that 33 was the "magic number," I thought "According to this my children haven't reached the age of true happiness yet." I hope each and every one of them finds true happiness though in family, friends and their communities. And, as every parent would, I will do anything and everything in my power to help them find happiness, independence and peace in their lives. But, thinking back on that article, I recalled that I always thought 28 was the perfect age. If I could freeze life at any age, it would be 28. Old enough to vote and be treated like an adult, no longer too young to be discounted as too young to know better, nor too old to be "over the hill" and untrustworthy. There is a lot of life ahead of you at 28. There is much cause for optimism. I would have trouble pinning down a certain age as the 'age of happiness.' The "hard times," however, are a little easier to pin down. Those I remember well. Hard times build character. Lessons are learned. But that makes them no less painful or difficult. They are just a part of life. Every decade has brought new challenges and new opportunities. The 20s were exciting, filled with freedom and the start of an adult life. The thirties were about building a family and a career. The forties I remember as a decade of pain, confusion and hurt. But the fifties have brought optimism, happiness and contentment. Oh, they've brought their share of challenges. Those never end. But they've also brought more realization that I'm no longer in the younger crowd. People my age are wrapping up careers, growing into their roles as grandparents; some of my best friends have died. Parents have passed away and Rog too. Life is viewed now through a mix of past experiences and a respect for those who have lived longer and experienced more than me. Where there once was brash opportunism, there is now wisdom. Not that we know it all, because we are keenly aware that we don't. Not by a long, long shot. I'm reminded of a sign that hung over Millie's desk at the Herald office. It read, "Half of being smart is knowing what you're dumb at." There is a lot of truth in that statement. I don't mean to imply that I don't respect the younger crowd. But they too have to live life, learn its lessons and apply them to their daily living. I laud their optimism and resilient spirit. Like every generation, I fear for my children and grandchildren. That's no different than our parents and grandparents did. We want what's best for our children and we want to protect them from a not-so-subtle, cruel world. But then every generation has risen to the challenge. We "baby boomers" followed 'The Greatest Generation,' and now Generation X (and Y and Z) will carry on after us. Life will go on. It always does. It's up to us to make each year the happiest one.

Trippin'

Barb & I returned home Monday night from a whirlwind five-day trip to South Dakota and Nebraska. It was our first visit back home since we moved to Tennessee in November. We drove 2,200 miles, saw most of our families and then dashed home in an 11 1/2-hour marathon drive on Monday. It got me thinking about the trips of my youth. But more on that later. Our planning for this trip began about a week in advance so it was quickly planned and coordinated. We left Millington about 1:15 p.m. Wednesday for our first night's stop in Springfield, MO, and immediately got off on the wrong foot (to mangle a metaphor). I hadn't researched Mapquest or our GPS beforehand, figuring our route would naturally take us northeast out of Millington on the only highway running roughly parallel to the Mississippi River and heading in our trip's general direction. But our GPS (affectionately referred to as "Dic-Dic") kept telling us to turn around. What? Head south out of town instead of north? That just didn't make sense, and so we ignored Dic-Dic and continued northeast through the small towns that lay near the Tennessee border. Finally as we got closer to Dyersburg (where we would have to turn west and cross the Mississippi River and into Missouri), Dic-Dic realized we weren't going to listen and changed to an alternate route that accommodated our new route. We found out that our out-of-the-way route had added about 150 miles to our first-day drive, and we ended up driving southwest diagonally across Missouri when our most-direct destination would have kept us going almost directly north. Ah well... We stayed overnight at the Rail Haven Best Western in Springfield. This motel was decorated in 1960s motif with a couple of 1950s-era autos out front, several nostalgic signs and two very old, square gas pumps in front of the office. Beside the front office and also inside the office were telephone booths -- another fixture from the past. We got going early the next day and made Kearney by 5 p.m., visiting Barb's Aunt Ruth, her parents Dr. and Mrs. Mary Bauer, and her brothers Bill, Char and James before leaving on Friday morning. We arranged to meet Barb's friend Heidi Swanson and her boys in Columbus on our way up to Sioux Falls, and then drove north again where we visited with Barb's daughter Breanne and family. On Saturday we met up with four of my kids at HuHot Mongolian Grill -- a favorite eating spot particularly for the younger generation. We celebrated Kaiden's birthday, and then the next day celebrated Barb's grandson Judah's birthday in Lincoln. The next day we left Omaha shortly after 7 a.m., and pulled into our parking lot in Millington by 6:30 that evening. This trip reminded me of themarathon trips my family made in my youth. Oldest brother Don was living in Connecticut, and later my sister, Pat, moved to Buffalo, NY, so we made several trips east. But I remember one in particular. It will always stand out in my mind. Don and Jane were living in Meriden, CT, and the rest of the family was going to go out to visit. That's seven of us -- in one car -- Jim's Mercury. If you want to talk about fellowship and family time, we had it. That's seven of us in a Mercury elbowing each other and falling asleep on one another's shoulders for about 1,500 miles. Of course Rog and I were pretty young back then so we didn't take up a lot of room. But for the the folks, Jim, Terry and Pat, it couldn't have been all that enjoyable. I remember we drove all night the first night, stopping somewhere in Wisconsin for gas and being "buzzed" there by a low-flying bat. Then we stopped in Milwaukee, WI with the hopes of boarding "The Milwaukee Clipper," a car/passenger ferry that sailed east across Lake Michigan, thus cutting hundreds of miles off the trip south around this Great Lake. The Clipper ran from 1941 to 1970, carrying cars and passengers between Milwaukee and Muskegon. But we were only on 'standby' status and were unable to ride the ferry to Muskegon. While I remember next to nothing about our actual visit, I do remember we were able to board the "Clipper" on our way home and sailed across Lake Michigan on its Muskegon-to-Milwaukee run. I also remember Mom used to remark about our trip in Jim's Mercury, and how we all got along well and knew we had to behave and tolerate each other in close quarters. And we did. It was one of those few truly family memories I have. Oh, we made other trips out east. One was, as I recall, right around the time of the 1972 Rapid City flood that took the lives of more than 200 people. I would've been between my junior and senior years in high school then. Another thing that I marveled at during our trips east were the restaurants that were built right over the turnpike. You could watch the traffic go beneath you as you ate lunch. I don't remember how we passed the time on that long, crowded trip. But I imagine we enjoyed the scenery and the anticipation of visiting Don and Jane in their home a long way from our home. But, as Dad said and as I felt when Barb and I got back to Millington on Monday night, "It always feels good to be back home."

The best of friends

“Truly great friends are hard to find, difficult to leave, and impossible to forget.” Our lives are made exceedingly richer by our friendships. I was thinking of this this past week as one of my good friends -- Greg Schaefers -- celebrates his 50th birthday on February 25. Ironically, Greg and I went to the same school -- Hanson High School in Alexandria -- although he was seven years behind me. We didn't even know each other until we joined the same Army Reserve unit in Sioux Falls. And although I haven't talked with Greg in months, I know I could call him tomorrow and we'd recognize each other's voices instantly, and pick up a conversation like we'd never missed a day. Good friends are like that. “A friend is someone who understands your past, believes in your future, and accepts you just the way you are.” Over the years I've had many good friends and made a lot of great memories. And along the way I've lost some of my best friends. Three died way too young. Two of my closest high school buddies -- Barry Vlasman and Jerry Erpenbach -- have passed away. Barry went on to become a successful lawyer, practicing in Sturgis and later in Brookings. Jerry died in a motorcycle accident just outside of Alexandria when I was 22 and away at Indianapolis going through officer training for the Army. I was unable to attend his funeral, and I always felt something was missing -- that closure -- since I was unable to attend. Jerry and I used to cruise around Alex in his folks' blue pickup. Barry -- whose 57th birthday would have been on February 23 -- died about five years ago. We met in the 8th grade when Barry came to school from Fulton when our schools consolidated. We became friends with similar personalities. But after we left for college -- me to SDSU and Barry to USD -- we lost touch for several years. But after I returned to South Dakota, Barry often opened his Sturgis home to me when I drove out to Rapid City to attend weekend National Guard drills. And when he was around Alex he'd stop in and play with the kids. I remember his last visit -- he stopped in to see me in Montrose one Saturday while on his way home to Fulton. He was such a deep and thoughtful friend. It was just a matter of time later that Barry died. I felt that God obviously had an urgent need to call Barry home so young. And losing my brother Roger was probably hardest of all. Rog was the ideal big brother, mentor and friend. And his death at age 59 touched me deeply. Any problem I had, I could get advice or direction from Rog. And he was so even-tempered -- just my opposite. I cannot recall even once in all those years any instance of Roger ever raising his voice. He just wasn't that type of person. If I had a computer problem or something that required a big brother's advice, I'd call Roger. "Hey Bro," I'd say. And in his pleasant, easy manner, he'd respond, "Hey, Davy." I will never forget his voice. What a steady influence and great friend. When Rog died, a part of me died with him. “A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg even though he knows that you are slightly cracked” There were other good friends growing up. Lee Thomas was a good friend and high school teammate, and we spent a lot of time at each other's houses. I knew his parents well and he knew mine. And we played many games of 'whiffleball' in back yards around Alex. Then at freshman orientation at SDSU, I met another freshman -- Terry Harris -- who was majoring in journalism, and we became good friends and stood up at each other's weddings and became Godfathers to each other's children. And my years of army service account for many good friendships. That's no surprise, considering that camaraderie, trust and loyalty are hallmarks of the military profession. Wearing the same uniform in public identifies us as a brotherhood. Tom Berg was a good friend in the Army Reserve for many years, although I've lost touch with him over the past couple of years. And Lauryn Schumacher -- although he was enlisted and I was an officer -- became good friends after we drove out to Fort Carson together in the winter of 2003. Lauryn and I discovered we had a lot in common, and he was going through a particularly troubling time in his first marriage. We often crossed the Sand Hills of Nebraska, counting the windmills. Later in El Paso, TX, Lauryn and I would go jogging at 6 a.m. to get our fitness kick in before the start of the Army work day. And this past year I was a groomsman at Lauryn's wedding. There were so many other good friends from the Army Reserve. Some, like Bruce Blankley, are still "Facebook Friends" who I keep in touch with. "A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out." And now my best friend is Barb. Good marriages become great friendships. We rarely go anywhere without each other, whether it's shopping, church, computer time, even working out in the fitness center. We prefer each other's company. It's just not fun -- one without the other. We bounce ideas off each other. We text endlessly. We share in so many ways. Comedian Bill Cosby has said, "The heart of marriage is memories." It is the cement that strengthens that foundation.

That first job

There may be nothing as rewarding as earning your first paycheck. My first paying job -- the first regular paycheck I remember earning -- was working for the city of Alexandria after my freshman year of high school back in 1970. I don't remember the name of the program under which I was hired, but I do remember a little about that first job. There were a few kids my age who worked for the city -- about four, I believe. We did odd jobs -- mowed, picked up garbage or cut weeds at the ball park, painted fence near Greenhill Cemetery, and even helped clean up around abandoned houses. One of our favorite chores was emptying the garbage cans down at Lake Hanson, where we'd linger to watch the girls sunning themselves on the beach. Bud Wenande and Cliff "Putt" Mayhew were Alex's city workers, and I recall sitting around the city office talking with these guys from time to time, or riding in the front seat of the city's old, beat-up dump truck. It's kind of sad not to remember more about this job but that was 42 years ago. Thus began my contribution to the working world. After that city job I worked a summer hauling bales for several farmers, including Leona Egland, Kenny Letcher and Laverne Schoenfelder. I recall we would sit around the edge of the flatbed and ride out into the fields where two would pick up the bales and one on the flatbed would stack them. I hauled bales with several different kids that summer, but I remember in particular hauling bales with Roger and Duane Letcher. Stacking bales was an art form. If they were stacked correctly, a flatbed held many layers of bales interwoven into an almost solid unit. But if done sloppily, the stack would weave like an accordion -- or worse. Sitting on the stacked flatbed was common on the way back to the farm, so the tighter the stack, the better. Sitting on a carelessly stacked flatbed could be downright dangerous. To this day the smell of fresh-mown alfalfa reminds me of those days. And I can still smell the sweat-stained leather gloves we wore. Leather gloves were, of course, a necessity. With lots of practice one could throw bales several layers high to the stacker; but, of course, it also depended on the quality and cutting of the hay. Some bales weighed 50 pounds or more, while others -- depending on the time of year, amount of rain and the field itself -- would weigh less than half that. Then came the fun part -- unloading the bales -- sometimes outside on the ground, sometimes in a hayloft or shed, which could get very, very hot and dusty. I attributed hauling bales with my improvement of adding nine feet to my best shotput throws between my junior and senior years. I spent the summer after my freshman year of college working for Intercounty Electric in Mitchell. This meant riding up to Mitchell every day to meet the Intercounty crew at their shop on Mitchell's north end. I rode to work with Mr. Jon Wessel, who had been my football coach in high school and was now working for some outfit in Mitchell. I assisted one of the several crews who were headquartered out of Mitchell and drove every day in the Davison-Hanson-Miner-Sanborn county areas to set electrical poles, establish electrical connection or do any of dozens of other chores that were required of the electricians. The next couple of summers I worked for Hanson County's road crew, mostly helping to remove, install and fix fence with Berno Haiar and Leonard Tuschen. One summer I remember we worked most of the summer just a few miles east of Mitchell, where the county was widening a road. That meant tearing out the existing fence and then putting in new fencing along the widened roadway. The work day started early -- 7 a.m., and then we worked until 4 or 5 p.m. I remember, too, riding around in the county's old black maintenance truck with Berno usually behind the wheel. One job that wasn't really a job but I enjoyed immensely was riding along with Rog when he worked for Folsom's Store in Alexandria. Rog delivered milk and dairy goods to many area farms, along with Krumm's Tavern in Farmer and Cremer's Store in Spencer. Rog would let me accompany him in the small panel truck as he delivered dairy goods to those places, and I would get an ice cream bar as an added treat. But between my junior and senior years in college I spent six weeks in officer training at Ft. Lewis, WA, sandwiched in between shorter stints still working for Hanson County. Then after my senior year at SDSU I was commissioned and began my active duty tour with the Army. That's another story in itself, and may be the subject of another blog.