The End of My South Dakota Days

The End of My South Dakota Days, Feb. 22, 2025

It was September of 1973. I was living the hippie life on a farm outside of Vermillion, South Dakota, on Bluff Road. I was 21 and going nowhere.

I’d helped a friend grow a cash crop all summer. We planted it in the barnyard where they used to keep pigs. Oh, that soil was rich. The plants grew to 8 feet tall. We shot rabbits that were trying to eat our cash crop with our .22 rifles.

I’d bought an old red 1953 Studebaker pickup truck. It was fun to drive. That Saturday night, Mike, Blair, and I drove into Vermillion to get some beers. I was driving my Studebaker. Mike was riding shotgun and Blair was between us.

Mike came from a local farming family. He knew all about farming and the locals. I have no idea where Blair came from. He had long black hair and never said much.

We went to town and picked up some Colt 45 Malt Liquor. I wasn’t used to drinking malt liquor. I liked the low alcohol 3.2 beer.

We got to drinking and then I drove us home to the farm. Mike dared me to do four wheel skids down the paved road. So I did them. It was kinda fun.

Then, I turned onto the gravel road in front of our rented farmhouse. Mike dared me to do four wheel skids on gravel. So I did, but on the third try, the front left wheel on the Studebaker folded up on the sideways stress.

The truck flipped a few times and ended up in the ditch.

Blair was fine sandwiched between Mike and I. Mike put his right hand on the roof and his fingers got squashed. He told me his guitar playing wasn’t the same again, but it never was much anyway.

Me, I hit my left temple on the left windshield support frame. It cut me down to my skull.

“I can see your white skull,” Blair said. Most he’d said in days.

I was bleeding pretty bad. Mike got me a towel and said, “I’m driving you to Doc Miller’s house.”

So, we get in his old Olds98, and he drives us over to Doc Miller’s farmhouse. It’s 2 AM.

Doc Miller opens the door in his bathrobe. Mike explains that I hit my head on a stairstep. The doctor stitches me up, and we drive back to the farm. I’m a mess. My eye is black and blue and so is most of the left side of my face.

We get back to the farm, and Blair says, “We’ve been robbed!” He was positively loquacious that night.

We go out to the barnyard and someone has stolen our cash crop! Mike was furious. I was in a lot of pain. Blair was noncommittal as usual.

The next day, Mike and I loaded up the shotguns in his Old 98. We went around Vermillion to every cash crop dealer Mike knew.

I remember one guy named Scrubby. He lived in a house near the University of South Dakota campus (his customers). Scrubby said he didn’t know what happened to our cash crop. But what I remember was the naked Scandinavian beauty in his bed. She had long blonde braided hair, blue eyes, and huge breasts. Scrubby looked like his name. He was short, scraggly beard, long hair, and some kinda cowboy hat. I never could figure that relationship out.

Mike and I never found out who stole our cash crop. A local farmer dragged the Studebaker out of the ditch and put it on his farm for parts. I called my folks and flew to their home in New Jersey, where I started my career as a garbageman for the Mafia at Joey Filiberto Sanitation.

And that’s how my days in South Dakota ended.

I still have the scar on my temple and a dent in my skull from that night. Haven’t touched malt liquor since or done any more four wheel skids on the road.

I still miss South Dakota.

TJM