A Ride to Pierre – 2

March 22, 2010

It was summertime and the living was easy, as the song goes so did we. There were no fish jumping in the car but the wheat, corn, soy beans and whatever the hell those farmers out there were growing was certainly beginning to get higher than a car’s canoe roof rack.

Passing the thousands of acres was like looking at paintings that were being presented like a slide show before your eyes. One colourful field blended into the next one and the next one. Some didn’t blend at all like definite defined lines of brown dirt cutting a clear line like a knife sliced off the brown colour not mixing with the tan hued wheat.

The patterns and colour changes of rolling hills and dales countryside was more than inspiring at sunset. Many times in later months and years while living on the rez I got to see what those same views looked like at sunrise as well as the change of the seasons. Often times the intensity of colours was almost too surreal to be believed.

The ride to Pierre was about an hour and a half. In that time I think I counted four cars going in the opposite direction. No cars or traffic were either in front or behind us. Pretty amazing. Other times after this first trip there weren’t that many more. I’mm sure there’s a lot more traffic now but nothing like an average corridor any place else.

She said, “Last stop, The Dakota Mart. That’s where we’ll go shopping before we leave Pierre. Right now it’s almost lunch so we’re going to go for lunch. Where do you want to go?” “Where? You’re asking mme? Come on, you know I’ve no clue; you pick a place,” I said.

The place she wanted to go was one of those hamburger chains until I convinced her that a proper meal was in order; in honour of the occasion of showing the new guy around; and that we did. An Italian place run by a guy with a cowboy hat was the closest we could find to anything that resembled a red sauce smelling interior.

I asked for a taste of a small spoonful of the open plains prized sauce. After a poor resemblance of mom’s specialty, I thanked the mman and said no thanks. We left to have Chinese. We found an authentic one that wasn’t operated by anyone wearing cowboy hats or string ties.

We sat down to enjoy the long ago taste treat; and that it was. It was a few years since the last time enjoying that particular cuisine for mme; definitely the better choice. We savoured the meal over two hours.

After leaving the Asian experience mmy friend drove us to the capital building. Behind it and on the side in clear view of the road is a huge man - made lake, or pond. How those sizes are distinguished, I don’t know. The body of water was enough to keep ducks and geese happy.

I’ve since visited the pond a half dozen times. In winter the water doesn’t freeze to ice like most of S.D. would. It’s part of the artesian water system that travels through the SD underground waterways. There are a few on the rez. One in particular in Cherry Creek is where I designed and built with locals, a nice outside bathing system and a place to wash dishes. A BEFORE photograph is at top there. A hot tub

At the lake/pond in Pierre, on the left (if you go) is a pretty good sized sculpture with an eternal flame dedicated to the firemen of the state. That’s right. Except unlike the Kennedy one in Arlington, it’s not burning oil or whatever they use for that. The water from the artesian wells has so much sulfur in it that you can actually light it.

After walking around the lake we wandered through the capital building. Not much to report on there other than it’s like a lot of capital buildings with all their capital stuff. Different seasons bring different decorations. I didn’t have an appointment with the governor so we didn’t hang around any longer. It was getting late. Time to shop

We visited several other areas, most of which I don’t quite recall at this point. Remember, this was the first visit since moving to the rez. After this trip I was acclimated so a few more excursions followed when I was the driver. Pierre is or was a cool little town regardless.

It was time to shop for food. MM friend found and drove us to The Dakota Mart. One of the favourite shopping places for many people who traveled from the rez to Pierre just to shop for groceries there. Not much is saved really when one considers paying for gas and anything else extra that the rez didn’t offer; but it was a good day out.

Some locals had relatives or friends that lived in Pierre, so longer stays for them were not unusual. I’mm sure there’s lots more things in Pierre but I was more in a hurry to get back to the rez before dark so shopping for food was the next and last order of business.

Walking into The Dakota Mart was like many grocery stores; nothing unusual except for the fact that it was bigger than our local store. It also had a few items not offered locally. The only product that I remember affecting mme was that they sold whole Salmon; cheap.

They weren’t fresh but they were whole. When I looked at the price I had to buy a bundle to take back home. They were frozen and I didn’t think to carry a cooler like some folks do for the 90 minute drive home. I did on later trips for this same purpose. As I recall a whole 2 pound Salmon was only $2.00. I bought a half dozen; a favourite fish.

I can’ tell you how glad and privileged I feel to be able to have lived in a state like South Dakota. Not only in South Dakota really but that it was the rez was even more special. No matter what you may have read about things that happened over one hundred years ago, some of those negative things still do exist but so do more positive ones. Life is what you make of it no matter where we live.

One of those positive things is the land and the people who were forced to live there are still there. Families that date back in a long history.

As I may have mentioned and I probably will again and again; the rez or most rez’s really are not easy places to survive or live. For all the reasons you may know and many you probably don’t, it’s a pretty hard life for most people. Very few will tell you how easy things were or are for them. If it is easy, it wouldn’t have been since birth.

Count your blessings.