PRESSED BETWEEN THE PAGES
DeAnn (Wolkow) Kruempel
Were They Just Grains of Sand?
It never stopped. The relentless force pushed, rolled, pulled. It deposited and dislodged.
In wild storms it crashed into boulders, abandoning and stealing chunks of stone. In calm, gentle breezes, the water swirled and churned. The constant movement stirred and battered the rocks and they grew smaller. Years and forces of nature turned the giant boulders into tiny particles of sand.
The above is a condensed version of how the beach was created at the edge of Spirit
Lake, near the towns of De Smet, Erwin and Bancroft, South Dakota. The lake is a natural glacial lake, formed more than 10,000 years ago. Glaciers left behind gigantic blocks of ice that melted, giving birth to Spirit Lake and many others.
Those grains of sand are composed mostly of quartz and feldspar with fragments of
calcium carbonate from shells. The glacier may have even left behind bits of dinosaur bones and teeth!
A pile of that wonderful, sparkly sand ended up in a three-by-six-foot wooden frame in
our yard—the sandbox. Dad and our older brother Donald, 16 at the time, built the frame of two-by-six boards. Don threw a shovel in the back of the pickup and drove the six miles to Spirit Lake for a load of sand.
It didn’t take Delmer long to find that small mountain, just waiting to spark the imaginations of a seven-year-old and his little sister. From the house yard, I heard a “brrumm, brrummm” sound coming from the area of the new sandbox. Delmer was tearing down the mountain! I grabbed my new metal pail and shovel and skipped out the gate.
“Hey, Delmer! Whatcha doin’?”
“Building a road.” He pushed his Tonka Road Grader through the pile, leveling and scraping. “I need to make a road out to my field.”
“Can I play in the sand, too?”
“No.” He punctuated with more “brrumming.”
I climbed into the sandbox and started scooping wet sand into my bucket. I tipped it out and molded it into a castle. Sticks from the grass added spires. Soon a princess and her cats peered from the castle tower. I dug a moat to protect it from invading road builders.
Then I watched my brother. He parked the road grader beside the box and used his earth mover to scoop buckets of sand and move them to another corner. He reached for the John Deere tractor, hooked on the plow and “putted” his way down the road he had made to his “field” just west of the box.
Delmer lowered the plow lays, made tractor sounds and started turning over a layer of dirt. I suddenly wanted to be a farmer!
“Can I help you in your field?”
“No. Putt-putt-putt…”
I plopped down on the grass by my brother’s field. Delmer showed me how to run the plow, then the rake that really turned. He combined a wagon load of “oats,” then used the tractor and wagon to pull the load back to the sandbox. I scooped a little sand into the green elevator.
We took turns cranking it while it emptied the sand into the peach crate “granary.” He said the castle could stay for a day or so.
That summer and summers after we spent hours in that sandbox, playing and imagining.
Was there magic in those grains of sand, created over thousands and thousands of years?
Maybe.
But I am absolutely certain that there is magic in the memories.
The author’s column appears in a growing number of Midwest newspapers. Kruempel has compiled and published her column stories every year for the last five years. She has also published a historical fiction series, “Promises to Keep.” Her ten books are available on Amazon.
Signed copies may be purchased at the Harrison County Welcome Center. Contact Kruempel at deannkruempelauthor@gmail.com.
