You can thank a birds nest for bringing about todays column.
Its a rather hum-drum affair, this small nest of mud, grass and feathers hugging a wall near the Registers main entrance, but it holds something even smaller: Five little barn swallow nestlings. Theyre growing fast, thanks to the plump insects the parents are stuffing into their little beaked mouths daily, and will likely have taken flight by the time you read this.
So whats your point, Mondell? youre asking. Barn swallows are a dime a dozen. Theyre small. Theyre nothing special!
Ah, but great things come from small things. These little barn swallows will become bigger adult barn swallows. Theyll join the countless tens of millions of other swallows, whose populations and ranges blanket most of the Americas and beyond. In turn, the enormity of that population will play a crucial role in helping control insect populations after all, its the creepy crawlies these birds love to, pardon the pun, swallow.
And, for a teeny, tiny part of that huge barn swallow population, it all started right here in Brookings, in a nest attached to the Registers building.
This analogy works for things other than birds, too: Brookings started out as just a smidgen of a community on the Dakota prairie in the later years of the 1800s as rail lines were built throughout the area. And within that smidgen was a tiny center of education now known as South Dakota State University.
Both have spread their wings, so to speak, in the century-plus timespan between then and now, and are leaving their marks on the region and the greater world beyond. Brookings is a bustling, growing city of more than 24,000 year-round residents while SDSU has become the states largest university, with 11,500 or so students.
Brookings and its immediate area is home to companies like Daktronics, Larson Manufacturing, Falcon Plastics and Novita, firms founded in or near the city, nurtured by their owners and employees and having grown into well-respected entities with far-reaching impacts outside of the city. And lets not forget about Solventum (formerly 3M), Bel Brands, Valero, Twin City Fan and many more, who are a part of our community and have contributed greatly to the citys maturation into a hub for agriculture, manufacturing and education.
SDSU has grown along similar lines, and is home to acclaimed colleges, schools and departments oh, and some damn good sports teams as well (go Jacks!). I can attest to that growth; in the 25 or so years since I graduated from SDSU, the university has expanded so much that I bet a 7 a.m. walk from Hansen Hall on the west end of campus in the middle of a frigid January to the Oscar Larson Performing Arts Center near the east end of campus takes longer now than it did then.
Well, I know it does, since the center didnt yet exist in my student days. Back then, it was the Stanley J. Marshall HPER Center that was the farthest trek for me from Hansen Hall. Todays walk would be more meandering, too, what with the other new and remodeled buildings dotting the campus, including residence halls that werent around in the late 1990s.
So, great things come from small things. Sometimes, though, it feels good to be small and insignificant.
Hows that work, Mondell? youre muttering. Its a dog-eat-dog world. You gotta be big in order to just survive!
Yes, its true that our world the human world, that is seems to grow more callous and cruel with each passing day. I lay part of the blame for that at the feet of social media and its algorithms, which, if were not careful, seemingly corral us into online echo chambers, forever apart from each other. That, however, is a column for another time and place.
Right now, I ask one thing of you: If you want to be perfectly fine with being a mote of dust perhaps even revel in it then, after the sun has slipped below the western horizon, go out into the countryside away from lights as the night deepens. Park your car. Climb up on its hood, or settle down in your pickup bed, or even grab a blanket and sit your butt on the ground.
Relax, and turn your eyes toward heavens vault, and drink it all in. The stars. The planets. The constellations. Perhaps the sweep of one of the Milky Way galaxys arms. Maybe even, if youre lucky, a shooting star or two. Feel the enormity of it all, and how we might fit into that overarching story.
Thats the kind of small I can fall absolutely in love with a feeling of tininess that opens and expands my mind and my heart to the greater grandeur of life, existence and more. I hope it does the same for you, too, dear reader.
Contact Mondell Keck at [email protected].
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