It's never too late to go home again

My hometown of Onida has its own Sully County Fair on the second weekend of August, and for the 86th straight time, this year was no exception. But this year's fair was extra special because a few dozen hard-working people who live there had incorporated Onida's 125th anniversary into the fair. From all over the country, Onida natives came home, and I was one of them.

The tower of the Oahe Grain elevator is visible over the horizon for at least 15 miles away, and as I sped north on Highway 83 last Friday night, I was genuinely excited at the prospects of visiting the old hometown again and seeing people with whom I hadn't spoken for decades. The sad fact of life had been that almost all of my last few visits to Onida over the past 10 years had all been for funerals. This one was purely for fun.

The weekend didn't disappoint.

Maybe it's the same way between you and the people who grew up with you in your hometown. But it seems to me as if Onida folks---past and present---can be away from each other for 10 years or more and, immediately after a firm handshake or a heart-felt hug, can smoothly resume a conversation as if no time had passed in the interim. That happened over and over again all weekend long.

Since my brother and sister-in-law still live in Onida, I had a built-in place to stay. Their daughter and her family were also there from Rapid City, so it was a family reunion as well as a community reunion.

John and Linda also opened up their home and their backyard to four OHS graduating classes. Fortunately the weather cooperated beautifully---enough clouds to keep the temps in the 80s, enough breeze to keep the bugs away---as members of the Classes of 1959, 1960, 1961 (John's class) and 1962 reunited in one place. Though I graduated from OHS in 1956, the '59ers were freshmen during my senior year, and I knew many of the others, of course, so it was a great time to visit and recall memories from out of the very distant past.

The weekend also included a fish fry at the home of long-time friends on Friday night.

After that the place to be was uptown Onida where the city fathers had directed that a full block of Main Street be blocked off for the evening so that patrons of the two watering holes could walk back and forth. Brewster's on the east side of the street had a band on a stage in their patio area. The Blue Goose on the west side had a band out back, and the spot where our old Roxy Theatre once stood until its demolition earlier this year had become an outdoor patio. In the middle of Main Street, with no traffic to worry about, hundreds of us milled about, rediscovering so many people who in one way or another had been part of our earlier lives.

An annual tradition at the Sully County Fair is the alumni breakfast at the senior center early Saturday morning. It has become the place to gather and to see who's in town.

Then at noon Saturday the Dean Nelson family and the Joe and Dorothy Lamb family generously served a free (yes, I said "free"!) prime-rib or burgers dinner to more than a thousand people at the high school gym. The bleachers and the main floor were jammed full of people, and the joyful reunions with people I hadn't expected to see were numerous for me as I'm sure they were for countless others.

But the big event of the weekend was the 125th anniversary parade, and I had the honor of being the P.A. announcer at the head of Main Street as the parade, which formed on Ash Avenue, extending from uptown all the way east into the countryside, made a left turn and headed down Main Street where crowds awaited.

The image of Onida's Main Street is one that never leaves your mind once you have seen it. The majestic old Sully County Courthouse sits on the hill at the top of Main Street. The parade committee had me perched on a forklift of some sort across the street from there. Thanks also to the committee, I had a ream of material at my disposal, information on every float and entry in the parade.

The long line of more than 120 entries took more than an hour to pass my location and wend its way on down Main Street where another announcer waited to pick up the narrative. There was an alumni band, members of many of Sully Buttes High's outstanding award-winning bands from over the years, and for a group that had gotten together for the first time only an hour before the parade started, they sounded terrific. There's nothing like a marching band to set the pace for a parade.

There were kings and queens, former Snow Queens, political candidates, National Guard vehicles, tractors, covered wagons, horses, Miss Rodeo South Dakota, family floats, church floats, business vehicles, the two-time state "B" girls basketball champions, kids on bicycles, and a high school-age rock band. Now that was a parade!

The fairgrounds at the southeast corner of town became the focal point for the rest of the day's events. Thanks to hometown Sutton Rodeos Inc., the Sully County Fair always has for two nights what is probably the best rodeo of any county fair in South Dakota. During the day there is everything from a stick horse rodeo, bingo, a tire toss and a frying pan toss to 4-H activities, co-ed beach volleyball, a softball tournament, inflatable carnival rides and a youth talent contest.

Late on Saturday night, after the rodeo ended, no matter where we were in Onida, we had ringside seats for the best fireworks display I've ever seen.

Though county fair events continued on Sunday, I headed home to Vermillion to relieve my daughter who had taken on dog-sitting duties for the weekend so I could home. But as I drove cross-country (instead of on the interstate!) through Blunt and Miller and Huron and Parker and Viborg, I couldn't help but smile at all the people with whom I had been able to visit. I had seen 11 of my 25 surviving Class of '56 classmates, dozens of former students since I taught in that district for 13 years, and countless others. Larry from North Carolina, Julie from Texas, Bob from Georgia, Monte from Minnesota, Corwyn from California, Melissa from Alaska, Myron and Christi from Iowa, Carol from Virginia, Hazel from Wyoming, Jean from California, Gerry from Iowa, Sharon from Colorado, Joe and Ellen from Wyoming, Mary from New Mexico, Gary from Ohio, Brad from Minnesota, Caroline from Illinois, Tim from Wyoming, Kirke from Florida, Ellen and Dorothy from Missouri, Jason from Kansas, Janet from Minnesota, people from everywhere imaginable in South Dakota, including the Rillings from Custer, and Onida natives who lived there when I did and who are still there, not to mention others whom I'm unintentionally forgetting.

It was one of those weekends not to be missed, and if your hometown has one such celebration coming soon, don't stay home just because you're busy or just because you can't afford it or just because you're too tired or just because gas costs so much. Life is too short to miss the chance to reconnect with those who have been a part of your life.

Now, as I finish this and send it on its way to the Custer Chronicle office and to my blogsite, I am again giddy with anticipation because, only a week after going home to Onida for that magnificent reunion, I'm on the road to Huron where anybody and everybody who ever attended Huron College have been invited to a big reunion. There will be more than 300 people, as I hear it, and I will see people who are now in their 60s and 70s but who back in my H.C. days were, like me, in their late teens and early 20s. There will be people with whom I shared choir tours, "Y" meetings, coffee in the Wigwam, football games against the Evil Empire (Northern!), "Camelot," dorm-closing moments in the Passion Pit, Pow Wow Day parades, weekly services in the chapel, Alphomega newspaper staff meetings, student body campaigns, pizza nights at Charlie's, practice-teaching at Huron High, humanities class with Dean Agnes Hanson, religion classes with Mr. Weeks and Dr. Ross, P.E. classes with the football jocks, the lunch line at the cafeteria, and the Pan-Hellenic formal.

If they're smart, they will say as several in Onida did, "You haven't changed a bit!" It may be a bald-faced lie, but it's good to hear anyway.

-o-o-o-o-o-

Favre fever: I was sick of Brett Favre and his whole flip-flopping saga long before the rest of the civilized world was sick of him.

As a Vikings fan since attending their first-ever game against Dallas in Sioux Falls in August 1961, I was hoping and almost praying that, wherever the Good Ol' Boy ended up, it was not Minneapolis. No true-blue Viking fan could stomach the prospect of a stinkin' Packer being their quarterback, even if Mr. Wonderful did take them to the Super Bowl. Fortunately the Packer management stayed strong and sent the Good Ol' Boy packing to the other conference where he can play out his days until his next tearful retirement ceremony.

As I was watching and listening to the whole drama unfold the week of Aug. 3, I began to wonder if it ever occurred to the Good Ol' Boy from down-home Mississippi to change clothes. As he and First Lady Deanna boarded their jet in Hattiesburg on Sunday, he was wearing a gray T-shirt and a pair of khaki shorts. The next day as we saw him enter the Packer complex in Green Bay, it was the same attire.

On Wednesday as he left Green Bay to go back to Hattiesburg, he was still wearing the gray T-shirt and khaki shorts. I found myself hoping that First Lady Deanna would, when she got home, take time to wash a load of clothes.

Lo and behold, on Thursday when the Good Ol' Boy headed for New York, what do you suppose he chose as his wardrobe for the day. Would you believe a gray T-shirt and a pair of khaki shorts. I guess $18 million per year doesn't go very far these days, but his Wrangler jeans commercial (you know, the one where he says how comfortable he is in Wrangler) ought to warrant a couple of pairs of pants. I was not surprised to see that, by the time Broadway Brett had flown to Cleveland for his first Jets press conference that Thursday evening, he was still wearing the same clothes.

Thankfully, for the sake of New York's Mayor Bloomberg and others around him at City Hall during the welcoming ceremony on Friday morning, somebody had persuaded the Good Ol' Boy to wear something else.

When I wrote this column on Monday, Aug. 10, the Brett Favre Television Network, which sometimes goes by the name 'ESPN,' was still talking almost nonstop about No. 4. I shut them off and haven't chosen their channel since. I will no doubt return to ESPN on Sept. 8 when they televise the Vikings-Packers game. I will listen until they mention the name "Favre" for the 50th time after which I will shut off their sound and listen to the Vikings radio broadcast.

Do I hope Favre does well with the Jets? Actually an 0-16 record would be what I would like to see. It would be fun to see how the Good Ol' Boy handles the New York media.

As for the Packers, I hope Aaron Rodgers does well (except, of course, in his two games against Minnesota). He seems like a nice guy, and he's handled this Favre circus with dignity. Too bad he's the next stinkin' Packer I will somehow learn to hate.

-o-o-o-o-o-