Section16cattleco’s Blog

Tales From the Outback

By Bryan Lutter

Old people are hilarious. They really crack me up. They say things like; “Them folks over in that town down the road are different.” Or, “I just don’t like that town. We need to get people to move here, not there.”

You almost never find a young person that thinks this way. I suppose it’s because young people travel more than their parents did. Young people generally do not equate city limits to the limits of human interaction. If our old classmates that moved to big cities measure the distance of their immediate surroundings to 30 minutes, then by definition every person in a given SD county lives in the same town.

Every town in South Dakota with a thousand person population maintains the following things;

1)   A coffee shop where guys get up early to go and chat about news. Sleeping in is not an option for these guys because politics, gas prices, and the weather can NOT talk about themselves.

2)   A bar with one cute barmaid. In every case she grew up in the town, started a family early in her life, and discovered the fella she started the family with became a loser.

3)   A grain elevator where farmers gather to discuss rain and grain prices. Here guys like me congregate to complain about grain basis, but never share constructive ideas on marketing. We just like to belly-ache.

4)   The old rich dude. This guy grew up in the town, went to high school there, and never really stood out until his thirties. He then began taking risks, and finally something worked. He then gained confidence and started more businesses, expanding each one. Eventually he created an empire. Most town folk look at this rag to riches person with a little contempt and a lot of skepticism. Without an exception, a rumor surrounds this over achiever that always goes something like this, “I heard that Our Old Rich Dude made his money selling drugs.” Ya, right. This guy worked around the clock in a tractor or behind his desk and somehow he maintained a secret life of a Columbian drug lord. Sure.

5)   A hot new single school teacher that just moved to town. She gets mobbed by offers from potential suitors until she finally chooses the successful young farmer. He builds her a nice new house; they have 2.6 kids, and live happily ever after.

6)   A highway patrolman who just moved to town 6 months ago. Since moving in, he made exactly zero friends, and likes it that way. He got used to that when he went through high school and got picked on non-stop.

7)   The newly divorced 30 year-old woman who kept her looks. When she walks into the local bar, all the wives immediately scoot their chairs a little closer to their husbands. These wives flash each other desperate looks in hopes they can come up with an answer for this dangerous threat. The only solution they muster is the classical whispering into their husband’s ear, “Did you hear what a slut she is? It’s all over town what a slut she is, I just can’t believe what a slut she is.”

   The 50 year-old ex-high school football jock that can not move on. This guy despises all neighboring towns. He can’t sleep for weeks after his daughter brings home a fella from one of those evil arch-rival neighboring towns. Rumors of problems in the rivals school system remains the only thing that keeps this guy from completely losing it.

9)   The coolest guy back in high school who now is 25 years old. This person got all the girls, drove the best cars, and found himself at the center of every party. Now he doesn’t want to get stuck alone, but is too old to hang with the high scholars. He suddenly realizes that all the available single gals live in a big city. He gets mad because that hot new school teacher that just moved to town hooked up with the young successful farmer.

10) Every such town has its own newspaper ran by a knockout 26 year-old babe. This publisher is usually married to a seed corn jockey. The seed corn jockey can’t help irritating people. His die-hard belief in unfettered laissez-faire capitalism and trying to make folks think provide him with endless fodder for political discussion.

Yup. It’s true. The only thing that changes from town to town in SD is the name. I truly believe that the three main problems holding back prosperity in rural America are; 1) our bazaar identity with the municipality in which we live, 2) a general unwillingness to partner and work with neighboring towns, and 3) an absurd tendency to cling to the past.