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two weeks in South Dakota…

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I just spent a few weeks in Burke, South Dakota visiting family and friends. I’m sorting through my grandfather’s files, letters, newspaper clippings, photos, and library. I’m finding treasures like these photos.

Burke Main Street in the early 1920s. My grandparents, Doris and Louis at a celebration. It looks like Grandpa was either ready to go or listening very carefully.

Leaving for the airport in Sioux Falls on Monday, I was traveling a road that was so familiar. I decided I wanted to see something less so.

I decided to take HWY 81 toward I90 instead of going through Parker as I have on almost every trip since I was a child. The landscape was familiar, however, the farms, barns, and views were all new to me.

It was frigid and MLK day, and I was almost the only car on the road. This heightened the sense of spaciousness I love (and often miss) about being on the upper plains.

I saw the snow geese in the distance and then came upon them swooping in formation. I stopped to watch them…truly breathtaking. I always like the unusual terms of groups of animals…a murder of crows for instance. Geese when waddling on the ground are a gaggle. However, if geese are flying overhead they are a flock or a skein…cool huh?

This land is your land, and this land is my land
From California to the New York island
From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me. —Woody Guthrie

There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in. —Leonard Cohen

No, I cannot forget from where it is that I come from
I cannot forget the people who love me
Yeah, I can be myself here in this small town
And people let me be just what I want to be

—John Mellencamp—lyrics from Smalltown

Thank you South Dakota for a great visit.

I’ll see you in March.

wild prairie influence…

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My focus (obsession) continues to be my paternal great-granduncle, author & Sioux Falls, South Dakota dentist—William Otis Lillibridge 1879-1909. His 1905 book, Ben Blair was turned into a silent film in 1916, seven years after his death. His widow, Edith Keller Lillibridge was instrumental in getting the film made by Paramount.

I’ve sort of adopted my Uncle Will as my muse…a fellow creative. Reading his work and researching his life has made him feel quite real to me. I’ve learned a lot about his parents, siblings, the home he grew up in on the border of the Dakota Territory in Akron, Iowa, and his life in Sioux Falls. NOTE: I went to college in Sioux Falls and never knew his dental office was down the block from one of our favorite restaurants, Minerva’s.

“As everywhere upon the prairie, the quiet was almost a thing to feel.” —Ben Blair

We certainly have a shared love of the prairie. Maybe he would approve of me recasting myself in his film just for fun…or possibly find no humor in these images whatsoever. From what I’m learning, he seems like he was a rather serious fellow. However, with no one left one to ask, I’m left with little to base my hunches on.

BEN BLAIR—ACT I

The Sanity of the Wild

…in the warm sunny plat south of the barn, a small boy and a still smaller girl were engaged in the fascinating occupation of becoming acquainted. The little girl was decidedly taking the initiative.
…she had an independence, a dominance, born perhaps of the wild prairie influence, that at times made her parents almost gasp.
…bleared faces and keen hawk-like eyes were more closely drawn. The dull rattle of poker chips lasted longer, frequently far into the night, and even after the tardy light of morning had come to the rescue of the sputtering stumps in the candlesticks.

Florence touched his arm. “Ben,” she pleaded,

“Ben, forgive me. I’ve hurt you. I can’t say I love you.”

The End

SOURCES: 

IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0510388/

BEN BLAIR on YouTube: https://youtu.be/NfwmMA3JNBE?feature=shared
READ ONLINE: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/17844/pg17844-images.html