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.
