Couldn't help but notice the little real estate blurb on the N.Y. Times front web page today:
What You Get for ... $600,000. A two-bedroom house on Lopez Island, Wash., an apartment in Boston or a house in Sebastopol, Calif.
Or, perhaps, my home in Brookings, S.D., multiplied by three, plus $60,000 to $80,000 in cash.
This is what I am thinking as I'm shoveling out our corner lot from the 4-6 inches of snow that fell overnight.
Barreling down the second stretch of sidewalk, I see that the same person who swings by after every snowfall with a four-wheeler to clear the entire block has done so yet again.
We don't know who this kind soul is and we don't expect him to keep returning. But, after two years of steady snow removal, this blessed event is becoming a trend.
So, the question in my mind is, these $600,000 digs in other places, do they come with a friendly neighbor who plows you out after every storm?
Are they located in communities where people you may barely know hold fund-raisers to help cover your hospital bills? Drinking my morning coffee today, I counted four ads in the weekly shopper for such events.
Surely, I have cursed all that is bleak and unforgiving in this state ... the wind, the cold and the vast amounts of nothing. There is a lack of diversity in every realm — religion, culture, color of skin — that can lead to a lack of understanding of anyone or anything different.
There is no ocean view, no eclectic shops, no fine dining. The winters are too harsh and the summers too short. Some movies never make it to the local theater. We are still waiting for an organic food co-op.
Yet, in nearly 18 years of living in South Dakota, I have found, as I did shoveling this morning, an endearing quality about this place that trumps everything else: Here, help comes without asking.
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