I was in Centerville yesterday, working on some photos for an upcoming story on that little Turner County city.

I came upon a pair of garage doors on main street with half a tire hanging on each door. Some people may wonder why a man would hang tires on his garage doors. Those people never had a wife who drove a car through their garage doors. I thought this was ingenious.

I don't expect the tires to actually stop the car from ruining the doors, but I suspect that the tires (if properly spaced) could reduce the damage otherwise sure to be inflicted by wood splinters on the car hood.

My only question is how this imaginative fellow managed to cut a tire in half so nicely?

Readers have been very sympathetic about the magazine's snow removal dilemma, and our lack of proper equipment. Perhaps I was too cynical in the last post. We are very well equipped for major snowfalls. If worse goes to worst, we have this '49 Jeep FOUR WHEEL DRIVE pickup, and this 1947 "M" Farmall with dual loader and snow bucket. Its only weakness is a small gas leak that can cause flames when the engine gets hot. But the gas leak is no problem so long as you run it about 10 minutes and then let it cool for 20 minutes.

Our corner of South Dakota received 10 inches of snow over the weekend -- wet, heavy, crusty snow. I know we shouldn't complain. Ten inches is considered a "blue sky" day in Denver or Buffalo this year. It does slow life to a crawl, however, unless you happen to own a shovel or a snowblower or best of all a tractor with a loader and snow bucket.

Our magazine's delivery truck is probably out of commission until April, however. It doesn't have four-wheel drive.

You'd need some high five-buckle overboots to reach our storage shed out behind the office. But the only major thing in there is the lawn mower, and it doesn't have four-wheel drive either so we won't be using it for a few weeks.

The Museum of Geology on the SDSMT campus in Rapid City has a new baby. Luckily, nobody has to do the diapers because this is no skinny six-pounder. It's a 70 million year old baby plesiosaur found in the Antarctic on an expedition led by South Dakota's own Indiana Jones, Dr. James Martin.

We once spent a day hunting for mosasaurs and plesiosaurs on the Crow Creek Reservation with Jim and some of his team. I could have tripped over a 'saur and not known it; good archeologists smell them from a mile away. Their best hunter was an old Indian who was a heavy smoker. Whenever he found a good fossil, he'd stop and light up a few Marlboros. Jim and his team would come along later, and they joked that cigarettes must have killed a lot of mosasaurs.

Congratulations on this latest find. It's reportedly one of the most complete "Baby P's" ever discovered. It is thought to be the best articulated fossil skeleton ever recovered from the Antarctica. (I plagairized that last sentence and personally have only the faintest idea of what it means.)

Since we lost our $8 million T-rex to the Field Museum of Chicago, it's sorta nice to get an import from the Frozen North.

In our Jan/Feb issue we told you about Tub Rath, the "ladies man" of Wasta who gave every woman in town small gifts on Valentines Day, Mother's Day and other holidays. We also mentioned him here on the website last week. Now we get the bad news that Tub (who has been in ill health) died last Friday. His funeral is Wednesday in Wall at l p.m.

Our favorite South Dakota philosopher Archie Gilfillan once said that the West River country has lots of interesting characters. He thought it was because city people live too closely together and thus take on a certain sameness, but country folk are spread out so they retain their original shape and character.

Tub was proof that Archie's theory has validity.

Anybody in southeast South Dakota who doesn't have a Dan Christopherson story just isn't much of a local radio fan. Christopherson died unexpectedly on Wednesday. KELO TV has a good news story and even a Christopherson video.

The Sioux Falls folks probably don't remember that Dan's career actually was kicked-off at WNAX radio in Yankton, where he playfully entertained listeners. He bantered with Jerry Oster and (the late) Norm Hilson in the afternoons. My favorite memory is the day he was promoting JoDean's Restaurant on air. He lauded the good food but lamented that JoDean's (at that time) had the ugliest waitresses in the world.

The waitresses picketed the station for days. Their small children carried signs such as "My Mom Ain't Ugly" and "Mom's Beautiful." The controversy made national news. It was one of the best things that ever happened to JoDean's, and if anyone in the five-state area didn't yet know Dan Christopherson they soon learned he was worth a listen. Finally, after milking the issue for every drop of publicity he could squeeze out, he apologized "to the beautiful waitresses" he had insulted.

Sadly, radio has changed. Not many stations are comfortable with his "shoot from the lip" humor. Why not just buy some canned programs so Sioux Falls sounds like Cincinnati and Santa Fe and Seattle?

Funeral services for Dan are next Tuesday at Peace Lutheran Church in Sioux Falls.

Sports fans already know this, but in case you missed it –– South Dakota's favorite pro basketball player had a career night on Wednesday. Mike Miller scored 45 points (including nine 3-pointers), a Memphis Grizzlies' franchise record.

The only sour note is that the Grizzlies still lost to Golden state 118-115.

Mike grew up in Mitchell, where he was a huge star for the Kernels before playing college ball in Florida. He's emerged as a true NBA star, averaging 18 points a game in this, his sixth, season.

Emmett Riley, native mountaineer.

While in the Black Hills two weeks ago, Ed Goss of Belle Fourche introduced me to his old friend Emmett Riley, and the three of us toured Riley's childhood stomping grounds south of Lead-Deadwood.

Emmett was born and raised during the heydays of mining, logging and ranching in the heart of the Hills. "There was a shack in every canyon, and a guy was mining or logging, and probably raising chickens and pigs and one or two cows" he recalled, pointing out foundations and other landmarks. "I thought the only thing you did with a cow was milk it until I came home from the war and somebody served us a steak. I didn't know you could eat them."

Potato Creek Johnny was mooching drinks back then, and madams were busy in the little mountain cities. Emmett says the ground literally shook with reverberations from the steam-powered log and ore mills that were scattered in the valleys. Clouds of steam wafted in the sky over the tree tops.

We spent an interesting and scenic afternoon as snow drifted into the forest and over the mountain roads. Emmett is nearly 90. He has seen thousands of deer in his lifetime. Yet, every time he spotted a whitetail or muley, he got excited. "Did you see that!" he'd say. "Look over there!" His love for nature has not diminished with age; his appreciation may have matured and grown.

We will have more photos and stories from Emmett in the paper magazine later this year.