#mitchell sd

“In a state where the Republican governor, Kristi L. Noem, has defied calls for a statewide mask mandate even as cases hit record levels, many in this rural community an hour west of Sioux Falls ignored the virus for months, not bothering with masks or social distancing. Restaurants were packed. Big weddings and funerals went on as planned.

Then people started dying. The wife of the former bank president. A state legislator. The guy whose family has owned the bike shop since 1959. Then Timmins, a mild-spoken 72-year-old who had worked with hundreds of local kids during six decades as a Little League and high school coach and referee.

His death shook Mitchell just as its leaders were contemplating something previously denounced and dismissed: a requirement that its staunchly conservative residents wear masks.

As Wellsandt-Zell led those mourning Timmins in the hymn “Jesus Loves Me,” the rumble of an approaching helicopter cut through the sound of the singing and the mourners’ soft tears. In Mitchell, the medical emergency helicopter, once a rare occurrence, now comes nearly every day, ferrying the growing number of people desperately ill with covid-19 to a hospital that might be able to save them.

Sirens echoing through the empty streets of New York marked the pandemic’s first phase. Swirling blades of helicopters on the American plains is the soundtrack of a deadly fall.

Oh, my God, here we go again, Wellsandt-Zell thought. Another one.

This was heartbreaking. And infuriating. But mostly heartbreaking. How many people need to get sick. How many people need to die. And how can you tell your doctor you don't have it when you do.

South Dakota cops say To Hell with our Constitution and our First Amendment and illegally arrest a man for giving them the finger.

Yeah, maybe the guy giving the finger is an asshole, sure, but it is still protected speech. 

Cops are the Government and the Government should and cannot be imprisoning us because they don’t like our speech, even giving them the finger.

This is a shameful arrest by Triggered cops. Cops don’t like the Constitution, go move somewhere else.

THIS is also why we have the www.aclu.org, to protest these rights

A visit to the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota, on October 7, 2012.  The famous building is essentially an arena, its attraction being the annual exterior redesigns it gets (and whatever event is going on inside.)  The ornamentation is created out of corn (and other grains.)  My mother, who lived near Rapid City, had passed away a couple of months earlier and we returned to the state to attend to details pertaining to her estate.  The whimsical Corn Palace was a logical destination on the essentially somber trip--we’d never visited it.

As you enter the place, you’re in a foyer like many other medium size sports venues.  There were large framed pictures of notable past Corn Palaces, and a gallery of the whole lot on a side wall.  Some displays, a concession stand.  We were there in the afternoon, and a rehearsal was going on inside the area; it was the Million Dollar Quartet, who was appearing at the time.  We went inside and sat in the stands with a couple of dozen other people and watched the rehearsal for a while.

Sports events take place here too.  My mother, who was given to extravagant fictions in her later years, said that my father (who was from relatively nearby Geddes SD) played in the state championship basketball game at the Corn Palace.  It was impossible to verify with him; they’d divorced in my early childhood and I never saw him again.  He was in the Army and his last assignment was Fort Hamilton, hence my Brooklyn roots.

Admission to the Corn Palace was free, and there was no charge for attending the rehearsal either.  People are pretty nice in South Dakota; the place has a relaxed vibe.  The motel in the bottom photo is elsewhere in Mitchell; I don’t think it’s affiliated in any way with the Corn Palace.  Notice the big fake steer.  People eat beef in South Dakota, although Mitchell is “East River” which means it’s in the agricultural eastern part of the state.  On the western side of the Missouri River ranching is dominant.

Two-faced ear of corn.