There’s a sign suspended above Main Street that says, “Enjoy Milbank.” Well, yes we are, thank you. This little town (too small for a Wal Mart) has so much more to it than meets the eye. Frank went into town and scheduled us for a grain elevator tour! We have been rolling past these enormous structures for weeks now, and I was curious to see one up close. So, we headed out of town a few miles to see the newest and biggest. I was scared, I don’t know why. I was picturing this locked in, claustrophobic experience, and going up some tiny elevator inside a big cement tower or something.
What we saw were rivers of corn being let out from underneath big trucks, running through these enormous grates to be then scooped up from underground by a conveyor of many cups to carry it to the top of this 20-story structure. We were taken into an office where everything is tracked by computer. They store corn, wheat, and soybeans. They put probes into each truck before weighing the load to check for bugs, and if all checks out ok, this big company buys from the farmers who usually haul it in themselves with their own trucks. These people with the grain elevators are the “Middle Man.” They warehouse these grains and then sell most of everything to China. So that little kernel of corn or wheat or soy from the farm gets trucked to these elevators, then falls through a shoot into a railroad car to the west coast, then onto a ship to China. The man told us that it’s all about speed. They only get so much time to load railroad cars, or trucks, or there are big penalties. It’s a ‘round the clock operation. Wow. I gave him a CD as a thank you, and he hardly recognized me from the picture. That figures.
We were on a roll. We parked on Main Street to take a stroll through town, and we saw some trucks painted like cows. We wandered over there to find a cheese making plant. There was a Swiss flag hanging outside. That’s a good sign. It was Valley Queen Cheese. As it goes, two men traveled from Switzerland, met in Wisconsin, and started a business in Milbank, SD seventy-five years ago. Now they’re making 75 million pounds of cheese yearly! We got another tour! It was amazing to see these vats the size of Olympic pools with cheese, curds, and whey being stirred by what looked like gigantic whisks. We bought some yummy pepper jack and aged cheddar and invited everyone to our concert tonight. So hopefully, we’ll have some of the “big cheeses “ in town tonight!
Then we wandered over to the courthouse, which is usually the most historic and grand building in these towns. This was no exception. Inside was a marble staircase with scrolled brass banisters leading up several floors to a spectacular hand-painted rotunda. On the top floor was a classic courtroom, the kind you would see in “Perry Mason,” but maybe a little older and fancier. There were more than one defibrillator machines available, as well as a fainting couch in the Ladies room. I guess some pretty upsetting things can go on in that courtroom! There were other official offices as well on various floors, including a County Nurse facility that was open. In the entryway were many food boxes, filled and ready to go for the less fortunate in the area. Beautiful granite war memorials stood proudly outside to commemorate the people of Milbank, fighting for our country in all the various wars of the last century.
We walked on, we passed a boarded up old theatre and other beautiful old closed buildings. Life was rather grand back then for these town folk! Now, new buildings are usually Wal Marts or Pizza Huts. Sorry, I’m just a hopeless romantic. If I lived here, I’d try to keep the restoration funds going. Maybe I’m just out of touch with current priorities.
Almost to the car now, we passed by a little place that caught my eye. They had Wild Chokecherry jam in the window, and it was as local as you can get. We wandered in smelling some kind of meat being smoked, as I browsed through the homemade jams. A pretty young woman in a bonnet came up to the counter after she and her husband were conversing in a language I couldn’t quite make out. It sounded like some kind of German/English mix. Frank was fascinated at all the various sausages and smoked meats they were making. Hunters apparently bring them their freshly killed game to be processed into almost anything they like. They then sell the skins to fur dealers. We were given samples of Buffalo, Venison, and Summer Sausage. After buying some, they generously gave us other meats for our travels. Their adorable little daughter was running around, obviously enjoying these curious new people in their shop. I couldn’t hold off any longer, and had to ask where they were from. They said, “South Dakota.” Oh. Then they told us they were ex- Hutterites. That explained it. Hutterites are a strict community of German dissent, almost like the Amish. This family had left the group because they got tired of being told every detail of how to live. They travel in to town every day from far out in the country, and love it that way. The father said he once went to Chicago (the south side), and was scared to death. Never again for him! He laughed when I told him I was scared of the grain elevator this morning!
We went back to our room after a great outing, to a gourmet picnic of fresh cheese with Venison sausage, and apples with wild chokecherry jam for dessert. Now that’s livin’!
We arrived at the High School to be greeted by the Darrel, the association president. He was very helpful but rather reserved, so our first impression was of not being sure how well we would do with this audience. Boy, were we wrong! They cheered, they hooted and hollered, and laughed out loud! It was a healthy turnout, too, considering we had a basketball tournament to compete with. We were on cloud nine. It also helped to play with freshly styled hair and newly dry cleaned clothes. We decided that we would work to have our last five concerts are to be our finest yet. Tomorrow, even though we only have driving to do, we plan to schedule time to practice a few hours in the hall. This is last lap sprint time.
Frank told me that Darrel came up to him after our show and was very complementary. He said at first he wasn’t sure he wanted to listen to piano music for two hours, but was surprised to be that entertained and loved the show. He also ended up agreeing with my staging ideas. (I made some special requests about how I wanted things to look.) Remember many weeks ago when I talked about the reluctant man whose wife drags him to see some lady play the piano? The result is he is the first to stand, applauding, and he becomes the most wonderful fan and friend. Cool.
We loaded the car after the concert in the most beautiful, peaceful snow. You might think we’d sick of this stuff by now, but it was silently coming down and magical. Tonight was not brutally cold or windy. Let’s hope we still feel that way about this snow on our drive tomorrow to Glencoe, Minnesota. Better turn in. Wow, what a great day! When can we do this again?
ZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
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