Leading A Life ... In Lead, South Dakota - Part 2

As I mentioned in the last column, I was able to return to my old home in Lead, South Dakota.  Lead hasn't been a thriving community since at least 2001, when they started the process of shutting down the Homestake Gold Mine, but what I was on this visit stunned me.

Here is a town that, in the 1930s, was one of the few areas in the country that didn't suffer through the Great Depression.  Because Homestake supplied most of the gold used by the government to back its currency, there were more jobs than people and everyone in Lead had plenty.  Homes were well taken care of.  Roads were better than those in most metropolitan areas.  The community's pride was evident.

Today, the town has definitely fallen on desperate times.  The impact of the Homestake closure is clear.  When we lived there, my late husband was a house painter and most of the homes he had painted in town had not been touched since he did the paint job, which was over 10 years ago.  Many of the homes stand vacant; the owners who had paid their homes off before the mine closed simply locked the door and walked away when they couldn't sell after the shutdown.  Those who owed money on their homes were foreclosed upon.  Regardless the reason, the number of vacant homes in Lead is startling.

The biggest blight on the landscape was seeing what happened to Homestake over the last ten years since I last was in Lead.  In years past, the mountainside next to the road leading from Lead into Deadwood was stacked with the buildings that made up the refinery; they were fixtures in town.  Now, the refinery has been torn down and the promised park has never come to fruition.  So the mountainside stands bare, save for some of the concrete still remaining from the refinery.  Very sad.

It's not that the town is completely falling in on itself, although that happened in the 1980s, when the center of town caved into the mine, leaving a huge gaping hole right where Main Street used to be.  The area is now called the Open Cut; the town is building a visitor's center to try and attract someone to come visit the town.  There are actually really well-maintained homes for sale at extremely reasonable prices.  When you consider the average listing price of a home in Austin, Texas is $340,000, finding a 3-bedroom, 2-bath house in Lead for $105,000 is a steal.

So why don't people want to move there?  It's simple - the weather and work.  If you're a Yankee, used to snow in the winter, unless you're from the mountains in Colorado or Vermont, you really can't appreciate the amount of snow the area gets.  The first weekend of October 2013 saw over three feet of snow and that snow stuck around and was built upon over the next six months.

Living in the mountains in winter is touchy at best.  Four-wheel-drive vehicles are a necessity, especially if you live at the top of one of the hills in town.  If you stayed home every time it snowed, you wouldn't leave your home from October until the end of April, so you learn to deal with it.  My husband, a Texan, learned the hard way, needing to be towed out of several sticky situations he slid into the first six months we lived there.

Work is the other big challenge.  Most people who have made a success of living in Lead work for themselves, most in the construction field, although there are those, like me, who work on the internet, so it doesn't matter where you live.  With construction, though, the weather plays a significant factor again - you need to work like crazy from May until October so you can have enough money to survive from October to May.  The family we stayed with on our visit sustains themselves on the money the husband earns as a roofer for six months of the year, working a zillion hours until it's impossible to climb on another roof for fear of sliding off.

Yet, the place, for all its foibles, is beautiful.  I've never lived anywhere as beautiful, regardless the season.  And quiet.  In most areas of the country, there is the constant noise of traffic.  In Lead, it's just quiet.  It's the rare place you can go to just be still, something most of us never get to experience.  It leads to a calmness and tranquility hard to find these days.

If you get a chance to visit Lead and Deadwood, I would heartily recommend it.  I'm so happy I got a chance to go back, to visit the home I shared with my lovely husband and daughter.  While I could never go back there permanently, it remains one of the best experiences of my life and I'm so grateful for the opportunity to spend five years in, what we lovingly called, Mayberry.

Leading A Life ... In Lead, South Dakota - Part 1

Thomas Wolfe said, "You can't go home again."  To a certain extent, he was right.  As humans, we change.  We grow.  The experiences life throws at us cause fundamental changes in who and what we are, on how we perceive life.

The place we came from changes, as well.  Entropy, the idea that everything, from the time of its creation, slowly declines from there, is at work both on the places and people we encounter, rendering ever visit totally new.  Sometimes, the changes are imperceptible, at least from the outside, but on closer look, they can become a yawning chasm between what we remember and what actually is.

So it was that I returned to Lead, South Dakota a few weeks ago.  My husband, daughter and I lived in Lead for five years, between 1999 and 2004.  We moved there from Denver, where we were living when Columbine happened.  We had already planned on moving out of Denver when Columbine occurred, but that definitely sealed the deal; my daughter was in seventh grade at a school not too far from Columbine. 

We wanted to get away from the rat race Denver had become.  It was a big city, with all the big city problems.  We wanted to go somewhere where the air was clean and fresh, somewhere time had forgotten, and we certainly found it in Lead.  Lead is the sister city of Deadwood, South Dakota; you might remember Deadwood from the show on HBO. As bad as things seemed in the HBO show, the reality was ten times worse, in terms of the living conditions and the sheer rankness of the area.  

At the time we moved there, Lead, located at the northern edge of the Black Hills of South Dakota, along the border with Wyoming, up 6000 feet, had always been a mining town.  They have mined gold there from the time gold was first found in the 1800s until it was closed in 2002, about a year and a half before we left.  The Homestake Mine was there, reaching 8000 feet down toward the earth's core.  Frequently, we would be sitting at the dining table and the house would rattle, as the men in the mine were blasting to dislodge one more bit of rock.

It was a bustling little town, with homes built wherever a miner had pitched a tent.  When the miner got married, the tent was replaced by a one-room house.  As children came along, another room or two were added, then a bathroom, when indoor plumbing came to town, and then maybe a kitchen, giving the homes in town the feel of having been scabbed onto, which, of course, they were.

In 1910, Lead was the second-largest city in South Dakota.  It was one of the few towns in the United States that wasn't impacted by the Great Depression.  There was so much gold coming out of the Homestake Mine, no one went hungry.  Business thrived.  Everyone was prosperous, so much so that when Deadwood fell on hard times, Lead bailed them out.  The more Lead thrived, the more Deadwood sank into poverty, with little to support its businesses, other than tourism, and there wasn't much of that.  Deadwood was the poor step-sister to Lead.

Then things changed.  Deadwood, after yet another devastating fire, so common in the Black Hills National Forest, was almost destroyed in the late 1980s, so the "great experiment" was launched, bringing another kind of gold into the Black Hills - gambling.  Deadwood had always been known as a lawless frontier town, with the likes of Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane wandering around town, so why not take advantage of it?  Why not play it up?  So Deadwood became one of the few places in the country where gambling was allowed, outside a Reservation.

As Deadwood came back to life, life in Lead started undergoing significant change in the other direction.  First, the middle of town collapsed into the mine, leading to the Open Cut, a large, open pit in the middle of town, where the mine is open to the air.  Everything had to be rebuilt around it and, in many cases, was never rebuilt.  Then, in 2002, Homestake Mine closed, ringing the death knell for this once-thriving city.

We were living in Lead when the mine closed.  It was heartbreaking.  Generations of families living in the homes in Lead were leaving in droves, chasing the next mine or going back to school to learn a new way of life.  Homes were abandoned, when no buyers could be found - who wants to live in a town where there is no industry and the closest large city (in relative terms) is on the other side of any number of mountain passes?

Regardless of the change, I loved living in Lead.  Because the area was so insulated, you knew everyone in town; there were about 3000 people living between Lead and Deadwood at the time.  Life was difficult, especially in the winter, which started at the end of September and sometimes wouldn't leave until the end of April.  But there was nothing like sitting by the wood stove, a raging fire keeping the house warm (except my daughter's room), as the snow piled up outside.  I was sad to leave it but we had no choice ... my husband was dying and he needed to be where it was warmer, so we moved to Texas.

This was my first visit back in 10 years and boy, how things have changed.

Coming up:  Part 2:  Leading A Life ... In Lead, South Dakota

Thoughts On Robin William's Death: Depression Lies

Like most everyone, I'm still processing the death of Robin Williams yesterday.  The fact that his death impacted so many shows the impact his life had on so many.  Unfortunately, he didn't feel that impact in his own life, believing the lies depression told him instead.

I'm writing this because it's important.  We've lost too many in our lives to depression and its lies.  It's important to know there is help and a way out that doesn't involve the end of a life.  And it's important that those who care about someone with depression know it's not willful misconduct or lack of love that drives the depressed person; it's the lies they're hearing.

I remember the first time I saw Robin Williams.  It was in the 1970s and he popped into Richie Cunningham's world on "Happy Days."  I couldn't take my eyes off him.  He was a frenetic ball of energy, bouncing around the set, talking a million miles a minute.  As he moved through his career, he never seemed to lose that energy, that boundless child-like amazement and he took us with him on his wild ride.

Along the way, there were reports of rehab stints, where one or another of his addictions got the better of him, but it never diminished the love we had for him.  Even in the depths of his addiction, he was never publicly mean (as some actors and actresses have torpedoed their careers - Hi, Mel).  He was always kind to those interviewing him and to anyone, child or adult, he met.  He gave of his time and energy to make others happy, to see others smile.

Robin Williams suffered depression, a disease that impacts the lives of millions around the world, to a greater or lesser degree; you could see it in his eyes, even when he was laughing.  I, personally, think we all suffer from a little depression, a fact borne out by studies.  There are several types of depression but each type has the same trait - it lies.

Depression tells you you're not worth it.  It tells you you're stupid, or no one cares.  At its depths, it tells you life isn't worth living because, after all, what's the use?  It brings down a black, see-through curtain between you and the rest of the world.  The world can see you, you can see the world, but the "you" the world sees is as if there is no curtain, while you see everything swathed in a black overtone, coloring everything.

Despite the best efforts of those around you, when you're battling the worst of depression, no one can reach you behind the curtain.  You hear the muffled sounds of the world going on around you, but the joys the world has to give can't penetrate the curtain.  You can only hear the sound of depression, telling you over and over how hopeless it is.  You feel totally alone under that curtain, even when you're surrounded by those who love you.  The joys and achievements of life can't reach your heart, even if you're blessed with the things most people yearn for their whole lives; fame, fortune, achievement, loving family, prestige, reputation - all these things are meaningless behind the curtain.

Depression often leaves those around you feeling frustrated and angry.  It drives people away because, after all, you're not worth anyone's attention, so why are they still here.  Family and friends try to reach you behind the curtain, but you either can't hear them or they can't break through.  They don't understand, though, so they back away, believing the lie depression has told them, too:  you're just unsociable ... you don't love them enough to come out from behind the curtain, not realizing you just can't.

Meanwhile, from behind the curtain, you grasp at anything that helps you feel in control, but that grasp can feel like steel fingers to those outside the curtain; it feels like you're clinging, hanging on desperately because you are.  The problem is, no one else can see the curtain, so they don't understand ... they merely think you're being unreasonably clingy, meddling in their affairs or unduly frantic.  They don't know that depression makes you frantic on the inside and sometimes, it comes out.

Why am I talking about this?  Because, for the most part, depression is still extremely misunderstood.  It's still colored by old preconceptions, that depression is a personality weakness, that you can merely "get over" being depressed if you just "buck up."  I remember, when I was the middle of the worst of it, being told I was no longer welcome around certain family members if I didn't stop being depressed.  Because, yeah - that works well.  Of course, at the time, I didn't know I was depressed; I just felt frantic, not recognizing the curtain until it was too late.

There is hope, though.  There are ways to take the curtain down.  But, for the depressed person, it means recognizing the curtain and fighting through it to get help.  And there is a ton of help available.  Not every treatment works for every person.  For some, a combination of medication and therapy works.  For others, it means continually adjusting and changing medications to ensure stability; for those with severe clinical depression, one medication might work for a time only to have a tolerance build, at which time another medication needs to be added or changed altogether.  It takes time.  It takes patience.  It takes love.

If you or someone you know is dealing with depression, even just a little, get help.  Regardless of your financial status, help is available in every community around the country.  Just call.

And know you are loved.  There is no person in this world who is not loved by at least one person, no matter what depression tells you.  You might not know the person who loves you; they may have been someone you opened the door for or helped when they dropped their groceries outside their car.  It might be the woman you held the elevator for, or the child you picked up after they fell.  It might even be the person sitting next to you at breakfast in your own home.  Regardless, there is always at least one person who loves you and cares for you.

Believe that.  Don't believe the lies.

Complacency, Apathy: An Acceptable Way To Live?

I was driving through Austin in rush hour, listening to my satellite radio, when one of my favorite songs from the 1960s came on; I was a kid in the 1960s, so the '60s protest songs were part of my childhood.  I remember listening to my transistor radio at night, falling asleep to the music of Woodstock, feeling ill, even at 10 years old, as we watched the nightly news spell out the casualty reports.

Everything I knew as a child was colored by the Vietnam War, the deaths of President Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King.  My dad was in charge of desegregating the schools in Grand Rapids, Michigan, so I grew up watching my dad fight for the rights of all races to have quality education without restriction.  My parents were deeply political and nationalistic, supporters of the troops in Vietnam, so they were a bit concerned when their oldest child was singing war protest songs, but they let me make up my own mind.

In high school, the War was over and I went to college with soldiers recently returned from the fighting, some wounded physically, almost all wounded emotionally and mentally.  There were no parades or cheering crowds as they came off the planes bringing them home; instead, they were pelted with rotten tomatoes and eggs.  They had to hide their service, instead of wearing it proudly as they do today.  

I grew up during a time of protest and social consciousness - REAL social consciousness.  People were truly concerned about the way the environment was being impacted, so we went from throwing trash out the car windows to it becoming illegal.  Racial and gender equality, a truly needed change, was pushed through, to more or less success.  Gone were white-only bathrooms, drinking fountains and sitting at the back of the bus; whether or not the changes were enough are still being debated.  And a war was ended because enough people were brave enough to stand up and say, "No more."

From this, because of this and in spite of this, I became a strictly neutral person, not because I don't care but because I found my own solution and do my best to make sure others, on an individual basis, hear about it.  So this is definitely not about politics or political opinions on who is at fault or who has the right idea.

I was listening to this war protest song, wondering where all that has gone.  No one would ever bravely stand in front of a line of soldiers with a flower.  No one would stand in front of a tank, saying, "no more."  No one really cares any more.  I talk to people every day who say, "It doesn't impact my backyard, so I really don't care," or "I don't watch the news any more because it's too depressing."  They'd rather watch another hour of "reality" tv, watching trashy women making their lives even trashier and worshiping "celebrities" who are famous for no reason other than making train wrecks of their lives.

Has the world become more complacent or apathetic?  What's the difference?  Regardless of the definition, to me, complacency is looking at the world and accepting it as it is, not wishing to cause a fuss, just letting things go on because it doesn't impact you.  Apathy is looking at the world and saying, "I hate what's going on in the world but I can't do anything about it, so I'll go over here so I can't see it."  It's the difference between "What bombing" and "Oh, a bombing?  Really?  How sad?  When does Idol start?"

Even modern-day protests are wimpy.  Major US cities are allowing the KKK to march through the streets and maybe 10 people show up to protest.  "Christian" groups, supposedly "God-fearing" people who are driven by hate and not love, protest at the funerals of people killed by random acts of violence, saying it was the fault of the person killed and no one stops them.

The real issues are being ignored because it's too much fuss.  It's easier and better to watch a news story about the kid who won the local spelling bee than taking a hard look at what's going on in Africa.  Why?  Because "those" people don't look like us, don't live like us and are far away.  Over 49 million Americans are living in poverty and more than 47 million go to bed hungry, despite working 50+ hours a week at minimum-wage jobs.  Yet it’s almost impossible to get news coverage on those numbers because no one cares – “I have enough to eat and so does my family.  They’re obviously not working hard enough.”

Regardless of your political, religious, social or gender leaning, it’s time we all take a long hard look at ourselves and start standing for something.  As an individual, what do you care about, other than your immediate world?  As an individual, when was the last time you did something good for someone unrelated to you, who could do nothing for you (and I’m not talking about handing a dollar to the guy standing at the stop light with a sign, begging for money)?  As an individual, have you slid into complacency or apathy?

Come on.  It’s time.

For The Love And Hate Of Clients

My cry-baby face

Everyone who runs their own business - whether as a solo-preneur/freelancer or with a few employees - knows the mix of joy and pain when dealing with clients.  Clients are the life blood of any business.  They keep us up nights trying to figure out how best to serve their interests.  We skip meals and put our lives on hold when we have a client deadline.  We give our all for our clients.  So why do they drive us crazy?

Well, first of all, some customers ARE crazy.  Yes, most are lovely people you become friends with but come on - admit it.  It's the elephant in the room - some are just bug-nutty.  One of the biggest debates I had with the host of the radio show I produced was customer vs business owner.  The host's view was that the customer is always right and there are no exceptions; my view was sometimes customers are just plain crazy.

The problem is we depend on our customers, crazy or not, for our livelihoods.   And I've got a doozy I'm dealing with right now.  They're my biggest customer; ditching them isn't an option right now.  So I'm writing this to avoid saying something to them I will regret later.

The client in question started out as a wonderful client and continued that way for months and months.  Then, they got struck by lightening or stop taking their meds.  Deadlines started randomly changing, moving up ten days, then moving back 20.  I started staying up late to meet their shortened deadlines, working weekends and late into the night, and then would be told, "Oh, yeah, we moved that deadline back.  Ooops, sorry - we forgot to tell you."

Part of the issue when we get these nightmare clients is that we second-guess ourselves. Is it something we've done?  Are we misunderstanding?  It all comes down to communications and most clients, unfortunately, aren't good communicators.

As a writer, I'm in the same position as any other freelancer - everyone thinks they can do  what you do.  Of course, if they really could, they would be doing it themselves instead of hiring you.  I had a potential client last week tell me he could write his content, because he had been a content creator for a short time, but he just didn't have the time.  Unfortunately, he couldn't communicate to me exactly what he wanted, so I couldn't write what he wanted.  At the same time, by reading his emails and looking at his website, I could tell exactly why he was no longer a writer - the misspellings, incomplete sentences and horrible grammar were enough to make me weep.

I feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone half the time.  I get emails from some customers saying, "We hate this article.  It's awful," but when I read their comments within the article, they only want two sentences reworked and then they love it.

I finally figured out how to deal with the ever-shifting world of nightmare customers - just give them what they want, when they ask for it, and then move on.  In the meantime, if you see me in the corner, drooling and babbling, just give me a hot cup of tea, a great book and a Snickers; I'll be ok in an hour.

Let's Begin Again

Welcome!  This blog is just me, espousing nonsense and my own ideas.  What follows is some background and ground rules.  If you're up for it, thanks for stopping by and by all means, read on.

What you'll find here:  First, a warning - this blog is going to be completely random.  There will be plenty of consumer advice, some about food, lots about Doctor Who and my cats, as well as non-descript stuff about being a grandma and a writer.

The opinions expressed here are mine alone.  They're not up for debate (so don't try to debate me).  They're not open for lengthy discussions (no, I'm not afraid of discussion, I mostly don't care).  If you're here to find something to be mad at me about - go away; there will be plenty of other opportunities elsewhere.  If you're here to read, read on.  If you're here to support or are looking for support - welcome.  If you're here for entertainment, I hope to supply that.  Otherwise, you're in the wrong place.

A little about me:  I've had several blogs around the Internets over the years - Lonely Gourmet, Lonestar Consumer, Biz Bootcamp.  I've worked on them diligently for a while and then, after a few months or a few years (depending on the subject), I've turned my back on them.  Why?  Because I got busy.

When I first started seriously blogging back in 2006, I was working for another company.  It was a rather soul-crushing experience, on call 24/7 managing 4000 medical transcriptionists all over the world.  I needed a creative outlet to really make a difference in someone's life and I think I did, first with consumer advice under Lonestar Consumer, and later with my food blog, Lonely Gourmet.  The result?  Five books published that ended up being very popular in Russia and Eastern Europe.

So I start again, under somewhat different circumstances.  I'm now a "real" writer.  After writing and publishing my books, I felt somewhat better about calling myself a writer but now, I'm actually, really, truly, a writer.  What am I writing?  Mostly articles for print magazines, blog posts for other people's blogs, ghostwriting books about internet programming, editing other people's books and having an absolute blast.

Because I've been writing so much for other people, I figured I didn't need that creative outlet any more, but I was wrong.

Lately, I've been participating in a writers' group and the experience has been really awesome.  I realized I still didn't have a place I could write about anything, without purpose.  The food blog had to be about food.  The consumer blog had to be about consumer advice.  Now, it's time to have a blog about nothing - a Jerry Seinfeld-type blog.

All that being said -- let's get started!