by jphilo | Feb 14, 2011 | Current Events
This past weekend, Iowans enjoyed a break in the weather. It came just in time for Valentine’s Day, so women can wear dresses and strappy, spiky shoes instead of fuzzy sweaters, wool pants, and winter boots. KInda nice to set aside winter toughness for a few days, in anticipation of spring’s kindness.
I took advantage of the sunshine and warmer temperatures hovering around freezing and walked outside on Saturday. This is my version of spring training, my opportunity to toughen up before swimsuit season arrives. Not that I’m big into swim suits (or strappy, spiky shoes for that matter), but that’s beside the point.
The point is that my pride at being one tough women, who braved February weather to walk outside, was properly dashed after reading a couple tidbits in the Harding County, South Dakota weekly newspaper, the Nation’s Center News. You may think it’s pretty pathetic for someone to still take the paper, 25 years after they moved away. But trust me, articles about the tough women who live in the remote, northwest corner of South Dakota keep me renewing my subscription year after year.
In those parts, winter lasts a long time, and this one’s been pretty snowy, too. Which sets the scene for the first article which reported that Ronda Cordell “was a little worried about the ice and snow on her roof, so she chopped the six inches of ice from her eaves, but it was so icy that there was not much she could do about the snow.”
The second story was about Tawni Cordell. (I believe her husband is Ronda’s grand-nephew.) She and her husband went mountain lion hunting a few weeks ago. “When the dogs treed the cat along the face of a cliff, Tawni and Ryan climbed up to have an open shot and brought him down…He weighed 175 pounds.” The reporter concludes with these words. “These women are tough around here, because Tawni is expecting a baby, too.”
Like I said, those two stories put me in my place. Ronda’s the kind of woman who has no qualms about chopping ice from the eaves of her house on a ranch in the boondocks, even though she lives alone. Tawni’s the kind of woman who tracks and kills mountain lions while preparing to give birth. (I’m exaggerating a bit. She’s due in June.) I’m the kind of woman who wears yak tracks on a walk through town and takes her cell phone along just in case, and who refuses to wear spiky, strappy shoes on Valentine’s Day because she’s afraid of heights.
Stories like these keep me subscribing to The Nation’s Center News year after year. They remind me of the tough women who live in and around Harding County –
Of their kindness.
Of their determination.
Of their strength.
Of their resourcefulness.
They remind me that someday,
I want to be like them.
by jphilo | Jan 24, 2011 | Reflections on the Past
After a quiet weekend with absolutely no commitments, a rare occurrence, I can’t think of a subject worth blog space for today’s post.
If Hiram had worked on the bathroom remodeling, a progress report would have been in order. But he worked on taxes, and who wants a progress report on taxes? If football was a big deal at this house, it would have been a hot topic. But all I know is that the Packers beat the Bears and the Steelers beat some other team, and who wants a football analysis from a football ignoramus? If anybody around here was sick, this post could have monitored vital signs. But we’re healthy, and who wants to know the color of our mucus anyway?
Which leaves the weather, which continues cold and snowy, as the default topic of conversation. In this part of the country, it’s been darn cold, in the single digits above or below zero for a couple weeks. However, our Minnesota son phoned to report their weekly low, a frigid 30 below. Suddenly Sunday morning’s nasty sounding minus 7 appeared positively balmy.
We were cold last week, but not that cold.
Our phone conversation moved on to a discussion of the lowest temperatures we’d experienced – weather Limbo, so to speak, seeing how low we could go. Surprisingly, the 50 below Alaskan temperature Hiram recalled was not much colder than the 45 below we endured in Harding County, South Dakota during the winter of 1982.
Now that was one cold weekend.
I was pregnant with Allen that winter, and we were going a little stir crazy in our small house. So when good friends called and asked if we wanted to go to Spearfish and eat out, we said yes without batting an eye. Our friend drove 115 miles one way – prudently taking the longer paved road rather than risk the gravel trail which would have cut the trip to 90 miles – to The Sluice, our favorite Black Hills restaurant. We chatted the whole way down, all through supper, and the entire trip back, not one bit concerned about potential engine issues, flat tires, or freezing to death by the side of the road.
The story is proof of the old adage, “With age comes wisdom.” We wouldn’t think of doing such a thing now-a-days, even with a cell phone for emergencies and no unborn baby along for the ride. Such behavior is risky and stupid. Even on days like this one, when the blog post topic makes me wonder if my acquisition of wisdom has kept pace with my age, one thing’s for certain.
We may still be stupid on occasion, but we’re not that stupid.
by jphilo | Jan 17, 2011 | Current Events
Between having to boil drinking water since Friday night (a city water main broke) and some unexpected news from Harding County, South Dakota, prairie thoughts dominated the weekend.
The water business increased my admiration for Ma Ingalls and every other prairie woman ten-fold. I thought about them every time I ran a potful of water and heated it on my clean, electric stove. Those prairie gals hauled and heated water constantly. Water for washing, cleaning, bathing, cooking. Every drop of it hauled in cold, then heated on a wood stove. Throw babies in cloth diapers, without rubber or plastic pants, and I get tired just thinking about their workloads.
So prairie folks were on my mind before the news came that Sky Ranch for Boys, where Hiram and I worked after college, is closing. The ranch, a residential facility for troubled boys, is at least in part, a victim of economic times. Their website announcement says:
We are deeply saddened to report that our program will cease providing residential treatment and educational services for troubled teens in the first part of 2011. This painful decision was a result of the trend away from the kind of residential treatment program Sky Ranch offers in favor of less expensive, community based alternatives for kids in trouble and at risk. The Ranch is currently caring for less than 20 boys (down from 40 a few years ago) and that number is expected to decline sharply in the weeks ahead as states implement new budget policies. Although exacerbated by the recession, this does not appear to be a short term trend.
After reading the announcement, I kept thinking about the boys who will need residential treatment in future, but won’t have it available. And I kept thinking about all our friends in Harding County who will be affected by the closing: teachers, counselors, caseworkers, cooks, and so many more. Will they be able to find jobs in the vast, sparsely populated, short grass prairie they love? Will they have to sell their ranches and move away? Will the tiny, struggling towns die? These prairie thoughts, disturbing and unwelcome, put a weekend spent boiling water in proper perspective.
I am ashamed of my complaining.
I am grateful for a secure livelihood.
I am praying for my Harding County friends.
by jphilo | Dec 13, 2010 | Reflections on the Past
The packages have been arriving thick and fast for the past week or two. Christmas presents ordered on the internet, a repair part for the upstairs shower, my camera lens back from the fix-it shop (yippee!), and a box all the way from cowboy country.
In the package were three Camp Crook 125th (1883-2008) Anniversary Cookbooks, one for each of our newlywed couples and one for us oldyweds. Gerald and Becky, friends from Harding County, South Dakota sent them. Becky, grandma of the two boys attached to the boots above, wrote a note in each one. In the elder Philo copy she wrote, “ May these names and recipes remind you of all the memories in Harding County.”
Eagerly, I turned the pages. Many of the recipes were new, but a good portion came from the 1983 Centennial cookbook, which was created during the years we lived in the tiny town. Turning the pages brought back memories of the townspeople who supported us through the tough years after Allen was born.
- Prairie Style Baked Beans from Walter Stuart, the crotchety old widower who kept chickens and his old cow, Snippy, in a makeshift barn behind the school.
- Several yeast bread recipes in memory of Effie Brewer, the gruff widow who always wore a work shirt, trousers and a squashed, pork-pie hat wherever she went.
- Contributions from fellow teachers during my first year in the classroom: Marie Knapp, Carol Odell, and Karen Douglas.
- Recipes from parents of my former students. Submissions from the former students – which I could handle – knowing that most of them were married now. And recipes from their children – which was hard to swallow – who can’t possibly be old enough to cook!
And there amidst the recipes submitted by strong women who have made the vast, tall-grass prairie their home, were my recipes. What an honor, what sweetness it was thirty years ago to be counted a cook with them. What a delight to be part of their history still.
Thank you, Becky, for a most delicious gift.
