To shred or not to shred

What does google have to say this week about South Dakota’s congressional delegation?

Tim Johnson, YOU MUST DEBATE according to this person.  Somebody had the great idea of submitting the candidates a questionnaire to fill out, and then the results would be published in the Argus and elsewhere.  I really like that idea.

John Thune is pretty good about getting bridge funding, I’ll give him that.

The most recent Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin story is a hearty thank youfor the work she, Tim and John did concerning a De Smet situation.

Now, back to our weekly list of links that caught my eye.

Kelo finds a few political women in South Dakota to speak on the Palin pick.

Attention all salmon who wish to spawn in Lake Oahe: good news.

For the sports fans, here are your preseason football poll results.

Pierre’s school district hashes things out in court with a local radio station.

Speaking of Pierre, any comment to this seems a bit inappropriate to me today.

I swear, the Brookings Register decided to be less funny lately.  This is the best they could offer?

On the plus side, the Register honors their oldest paperboy.

How does one have a barn and not notice it’s on fire?

A crime wave in Spearfish?  What next?

“Thanks for stopping by our new wind farm Mr. Thune, but come back when we need a gust of hot air.”

Also, the wind is soon to be harvested by Brookings.

Brookings also plans to outlaw the crazy cat ladies.

South Dakota Republicans issue their expected “duh” statement.  Interesting tidbit from the story: the last time the state voted a Democrat for president was Lyndon Johnson.

Speaking of duh statements, they Brookings City Council had to vote on allowing more liquor licenses.  Guess how that went?

Residents of Clear Lake (the one that’s just a lake, not the city by Gary) can continue to use the lake as a toilet.  Ewwww…

My home county is experiencing more shrinkage.

Aberdeen’s county has a budget, and it’s a whopper.

This week’s animal story in Rapid City is not one to be taken lightly.  At our house we put out cheap, dry cat food for the strays.  If we lived in rapid we’d have to put out Wal-mart steaks.

New Underwood is only 100?  The state has residents older than that.

Today I started going through some old paperwork and a few boxes of odds and ends that have accumulated over the years.  I managed to get a garbage bag half full of things to throw away, but instead of being happy Kate was concerned with the half empty tote of stuff I was saving.  She likes to give me grief about being a “hoarder in training” or some such nonsense, and sometimes I think I’m teetering on being owned by my stuff.  There is a lot I could get rid of, but I feel a need to save things to keep some memories alive.  Everything I put in the tote reminds me of something, and I’m sure someday I’ll go through it and just surf the wave of things to remember.  We watched a special on hoarders on TLC a few weeks ago, and they talked about how a hoarder’s mind worked.  The stuff = memory thing I just used to describe myself was talked about in the special, which didn’t make me feel so good about my future.  I really don’t think I’ll be buried under a mountain of my crap.  Or maybe I’m hoping.  There are so many childhood details I don’t remember, mainly because a lot of things from my early childhood are long gone.  College and post college seem so much more vivid because of all the mementos, or because it’s closer in time.  I’ve had to really think hard to remember some details for my Farmington blog, mainly because I only have one or two things from the experience left.

One thing I did find today was an old card from my mom.  She talked about her usual things that didn’t make too much sense, but at the end she put something that threw me for a loop then, and still does when I think about it.  “I still miss your dad sometimes” was scrawled at the bottom.  It was odd finding it again today, because he passed away twenty-nine years ago today.  That is one day that needs no mementos.  It is probably for the best that I don’t have any.  I had put it mostly behind me through college and the first few years afterward, but in the last several years the wound has started to reopen a lot more often.  I could list a number of reasons why, but that’s a whole other blog for another day.  I’ll just say I’m thankful to have Kate around to help me through it when it happens.

On a happier note, while shredding documents, I found something from our mortgage company.  I was about to feed it until I noticed it was our annual escrow statement.  Again, I was about to shred it until I noticed an overpayment check for around $150 at the bottom.  Needless to say, it didn’t get shredded, and now Kate and I are going to hit some Labor Day sales, as I’m taking Labor Day off for the first time in my life.  Severe weather permitting of course.