Cousins, Cottonwoods and fear of the next Applebee's

I guess I lost my momentum......

There hasn't been anything new in this blog for weeks. I've no excuses. Plenty of subject matter has come my way. Better late than never.

Let's see ... reasons I could have been writing: Made a trip home to South Dakota; twisted my back; ate tripe and liked it without knowing what it was; was exposed to the Novella culture of Brazil; learned how to construct a very delicious salad; became frightened of falling mangoes; met a cousin I had not seen since 1958; came up with a business idea and found a camera I had lost 12 years ago.

Let's begin with South Dakota.

In June, I flew home to see my immediate family and a couple of cousins from my mother's side of the family. Family reunions are somewhat of a rarity in my experience so I thought I would make a point to see these women. They are sisters. One lives in California (Darrellyn) and the other (Sharon) in Idaho. ...my Aunt Norma's daughters. Aunt Norma was my mother's sister. Sharon is 71 and Darrellyn, 67. They both look ten years younger. Such an age spread is typical for my extended family. Everyone is quite a bit older. I have always been the youngest. My delivery came in the mid 50s whereas most of my aunt's and uncle's kids were hatched in the late 30s and into the 40s. The last time I had seen Darrellyn was in 1958. I was two and she was 14. Gives you an idea.

The first evening after everyone arrived had that slightly awkward air of "OK...we're all here. Now, what do we do?" This kind of thing can be especially hard on the spouses. Their presence is out of duty. They don't share blood and are forced to listen to stories about family history that means little to them. I admire such patience.

My mother had purchased a huge box of fried chicken from the local Safeway. We ate it diligently and sized each other up all the while ripping apart breasts, drum sticks and potato salad. Luckily, there was a pleasantness to our sudden pow wow status. We would be together a lot for the next few days so hopefully it would hold. Early on I could see that it looked positive and we had a very good time. It helped that we were in agreement when it came to politics. I could speak freely and not worry. This is a challenge nowadays with the polarization of this country. You never know if someone may be in the wrong camp. It's like the 1850s, leading up to the Civil War.

My cousin Sharon is Mormon but an anomaly. She heads the Democratic party in her county in Idaho. She said people actually whisper to her in church that they are Democrats. It sounds kind of like being part of the French resistance in 1942. Darrellyn is more a-political and has other concerns. She is liberal but doesn't follow the day to day battles of Washington and all the trimmings. Her husband Tony is an extremely quiet guy and mostly read or only commented when he really had something specific to add. He was always pleasant and listened for long stretches. On the day they left, he admitted that he belonged to the NRA. He had held his tongue on that and some other topics for four days. It was best I didn't know because I liked him. Had I known, the prejudgment might have surfaced and squelched interaction. There were times when Sharon's husband, Jay, (also an extremely 'liberal Mormon') and I completely shredded the tea partiers, Palin, Fox and anything else related. Tony just sat and looked polker faced while perusing a coffee table book. I would have never guessed he probably didn't cotton to all we had discussed. Like I said, you never know and luckily there were no hard feelings.

Throughout the course of the visit I missed a few conversations. Some family secrets were spilled. It seems I am never around when the red meat is slit open. The important thing is that we laughed a lot and we ate well. A few aspects of our personalities were peeled back for the taking. It may never happen in this way again so it was fortunate we had the time together. My mother is about to turn 92. Time is precious for gatherings such as this one. Luckily the melancholy of her advanced age did not permeate the air. There were many aspects of this relatives visit that I wish I could include but will bring about another time. My two remaining cousins on my mother's side were worth the trip. I hope they felt the same about me.

In the midst of it, my hay fever symptoms increased daily. It had been an incredibly wet spring and the pine pollen coated everything in yellow dust. On top of that, the Cottonwood trees were exporting their puff balls in a blizzard of floating, silky white. The curbs and yards around town looked like light snowfall had occurred. Plus, it was unusually humid with noisy, delinquent thunderstorms that bombed the skies at least once a day. It hailed one morning for a full half hour until my mother's backyard looked like it was covered in pearl onions.

My cousin from California had never seen or experienced such rumbling of thunder, lightening and powerful rain. The Monterrey area gets rain but rarely the smashing thunder and Thor lightning known in western South Dakota. She was amazed at the power behind it all...the constant warnings on local TV that tornadoes were a possibility and that going to the basement in a moment's notice was ready for the taking. It put her on edge at times and it was not fun for the poor woman. She knows rumblings underneath but not above. Darrellyn had been through several earthquakes over the decades. Fortunately the really awful events never became catastrophic but the Weather Channel was frequently checked.

I spent treasured hours with old friends and laughed heartily at times. One night I had dinner with my old pal Debra as we ate at a new Italian restaurant that occupied a hill on my family's former ranch land. As we dined, I looked down on where I grew up and across the open expanse of field beyond. It was a bit surreal. A reality was now in place that may have been a 'what if' thought when I was a boy. I often imagined such things like fancy lodges or pricey restaurants somewhere on our land. Now it had happened. Be careful what you wish for...even when you are 10.

My hometown has morphed and expanded so much that bewilderment, sadness and a lot of anger often surfaces when I visit. I grew up in exceptionally beautiful country and too often, the direction of progress has developed into some very bad turns. Super Walmart next to Subway next to an industrial park next to a Hampton Inn and so on. The new streets, homes and businesses are hodge podge and disjointed. Gorgeous fields and hillsides are gouged with expensive homes and condos. No one looked at the big picture. There are exceptions with a few builders but most of it is detritus and I take it personally. I love my hometown and it deserved better. But it is everywhere. America is brash and only cares about convenience and getting it done fast. Planning is for sissies. Our countryside has gotten punched in the stomach countless times and only the recession has eased it a bit. Except in South Dakota where the economy is chugging pretty well. I can barely speak of it, it is so upsetting. The extreme of this topic is open pit mining which I happened upon one day when out on a ride with my mother. She and I were driving on mountain roads in country that has changed little in 40 years. We took a wrong turn and pulled right into it: Hundreds of acres of holes where surface extraction for gold takes place. It was a hellish sight. Just over a ridge were verdant meadows and fishing streams. You can't imagine how frightening it is to see them so close together.

My sister Susan and I took a drive one day and went far away from this visual heartbreak. We drove through ranch lands and open space that is typical of the high plains. It felt good to see things left alone. Places that could breathe with a view. I took her to a fair grounds building that was built in the 1930s as a WPA project. It is round, wooden and totally authentic. On the National Register. Three stories with windows in a circle on the top. Once a year two counties hold their gathering where livestock, pies and knitting are judged. It looked like a movie set. There was still bunting on some of the tables from the year before. Down the road we came to a town called Vale. It has maybe 40 residents. There is one cafe in town and we ate indian tacos and had iced tea. Our table sat on one side of the room opposite the groceries. The cook made our meal behind a partition. It was so simple. So pure and so non Applebees. My dad and I would stop at places like this when I was a boy when he would be out buying cattle. It was good to have that memory tapped. Good to know such places still existed. We left and drove by Bear Butte on our way home. It gives off energy when you drive by. The Sioux and Cheyenne find it sacred. So of course it would make sense that a mile down the road is an outdoor biker bar the size of a football field. Within weeks it would be filled with cyclists from around the world and someone like Molly Hatchet would be screaming rock from its stage. Native Americans and concerned citizens had tried to stop it from being built a few years before. It bordered ancestral, sacred land. The county commission could have cared less and gave it, it's full seal of approval. This is the mentality that makes me crazy when I go home. This is why my heart must stay away.

Further down the road we pulled into the town of Whitewood which is nestled in the foothills of the Black Hills. The setting is gorgeous but is often ruined in places by mobile homes, interstate business garbage and diesel pickups the size of Connecticut. We drove into the old part of town where it is Victorian and parklike. We found a beautiful Queen Anne home and sighed at its perfection. We savored it and moved on. The next morning I met my friend Michael in the same town at 6 AM. I had left my computer charger at his home and it was the only time we could connect. On the way back to Spearfish I took a detour and drove through a development of new, expensive homes that overlook a valley. The view was extraordinarily beautiful. It was a curious satisfaction. Here I was on a high street on a ridge on one time ranch land that overflowed with history. The mountains were to my south as the sun came up and the green undulating foothills below could not have been more exquisite. Here it all was. The way that I wanted to it to be. The way that it should always stay. And, I was taking it all in from a road in the kind of development that I usually loathe. It felt weird but I had to embrace it. There was some optimism that Republican land use and natural beauty may be able to coexist. I returned to my mother's and made breakfast. There was some hope. Such are my visits when I go home to western South Dakota.

next time: Brazil