After a stop at the Enterprise place in St. Paul to see what
was wrong with our rear door lock (we were standing too close to the car to set
it!!), we headed south to Rte. 90 north of the Iowa border. We met a high school/college
friend Joyce Herrick Rodenborn, who drove up from Harlan, IA, to meet us at
Spirit Lake at the Hey, Good Cookie restaurant for lunch. We arrived about
12:00 and she was there. Betty had not seen her in 50 years, since she left
Clarke after 2 years. Joyce and I had been friends probably since 9th
grade when she came from St. Cecilia’s catholic school and moved to Central Jr.
High. We were in drama classes/plays together and then in senior year we kind
of hung in the same social group when she was dating Tom Pomeroy and Bill Davey
and I were a couple. Fun times!
Then she went to Clarke for 2 years and we were both in the
Speech and Drama department. She left then and went in the convent in Dubuque
for a year and then returned to Ames to finish up there with a degree in
Speech, English and education. She met Bill Rodenborn an Agriculture student at
Iowa State. I think I first met him in Feb. of ’63 when her mom, Gwen, 45, died
very unexpectedly from a bad cold/virus! It was the first funeral I had ever
gone to. I went home from Clarke to attend, I remember! They had 9 children,
her dad was I believe in the Veterinary college at Iowa State. The youngest
Jackie was just 13 months old!! It was a real shocker!
Then a few years later, her dad met Joan with 4 kids, they
married and had another child between them and lived until 87 (her dad did). So
a very happy blended family.
 |
| Meeting with Joyce Herrick Rodenborn from Ames High and Clarke College, in Spirit Lake, IA |
She did some teaching (English), then worked for the Chamber of Commerce in Harlan (Bill was a teacher and died suddenly at 45!), worked at a local college and still teaches some GED courses. They had adopted Chris, their son, and then promptly had a girl and boy of their own! She looked and sounded great and happy! We had connected at the 30th, 35th and then a couple of years ago at our 50th high school reunion in Ames.
Back on the road after driving to see Lake Okoboji, a big
tourist lake there, we headed back up to Minnesota on Rte. 90 and into South
Dakota.
We stopped at the Mitchell, SD, Corn Palace which I’d seen
on a Sunday Morning segment, where each year (since 1892) they resurface the
building with different murals of various colors of corn and hay/straw. Inside
were all kinds of exhibits about the building and uses of corn as well as a
huge gift shop. At one of the video exhibits where I watched corn being picked
with a huge machine, I spoke with a couple, mentioning my first job was for 65
cents an hour detasseling corn when I was 15. Very dirty, buggy, hot job!!
Turns out the guy, 35 years retired from the Navy, had been born in Ames when
his father was a student. He and his wife now live in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho (one
of the 2 states I’ve NEVER been to, the other being North Dakota). They told us
2 must do stops: Wallace where you can tour a gold and a silver mine; and another
town where the last BROTHEL, I guess, in Idaho was closed in 1989 and you can
tour it! Looking forward to it!
 | ||
Couldn't resist stopping at the MITCHELL (my mother's maiden name) Corn Palace!
|
On our way out of Mitchell we stopped at the George McGovern Museum on the campus of his alma mater, Dakota Wesleyan University. It was closed but we had our picture taken by the stature of George and Eleanor! Now we’re headed to Wall, SD, and the Wall Drugstore – world famous for something, maybe the biggest? We soon cross the Missouri River, where the time will go back an hour to Mountain time. We’ll explore the Badlands tomorrow!
No comments:
Post a Comment