Ted and LaVona's 2400 Mile Journey Diary [page 2]

       
Ted and LaVona's 2400 Mile Journey Diary   [Page 2]

        

Monday, August 26, 2002
WAGNER, SD (pop. 1,675)-We just finished a buffet supper at 
the Fort Randall Casino Hotel, run by the Dakota and Crow and set atop a 
long flat butte somewhere between Wagner and Lake Anders near the Nebraska 
border.  As we headed for a table, a tall Indian, dressed in spiffy cowboy 
regalia and clutching a bottle of Bud by its neck, introduced himself as 
Billy and asked if he could join us.  We looked "interesting," he said.    I 
figured that was the opener for a ruse, but I enjoy these situations and 
pride myself for hearing them out before saying no.   Because of LaVona's 
remarkable therapy skills, the conversation turned out more interesting than 
any of us anticipated.  LaVona mack-trucked him about his drinking but with 
more tenderness than usual.  When are you going to stop that, she asked 
softly, pointing to his beer.  She told him he was turning over his power to 
the bottle.  He laughed defensively, blended Indian myths and his own 
experiences in a mix of English and Mandan/Hidatsa (he speaks three 
languages).   As LaVona steered him into asking himself difficult 
alcohol-related questions, Billy's guard progressively lowered.  He said he 
is bisexual then asked LaVona to touch his arm with her left hand as a 
blessing.  Eventually he blocked the pain of LaVona's counseling by 
returning to story telling.  One of his stories was about York, the black 
slave of William Clark during the Lewis and Clark expedition into South 
Dakota.  I had read the same account of York this afternoon in a South 
Dakota tourist magazine.  As we finished desert and Billy polished off his 
third beer, he asked us for "a few bucks."  I gave him a five.  He had it 
planned from the beginning, but he worked for it.  After putting the money 
in his shirt pocket, he sang an unforgettable version of Amazing Grace, 
turning his face to a ceiling light directly above for chiaroscuro effect.   
His song was a cry of pain mixed with ecstasy, funky soul mixed with Indian 
wailing.  I hope he remembers at least some of what LaVona said.

We arrived here after driving 120 miles in eight hours-many stops in small 
towns.  Parker (1,031), Viborg (832), Avon (561), Gayville (418), Tabor 
(417).  We took pictures of the Gayville water tank as evidence for certain 
friends who might think we were joshing.   Coffee in Yankton (13,528).  
Tabor, originally a Czech settlement, has a fantastic baseball field.well 
groomed, a wood grandstand with roof, outfield fences (320/396/320) that are 
three feet high and respectable lights for night games.  Just about 
everything but the lights are handmade.   I wish I could spend a summer in 
Tabor just to watch baseball games.

Today was the best of the trip.  I like being in South Dakota.
        

Tuesday, August 27, 2002
PIERRE, SD (20,000):  Last night at the Fort Randall 
Casino Hotel, a guest in the room above us paced the floor at 11 p.m. for 
about 10 minutes.  He/she paced again at 3 a.m. and 6 a.m.

We drove from the Fort Randall Casino to Armour (782) to meet Dan Buck.  He 
is the major reason we are taking this roundabout way to my class reunion.  
Dan and LaVona began corresponding a year ago through mail art. With 
ballpoint pen he draws these strangely grotesque creatures in a primitive, 
surrealistic style, writes word salad, and constructs directions for 
eccentric actions that remind me of Fluxus.  I used his performance pieces 
in the critical frameworks class last Spring.

A 47-year-old bachelor, Dan lives with his parents in a small frame house 
at Fourth Street and Henderson, easy to find in a town the size of Armour.  
Ever since he was injured in an auto accident during his "wild years," he 
has been through a series of medical setbacks, including diabetes, cancer, 
and stress.  He is a sweet, gentle man isolated in a town with no public 
library, one café, a couple of bars and not much else. You'd think this 
isolation would drive a creative person nuts, but a supportive family, a 
good therapist 50 miles away in Yankton and mail art have given him a life 
filled with self respect and creativity. I urged him to press his therapist 
for a computer and Internet access.

Dan said he was unable to sleep for the past two days in anticipation of 
our visit. Yesterday he had his trademark long straggly hair cut short and 
neat.   He admitted he was fearful we might not stop.  Last year another 
mail artist promised to visit him but never showed.



"Dan Buck"


His father Harold, 75, is retired police chief of Armour.  His mother Laura, 
67, is a waitress at the Blue Moon Bar & Café.  Dan said they were also 
nervous about our visit because of the humbleness of their house.  Within 
minutes they relaxed.  They are pleasant and giving people.   Harold showed 
us a collection of his drawings that dated back to his high school days.  
They are copies of cartoons and wildlife illustrations, mostly in pencil, 
the same subject matter for 60 years.  I could not tell the recent ones from 
the oldest ones, they are obsessively alike.


  
"Dan's father"                                  "Dan's mother"


Laura and Dan smoke a carton of cigarettes every three days.  He has no 
idea how much cigarettes are; she buys the cigarettes and gives her $20 
every week for his share.  Harold buys his independently.   LaVona gave Dan 
suggestions on quitting when he is ready to quit.

Armour's baseball field is one of the worst I've seen.  The outfield sinks 
and rises unpredictable and is full of weeds.  Lots of weeds in the 
grassless infield, too.  The dugout benches are rough and falling apart.  I 
found a battered whisk broom a few feet from home plate, as if the umpire 
had given up and tossed it over his shoulder as he walked away.  There are 
no bleachers.  Oddly enough there are lights for night games and LED numbers 
on the scoreboard.  Left and right field foul poles are 305 feet and dead 
center is 386 feet.  Dan says games were played on this field this summer.

Tonight we are in the Comfort Inn in the state capital Pierre, which is 
pretty much dead center in the state.  LaVona says she could live here.  
It's the first time she has said that on this trip.   We used the handsome 
Rawlins Public Library to check email.

After a buffet at the China Inn, LaVona went to bed and I went for a walk, 
headed for nearby LaFrambois Island in the river that separates Pierre from 
Fort Pierre.  Three blocks from the motel I suddenly had cramps, found a 
public toilet just in time.  It was bad diarrhea.  After sitting on the 
toilet and going through cold sweats for 20 minutes, I got over it, walked 
weakly back to the motel, and went to bed.


Wednesday, August 28, 2002
BOWMAN, ND (1,600)-After an oil change at CJ's 66 in 
downtown Pierre, we stopped at a thrift store called Value Mart where LaVona 
photographed the vivacious manager Marcie Ruff.  She gives a percentage of 
her profits to the developmentally disabled and hires mentally retarded for 
her staff.  I bought some books and a seed cap (I left my Minnesota State 
Amateur baseball cap in a restaurant in Wheaton IL).  The new cap with the 
phrase "South Dakota Certified Seeds" between icons of corn and wheat may 
help my networking efforts in small towns around here.  We drove out of 
Pierre at 11 am, heading west on State Rt 34, a highway favored as an 
alternative to the Interstate by bikers heading to and from the annual 
Sturgis rally.  It's breathtakingly vast and minimal and I was wearing the 
seed cap.

BILISBURG, SD (5 maybe?) -At the intersection of 34 and State Rte 73, the 
only buildings in Bilisburg are the new Ridge Café and a boarded up one-room 
gas station with a diesel pump in front and another pump for unleaded 100 
feet away.  Above the padlocked door of the gas station is an "open" sign.
After the old Ridge Café burned down a year ago, the young owners replaced 
it with a stark metal prefab on a concrete slab.  Windows that wrap around 
one corner of the building look out over the rolling prairie dotted with hay 
bales.  The café reopened three months ago; everything smells new, even the 
concrete floor.

Most of the ten tables were occupied with local ranchers and rural mail 
carriers--a pretty busy place considering the Sturgis rally is over and 
there's no town for miles, just enormous ranches.  The hamburgers we had 
must meet the demanding expectations of customers who know beef cattle.
Except for the brother of Trudee, the perky co-owner and mother of three 
children, the staff seemed to be happy and have their heads on straight.  
The brother was shaky, had the look of someone in the early stages of 
recovery.  Trudee's mother introduced herself and asked if she could join us 
for lunch.  She is helping her daughter and son-in-law launch their new 
business and will soon return to her home in Floodwood MN.   Feeling a bond 
with us because we are fellow Minnesotans, she revealed how her daughter 
Trudee came to Bilisburg.  After graduating from high school, Trudee went on 
a cross-country horseback ride.  She stopped at the Ridge café, fell in love 
with the owner's son, and married him.  She never rode further than 
Bilisburg and remains happy with her decision, according to her mother.   
Looking at Trudee, her husband, and her children, I believe the mother is 
right.

After Trudee's mom went back to the kitchen, Phyllis Thorson came over from 
her table to join us.  She wanted to know where we're from and where we're 
going.  She and her husband are in their 70'es, both are rural mail carriers 
in this area.  They split a 150-mile route that begins 10 miles north of 
here in Milesville-Phyllis claims it is the smallest post office in the 
nation, occupying part of a front porch-and 25 miles to the south in Philip.
 
   LaVona quickly converted her to doing mail art.  "I've been delivering 
mail for 35 years and I never heard of mail art, but I'm willing to try."
In front of the café is an abandoned semi trailer covered with autographs 
of travelers, mainly Sturgis bikers.  We added ours.  Before leaving here, I 
filled up at the lone pump and paid in the café.  It's strictly honor system 
here.


"Signed Truck"

FAITH, SD (489)-A young Indian man saw us jiggling a locked door to an 
antique store, told us to wait while he fetched the owner down at a coffee 
shop down the street.  Annie, in her 80's, has operated the store since the 
60ies.   She doesn't sound like she's from around here; she has a kind of 
big city rhythm to her.  Sure enough, she spent most of her professional 
life working at the air force base in Rapid City.  Her store, however, could 
be a metaphor for the drought and depression in this part of America.   It 
is a large old slumping metal warehouse with the sky showing through seams 
in the ceiling and walls.  As we picked our way through the labyrinth of 
worthless junk, Annie checked the sheets of black plastic she had nailed to 
the sagging ceiling to funnel rainwater into buckets on the floor.  An hour 
before we arrived in Faith, a thunderstorm had come through.  LaVona felt 
obligated to buy something, so she bought a cow horn.  Maybe it will work as 
a paper folder, she said.

Annie insisted we go down the street with her to the Tower Stool Company 
and meet the owner Donna Henschel because Donna's daughter runs an animal 
shelter in St. Cloud.  Donna thought we were there to buy a collapsible 
wooden stool, one of her best selling products, so she went through an 
elaborate sales pitch.  We finally looked at our watches, said we had to go 
to North Dakota, and split.

Faith is a depressed town.  The drought makes it look even more forlorn and 
ragged.  Lawns are mostly dirt and scrubby weeds.

LEMMON, SD (1,398)-We stopped in this town that straddles the border with 
North Dakota to tour the Petrified Wood Park-"fairytale structures 
containing 300 tons of petrified wood and fossils."  We hadn't heard of it, 
but you can't miss it as you drive down Main Street.  Built by a wealthy 
archeologist, it's impressive in scale and persistence, but more showy than 
visionary.

     Visit the Petrified Wood Park - Petrified Wood Park

Lemmon is the home of Katherine Norris, author of several books, including 
the popular Dakota.    I asked a store clerk if she still lives in Lemmon.  
She does but she is in Hawaii this week attending the funeral of her father.

HETTINGER, ND (1,307)-We are close to my teenage stomping grounds now. I 
asked three people if they know who Teddy Bill Uecker (an old high school 
friend) was.  They all know him.  Hettinger doesn't look familiar but I 
probably came here when I lived in Dickinson 50 years ago. The legendary 
friendliness of this area was confirmed when a young woman waved at me as 
she drove by and said, "How are you?" Compare that with the salutation I 
received in St. Cloud recently from a young man in a car:  "Hey, you're 
fuckin' old, dude!"

While I walked around Main Street, LaVona bought me a pair of spectacle 
frames at an antique store.

SCRANTON, ND (304)-The Lion's Club is sponsoring Burgers in the Park 
tonight but we left town after photographing the magnificent grain 
elevators.  Scranton is a pretty town.  If the battery hadn't pooped out on 
LaVona's camera, I think LaVona would have stayed for Burgers in the Park.  
We drove by and everyone in town was there.  Lots of stripped bowling shirts 
and seed caps.

Settled in at the Bowman Super 8 motel.  The owner looks like Joanie 
Strahley, the second Joanie look-alike on this trip.  Had supper at the 
Gateway Restaurant.  Downloaded the day's pictures.  LaVona had only five 
because both of her batteries were spent.

Called Murthas to tell them we'd be at their house tomorrow night.