Tag: humor

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Tongues in Granite Cheeks

By John Andrews

Mount Rushmore is a point of pride, a vacation destination and a vehicle for the nation’s humorists.

South Dakota Magazine celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2010. For much of the previous year, we discussed how to celebrate such a significant milestone in the publishing world. Ideas for special stories in each of the year’s six issues took shape in editorial meetings and blossomed as we gathered the information and photos. But as we neared press time on the first issue of our anniversary year, one detail seemed to be missing: We needed an impactful way to kick everything off, something that combined the state culture that the magazine had explored for nearly a quarter century and the celebratory energy that we felt in our offices and hoped to convey to our readership.

Someone mentioned that Mount Rushmore, perhaps the most iconic and recognizable image associated with South Dakota, had never appeared on the magazine’s cover. What if we could find a way to make it look like those four, stoic granite heads were celebrating with us?

We located a beautiful photo by Chad Coppess, then a photographer with the South Dakota Department of Tourism and today this magazine’s photo editor. With his permission, we decided to have some fun. Or so we thought.

Our graphic designer skillfully added colorful, conical party hats to the top of each head, embellished with festive, silver tinsel where each hat met a rocky forehead. Directly below George Washington, we added a huge banner that appeared to be fixed to the mountain itself that read,”Happy Birthday SD Magazine,” and below that, the one-liner,”By George, we made the cover.”

We delighted in our mockup and sent the issue off to print around Thanksgiving. Our January/February issue is designed to arrive in mailboxes a few days before Christmas so that subscribers who receive it as a gift can enjoy a new issue during the holidays. Staffers received an unexpected gift, however, when readers saw the cover.

Cartoonist Jeffrey Koterba drew this image of a Roosevelt-less Mount Rushmore during a government shutdown. He says the national memorial is a good vehicle for editorial cartoons because it is widely recognizable.

It was far from the magazine’s most controversial cover image. That goes to a friendly rattlesnake that slithered his way to the top of the list in the fall of 2002 and never again made an appearance in such a prominent position. (Honestly, we had no idea how many people have snake phobias!) But a few readers were upset that we had taken such liberties with the Shrine to Democracy. Some even thought we’d desecrated the national memorial, as if we’d truly traveled across the state and spraypainted birthday wishes onto the billion-year-old granite. We feared what might happen if those readers ever saw the iconic”backside of Mount Rushmore” postcard.

All jokes aside, when it came to Mount Rushmore we began to wonder if people thought all jokes should be set aside. Since the last piece of granite was chiseled away in 1941, the images of Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln — locked into their stony gazes across the Black Hills — have slowly seeped into American popular culture. Their likenesses help sell cars, beer, toothpaste, shirts and hats. They show up on music albums, at theme parks, in Hollywood movies and newspapers — both in the comics section for pure entertainment and the opinion page as the vehicle for cartoonists who have something to say.

It seems, though, that Mount Rushmore has always had one foot in pop culture. Even when the memorial was still an idea inside state historian Doane Robinson’s mind, the motivation behind it was to draw tourists into the Black Hills. As roads began to improve in the 1920s, the Hills were already becoming a vacation destination for people longing for the cool mountain air and beautiful topography. But Robinson worried that it wasn’t enough.”Tourists soon get fed up on scenery unless it has something of special interest connected with it to make it impressive,” he said.

About the same time, he began reading reports of sculptor Gutzon Borglum’s massive undertaking east of Atlanta, Georgia, where he was attempting to carve Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Jefferson Davis and other heroes of the Southern Confederacy into Stone Mountain. It served as inspiration for Robinson, who began dreaming of historical figures carved into the Needles.

In December of 1923 Robinson wrote to Lorado Taft, considered one of America’s pre-eminent sculptors, to gauge his interest in such a grand project. When Taft demurred, Robinson turned to Borglum in August 1924. Borglum’s relationship with the committee behind the Stone Mountain project had become strained and he was looking for a way out. Intrigued by Robinson’s proposal, he came to the Black Hills the fall of 1924 to see the lay of the land.

Borglum believed whole-heartedly in American exceptionalism, once saying that the records of the American people and their achievement should be”built into, cut into, the crust of this earth so that those records would have to melt or by wind be worn to dust before the record could, as Lincoln said, ‘perish from the earth.'” He also believed in big art.”Volume, great mass, has a greater emotional effect upon the observer than quality of form. Quality of form affects the mind; volume shocks the nerve or soul centers and is emotional in its effect.”

In the Black Hills, he discovered the perfect natural canvas to accomplish both of those aims. After abandoning the idea of full-bodied likenesses in the Needles, he began work at Mount Rushmore, a granite uplift that had been named years earlier for New York lawyer Charles Rushmore.

An air of patriotism and national pride surrounded the memorial from its start. President Calvin Coolidge attended a dedication ceremony during the summer he spent vacationing in the Black Hills in 1927. President Franklin Roosevelt visited in 1936 as Thomas Jefferson’s head was unveiled and was awed by the undertaking.”I had had no conception until about ten minutes ago not only of its magnitude but of its permanent beauty and of its permanent importance,” Roosevelt said in impromptu remarks.

Among the most iconic and irreverent riffs on Mount Rushmore is the view from the “backside” of the mountain. It has appeared on postcards, T-shirts and commemorative plates.

Work concluded on Mount Rushmore in October of 1941 under the leadership of Borglum’s son, Lincoln, who took over after his father’s death earlier that year. In 1933, President Roosevelt had signed an executive order placing the memorial under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service. That organization still serves as the guardian of Mount Rushmore, helping more than 2 million visitors each year learn about its history and trying to ensure that its image is not sullied.

Perhaps the earliest and most visible challenge came in 1958 when director Alfred Hitchcock planned to use Mount Rushmore in his thriller North by Northwest. The movie’s climactic scene featured Communist agents chasing stars Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint across the faces.

The National Park Service was worried about such a depiction from the beginning. Officials signed an agreement with film studio Metro-Goldwin-Mayer in which producers promised that no violent scenes would be filmed”near the sculpture [or] on the talus slopes below the sculpture,” or on any simulation or mockup.

Hitchcock was upset with the situation and considered pulling the movie. But when he and film crews arrived to shoot scenes on Sept. 16, 1958, there were no problems. The Park Service even granted MGM permission to take several still images of the memorial before they headed back to California. That led to controversy when Hitchcock filmed the famous chase scene against a backdrop that was created using those images.

Park Service officials argued that Hitchcock had violated their agreement and that audiences would believe those scenes had been staged on the actual memorial. They demanded the removal of a credit line acknowledging the cooperation of the Interior Department and the National Park Service in filming at Mount Rushmore. The feds sought further help from South Dakota Sen. Karl Mundt, who in 1939 had successfully pulled from distribution a government-produced film called The Plow that Broke the Plains because of its inaccurate portrayal of the Midwest and his home state.

By then, however, little could be done. The credit line was removed, and the scene remained. In a 1991 article by Todd Epp for South Dakota History, Nicole Swigart, a seasonal interpreter at Mount Rushmore, wondered what Borglum would have thought.”It’s just my opinion,” she said,”but Borglum probably would’ve liked how the memorial was shown in North by Northwest. He liked publicity.”

Cecelia Tichi, author of Embodiment of a Nation: Human Form in American Places, says the Hitchcock episode likely began the era of satirical depictions of Mount Rushmore, however two years earlier, the cover of the February 1957 issue of MAD Magazine featured a smiling Alfred E. Neuman sculpted at the foot of Rushmore.

Once the Rushmore image was out, it became nearly impossible to police its every use. In 1970, the band Deep Purple released an album called Deep Purple in Rock, which included sleeve art depicting the five band members carved into the mountain in place of the presidents. A Colgate-Palmolive television commercial from 1995 used Theodore Roosevelt to sell toothpaste. Computer graphics showed Roosevelt breaking out in a toothy grin after his teeth had been power washed. That image transitioned to a man using Colgate toothpaste.

Marty Two Bulls rarely draws Mount Rushmore, but he turned to the four faces to help illustrate opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline in 2016. Two Bulls grew up on the Pine Ridge Reservation and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in editorial cartooning in 2021.

An episode of the Fox animated series Family Guy parodied the North by Northwest chase scene in 2005. A huge Lego Mount Rushmore stands at California’s Legoland, complete with a crew cleaning Washington’s left ear with a giant Lego Q-tip. One online retailer offers a Mount Rushmore dartboard (you’ll hit the bull’s-eye by firing a dart at the left corner of Jefferson’s mouth). Small replicas are offered on several websites that feature other figures in place of the presidents — stars of classic and modern horror films, Disney characters and the Golden Girls.

Closer to home, a logo of Custer’s Mt. Rushmore Brewing Company and Pounding Fathers restaurant features the four faces, plus an arm added to Washington and Lincoln. Both men are gripping a pint.

The image of Mount Rushmore appears today in ways that Robinson and Borglum likely never imagined. So how much is too much? Is there a line? What makes people care?

ìPeople are fickle,” says James Popovich, who served as Mount Rushmore’s chief of interpretation for 20 years before retiring in 2004.”Some will say it’s just in fun and others will say it degrades the memorial. There are thoughts on both sides, and you have to respect them.”

In his two decades at the memorial, Popovich saw incredible demand for Mount Rushmore imagery in advertising. That usage sometimes rubbed people the wrong way.”People want to use any kind of logo from a national park, or Mount Rushmore especially, because it’s such an iconic symbol of America,” he says.”They want to use them in advertising or in any way to attract people to their business. So people do feel really particular about making sure the memorial is protected and safe for everybody to see and to see it the way they think it should be.

ìThe park service people, I think they feel a little unhappy about it when they first see it, but even me, as I saw it over time, I began to recognize why people do it. It sells literature, T-shirts, cups and hats, and that’s what they’re in business for, too.”

The memorial has also become a favorite for cartoonists, whose riffs on Rushmore have appeared in newspapers and magazines for decades. Jeffrey Koterba is a nationally syndicated cartoonist. He grew up in Omaha and spent 31 years with the Omaha World-Herald, where he drew more than 12,000 cartoons. Today his work is distributed through Cagle Cartoons and appears in 700 to 800 newspapers worldwide. He says Mount Rushmore is a natural fit for cartoonists because it’s recognizable — a trait that he thinks is becoming rarer.”When I was first starting out in cartooning, you could reference a film or a book, and even if you hadn’t seen the film or read the book, you at least had some understating of what it was, and I could use that for a cartoon,” Koterba says.”But today, there aren’t that many things that are so quickly identifiable in American culture. To me, Mount Rushmore stands pretty much at the top of the list. Everyone knows what that is.”

A notable Rushmore cartoon of his was born out of the federal government shutdown in late 2018 and early 2019. Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln gaze at a blank space on the mountain where Roosevelt should be.”Teddy’s been furloughed,” Jefferson quips.

As Mount Rushmore gradually solidified its place in modern popular culture, cartoons became much more widespread, appearing in national publications like The Saturday Evening Post.

Koterba put a lot of thought into that cartoon — the recognizable image, the implications that a government shutdown could have on the memorial itself and his audience’s potential reaction.”It’s my job to look for an image, or something using very few words, to get the idea across in a fast way,” he says.”They say the average reader spends 7 seconds with a cartoon. I thought, ‘What is something we all recognize as a symbol of our country and is somewhat related to the government?’ And I thought it was funny. I am going for a joke, not just for the sake of the joke, but ultimately to make a point.”

And then there’s the art itself.”I chose Teddy because visually, where it landed seemed like a good place. You wouldn’t want to do either president on the end. It made it more glaring. And it’s my job to take the reader by surprise. You don’t expect to see that image missing one of the faces.”

Koterba’s cartoons have featured the Statue of Liberty, George Washington’s famous crossing of the Delaware River during the Revolutionary War and the Mona Lisa. Locally, he’s drawn several cartoons featuring The Sower, a prominent sculpture atop the state capitol in Lincoln. He doesn’t recall any negative feedback in using those as vehicles. That could be because his audience is worldwide. Local readers may be more inclined to object with what they see as an unfit portrayal of a memorial or point of pride in their own backyard.

ìWhen I’m coming up with a cartoon idea, it’s coming from a good place with good intent, based in journalism, based in fact,” Koterba says.”Yes, it’s my opinion, but I’m basing my opinion on fact as I see it. If I’m setting out to make a point that I believe is a valid point, I have to make people think. How can I portray that in a cartoon and get you to think about something in a different way? I’m not trying to change anyone’s mind, just add my voice to the conversation.

ìI have respect for monuments and paintings and symbols and the American flag. It’s never my intent to rile people up,” he says.”But if it’s a symbol that people recognize and I can use it as a vehicle to make a point, then I think it’s fair game. I don’t see it as such a sacred thing that it is above being able to be used for satire or cartoons.”

Maybe it’s true that Borglum — ever the publicity seeker — would delight in the universal access to his grand creation that the 21st century allows, and that millions of people around the world can see it in periodicals, on television, in movies and on the internet, portrayed both solemnly and respectfully and occasionally with tongue planted firmly in cheek. He might even think it’s worth celebrating.

Where are the party hats?

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the January/February 2023 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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Kicking Tires in Pierre

By Roger Holtzmann

Nobody thinks South Dakota is perfect, but most of us would agree it seems to get along pretty well from day to day. Which makes me wonder what our legislators do in Pierre. Each year, 105 of our best and brightest gather for the session. Most of them are conscientious sorts so they work at least 10 hours a day, if you count the after-hours schmoozing. That’s 42,000 woman/man hours doing what? Is our system of laws really so dilapidated it needs that much tweaking? If South Dakota was a car and required almost two months in the shop every year, we’d surely trade it off.

Be that as it may, our lawgivers can surely spare a few hours to consider these suggestions.

AN ACT TO ENSURE THE HAPPINESS OF FOUR-WHEEL DRIVE VEHICLES

I was noodling through the mall parking lot one day when I happened upon an entire row of big, square, ugly vehicles. You know the breed: ponderous sport utilities and crew cab pickups you need a stepladder to enter, all with beefy tires and four-wheel drive. I was struck by the fact that there wasn’t a speck of mud or dust on any of them. They were all dripping chrome and showroom shiny. I suspect the closest they ever got to rugged terrain was the speed bumps at HyVee.

Not long afterward I saw a picture in the Sioux Falls Argus Leader of one such vehicle up to its door handles in the waters of Skunk Creek. It was found early in the morning, abandoned, and it’s not hard to imagine how it got there. At least two guys. Late. Testosterone and alcohol-fueled bravado/stupidity. Wee-haw. Vroom vroom. I’ve got four-wheel drive. Bet I can make it across. Vroom vroom. Rrrrrr. Clunk. Click. Click. Let’s get out of here before somebody administers a Breathalyzer test.

We can all agree these guys are most likely morons, but think of the favor they did for their vehicle. Most 4X4s these days are forced to live out their lives looking like Tarzan and driving like Jane, never busting through snowdrifts or exploring forests primeval like they were promised when they rolled off the assembly line. This act would require every SUV and vanity truck owner to produce evidence showing they at least drove through a mud puddle in the past year before their vehicle’s license could be renewed. We must end the abuse of these machines before they turn on us and crush us like an old car at a monster truck rally.

AN ACT TO REQUIRE THE MANUAL OPENING OF CERTAIN DOORS

While waiting outside my town’s wellness center one afternoon, I saw quite a few people enter the building. I was astonished by the number of them, able-bodied one and all, most wearing athletic gear and presumably there to exercise, who pressed the button meant to open the door for handicapped people. Young. Old. Male. Female. All made use of the button. Pushing a door open is just too exhausting, apparently.

Such behavior should be discouraged. By this act, all able-bodied individuals will be required to open their own doors. Those who don’t will get a temporary tattoo on the forehead that reads, “Lazy.” A week of being so branded seems about right.

If this law works out, follow-up legislation may mandate a “Selfish” tattoo for people who use two parking spaces for one car, and “Pigheaded” for those who get in the express checkout line with more than 10 items and refuse to move, knowing the clerk will give in to get the line moving. Citizens will be encouraged to submit their own ideas; soon there will be a dozen, a hundred, a thousand ways to get tattooed. No longer will we have to suffer in silence. Each of our pet peeves will be elevated to the status of law. Between that and everyone continuously informing on everyone else, the world will be a much happier place.

Some might argue that these penalties run afoul of the Constitution’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Not to worry. Something is “unusual” only if it doesn’t happen very often. Once it starts happening all the time then it becomes “usual.” Locking people in a room made of iron bars must have seemed pretty curious at some point in history. Now it’s normal. Once we have tattooed people walking around here, there and everywhere we won’t think twice about it.

AN ACT TO ENSURE FULL DISCLOSURE IN BAKED GOODS

Each and every year the state of South Dakota produces approximately 470 pounds of zucchini for every man, woman and child. This unwelcome bounty is a big problem. Lovers of this foul fruit of the vine, which I most assuredly am not, can only eat so much of it fried, baked or sautÈed. This causes them to seek out ways to use it in other recipes. Muffins. Bread. Chocolate cake — an abomination that cries out to the heavens for redress. Each fall I live in fear that I may accidentally ingest some.

This act would make it a felony to use zucchini in baked goods and not inform potential eaters of same. The prison term would be doubled for anyone who encourages consumption of a zucchini-tainted concoction by uttering, “Try some! You’ll never even taste it!” or the equivalent.

Since I’ve already done the heavy lifting by coming up with the Big Ideas, working out the details of these laws should only take a few hours. I have no idea what our legislators will do with the rest of their time. Perhaps a good book.

Editor’s Note: This column is revised from the January/February 2008 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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Sobbing in My Frozen Pizza

By John Andrews

I like going to college football games in the fall, especially in Brookings where my alma mater, the South Dakota State University Jackrabbits, play in the wonderful new Dana J. Dykhouse Stadium. I often buy single game tickets when they go on sale in late summer, but in particularly busy months I take it game by game.

Of course, my friends think there is a better way.”Why don’t you just get a media pass?” they ask. In their minds, it’s a free ticket in. I could enjoy the game from the comforts of a press box that’s cool during the warm days of August and September and toasty on those Saturday afternoons in October and November when the wind howls from the northwest, all while saving the price of admission.

I suppose it would be easy to submit a request. The university might even grant it. But I’m not there to write about the game, or any of the players. I’m just there because I like football and I want to watch. Someday, I might attend a game for magazine-related purposes, and maybe I’ll inquire about a pass, but until then I’ll buy my ticket (usually in section 206) and watch from there with a dish of cookies ‘n’ cream.

No, I’ve always said that taking advantage of my position in such a way is something I’d never do.

Until last week.

Having been with South Dakota Magazine for more than a decade, my email address has been bought, sold, shared and traded more times than I can imagine. I must be on the mailing list for every public relations firm in the country (and at least one in the United Kingdom).

As a result, I’m often flooded with press releases. Surely I was among the first writers in the country who was offered a chance to interview Sue McCarthy, founder and CEO of The Vault Luxury Resale and star of reality TVs”Resale Royalty.” McCarthy, I was told, would have great insights for men about shopping resale so they don’t completely ruin Valentine’s Day this year, as men are wont to do.”Women want to one-up each other on Instagram to prove they have the best boyfriend,” I learned.”So how does a guy get his girlfriend (or wife!) the gift she really wants — like a designer handbag — when he can’t afford the full retail price? The secret is to shop resale!”

Kieran Elsby graciously offered to introduce me to the Root7 G & Tea Cocktail Gift Set, which you can apparently use to brew a smooth gin and tonic just as easily as a cup of earl grey.”The borosilicate glass is compatible with both hot and cold beverages,” he wrote.”The possibilities are endless!”

Mackenzie Sanderson shared a new line of scarves from Sweat-o-pause. Using patented Coolcore technology, these scarves cool to 30 percent below skin temperature when they become wet with sweat or water.”This innovative and fashionable cooling scarf will keep women cool without anyone knowing they’re using it!”

The common thread with each of these press releases (in addition to excessive exclamation point use) is that none of them have anything to do with exploring life in South Dakota, which is our primary reason for existence around here. I could have tried a fun new Lotus Love scarf, or a teapot in which I could secretly make cocktails, but the point of offering these items to me is that I would, in return, use my position in the media to publicize them, thereby opening vast new markets to these companies. Since it didn’t seem natural to try to convince cowboys in Custer State Park that a Sweat-o-pause scarf would keep them cool during the buffalo roundup, or that tea time at the Anne Hathaway Cottage in Wessington Springs could potentially be A LOT more interesting, I declined their generous offers of free samples.

Then one morning, I found myself in a reckless mood. The press releases were flooding in, and I was just as quickly subjecting them to the trash when one appeared from Heather Wakely.”Move over meat and make way for pizza!” she wrote, excitedly.”Your grill can act like a portable pizza oven, giving pizzeria taste to a frozen pie. How about a story on creative food choices for tailgating?”

I knew there would be no story, but I do like pizza. In devil-may-care fashion, I clicked”reply,” instead of”delete.””I’d love some pizza samples!” I typed, taking special care to include exclamation points.”Please send them to the address in my signature block!”

I didn’t really know what would happen next. Would they require I speak to a chef or food developer in exchange for the samples? Would they make me sign a binding contract that stipulated I send a copy of my food review, which I never intended to write, before they gave up the goods?

I heard nothing until four days later when a cold-to-the-touch box arrived on my desk with the words”Freeze Upon Opening” written across the side. I opened it, and tucked beneath layers of finger-numbing dry ice I discovered three frozen pizzas.

Guilt washed over me.”These pizzas should be in the hands of a writer who can properly review them,” I thought as I shook my head in shame. Still, they arrived on a day when I had no lunch plans, so at noon I went home and drowned my guilt in a delicious chicken sausage pizza with Italian-style sauce and red bell peppers.

Ever since that day, I’ve felt pangs of regret about leveraging my position just to get free pizza, but there may be a way to assuage my guilt. SDSU still has a few home games left. If I find myself tailgating before kickoff, I’ll commandeer a grill and throw on a delightful thin-crust pizza from Smart Flour Foods.”These pizzas feature a robust tomato sauce and are topped with an indulgent blend of hormone-free cheese and uncured meats that are free of nitrites and nitrates,” I’ll tell my fellow tailgaters in a well-polished pizza spokesman voice.”In addition to premium toppings, the naturally gluten-free pizzas are made with an ancient-grain, Non-GMO Project Verified crust and clean ingredient list. They are available at select natural and mainstream markets nationwide for around $7.”

That’s better. See you in section 206.

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Heads Up, Ralph

By Roger Holtzmann

Road maintenance can be a sore subject for county commissions and the South Dakotans who live along our rural routes.

Our car has every high tech device that was known to the automotive engineers of 20 years ago. It’s a top-shelf 1997 Mercury Grand Marquis with digital everything, including door locks, which we’ve never trusted enough to actually use. There were lots of these on the road at one time — they were a favorite of the Golden Agers Who Drive Large Cars set, and you may have seen one in your rear view mirror with lights flashing because many police departments used them.

It’s easy to understand why the police liked them. In the event of a high-speed chase they would come out best in a collision with anything up to a cement truck, and you could easily fit three beefy prisoners in the back seat without scrunching. Which is important because an uncomfortable crook is an unruly crook.

Most of my automotive knowledge is decades out of date, so this probably isn’t a new feature, but our Merc is also equipped with a Vehicle Safety Shutdown system. This consists of a dingus that helps prevent fires by automatically cutting off the gas in case of an accident.

This shutdown is initiated whenever a sensor experiences a sudden, violent movement; it interprets this as a car crash and goes into panic mode.

“What the heck was that?” shouts the microscopic man in charge of the system as he picks himself off the floor. He’s been sitting at a desk with his feet up ever since the car was built, waiting for just this moment.”Shut off the gas! Call my wife! Tell her I’ll be late!”

Pardon my digression, please. Whenever I am confronted with a mysterious device my default explanation is always that there’s a little man inside making it work. Ask me sometime how a toaster makes toast.

Simply driving down a gravel road can also activate the VSS. I know this because Carolyn was driving home one evening, hit an epic bump and the car promptly expired. Nothing was obviously wrong — no smoke was pouring from the engine, no parts littered the road — but the car refused to start. She called a tow truck, and bless his heart, the driver had heard of the VSS. He popped the trunk, reset the system and Carolyn was back in business.

Living on a gravel road means living with a few certainties. Dust fills your lungs whenever the neighbor’s wild kid blows through the corner stop sign at 60 mph. Your car is always dirty, which at least hides the chipped paint. You will need to replace your car’s windshield at some point, or get used to looking at the world through long spaghetti cracks. You learn to approach every stop sign at a crawl lest the washboards set your bones to jumpin’ worse than an acute case of St. Vitus Dance.

I had made my peace with all that, then the road up and committed autocide on our poor Merc, which had never hurt anybody. It did give our youngest daughter a backache because the leather upholstered, six-way power-adjustable driver’s seat swallows you like a beanbag chair, but otherwise it has been a well-behaved, dependable source of transportation. Knock on wood.

When I was a numbskull and thought I knew everything — last month — I would have used this incident as a launching pad for a tirade about the Yankton County road department. Like chronic grumblers everywhere, I’d have begun by loudly and profanely pontificating on a subject I know less than nothing about, in this case road maintenance. I’d soon move on to taxes, of course, citing the new courthouse carpet as evidence of a county commission that would rather waste taxpayer money on frivolities than take care of roads.

Then I’d get personal by pointing out that an oil road runs right by a certain big shot’s property. For my finale I would dump on the county road workers. I’d recall the time I saw a bunch of them loitering beside their equipment eating sandwiches RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY! Disgusting!

These days I try to be more understanding of the difficulties faced by others. Take one small concern of the road department: the”gravel” on gravel roads. We spread a truckload of gravel on our driveway, and a year later it was gone. Where did it go? Did thieves strike? Did a glacier scour our place? What is it like, then, trying to keep a good gravel base on a hundred miles of road when NASCAR wannabes kick rocks into the ditch whenever they pass? I’m amazed there aren’t more giant potholes and epic washboards lying in wait for us all.

As I was pondering the case of our dead car and the road that killed it a thought occurred: Yankton is a small county. If it’s challenging to maintain roads here, what’s it like west of the Missouri, where the counties and reservations are much larger and have many more miles of dirt roads?

In the spirit of public service, I thought I would pass on a little wisdom. I pulled out my trusty highway map and looked for a town that only has gravel roads connecting it to the world, and I found Ralph, in Harding County. There were many other possibilities, but you’ve got to love a town named Ralph, don’t you? So here it is, Ralphites: if you’re ever driving down the road and your car dies …

Editor’s Note: This column is revised from the May/June 2016 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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Ready For Anything

By Roger Holtzmann

Winter driving in South Dakota can be hazardous if you aren’t properly prepared.

Kit-Kat bar, miniature (8)

Cup, styrofoam (2)

Kleenex, box, small (1)

If you had to guess, what would you say the above items have in common? Go ahead, guess. You’ll never guess. Not in a million years.

Okay, I’ll tell you. That’s the winter survival kit we carry in our car. You know. For emergencies. Out of all the things in this world, from shoes to ships to sealing wax, I’m not sure how we ended up with those three. But I do know this: We’re ready for anything.

Unlike most of my columns, where I write whatever pops into my head without regard for the facts or common decency, I actually did some research on what is supposed to be in an Approved Winter Survival Kit.

Flashlight. Extra batteries and bulbs. Spare alternator drive belt. Ice scraper. Jumper cables. Warning triangle. First aid kit. Warm blankets. Spare clothing. Food. Fire extinguisher. Tow rope. Maps.

Spare alternator drive belt?

What planet are those people from?

I doubt we’ll ever have an Approved Winter Survival Kit in our car. I don’t think we could even manage the flashlight. It’s not that we don’t have one. We have at least a dozen in the Put The Flashlight Away When You’re Done Using It So We Can Find It When We Need It I Swear To God You Kids Never Put Anything Away It Makes Me So Mad How Would It Be If I Made You Buy One With Your Own Money drawer. The problem is none of them work. Or you flip the switch and there’s a feeble little glow deep within the bowels of the bulb — which is less than useful when you’re trying to locate a remote control under the couch.

In that same drawer we have roughly 3,000 batteries. A, AA, AAA, C, D and those big honkers with springs on top. None are any good, but I can’t bring myself to admit that. I need a flashlight. I try one. It doesn’t work. Of course, I yell at the kids, which is my standard response to anything bad. Then I take out the batteries.

I put them back in the drawer. Maybe it’s a bad bulb, I think. Or this cheapo flashlight. I can’t risk throwing away good batteries.

I try different batteries. They don’t work. I put them back in the drawer. I get two more. From the drawer. The flashlight still doesn’t work.”Okay,” I tell the kids.”Two of you lift up the couch while the other one looks.”

Even after devoting considerable mental energy to the subject, I still can’t see any flaw in this process — nothing to explain why we never have a flashlight that works. If by some miracle we ever came to possess an Approved Winter Survival Kit, with an actual functioning flashlight, it would be borrowed quicker than a desperate child can wail,”Where’s the remote? I’m missing ‘Sponge Bob Square Pants!'”

Now that I think about it, we already have some of that other stuff in our car. Ice scrapers? At least four, crammed underneath the seat, all cracked, along with the pieces of a couple more. Jumper cables? A brand new set, guaranteed to be a foot shorter than necessary. Warning triangle? We’ll send the kids out with a red rag to wave. First aid kit? Seems like a waste of money. Blood congeals pretty quickly in the cold. Problem solved. Warm blankets? Got it covered. We have one that’s been in the trunk for years — it smells like dust, spare tire and gas. Spare clothing? This I don’t get. You’re stranded in a howling blizzard. Wind chill 800 below. You ran out of gas an hour ago. At that moment you decide you want to change clothes?

Food? Got it covered. Kit-Kat bars are what kept the Donner Party going. Fire extinguisher? The problem with having a fire extinguisher in your car is that, most of the time, your car is what’s on fire. It would be better if everybody else carried a fire extinguisher and you could borrow theirs. Tow rope? Sorry. Every rope we’ve ever had gets whittled away piece by piece. Put up a tire swing here. Drag your sister on roller blades behind the bike there. Pretty soon there’s not enough rope to hold up a pair of pants. Maps? Why? You’re in the ditch or stuck in a snowdrift or your engine’s going rrr-rrr-rrr-click. You’re not going anywhere, so you don’t need to know how to get there.

I guess we’re set, winter driving-wise. If you happen upon us by the side of the road — whether we’re stuck, on fire, rolled over or whatever — don’t bother stopping. We’ll be fine.

Editor’s Note: This column is revised from the January/February 2003 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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The Scent of Colome

By Michael Zimny

Outhouse curator Richard Papousek’s contribution to humanity is more olfactory than”The Factory.” His Outhouse Museum in Colome is a small shrine to the historic design of private spaces.

The project began about 15 years ago and a few miles down the road in Gregory, where Papousek formerly ran an antique shop. The museum came into being as a tourist draw, but according to some grew into something much more than that, and according to others is still just a tourist draw.

“As a kid, I grew up with outhouses,” Papousek says.”We had them at our school and on our farm, and they’ve all kind of disappeared. And I thought this would be kind of neat to make a little collection, so I did that behind my store.”

He put an ad in the paper.”People thought I was crazy, but they did come across with some unique outhouses.” His collection includes a double-door, a doggy outhouse and a shack reputedly frequented by Calamity Jane.

The Gregory museum opened to some national media fanfare, and then settled into its existence as an outhouse collection in a small town on Highway 18. After Papousek closed the shop, the museum spent a few years in a temporary home, and then went away.

The museum is making a comeback in its new digs in an alley behind Main Street in Colome. Papousek has brought back some of the classics, along with some new, old outhouses, locally acquired. Each is accompanied by a summary of collected oral histories about its provenance and notable visitors received.”Each one has a unique story,” he says, though,”sometimes it might get embellished a little. It’s outhouses, what do you expect?”

Perhaps this installation will set down roots.”Gregory didn’t really want to be known as the dump of the world,” Papousek says.”I come to Colome and they welcomed it with open arms.” The city even laid some new gravel in the alley.

Michael Zimny is the social media engagement specialist for South Dakota Public Broadcasting in Vermillion. He blogs for SDPB and contributes arts columns to the South Dakota Magazine website.

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Disappearing Gravel and Other Weighty Matters

By Roger Holtzmann

Henry David Thoreau wrote of wood that it warms you twice: when you chop it, then again when you burn it. As is true of many pearls of wisdom, this insight can be applied to other situations. Snow, for example, is a royal pain in the hoosegow not once, not twice, but many times over.

When the wind howls, great drifts of snow rise up and ensnare the automobiles of those silly enough to venture out for videos and pop tarts. Then the accursed stuff must be shoveled. Aching backs. Heart attacks. Those who own snow blowers are spared the shoveling — if their infernal machines, ignored since the last blizzard, will start.

After the snow comes spring. As you may recall from junior high science, snow plus warmth begets water. Water, in turn, begets mud and much sulfurous language. Clueless children and spouses leave trails of mud across kitchen floors. People clean the muck off their cars, only to see all their work undone when they drive through a puddle a block away from the car wash.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, muddy cattle feedlots are swallowing overshoes whole. They won’t be seen again until archaeologists unearth them several millennia from now and they’re put on display in an ancient history museum with the placard:”Rubber Overshoe (ca. 2000 AD). Worn by guards at the giant bovine prisons of this era, before hamburger was outlawed and the civil rights of our brothers and sisters in the animal kingdom were recognized.”

At the Holtzmann house, melting snow turns the driveway into a muddy mess, with puddles the size of Lake Oahe. Almost. This is quite a mystery to me. For 20 years we’ve been buying gravel by the truckload and using it to fill in the low spots on our driveway. Yet every year, low spots appear IN THE SAME &%$#@ PLACES!

Where does all that gravel go?

If the mental energy I’ve devoted to this mystery were converted into electricity, it would light up Seattle. As any person who drives on county roads will tell you, gravel has a way of disappearing from them. I understand how that happens. Cars, like those that blaze through our corner stop sign so fast they generate sonic booms, kick rocks into the ditch. Some of it is pulverized into dust, which is then carried away by the wind and deposited on every flat surface in our house. That doesn’t happen in my driveway.

Where does my gravel go? Do thieves make off with it in the dark of night? Are there sinkholes below my driveway that draw the gravel toward the center of the earth? Am I doomed to go on, like a modern day Sisyphus, endlessly pouring gravel into holes that will never be filled?

Moving on. Remember the old days, when the Publisher’s Clearing House sent out envelopes that said,”Regor Holzmumm, You May Already Have Won $1,000,000!” When they arrived you threw out everything but the Prize Claim Certificate, with its gold seal and official number. You always wondered if the entries of people who didn’t order anything went straight into the trash, but you returned your certificate anyway, and allowed yourself a moment to think about what all that cash might buy. A car that doesn’t release billowing blue clouds every time it starts. New underwear, with unstretched-out waistbands. Name-brand foods instead of plain label.

Nothing is as simple as that anymore, my friends. Publisher’s Clearing House has gone digital. They’ve been telling me I May Already Have Won! at least three times a day for months. After trashing the first billion emails, I finally got curious and opened one. Links led to links that led to still more links, each of which seemed to promise to be the electronic equivalent of my Prize Claim Certificate, but were actually come-ons proclaiming the BIG SAVINGS!

I’ve since returned to my earlier ways. I trash everything that comes my way from PCH. (Yes, we’re on familiar terms even though I’m ignoring them.) This leaves me, Regor Holzmumm, to wonder what will happen if I win and they notify me by email.

Moving on. Unless you’re one of those fanatics who’d rather read books than watch television, you surely have noticed the increasing number of advertisements featuring various products that … let’s just say they are directed at men and their egos. If you catch where I’ve drifted.

If this advertising blitz is any indication, it would seem the men of this country are suffering from a crisis of confidence. As a public service, I am want to remind men of a few things. Yes, we men started every war in history, except for the Trojan War, which was Helen’s fault. Sure, we steal cars, hold up convenience stores and generally keep prisons filled to overflowing. Disco was invented by a man, who will surely burn in hell for doing so. We don’t know who the first person to smoke tobacco was, but I’m betting it was a man. In my experience, women generally have more sense than to say,”Hey, let’s dry this plant, then burn it and inhale the smoke.”

Men are responsible for all these things and more, but we’ve done some good things, too. Men invented the microwave oven, and the popcorn to go with it. A man discovered penicillin, and conceived the Lazy Boy chair. Men designed automobile cup holders, and the coffee mugs that fit neatly into them, without which nothing would get done before 10 a.m.

With all that to recommend us, do we really need potions and pills? Here’s an idea, my fellow fellows. Build something. Plant a tree. Tell your wife she’s a babe, even though the evidence on that point may be less than conclusive. Help your kids with their homework.

That’s how to be a real man.

Editor’s Note: This column is revised from the May/June 2007 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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Culinary Mysteries

By Roger Holtzmann

There are things in this world which will forever remain beyond my understanding. String Theory, for example, suggests that multiple dimensions simultaneously exist in our physical space. I’m here at my desk, in other words, but in an alternate dimension shopping carts are rolling through my head because my molecules are part of the toiletries aisle in a Piggly Wiggly.

Other matters are far less esoteric, and relatively easy to grasp, yet they remain a mystery to me. Among these: why do people eat smoked meat?

As I understand the smoking process, you start a fire, then channel the resulting hot gases and unburned particulate matter through an enclosure in which cuts of meat or fish are suspended. It is the unburned particulate matter, I presume, which gives the meat that extra zing.

Devotees of smoked products lay great stress on how long it takes to prepare the flesh for eating, and the wood which is burned to generate the smoke. As for the first … something which takes a long time isn’t necessarily better than something which happens quickly. If it takes three hours to get your driver’s license renewed, are you happier than you would be if you got it done in 15 minutes? If slow-cooking is so great, why are microwaves more popular than malfunctioning electric burners which take two hours to heat up a can of soup?

With that rapier logic, I rest my case.

Hickory is the most often-mentioned wood for smoking purposes, although apple, peach and other fruit-bearing trees receive favorable mention in certain quarters. I will grant that such fuels are no doubt superior to tires or woodwork covered with multiple coats of lead-based paint, but that is all I will concede. Is one kind of smoke really more savory than another? If you blindfolded a guy and told him he was smelling burning hickory chips, could he even tell if it was actually a pile of 2×4 scraps? I’m just asking.

Which leads to my main point. Does anybody ever want to sit downwind of a campfire? Does anyone purposely close the damper on their fireplace so the room fills with smoke? If there is a fire in one part of a house, is the homeowner disappointed if only some of the other rooms get smoke damage? Does he plead with the firefighters to let the fire smolder so the whole place can fill with smoke?

I think not. Nobody likes smoke. It stinks. It makes you gag. So why do people infuse perfectly good meat, which they plan to put in their mouths, with the very thing they don’t like? When they eat this stuff, why do they say things like,”Oh … my … God … this is sooo good!” What is the appeal of food that tastes like it went through a forest fire?

Speaking of which … have you ever had a meal that was cooked in a cream can over a campfire? This is one of those who-ever-came-up-with-this-goofy-idea? things. If I hadn’t seen it done and tasted the results I might have suspected this was an internet hoax, like the one that claimed Mr. Rogers was once a Marine Corps sniper and contract killer, or you can win a free Tootsie Pop if you find a star on your wrapper.

Anyway … take an old-fashioned, three-gallon cream can. Pour in some beer. Put corn on the cob, standing on end, in the bottom, then top with vegetable and potato wedges; finish with a layer of bratwurst or spicy sausage. Place over hot coals and steam until the grease has soaked into the other layers.

Quite honestly, I was not predisposed to appreciate this culinary delight. My first thought was, it’s been a long time since people used cream cans. Where has this one been since then? Rusting away in a barn? My next concern was metallurgical. These cans were designed to hold cold or room temperature cream, not sit over a fire. What happens when you heat that metal? Does it exude noxious gases? Contribute metallic molecules to the dish?

Beer is good. Corn on the cob is good. Bratwursts are good. Why would you want to prepare these good foods in a way that causes them to taste like scorched bark, solder and each other?

While I’m on the subject of questionable culinary techniques … have you ever heard of cooking a chicken with a beer can inside? When I first heard of this crime against poultry I was flummoxed, to put it mildly.

“Why would you want to put a beer can inside a chicken?” I may have thrown in an expletive or two for emphasis.

“Well, there’s beer in it!” he replied in a tone that implied only a fool would think he meant an empty beer can.”It makes the meat moist.”

I have no personal experience with this dish so some may question my right to pass judgment on it. To them I say: I’ve never been shot in the toe with a nail gun, but I’m pretty sure it would hurt. If you catch where I’ve drifted.

By the way, I’m quite certain it was a man who came up with this. I don’t know any woman who would suggest such a ludicrous thing. Somewhere along the line there had to be a guy who really and truly abhorred dry chicken. So he considered the problem, and out of all the possibilities … this was his solution.

Seriously?

Editor’s Note: This column is revised from the January/February 2014 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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Too Long in the South Dakota Sun

By Katie Hunhoff

Humor is tricky. Stories we find hilarious don’t always resonate with South Dakota Magazine readers. But we’ve had good luck with a regular feature we call”Too Long in the Sun,” maybe because it’s mostly stories submitted by our readers.

In fact, it’s such a hit that it has survived for 100 issues, dating back to 1999. Let’s celebrate the birthday with a few favorites.

One of our most popular”Too Longs” was by Terry Williams on the Gettysburg turkey giveaway in the 1940s. The town’s business group heard of a popular promotion in another state where turkeys were given away from an airplane flying over town. So the Gettysburg businessmen bought six live Easter turkeys and arranged for a pilot to fly over Main Street at an advertised time. But when volunteers in the plane tossed the turkeys out, they didn’t fly or even float. They dropped like rocks. One hit the bank roof and five splatted on the pavement. Nobody was hurt but one lady was drenched in blood and turkey parts. The confused businessmen contacted the community that had successfully pulled off the turkey promotion.

“You don’t drop turkeys!” was the answer.”You drop ping pong balls and whoever catches the ball gets a turkey!”

We’ve learned that our best”Too Longs” are a bit zany, but as true stories of life in South Dakota they help to show who we are as South Dakotans (the Gettysburg turkey incident notwithstanding). One of my favorites in that regard was an excerpt from an autobiography by Allen”Jack” Kleinsasser titled Dakota Jack. Kleinsasser worked for decades with the Rapid City water department. One of his jobs was to collect from delinquent customers. Art’s Cafe in Rapid City was a regular stop on his list of late payers. Strangely enough, Art was always happy to see him and would immediately write a check for the bill and offer him coffee.

Kleinsasser couldn’t figure out why Art wouldn’t just pay the bill on time, and he finally asked. Art’s answer?”Back in the ’30s, when times were hard and there were a lot of people unemployed, my mother forgot to pay a utility bill and this guy came to collect or shut off service. The collector told her ‘thank you’ and said without people not paying on time, he wouldn’t have a job.” From then on, Art’s mother never paid a bill on time, viewing it not as an act of rebellion but as job creation. Art was simply following his mother’s philosophy.”Besides,” Art told Kleinsasser,”I like to visit with you once in a while.”

Kleinsasser noticed that Art was generous with the needy folks of Rapid City, often serving free hamburgers and fries, and a glass of Kleinsasser’s city water.

Other memorable”Too Longs” have recalled Claremont baseball champ Bill Prunty playing dead after being hit by a wild pitch and rodeo star Casey Tibbs proving his skeptics wrong at the twilight of his career. Then there was the veterinarian at the Sioux Falls stockyards who was asked how long pigs could live.

“I know some pigs that have now lived for 27 years,” he said.”I vaccinated them and the farmer told me he’d pay me when he sold them. That was 27 years ago.”

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Real Housewives of Milbank?

By Roger Holtzmann

Ain’t America a wonderful place? We can get clean, fresh water in our homes day or night, winter or summer. In many parts of the world that would be considered a major miracle. We can walk into a grocery store and find apricots and yams, buffalo and beef, arrayed before us. Our desperately poor cousins in Sudan don’t expect such a sight this side of heaven.

There’s another great thing about America. You can be dumber than a box of rocks and still get rich and famous. I am referring, of course, to the Kardashian family. They do not toil, nor do they reap — their sole assets are various out-sized body parts and no sense of decorum — yet they have found”careers” as famous people.

I don’t like to toot my own horn, but I wager that is the first time in the history of Western Civilization that Sudan and the Kardashians have been so closely linked. You should feel privileged to be part of this moment. Either that or very confused.

Here’s how it happened. I started out thinking about South Dakota, which I’m required to do 24/7 because of my position here at South Dakota Magazine.”How can I help this state that I love?” I wondered.

“I got nothing,” came the answer after a moment.”Maybe if I noodle around on the Internet I’ll get some ideas.”

Which never works, of course. By a process that is still a mystery to me, I wound up reading about the Coast Guard’s new Sentinel-class cutters. They are very cool, but they have nothing to do with South Dakota. So there I was, an hour older and no wiser.

As often happens, however, solutions to problems present themselves at unexpected times. I was watching TV when an advertisement for some Kardashian-related program appeared. That got me thinking about how lucky they are to be living in this country. Anywhere else on earth they would be living in well-deserved obscurity. From there it was a short hop, reverse spin and back flip to wonderful country, running water, buffalo, yams, etc.

Eventually I came full circle to the Kardashians, and that’s when it hit me: South Dakota needs a reality show to raise its profile. Think of all the stupid ideas that have made their way onto the tube, from beard growing contests to competing to snare a millionaire husband. I know for a fact that our state has plenty of people, maybe tens of thousands, who are as greedy, shameless and dim-witted as anybody on those shows.

Wait … that didn’t … all I’m saying is, we can do this!

Since this is my concept, I’ve taken the liberty of spitballing a few story ideas. Reality shows featuring police, firefighters and rescue squads are perennial favorites. Crimes and disasters are very entertaining when you’re on your couch eating Cheetos and not experiencing them. How about a show featuring a South Dakota town that only has one policeman? Camera crews could follow him night after night. Nothing would happen.

Okay, next idea. How about a show that tears the lid off the rage, lust and tawdry politics that writhe beneath the placid surface of a typical volunteer fire department? Imagine how riveting this scene might be for viewers.

“Where’s the key to the equipment locker? It’s supposed to be on the hook.”

“It must be in my jacket. Sorry. I’ll get it.”

We’re talking an Emmy nomination for sure! I foresee only one problem. By law, every reality show must feature a hot tub scene. I mean no disrespect to the dedicated volunteer firefighters of South Dakota, but … uh … I wouldn’t want to … uh …

Except for the guys in Yankton’s department, of course. I sure wouldn’t change the channel if you were featured in a hot tub scene. Not that … I mean … ah, jeez, please don’t”get lost” if there is ever a fire at my house.

Maybe we should go in a different direction. There are a number of The Real Housewives of Orange County type shows on the tube. Why not The Real Housewives of Milbank? I’m not a TV producer, but the formula seems pretty cut and dried. Put five or six women around a table in a nice restaurant. Have them drink a lot of alcohol. Wait for something to happen.

Think of all the positive exposure that might mean for some lucky town!

Competitive cooking shows are also popular. We could put a South Dakota spin on the genre by making it about real life challenges. In the first round, cooks would have to create a dish from a can of green beans and a bag of frozen tater tots, then get their kids to actually eat it. Scores would be based not on taste but on the most creative threats and/or bribes.

In round two, cooks would have to prepare a well-balanced meal when every pan and dish in the house is dirty. Possible meals might include cherry pie filling straight from the can or Tang on toast. Scores would be based on how convincing the cooks are when they’re extolling their choices as”nutritious.”

For the finale, cooks would be given a can of fruit cocktail and two boxes of lime Jell-O. No matter what kind of exotic, gourmet dishes they created — the possibilities seem endless — we can be certain they would show South Dakota at its very best.