Every once in a while I get the opportunity to drive through the empty country. It isn’t really empty. There are so many things to see and each trip is a chance to watch the subtle effects of light and land and to commune with the hawks and eagles. There are plenty of cattle and sheep on the National Grasslands that are a part of Northwestern South Dakota and Southwestern North Dakota. There just aren’t as many people and not as many cars as in some other places. Driving through the open country gives me time to unwind a little bit and allow my mind to wander and reflect.

Yesterday’s drive was full of memories. I was headed to Hettinger, the town where we lived for seven years in the 1970s and 80s to officiate at the funeral of a woman who had served as the treasurer of one of the churches we served.

There are a lot of people who live in the hills who have never visited Hoover or Reva or Prairie City or Holland Center or Lodgepole. I guess that there are some who would wonder why anyone would want to go to those places. It is possible to drive through them without seeing any people, though usually there are cars at the post office or the store and you could always find a helping hand if something went wrong. It was Thursday, so if there were anyone at one of the rural churches along the way it would most likely mean that there was a funeral, in which case there would be so many cars that they would spill out of the church yard and be parked alongside the highway. Never fear, however, those churches aren’t abandoned, at least not most of them. You can tell by the fresh paint on the steeple and the new shingles on the roof that there are folks who love and care for them and that their presence on the prairie and tucked into the rolling hills is a lifeline for the folks who live on the ranches.

For me the country is full of stories. I can show you the curve where we hit black ice one winter and slid into the ditch without damaging our car. I can show you the ranch house where the woman gave us cookies while the rancher started his tractor to pull us out of the ditch and where they refused my attempts to pay them for their help. I can show you a place where we had a picnic on our way through the Slim Buttes and where we went to cut Christmas Trees.

The stories fall into two categories. When I drive through some of the small towns, I can remember the days when the cafe was full and if you stopped for coffee at mid morning you might get involved in a conversation that lasted into the afternoon. I can remember folks standing outside the post office exchanging news and views. I can remember the high school football fields filled with folks and cars parked all around. I can remember the full store fronts and the days when tiny towns still had two grocery stores and the hardware stores had harness rings and the machinery dealers actually stocked spare parts and the machine shop could manufacture nearly anything made out of steel.

I know that what I remember is the way it was. There are also stories of the way things are: of empty homes and storefronts, of dust blowing down the street and no one outside to complain about it, of folks moved away and of funerals - too many funerals. It was a funeral after all that brought me back to the small church with the house right next door where my family lived.

Its been thirty years since we moved from that house and the carpet in the sanctuary of the church is the same and it isn’t worn out yet.

Sometimes it seems as if the very soul of rural Dakota is changing. Take the country we knew when we lived there, add a farm crisis, mix in the dramatic changes in health care delivery, splash it with an oil boom and bust, install the infrastructure for an RV parking area that, while spartan, is way nicer than a man camp, and spice it with the normal cycles of kids being born, growing up, moving to the cities, and the adults growing old and facing health crises and ending up in the nursing home before being laid to rest in the old cemeteries. You might end up thinking that the things you once thought would never change are gone forever.

I remember when you’d have the choice of a dozen different salads at funeral lunch in that country. I remember when a little lunch over a farmhouse table involved fresh-baked pie. I remember when 4-H and FFA were the main activities. I remember thinking that it would never change.

Of course that was wrong. Things always change. Hidden south of the buttes in Harding County archeologists are excavating sites that contain fossils of Dakotaraptor a large bird-like creature that has been extinct since the end of the Cretaceous period. The published reports of the find describe a place filled with creatures that bear no resemblance to anything I’ve ever seen. And my experience is nothing like the days when that part of the continent was home to the last of the gigantic free-roaming buffalo herds that once ruled the prairies. If you are lucky, you’ll see coyote and fox when you drive through the country, but the wolves are gone. Times change. Things don’t stay the same.

As I crawled to bed last night, I was aware that I have changed as well. There was a time when I would get up and work a half a day before making the three hour drive from up there to Rapid City, do my errands and drive home after dark and think nothing of it. Last night I felt pretty tired as I closed my eyes. I wouldn’t want to repeat the process too soon.

As I closed my eyes, however, I remembered the glory of the sunset and the beauty of the land, grateful for the opportunity to once again travel through the empty country.

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