The Vermillion Blog!

You can see Sanford Hospital’s new and unnecessary sign from two miles east of the hospital.  What’s with society’s need to show off?  Dim those lights!

Driving down the street I passed yard after yard of beautiful dandelions (my favorite flower).  Then I came upon a perfectly mowed lawn of that weird green that only fertilizer can create and not one dandelion, not one - obviously the result of poisoning.  Right in the center of the yard was a sign.  ”No To Hyperion” it said.  I’m sure they’re concerned about the pollution.  :  )

I moved to Vermillion, South Dakota, in late December of 1977.  The university students were home for the holidays and the town seemed very small and slow paced.  After Christmas all the students came back and the town became a busier place but still a small town.  I left Vermillion in 1988 for fifteen years and returned in 2003.  Vermillion had changed for the worse, all in the name of progress.  Now the landfill competes with Spirit Mound to be the highest point on the northern horizon.  Main Street and Cherry Street have become noon rush hour traffic jams.  A Wal-Mart superstore has arrived and the city has honored it with its very own ridiculous traffic light.  The once-quaint university is razing historic buildings and constructing new mega-million dollar ones, and tearing out trees to build larger and larger parking lots.   A large oil refining company is coming to a nearby town with the enthusiastic endorsement from those who will profit from it.  Soon I will pack up my family and leave Verhundred forever.  I am busy searching for another small college town that hasn’t caved in to the pressure of progress and greed and pollution.  Perhaps in Idaho?  Arkansas?  Vermillion used to have a million points of light.  Now it has become just another typical urban extension.  Now it has only a hundred points of light, getting dimmer every day.