So after this war there won't be anymore
If the rich men must be warrior slaves
We'll be living like brothers again
And the world can stop counting the graves
- Excerpted from a Gerald Hubbard poem



All of the 147th Field Artillery are now home in America; the soldiers will arrive in Yankton on Saturday afternoon, greeted by yellow ribbons and thousands of relieved and happy friends and family. A parade will begin at 3:30. The bands will be silent as they pass by a cemetery where two of the four who died in Iraq are buried.

Hod Nielsen, a WWII veteran and longtime journalist, understands what lies ahead for the young soldiers. This is what he told KSFY-TV earlier this week:

"This group that's coming back now deserves everything they get and they're gonna be welcomed with open arms," says Nielsen, who knows what the Charlie Battery is going through, coming home from the war without four of their brothers in arms. He went to war with 27 friends. "Seven came back. Twenty of them didn't come back. And of those 20 people I often think of what bright young men they were," Nielsen says. But being one of the few pilots to make it home in his unit wasn't his only hardship. Hod misses his little brother. "There were four of us boys all in the service. Three of us were pilots with the 8th Air Force and one of them didn't come back. You get to thinkin' how come it was him and not me. How come I get to come back and Bob didn't," Nielsen says.

Hod's only advice to the troops coming home now is to always remember their fallen soldiers, even 61 years later."I think of guys like Jack Campbell and Buster and Tim, they're such good friends of mine that didn't live to be 25," he says.

Did you know that clamming was once a thriving industry along the James River? A few years ago, local historian and riverrat Bob Hanson found parts from an old clam boat east of town by the river.

Dorothy Harnisch of Menno just sent me some interesting info on clamming by the river near Menno, in a community known as Tuscan. Farmers and others collected train car loads of clam shells, which were shipped East to make buttons. Pearls in the clams added to the haul.

The most interesting "clammer" was Irish-born Fisher Bill. He ran away from an Illinois orphanage at age 14, making him a fugitive from the law. He was working on a railroad crew by Council Bluffs, Iowa, when a prairie fire ignited. He was overcome by smoke and fire, his still body charred black. The other railroaders left him for dead, but he regained consciousness and crawled to the Missouri River for a drink. A settler named Scotty found him and nursed him back to life. But Fisher Bill was badly scarred, and he could never close his eyes again.

He came to Tuscan, S.D., in Hutchinson County because it was then the Pearl Capital of the World. He lived off the land and river, sleeping in a tent all four seasons. Sometime after WWII, he was reunited with his sister, whom he'd last seen in the orphanage. She found him because a story about his unusual life on the river made national news.

When he was 80, he moved his tent into Menno and enjoyed electric lights and a radio. He died at the age of 92.

Smack dab in the center of Hanson County lies Lake Hanson, a 60-acre creekbed that was dammed many years ago. It has trees and about two dozen summer cabins on the north side. Cows graze on the south. I stumbled on it when leaving Alexandria the other day (it's just two miles south). If you're ever in the area and want to stretch your legs and maybe see a loon or a chicken hawk floating above a pretty little piece of water, Lake Hanson is your place. This is all about 15 miles east of Mitchell.

There's something about holding a rock in your hands that newspapers can't replace.

Above is one of three finalists for this weeks New Yorker caption contest - and it was submitted by my dad, Bernie! He's been sending in captions for a few weeks now, and I always told him his sense of humor was too weird to win, but maybe not! Click on the link below if you'd like to vote for his caption (it IS the best one in my opinion) and hopefully he'll win at the end of the week.

Thanks! Katie Hunhoff
PS - If you don't want to vote for his caption, then vote next week.

http://www.cartoonbank.com/CapContest/CaptionContest.aspx?tab=vote

If you read books and didn't attend the South Dakota Book Festival last weekend, you're really missing a unique event. The festival, now four years old, truly is meeting its objective of gathering writers and readers together.

Frankly, some of the writers aren't that likeable. Just because you can write doesn't mean you know how to mingle, socialize and talk. In fact, maybe the skills are conflictatory.

But some of the writers are very entertaining, polite and eager to share whatever they can. Juan Williams of NPR was a huge hit, as was NPR book reviewer Nancy Pearl and many others.

Another crowd favorite (and worth the trip to Sioux Falls alone) was Rosebud native Joseph Marshall III, a novelist, screenwriter and philosopher. His story about aging was my favorite moment during the entire festival.

Marshall said he learned to shoot a bow and arrow from his grandfather on the reservation. He also learned a lesson about growing old. He says there is a Lakota tradition that the old men are believed to be the best at shooting a bow, so long as they never stop doing it. If you continue to shoot arrows into your old age, then you will be the best you've ever been on the day you die, according to the Lakota culture.

I drove through Ethan the other afternoon, and came upon Marilyn Thill, chief chef at Cook's Inn on main street.

Ethan, pop. 310, doesn’t have a grocery store so she stocks a corner of the café with necessities for the elderly who can’t drive to Mitchell or Parkston. When she’s not busy in the kitchen, she makes Mouse Dolls out of fabric and pop bottles. Her front counter has bowls of complimentary peanuts, cookies and candies — just help yourself. Hanging on the back wall is farmwife Helen Garvis’ spoon collection. Mrs. Garvis collected about a hundred spoons from all over the world. There’s a lobster spoon, an Elvis guitar spoon, a Bethlehem spoon and, of course, a Corn Palace spoon. After she died at age 94 in 2006, her household items were auctioned. Marilyn thought it would be a shame to have the collection split up by antique dealers so she bought them all.

When the late farmwife’s friends and relatives stop at Cook’s Inn for a burger, they see the collection and say excitedly, “Well, you’ve got Helen’s spoons!”

And Marilyn replies, "Yes, I do."

Photo by Terry Palmer

Spearfish Canyon, one of the state's premier fall foliage destinations, is changing color early this year.

If you're over 40 and ever watched westerns, you've seen Johnny One Feather. His fast-draw was featured in the opening scene of many Gunsmoke episodes. He has been a stuntman and bad guy in Gunsmoke and many other cowboy movies and TV shows.

He is a Vietnam vet who experienced and witnessed some atrocities, and doesn't care to discuss them. But he does write poetry about his time there. One is titled "Hamburger Hill." It tells of a soldier lying wounded in the jungle mud, shot by a boy with a gun. He loses consciousness, then awakens and sees the same little Vietnamese boy. He thinks the boy is going to shoot him again ... but then he sees the boy has a tear in his eye. He took the boys hand. The boy tried to help him, then he walks away, dragging his gun. American soldiers arrive to rescue him and they see the boy off in the distance, dragging his weapon ....

He was dragging his weapon/Through the mud/Then I heard a shot/I turned my head, to see/There lay the little body of the boy/All covered with blood./I started to cry/"Oh, God, why can't it ever be me."

I met Johnny on my last trip to the Black Hills. We'll write his story (as much as he'll tell), maybe for our Jan/Feb issue. He'll also be with me on Grant Peterson's Great Afternoon Smorgasbord radio show next Tuesday (Sept. 26) at 3:15 p.m. The show is on KJJQ 910-AM. You can catch it in a good share of East River country. You'll like the guy.