If you are reading this on Wednesday, Nov. 5, it is only 421 days until Jan. 1, 2010, which will be the first day of a brand new election year!
If that thought doesn't jump-start the old ticker and get the adrenaline to flowing (or make you set fire to this page of the newspaper), I can't think what else might. The Cubs winning the World Series? Paris Hilton uttering an intelligent sentence? Your Powerball ticket bearing the winning numbers?
Since this column had to be written prior to the votes being counted Tuesday night, I don't have the luxury of knowing what you know---that quite possibly somebody assured himself of being chosen President-elect when the 50 states' electors get together in their respective state capitols next month to do the real voting that determines the winner.
I can't know what you now know---whether each of the 50 states was able, in this age of tremendous technology, conduct an accurate, honest, trouble-free election or if some state managed to screw it up yet again. Ohio? Florida?
It would be nice if, by the time you read this, the losing presidential candidate has returned to his current role, that of a U.S. senator. The work on his desk must have piled up a bit over the past few months.
But it would not surprise in the least to think that, as you are reading this on Nov. 5, one of the campaigns is still claiming the possibility that the announced result could and/or should be reversed or that the election was stolen or that it's the Big Bad Liberal Media's fault. (Isn't it always?)
After all, too many people have too much to lose if their candidate did not win the presidency, and I don't mean Obama, Biden, McCain and Palin. Staff positions in the new administration, cabinet posts, favors to be called in after the new man takes office---there was a lot hanging in the balance and maybe, depending on what happened last night, it is still hanging there.
But those of us who have found this election year fascinating and intriguing, at least until the last month or so, will have to find something else to occupy our daily attention. There just may not be as much reason to check in on Olbermann's, Matthews' and Maddow's take on things on MSNBC or Hannity's, O'Reilly's and Ingraham's opinions on that other cable news channel, the one that pounds its chest as being "fair and balanced."
I may have to return to sports talk radio all day long starting tomorrow. It may be a painful withdrawal.
But 2010 looms ahead. That election year will not be so all-encompassing, overwhelming and, for that matter, meaningful to the entire country as this year's was for the simple reason that there will not be a presidential campaign. (Thank you, God.)
But here in South Dakota it will likely be a most interesting year. In fact, 2009, which is almost here, may be interesting as well as would-be candidates position themselves for declaring their 2010 candidacies.
Just as there was the Johnson-Dykstra U.S. Senate race this year, in 2010 there will be another. Sen. John Thune's current term will be expiring. If he chooses to seek re-election, South Dakota will find itself in a rather unusual situation where, in a Republican state, an incumbent Republican will be favored in a statewide congressional race.
We will also be electing a new governor since Gov. Rounds cannot seek another term. Even the primary elections to name candidates for that office could grab the attention of us who become political junkies every election year.
In 2010 as in every other year we will be electing our one member of the U.S. House of Representatives. If Rep. Herseth Sandlin won yesterday, will she seek re-election or run for the governorship? Will Gov. Rounds go after the House seat? It will be a fun time, and it will be here before we know it.
Chances are there will be unexpected developments. The only thing we can count on for absolute certainty is that in 2010 there will be an abortion measure of some sort on the South Dakota ballot. Why? Because there always is.
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CUSTER NOTES
I see the CHS choir will be headed to New York and Washington this coming spring. Having made five out-of-state trips with the Pierre band (one to Minneapolis, one to Denver, three to Chicago) during the years I worked for the paper there, I don't know I managed to squeeze my Chronicle time in between New York trips with the CHS choir. After all, doesn't somebody have to cover it for the paper? Take pictures and all that? Sorry I missed out again, choir. Send me a postcard. . . . . .
Custer friends of the late Jodi Beringer Larabee would be pleased at the new sign that has been erected on the front lawn of a USD sorority house just two blocks north of my house on Pine Street. The sign, which identifies the sorority, has a message at the bottom which reads, "In Memory of Jodi Beringer Larabee, Pledge Class of 1995." . . . . .
I happened to be in contact the other day with CHS alumnus Brandon Snyder, who already has put in three years in the U.S. Marine Corps. He has also acquired a bride named Megan along the way. The Snyders recently moved to Jacksonville, N.C., but Brandon will be headed out on another deployment soon. We wish him the best and thank him for his service! Whenever I think of Brandon, I immediately recall his very last night of high school. He graduated in the middle of the year, and on that last night he pinned his wrestling opponent. It was a magical tear-jerker of a moment for those who knew that the very next morning he was headed to the Marine Corps. . . . . .
Megan Turner is in her second year at the University of Sioux Falls. Call it "the school of hard knocks" for Megan. During her freshman basketball season she was out a long while after a concussion sustained about Thanksgiving time last year. Now in recent months she missed three weeks of basketball drills due to her second consussion but is back at practice. She is listed on the JV roster for USF. Megan also goes out for track at USF. . . . . .
I know that several emergency responders and volunteers from Custer County were involved in the search for elk hunter Brad McGee, who was found dead west of Hill City two weeks ago. He was from my hometown of Onida. His mom, Patty, is Sully County auditor. I can't imagine what the week before the election was like in her office as the result of this tragedy. Brad and his wife were the parents of two little children. . . . . .
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THE GLORY OF FALL
The Chronicle gang wouldn't be surprised if I came right out and admitted that I'm still computer-illiterate. (If the darn thing doesn't work right when I push the "on" button, then I don't use it! That's my philosophy.) But if I could take a photo and send it to you for use in the weather photo spot up in the corner of Page 2, I would snap a shot of the tree directly across the street from me as I sit here in my kitchen at home and look west.
My next-door neighbors, the Wards, have a tree out next to their curb which still has all of its leaves despite the fact that almost every other tree lost its leaves in the howling 60 mph winds of a week ago. As I gaze over there, it is almost as if everything else in the block, including every other tree, is in black and white, but this particular tree is in color. Reds, oranges, yellows, pinks, sienas---it is glorious.
You should be here in the early morning. When the sun rises over the second story of the Vermillion hospital a block east of us, the first thing in the block to the west that its rays strike is the Wards' tree. It is almost as if the tree is ablaze with fire until the sun rises high enough in the sky so that everything else is in sunshine.
The only negative aspect of the Wards' tree is that its leaves will end up over here in my yard, which will mean another raking Saturday sometime in November. As for today, with the temperature in the 60s and a weekend approaching, I don't even mind heading outside right now to rake the leaves that have already found our yard. It beats shoveling snow.
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LEST WE FORGET
With Veterans Day less than a week away, it's time to make your plans to spend an hour of next Tuesday at the Custer schools' annual program. No community in the state does Veterans Day as well as Custer does. You should take pride in that.
Here is a link to a moving tribute each of us should take five minutes to watch. Then send it to veterans you know or others who would appreciate it, including veterans of our current wars and those who are currently serving:
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