Max Cooper's Pen - Telling dakota Lies

Telling Dakota Lies

Editor's Note: This column first appeared in the Aberdeen American-News on March 19, 1967.

A former Dakotan has just about got to tell lies--although I, for one, started my new career as a D.D. (Displaced Dakotan) with the intention of telling the truth about those two mighty empires--North and South Dakota. It turned out to be impossible. I got into the habit of lying before I even arrived at my new home near Big Rapids, Michigan. So, in my final dispatch to the Aberdeen American-News, I think I owe it to all Dakotans to explain why the truth simply isn't in us dislodged pilgrims.

In fact, if the Federal government ever hears what compulsive liars some of us are, we'll probably be elevated to the Cabinet. This reservoir of liars is a huge one and could become a national asset. There are about a million of us wandering forlorn around the other 48 states, spending the nights dreaming of the beautiful Dakota sky, the lovely sunrises (I never got up early enough to see one, but I've heard of them), and the uncluttered landscapes. But we spend our days contriving outrageous tales of blizzards, droughts, rattlesnakes, gunfights, wild horse roundups and Indian wars.

I left Dakota by way of Sioux City, Iowa. A Dakotan doesn't create much of a stir in Sioux City. There's a good deal of traffic back and forth. Dakotans send cattle to slaughter in Sioux City, and Iowa, in return, sends gamblers to our race tracks as a form of financial readjustment.

I motored all the way to Chicago before my primitive appearance and South Dakota license plates attracted any comment. I was driving along in my old Clatterbolt on the toll road (which is a piece of civilization that hasn't gotten to Dakota yet), and I came to the gate where you pay the 35 cents. The keeper of the gate was a lonely-looking galoot. He focused his sad old blinkers on my license plate and brightened a bit.

"I used to live in South Dakota. I was at Woonsocket. You ever hear of Woonsocket?" he asked wistfully as he bit my quarter to see if it was counterfeit.

"You bet I've heard of Woonsocket," I said. Some horns behind me honked, so I ground the Clatterbolt into gear and rattled off in a cloud of smoke. "I've even been there!" I yelled back. It made him real happy. He doesn't find many tollway motorists who will shoot the breeze with him about Woonsocket.

From Chicago on, I began to get the treatment. "South Dakota, huh?" said one filling station dude as he walked cautiously around the car. He plainly expected a fully armed naked Indian to leap out of the trunk at him. "You're a long ways from home, ain'tcha?"

"Several hundred miles," I said. Those were the next-to-the-last true words I've spoken about Dakota, and it was over two weeks ago.

Another stop was around Benton Harbor, Michigan. Since I was getting out of Indian country, I stopped at a barber shop to have my scalp lock cut off. I couldn't count on my good Sioux neighbors to keep my hair cut any more, and I wanted to look about halfway tame when I got to my new job.

I want to tell you right now that they have a little snow in Michigan. They had a little snow where I stopped. In fact, I could hardly see the barber shop because of the drift in front of it. I drove three blocks along a street that was about seven feet wide between the drifts before I found a place to park. Then I climbed back through snow that would bury a 3-year-old Hereford.

There were two barbers in the shop and three customers besides myself. They were talking about the snow, and I can't say I blamed them. I had said a few things about it myself while I was walking through it. The last time I saw almost that much snow was at Timber Lakes after the Blizzard of '66. Finally, when one of the barbers stopped talking to gasp for a little air, I said, "I'm a newcomer just moving into Michigan. And I'm a little disappointed to find this much snow. I can't take it. How do you people stand it?"

Those five geezers in the barber shop all looked like they had been praying and somebody had used obscene language. Dakota is maybe the only place in the world where the natives like to hear their weather criticized. Anywhere else, including Michigan, it makes the aborigines mad. After a long hurt silence, one guy recalled that a Minnesotan had been through there a few days before and thought the weather was pretty nice in Michigan. These birds, you'll remember, had not seen my license plates.

"Well," I said, "Minnesota has pretty tough weather. But I'm not from there, and I'm not used to this much snow."

They were beginning to think I was from the Bahamas. There was another long thoughtful silence in which four of them seriously considered throwing me out of the shop, and my barber stropped his razor while looking thoughtfully at my throat. Finally, one screwed up his courage and asked in a timid voice, "Where are you from?"

"South Dakota, Land of Sunshine..." I said. I was going to add the state motto that "Under Governor Boe (or maybe it's God, I always forget which), the People rule," but I never got a chance.

Those five fellows howled with laughter. "South Dakota!" they repeated gleefully to each other, slapping their knees. They thought a South Dakotan grumbling about snow was just as bad as if a strip tease artist were to complain about girls wearing mini skirts.

"You have a lot of snow in Dakota, don't you?" the barber asked.

"Not much when I left," I said truthfully--and that's the last truthful thing I may ever say about the Old Country.

Those five characters looked ready to burst into disrespectful laughter again. One winked at another. I could see they wouldn't believe the truth, but they would fall for a lie if I could make it big enough. And I could. The temptation was too much. "In fact," I said, "there was so little snow there day before yesterday that you could still see the roofs of most of the two-story houses."

They swallowed that.

This illustrates an important fact of human nature. We will believe any lie, no matter how big, if it's what we want to hear. Most Americans want to hear about frightful weather in Dakota. And there are a million of us wandering homeless around the other 48 states ready at the drop of a question to spin a yarn of a blizzard or a high temperature that turned the mercury in the thermometer to steam. If we tell the truth, we aren't believed.

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