The Family Reunion
In memory of Dan- In fairness, the bean-bag toss was pretty fun
Before the reunion, the Springfield branch of the family was practically the stuff of legend to me. Though I spent a fair chunk of time with my family in the state, the rich Dutch farmers who hailed from the stickiest of all sticks in Eastern South Dakota still seemed a world away. The reason for this is that my great-grandfather hightailed it to Chicago the second he got into college, creating a more city-loving branch of the family. However, when my grandma received notice that a family reunion was being held in Springfield, my mom was all too eager to introduce me to my long-lost relatives. My mom, my grandma, my great-uncle, and I piled into Mom’s Highlander and prepared to undertake the journey.
The trip across South Dakota was full of random attractions. First, we stopped at Wall Drug, an overgrown gas station that sells weird souvenirs and decent food. Our next stop was the World’s Only Corn Palace™, in Mitchell, South Dakota, a building that had murals on the side made entirely of corn, a large marketplace that sold corn-themed merchandise, and a small restaurant that served corn. There was also a larger concentration of Shriners at the corn palace than in any other place that I’d been. Seeing the World’s Only Corn Palace™ prompted several questions in my thirteen-year-old brain: 1. Why does the World’s Only Corn Palace™ exist? (Easy- Because somebody wanted to build a corn-themed palace in rural South Dakota) 2. Why is the World’s Only Corn Palace™ a landmark? (Couldn’t answer that one) and 3. Why is the World’s Only Corn Palace™ the world’s only corn palace? (Easy, for self-explanatory reasons).
I should probably tell you about Springfield before I talk about the reunion. There is one restaurant in town, and its menu items are bread, eggs, and maybe some kind of meat. Besides the restaurant, the main landmark of the town is the Mike Durfee State Prison, which probably houses minor drug offenders. There are suburbs for the middle-class, neighborhoods for the lower-middle-class, and massive farms for the wealthy.
My story begins at one of these farms: After seeing the obligatory random attractions, my family and I arrived at the home of Bev and Dan, two perpetrators of the reunion. After an awkward few minutes talking to Bev and Dan on their doorstep without being invited in, we went into their yard, where I challenged Dan to a bean-bag toss. I later learned that the bean-bag toss boards had been made by inmates at the prison and obtained for next to nothing, which seemed ethical. Beth also kindly let me know that these boards, adorned with the logos of the Denver Broncos, were the only ones of their kind: Soon after the inmates created them, copyright concerns arose and the prison was forced to nix the creation of such beautiful goods.
After the stop, we went to stay at the Wagon Wheel Inn, a little motel in the middle of town. I don’t remember too much about the Wagon Wheel, which means it was probably all right. It had what you’d expect- OK beds, a somewhat grimy shower/bath, a creaky sink, and a marginally functional blow dryer. I didn’t mind it that much, which is probably because I spent all of my time there asleep.
The next morning, we got into Mom’s car and went to the breakfast place. There was something reassuring about going in and immediately getting asked how I wanted my eggs, even though they didn’t turn out all that good. After that, we went to the reunion spot- a weird little school or convention area, like a city council meeting spot in a 50s show. Unfortunately, we were dreadfully early, so I had to deal with the extended family for a while. I met a couple of kids who were introduced to me as my “cousins” which seemed to be the term of the day for “incredibly distant relatives with practically no relation to you who also happen to be almost your age”. We played football, which was kind of weird considering we only had 3 people, but, as the oldest, I assumed the role of permanent quarterback. I’m pretty sure I won.
At about 11:30, the reunion kicked off. I don’t really remember what we did at the actual reunion because I was busy talking to one of my cousins, the other of whom had wisely left. As the adults talked about boring family stuff, we gorged ourselves on Cheetos, cookies, and delicious Dutch pastries. Eventually, the sugar rush made us hyperactive, and we began undertaking a series of random and absurd activities. These ranged from the least hazardous and ever-popular bean-bag toss (with a couple of younger relatives) to the most hazardous “Chair Jump” which we, in our respective 5’ 4” and 5' 2” glory, considered a dangerous, terrifying, and glorious activity worthy of our valuable time. The game basically consisted of jumping over a chair and trying to jump earlier and elevate more each time until somebody got hurt or an adult intervened. At the time, I was built like a post (I guess I still am) and weighed around 85 pounds, so I had no trouble propelling my sugar-fueled frame over the chair. However, my cousin was having a little harder of a time with the “Chair Jump”. He cleared the chair on his first jump, and on his second jump as well, but he seemed a bit winded at that point. However, he was intent on matching my jump as we turned to face the chair a third time. I took off at a fair distance from the chair and almost wiped out, catching my toe on the back of the chair. As I looked back at my cousin, who was already running toward the chair. I realized that he was going to jump from the same spot. I couldn’t stop him, and he absolutely wiped out. As adults converged, he began laughing, and we moved on to the next thing.
Eventually, we all sat at a table and sang Gospel songs for a little bit. My cousin did not live up to the hype of the mortifying videos Bev and Dan had shown us, wherein he sang the inevitable midwestern classic “Radioactive”, by Imagine Dragons. Notwithstanding that letdown, I still got a kick out of the music, especially the club classic “My Jesus, I Love Thee”. After about fifteen minutes of pretending I knew the words to the Gospel songs, the reunion officially ended. Relieved, I thought we would head back to the Wagon Wheel and get going since it was only about 3 PM. By my calculations, we could be back in Deadwood, where my more immediate family (grandparents, great-uncles and aunts) lived, by about 10 PM. However, the adults had other plans.
To begin with, they took us to see a graveyard where a lot of our family members were buried. The thing that struck me the most about this trip was the grave of one man who, in lieu of a gravestone, had been marked by a post with two printed pictures nailed on: a blurry image of his face and a slightly clearer image of a red Ferrari, maybe an F355. I still wonder whether the man would have rather had a gravestone, or if he was content with the plywood post and the fast car. When I asked Dan about him, he said the guy was a drunk and moved on.
After this trip, my grandma, my great-uncle, my mom and I, along with some other relatives, went to see Dave (Another of the people responsible for the reunion) at his farm.
We talked to Dave for too long. My mom had made the mistake of commenting on his fairly large TV, a rare amenity in Springfield. Dave had thanked her, and then somebody asked him what channels he had on it, to which he responded “Most stuff, but not football.” I was (and still am) a football fan, and asked him why he didn’t want to watch football. He replied by going into extensive detail about why he disapproved of Colin Kaepernick kneeling during the national anthem. I was astounded by Dave’s brave choice: The big shots at the NFL must have been shaking in their boots when Dave Janssen from Springfield, South Dakota canceled his football channels. They knew he meant business, too, because no midwestern man cancels his football channels save for an absolutely cataclysmic event. This would surely put a stop to all that pesky activism on the part of the athletes, and hopefully they could regain Dave's viewership one day.
Once we had finished with that utterly painful conversation, Dave took us on a little tour of the farm. I assumed he would take us through the fields, or show us some animals (Angus beef was the biggest export of Dave's farm). This would have been a bummer for me as I’m a vegetarian and really love animals. I would’ve been somewhat rattled if Dave had taken us to see the healthy cows that would one day have become Janssen Angus™. Thankfully, Dave saved me this sadness by showing us all something many times worse: the pen where the sick cows were kept. Why he took us there, I still don’t know, but it was pretty awful. Dave explained that these cows wouldn’t be slaughtered on account of their sickness, feebleness, etc. I thought they might have gotten lucky until I saw how cramped the cows’ pens were and how many flies they had to deal with.
Next, he took us by one of his friend’s houses, where he had to feed some animals. These animals also had atrocious living conditions, especially one puppy in a cage that acted like it hadn’t ever seen a person before. I felt awful for it as we drove away, its barks fading as Dave’s GMC accelerated and we once again distanced ourselves from the reality of the animals' situations.
Back at the farm, Dave told me I could sit in a tractor as it baled hay. This seemed cool to me as I looked out at the field and watched one of his sons drive the tractor. When you hear “tractor”, you think of an old, beat-up green jalopy with smoke coming out of it. However, Dave is rich. As such, his tractor had a cab, a remote-controlled bailer, and air conditioning. This seemed much more enjoyable to me than seeing sick animals die slowly. Now, seeing the shiny new tractor and the shiny new baler bale the hay was really nice the first time, and maybe even the second time or the third time. However, after watching five hay bales made, it became apparent to me that I was going to sit there till the job was done. After about an hour and a half sitting in the tractor doing nothing, all the hay in the massive field had been baled and I considered myself a valuable, albeit somewhat bored member of Dave’s farming team.
There were a fair number of family members at Dave’s house, and he proclaimed that, on an occasion such as this, we should go to The Restaurant. Judging by the worshipful way that the other family members regarded his suggestion, I was under the impression that The Restaurant would be lavish and amazing. This notion was further cemented in my brain when I was told that the restaurant was all the way in Nebraska. I soon realized that Nebraska was less than thirty minutes away, on account of Springfield’s location in eastern South Dakota, but it still seemed cool to me that we were going to a whole different state to eat. We all got in our respective cars and began the drive.
The Restaurant was a letdown. It was sort of a buffet and only really served meat, which I didn’t eat, opting instead for a baked potato. Sadly, there was no butter, only margarine, so I basically ate one potato with nothing on it for dinner. This was abysmal, even compared to my previous Springfield dining experiences. I went home somewhat disappointed, but with a full stomach, which was alright in the grand scheme of things.
I thought I was going to bed at that point, but apparently the city had decided to have its 4th of July fireworks a few days late (It was the 7th). Since a lot of family members were going, my mom made me go as well. It was pretty late, and I dragged my feet, expecting something really lame. It was a random town in the Midwest, after all, not a big city event. The fireworks wouldn’t be any good. The sky darkened quickly and I prepared to fall asleep. And then the fireworks started.
The fireworks were the most amazing that I had ever seen. They lasted about half an hour, and I loved every second. A lot of farming towns are pretty well-off, and it appeared that this particular town had chosen to spend all its money on fireworks. There were machines that shot little fireworks into the sky, massive fireworks formed by tiny explosions, and huge fireworks that I couldn’t even describe. There was even an accident, when a remote-controlled firework went off on the ground and ignited every firework within a ten-foot radius. This caused an amazing orange explosion (nobody was harmed), and everyone gasped and clapped. The explosion was the most memorable aspect of the show, the crowning glory of the best fireworks display I’ve ever seen.
At the time, I didn’t think of the fireworks display as a metaphor, but, in retrospect, I realize it could never be anything but. The trip, of course, was not a metaphor. The trip was all too real, all too much of a window into the weird, backward, and disconcerting lives of my distant relatives. However, when I saw the fireworks display, it showed me that even in the strangest of situations, there might be something bright, beautiful, amazing, and unexpected. My family members may have been very flawed, but they were my flesh and blood, and they meant well. And who isn’t flawed? I was (and still am) and had no right to judge. So, as I waved goodbye to Dave, Dan, Bev, and the others as we finally left Springfield the morning after the fireworks show, I decided that my memory of the experience should be less about their faults and more about the great, weird, funny, sometimes surreal memories that they created.