By Dan Hagman, Corona, Calif.
I’ve spent the last month or so recovering from knee replacement. That’s a lot of time sitting around, listening to music and daydreaming. I tend to drift away during some of those dreams. One of my favorite mental things to do is to walk around my Grandpa’s farm.
It’s been gone for 30 years, but I can see it perfectly. I go in the barn, climb into the hay mow and chase away the pigeons. The shop still has the corrugated tin roof and a wall of tools. There’s the wood pile, pig barn and chicken coop. I walk into the granary and smell the dusty stuffiness of the old burlap bags. A few Hereford cows drink from the circular water tank close by. It’s all stuck in 1976, the year Grandpa died.
In reality, there is a big hole in the ground where the house used to be and weeds cover the well pipe. That beautiful shelter belt was killed off in one of the nasty winters for which South Dakota is famous. All those ugly dead trees don’t matter because I can edit the view.
In my mind’s eye, I can see lots of perfect branches for a tree fort and we can still pick chokecherries or plums. The apple tree along the path is still producing. The lilac smell is so strong, that it nearly makes me sick. The gorgeous blue spruce still stands 30-foot tall to the south of the house. It was never cut down to move the house off its foundation. Grandma’s gladiolas are in bloom and the strawberries are to die for…especially if you put a little real cream on them. Rhubarb keeps growing every year and the asparagus keeps up as well.
I can hear the cows crying out for their hay breakfast and see their warm breath as they crowd around the chilly morn feeding pile. If I happened to look in a mirror right then, I’d see an eight-year-old boy in coveralls with rubber snap boots and a dorky stocking cap. He would kill to jump off the back of the tractor to open one more gate for his Grandpa.
I think I just figured out why people farm. It’s the senses…all five. You are totally alive when you are out in the elements of a family farm. Oh, it can be brutally hard. South Dakota is the recipient of all four seasons to the extreme. But how could it possibly get better than living this full gamut of the sights, sounds and scents on a Sanborn prairie?
The few years that I lived out on that farm filled me with a form of spirituality. It’s in my cells and difficult to explain. It must be the fulfillment that one gets when all your senses activate.
If you’ve never smelled silage in the winter after it’s been uncovered or felt the sting of a 30 below northerly… if you’ve never seen a hill covered in crocuses or smelled a branding… if you’ve never washed a truck in the rain or walked in snowshoes to the mailbox… if you’ve never touched an electric fence or heard a pheasant call, then perhaps you still have some sensory work to do. These experiences aren’t all necessarily enjoyable, but they accumulate in a way that completes a person.
My visits home, whether actual or mental, remind me how lucky I was to have lived this sort of sensory spectrum. It’s no wonder Grandpa never wanted to go anywhere. He was most alive out there on that prairie land. And so am I when I drift away.

By Wanda Swenson
I took a trip back to my teen years a week ago when I attended the Battle of the Bands concert at the Corn Palace. The bands were Jumping Jack Flash, a Rolling Stones tribute band and Abbey Road…yep, you guessed it, a Beatles tribute band. My hubby and I have heard Abbey Road three times in the past and really enjoyed them, so we knew it would be worth the $15 just to hear them. We were pleasantly surprised with the performance of both bands.
I was never a fan of the Rolling Stones, but the performance of Jumping Jack Flash was top notch. The lead singer really had the Mick Jagger impersonation down with actions and vocals. He even left the stage and walked up and down every aisle in the Corn Palace singing and charming the audience. That band had the crowd pumped with their performance of “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” and “Under My Thumb.”
As I mentioned, we had heard Abbey Road at performances in Sioux Falls before, but the moment they came onstage, we knew this Abbey Road was not the same band. These performers were much younger than the guys whom had been in the original group and their sound, although good, was not of the same caliber as that original band. They played all the great Beatles songs and we sang along with every word… isn’t it amazing that after 50 years we still know the lyrics?
An interesting slant on their performance was the costume changes they made to distinguish the transformations the Beatles made in their career. The first set modeled the Beatles as they appeared in 1964 when they made their first appearance in America…black skinny pants and jackets, white shirts with black ties and mop tops.
For their second set they presented as Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band with colorful clothes and longer hair and the third with casual clothes, wire rim glasses and even longer hair. It was effective and maybe even made their music sound better.
The premise of the concert was for the audience to decide which band was the best as the performers belittled and poked fun at each other during their sets trying to sway the audience decision, although no final vote was tallied or prize given. The two groups even joined forces to sing together at the end of the concert, which made for an enjoyable finale.
All in all the evening was fun and relaxing and a nice trip back to the ‘60s when our lives were simpler and we could “Imagine” what the future would bring.

Georgia was felled this week by kidney stones. She stated it was far worse pain in the back than childbirth. (I still have nightmares about labor pains.) She says you know you’re old when you need a ride to the hospital and go to your phone contact list and three people are dead already.
Georgia proudly displays her stones on a piece of tape on the refrigerator door. Gay wonders if she gets enough, will she decorate the Christmas tree with them?
I gave Jim Baysinger a ride to the doctor when he had kidney stones. I glanced over and he was white-knuckled on the door handle. I was going 75 mph and I asked him, “On a level of 1-10, where is your pain?”
He yelled, “It’s a 12. Step on it!”
I attended Dick’s annual mountain oyster feed and was happy to report that they are excellent dipped in Dorothy Lynch dressing. (Thanks, Budde boys, for that culinary tip.) The party reminds me of my bartending days and I reconnected with old buddies (or maybe it’s just that I love a room full of men… he-he). I discovered red and white wine don’t mix and was cursed with the “black whirlies” at bedtime. Thanks, Barb, for all your taxi rides.
Hmmm… legal marijuana use. I predict there will still be drug dealers ‘cuz they will sell it cheaper than the legitimate outlets. I visited with one person who had tried medical marijuana and reported that it was so potent that when they sat down to watch the “Price is Right” they were tripping before the first door. Hmmm… I would want to be lucid for the last showcase.
I wish strength and health to Lance Zell, who is recovering from melanoma.
If you stop at the bar for an after work beverage, it’s a laugh out loud time if you sit between Daryl Thompson and Cliff Johnson. Daryl is a devotee to the Dr. Phil Show and told Margie in his best Dr. Phil voice why she felt the need to have six children. Margie laughed at the lengthy explanation of womb inadequacy and replied, “Oh, all this time I thought it was just that I was horny.”
Happy retirement, Deb Boschee. Enjoy sleeping in.
Ran into Margaret Cummins and she informed me she would not be dancing on a table at the bar if the Broncos won the game. (Yes, she did in a Broncos victory in the past.) Well, Margaret, the Broncos played so badly we wouldn’t even have hiked your leg on a chair.
The wisdom of children… eight-year-old Michael Hoffman, son of Missy, after watching the Grammy Awards’ dancing said, “They call that dancing? Why don’t they just do the chicken dance?”
Dee Baby