Any Rapid City-area DUers here?

[liberalhistorian]

I'll be moving there in a week or so from Cleveland to take a paralegal job at Dakota Plains Legal Services. I have to leave my teenage son with my parents for awhile. Since I'll be coming out 1,500 miles away from home alone, I wondered if there were any DUers in that area?

[sarahlee]

1. Welcome to the State

Afraid I am a bit to your east - on the Rosebud Rez. I get over to Rapid occasionally, though so maybe there will be a chance to meet sometime.

[alrightjim]

8. Nobody does it like Sarahlee

Hi Sarahlee. Going down the list of South Dakota folks. Just joined this forum. I am in belle Fourche and if you read my posts to the other folks I posted before you there is plenty of additional info I won't repeat here.

Rosebud, huh? Are you Lakota, then? It's a big question, because if a person is from Pine Ridge, where my mother was born, you can bet they are Lakota, but I know lots of nice wasicu folks born and raised on Rosebud. One was my son's teacher here in Belle, so small world.

Jimmy

[sarahlee]

14. Greetings Jimmy

Sorry to be so long checking back in here.

I am French, Caddo and Seneca, not Lakota, but have lived here since 1992. I have Lakota family here so when I was living in TX always came up at least once a year and the Native American Church branch of the family stayed with me when making trips down to the medicine fields in Mexico.

When I decided to leave the city and live a bit more self sufficiently I had hopes of living in the Big Horn Mountains in WY. Didn't find the right place before snows started falling so wound up camping here through the first winter and then just stayed.

I live out in the country on the western side of the rez in a straw bale house that is still under construction. (I have a feeling it will still be underconstruction when I die - getting electricity and phones in a coulpe of years ago was really detrimental to the building project. Too easy to get on-line instead of working. LOL!)

Anyway - nice to meet you.

Re Lakota being respectful of the flag and the US - well there are many complex reasons. Respect is one of the key virtues. Warriors, even when your enemy have always beeen respected and Lakota have always fought in US wars. Then there is the Christian indoctrination factor - our only radio station is still run by the Catholic Church and broadcast christian and right wing propaganda all day. And there is the fear/coersion factor when almost everything you do is tied to federal funding.

Political Party Loyalty is complex as well since both parties regularly screw the people. Right after Daschle and Johnson had come to Pow-Wows "fed the people" and promised protection and honoring of treaty rights, Lakota put Johnson in the Senate and Daschle turned around and screwed the tribes over Missouri River water rights. They know that both parties will screw them over regardless so voting for one over the other is seldom going to invoke a lot of enthusiasm. And I think that the more activist types did want to send a clear message to the Democrats that they could not be ignored in South Dakota.

Anyway, that is the short version of how I see it.

Good to digitally meet you and glad to have you aboard.

[alrightjim]

15. Hi again sarahlee

SL: "I am French, Caddo and Seneca..."

Interesting mix. Is it common? I got to know Caddoan folks up in North dakota, although I have never met a Caddo before, not even electronically, I am thinking this tribe is from Texas mostly?

SL: "I live out in the country on the western side of the rez in a straw bale house that is still under construction. (I have a feeling it will still be underconstruction when I die - getting electricity and phones in a coulpe of years ago was really detrimental to the building project. Too easy to get on-line instead of working. LOL!)"

I used to really get after it online maybe five, seven years back. Belonged to lots of boards and chats and had email buddies I met through the Znet penpal service. Gradually fell away from all that. My anarchism ain't really appreciated even by progressives. So I never discuss it and that creates a false me for the sake of propriety and I end up feeling like a third wheel and stop posting. Hasn't happened here yet, although my attempts to post on the rest of DU have frustrated me. I just can't find a spot that i want to really settle into. It is good to have this SD window open though, I am so used to talking to folks from across the pond and having to explain and explain and explain basic self-evidence for folks like us.

I am trying to picture your house in my head and it makes me laugh. Because I would rather live in an isolated situation like that than in a fancy suite. I wanna live where I can step outside in my underwear and curse a blue streak and toke a doob, even though I ain't toked a doob in 20 years, and not have to worry about neighbors, where the stars are bright and no city lights illuminate any horizon. Even though my neighbors are ignorant Republicans who aren't very friendly to me, that is okay, they aren't in my yard making trouble for me, either.

SL: "Good to digitally meet you and glad to have you aboard."

Thanks, pardner. If not for places like this, the isolation between like-minded progressives in this state is disheartening. The Conservatives are linked hand in hand, thinking like one big ugly ant colony. Just knowing a handful of us post at a little spot like this is encouraging.

Jimmy

[Sal Minella]

2. Some South Dakota d.u.ers hang out here....

http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/bb/index.php?act=idx

Rapid City Journal maintains an online forum with both National and Local message boards -- an interesting assortment of a few inarticulate right-wingers and several people who also post on D.U.

The pace is much slower than D.U. and one gets to know individual posters fairly rapidly. Hope to see you there!

[alrightjim]

7. I like your flag

Hi Idealist Hippie. Ok if I call you IH for short? I will click the Journal link. I'm in Belle, IH, where you located? I figure I might as well post to every SDer listed here just to be polite. Hard not to like a guy calls himself Idealist Hippie and flies an upside down flag.

When I was a kid we would turn our back to the flag like at the state basketball tourney when it first came to Rapid in 1978? Yeah, we were hardliners, and we turned our backs, and so did the two custodial guys sweeping up the court! That type of thing was doable then, the nation having just left the Sixties, still feeling the guilt over Rosa Parks and all that, but when Reagan came it all changed. You never see Indian folks turning their back on the flag now. If the custodial guys tried it now, they'd be fired. What has happened to the voice of dissent in this country? Sad. At games I attend the hardliners remain seated, sure, but given there is a Lakota version of the Star Spangled Banner being sung it is a little hard to express your dissatisfaction with the government, without insulting the Lakota guy doing the singing, particularly when they pay tribute before the game by parading all the Lakota war veterans and some are handicapped from their tour of duty. You don't dare say anything then. And just when you are sickened by the hypocrisy of it all, John Thune will show up waving and smiling. They booed him first time he ran, way back in the House days. Now he gets no boos. They don't cheer, but they don't boo. Because unlike Daschle and Johnson he actually comes and hangs with the skins, shoots hoops. He's a jerk, and a crass manipulator, but he's there, and he appears to sincerely want to be there and so he's made headway with the Lakota vote.

Well, that's enough water cooler chat for my first post to you. I'm just happy to know there are folks from South Dakota on a forum like this. Given my neighbors, in any given direction, I was starting to feel like an army of one.

Jimmy

[existentialist]

3. Welcome to SD

I am also a bit to your east (and north) on the Cheyenne River Reservation. But I make it to Rapid about once a month.

[alrightjim]

6. Mitakuye Oyasin

Hey wicasa. Your first name ikce?

I'm in Belle Fourche, not far from you. Odd to see an Indian guy posting on a forum like this, given my past experience. But happy to see you here. Look forward to posting with you.

Jimmy

[existentialist]

10. "icke wicasa"

It would be going a step too far toward misrepresentation for me to adopt a handle like "icke wicasa." Truth is, I had to look it up to know what you were talking about, . . .


But I take no offense.

[alrightjim]

11. No offense intended

wicasa: "It would be going a step too far toward misrepresentation for me to adopt a handle like "icke wicasa." Truth is, I had to look it up to know what you were talking about, . . .


But I take no offense."

That's good. Just means the common man, is all, wicasa, in English, but of course, it has a much more profound Lakota meaning. It really means the Ideal Man in lakota, because being a common man is what a decent person strives to be. I was just playing off words. I am an atheist and a skeptic so maybe I was being a bit too irreverent about a spritually significant state of being, and I apologize to any person offended by that.

So how'd a smart guy like you get stuck way out in the middle of Cheyenne River, wicasa?

Jimmy

[existentialist]

12. Cheyenne River

Just lucky I guess. Cities tend to drive me crazy after a while. Actually I kind of wish I lived out in the country here, except that the idea of commuting doesn't appeal to me.

[Broke Dad]

4. Top of the Hill

I also live east of you. My only advice after 1972 is to buy/rent a house on high ground.

[alrightjim]

9. Hi Broke Dad

Introducing myself to all the folks from SD on this forum and you were last if only because you were at the bottom of the list. I am located in Belle but lived through that 1972 flood. Spent a week sleeping on the floor of the old 5th street City Auditorium with about a hundred other people. Rough time. Water came halfway up the walls in our house. Had to live with my grandmother for a time, too, but we saved the family photo album, and that was my mom's main concern. Didn't loose any relatives or friends, not even any enemies, just got my socks damp.

Jimmy

[Broke Dad]

13. Hi Jimmy

I used to work as an electrician, mostly on irrigation equipment from Pierre to Rapid. Then came the 80s and a bad back. Now I live in the corner of IA/SD/MN east of Sioux Falls doing counseling and advocacy work. I still get around a lot, my 96 Dodge minivan rolled over to 399,000 miles this morning (orig engine).

[alrightjim]

5. Hi Liberalhistorian

My name is Jimmy. I have just joined this forum and live in Belle Fourche, about sixty miles north of Rapid City, although I was born and raised in Rapid City and get down there quite a bit.

Hope you enjoy your stay, and it is quite a time to be coming to Rapid given the air base closing. When I was a boy in North Rapid, that's the poor part of town, we hated the airbase, and we fought tooth and nail with the "flaps" which is what we called the airmen there. I would have celebrated with gusto the base closing. Now, that I am older, I realize there are good parts and bad parts to the closing. The Rapid City my parents were raised in was a nice quiet little town, but hell on Indians, and being a breed it was hell on me growing up, too, so this is the part that makes me glad the air base is there, so that people might come and make this community their home who don't have a spoonfed contempt for Lakota people.

I can give you the lowdown on the Black Hills area. I was a journalist at the Lakota Journal until I went on correspondence leave last year, so I have met a wide range of local folks and will help you out where and when I can.

Jimmy

[existentialist]

16. Would any of the west river DU regulars like do do anything

crazy like actually agree on a time and place where those of us that are interested might actually meet each other in person (and maybe exchange contact information and such that just might come in handy in some future election or issue fight?

(Just an idea.)

[alrightjim]

17. It's a good idea

Although coordinating such a meeting given the free spirits on this board would be difficult. Rapid seems to be the central location. When I go there, I like to eat, big surprise. Meeting at some restaurant would seem best. All we need bring is our personality and our appetite. Even if it ends up just you and me, wicasa, thanks for the invite.

I will await comments from the others before getting into specifics.

Jimmy

[existentialist]

18. free spirits

Yes, I realize that we have a few free spirits exchanging messages on this board. As Tom Daschle said talking about trying to organize the Senate Democrats, "ts like trying to load frogs into a wheel barrow. But I wouldn't have it any other way."

Let's see what sort of responses we get.

[liberalhistorian]

19. Count me in!

That would be great, especially since I really don't know anyone here yet besides my new co-workers.

[alrightjim]

20. three's company

So there is me and liberalhistorian and wicasa. Tentative plan: we meet in Rapid someplace and shoot the breeze. I am tied up until the 21st. But most any day after that works for me.

Jimmy

[liberalhistorian]

21. Same here; I have to be in

Mission on the Rosebud Rez the 20th and 21st of July, but anytime after that would be great!

[existentialist]

22. Rapid City

I agree that Rapid City is to only logical place. I generally get to Rapid City at least once a month, and I can have some flexibility as to when with just a little advance planning. The 22nd, 23rd, 24th, or the 29th, 30th, or 31st of this month would probably work.

I guess I would prefer the earlier weekend because the last weekend in July is perilously close to the Sturgis Bike Rally which I generally try to avoid to the extent possible, but I'm in no hurry--we could also meet sometime in September.

[alrightjim]

23. Set for sometime after the 21st

wicasa: "I agree that Rapid City is the only logical place."

There's Piedmont, wouldn't wanna be hatin' on the good folks in Piedmont!

Liberalhistorian is free after the 21st, too. So the weeekend of the 23rd seems best. However, the 23rd is my birthday, and Michele will be pissed if I make any plans don't include her and the boys, and so Friday, July 22, is the ideal day for me, preferably after 1 in the afternoon.

BTW, fellas, I went to the Rapid City Urinal website and what a sad fucked up little skidmark on the underwear of life that place is. There is a central core of neoconservatives make you ashamed to be a human being, let alone an American, and there's a leftwing windup totally off his nut calls himself Strother Martin, although I suspect Strother is actually a female mad at the universe, and any possible alternative universes, because she doesn't have a pornstar's penis.

They have one good board called Let It Fly. You can post anything you want here, just can't physically threaten a person. If you curse, the system is self-editing. You get a special password from the moderator which you agree to NEVER share with any person (it's "freedom" by the way, no quotation marks). If you share the password, and they like you, they just kill you, but if they don't like you, and they wouldn't like me, they force you to drive across Bill Janklow's speed limit contemptuous path, on a tricycle, while reading their Sunday Journal word for word, front to back.

Please don't tell them where I live.

Jimmy

[prairierose]

24. Hi liberalhistorian & others.....

it's been some time since I checked this group. Every time I do, I tell myself I need to do it more often but then I forget.....

I live in Rapid & would love to get together with fellow DU aficionados. I will be unavailable the weekend of 7/22 but any other time you guys pick, I'll try to show up.

Feel free to PM me to get my attention!

[existentialist]

25. meeting

I suggest that if prairierose can join us if we wait until a later date, that we wait until a later date. We might even get someone else to join us too!

Why, if it's the consensus I would even brave Rapid City during the Bike Rally.

[prairierose]

26. Hi all....

I hate Rapid during the rally too, if I could stay home I would...
:hide:

Saturdays are really my only day off right now. I'll be in town July 30. Afternoon or evening is fine with me. Has anyone suggested a place to meet? If the weather is nice, I like the patio at the Firehouse :beer:
OTOH, if it's Saturday night...there might be too many kids there....

[alrightjim]

27. hi prairie rose

Saturday the 30th is okay by me. Any location is okay by me. Any time on that day is okay by me. If this changes I will let folks know.

Jimmy

[prairierose]

28. Sounds good to me Jim...

let's try to nail down a time and place so that we are not just trying to herd chickens here. BTW, I'm bringing at least one progressive friend along.

[alrightjim]

29. Specific Time

Hi Prairierose. Saturday, July 30, 2 o'clock in the afternoon at the Firehouse patio in Rapid City? There seems to be at this point, you, and at least one of your progressive friends, me, liberalhistorian and wicasa. I shall consider this nailed down, pending a response from liberal and wicasa.

Jimmy

[existentialist]

30. Sounds good to me.

I look forward to meeting all of you.

[prairierose]

31. I like this idea...

see you there...BTW, should we wear some kind of identifying emblem so we can find each other? ... :hide:

I'll be wearing my blue wristband!!!

[existentialist]

32. identification

I was planning on wearing one of the gold Tom Daschle campaign shirts that he distributed in Indian country under a black sports jacket.

[prairierose]

33. that works for me!!

:hi:

[alrightjim]

34. I will wear whatever...

...and look for the two of you.

Jimmy

[liberalhistorian]

35. Cool, that's perfect!

My project colleague (great gal, she's Lakota and grew up on the Cheyenne River Rez) likes to party hardy and took me to the Firehouse a couple of weeks ago after work. Great place, and the patio's even nicer. I'm still so new here and missing all my friends and family at home that it's gonna be great meeting some area libs and DUers.