Who Says You Can’t Go Home?

I haven’t been posting much the last couple of days because I have been in my home town, Watertown, South Dakota. BISCO (the Business Industry School Coalition), a local organization that promotes a “progressive and meaningful relationship among business, industry and schools,” invited me to speak at their annual lunch meeting. They thought it would be fun to hear about Power Line and related subjects. I said sure. Before that lunch speech, I spent an hour and a half with an AP American history class at my old high school, which looked remarkably like what I remembered from the mid-1960s. Here I am teaching the high school class:

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When we got to town on Saturday, I was amazed to see that BISCO had put up a billboard advertising the event. Here I am standing in front of it:

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The speech was today, before an audience of 300 to 400. I talked about how we founded the web site, recapped Rathergate, reviewed some of the fun controversies of the last few years, and more.

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The audience was great. BISCO presented me with a lovely, framed photograph of Lake Kampeska taken by a high school kid. A reader–[Dr. Dan Flaherty]–brought over a six-pack of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, a favorite of mine, as I have said on this site. A couple of readers came up to me after the speech and asked whether Ammo Grrrll was in the house. It is good to be among friends!

It is also nice to be in a small town. On Sunday afternoon, my brother James, my father and I spent a couple of hours at the Terry Redlin Art Center, a beautiful museum that is worth a separate post. Redlin has been a family friend for a long time.

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When we arrived at the museum, James went in to get a wheel chair for our father. He had to give the person working behind the counter his driver’s license to hold the wheel chair. She looked at James’s North Carolina license and said, “Oh, it’s for Irving!” And then: “You must be here for the speech.” Nothing like a small town.

The art center also houses the Watertown Community Hall of Fame, of which my father is one of seven members, on account of his countless contributions to civic progress and well-being over more than 60 years. He and we posed for this photo:

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So it was a great visit. Who says you can’t go home? I have always been able to, thank God, and I hope you can too.

If you aren’t familiar with the song, by the way, you really should be. Here it is, Jennifer Nettles and Jon Bon Jovi, “Who Says You Can’t Go Home?”

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