THE LIST: 'If I had a million dollars, I'd..."

Whether it’s at a party, family gathering or during a long car ride, we all have our favorite group games we gravitate toward playing. One of those for me is the one where the leader draws a card or calls out a word and you have to go around and either say a song title that references that word or sing a song lyric that uses the word. I got to thinking about this last week producing the paper.

The headline on the front about 1957 Orient-Macksburg graduate Charlene (Speed) Lamberti presenting a $1 million charitable fund to the town of Orient, and an additional $200,000 to go to the school, is certainly one you don’t see every day, no matter where you live.

Coming from a small community myself that’s even smaller than Orient, I cannot properly predict the impact that this money will have on the community well into the future. This family has obviously done well, but they’re passing their wealth on to make an impact on the next generation, which is a generous move. Ryan Frederick gave me a call awhile back to alert me to the fact this donation was going to happen during Pumpkin Days and you could hear the excitement in his voice for it.

The Helen and Virgil Speed and Family Orient iowa Charitable Fund from the Lambertis will be maintained at the Community Foundation of Greater Des Moines. The fund is named for Charlene Lambert’s parents who lived in Orient and raised three children. Donald and Charlene founded Casey’s, a chain which seems to be in every Iowa town from the Missouri to the Mississipi nowadays. My boss, John Van Nostrand, was there to get the story.

Thinking back to song titles, I couldn’t help but start humming the chorus to the song “If I had $1,000,000″ in my head. The song was released by the Canadian band The Barenaked Ladies in 1988, when I was 1. I went back to the song and gave it a listen this week.

“If I Had $1,000,000″ is just what its title suggests. It’s a diddy in which they’re telling a girl they’ll buy her a house and furniture for it, a K-Car (watch The Red Green Show and he ruins a lot of K-Cars ), and he’ll buy her love. They’ll spend the money on building her a tree fort with a tiny fridge, get her a fur coat and a limousine, the song says. The song goes on, but no need to digress farther into the lyrics. I think you get the idea. There are lots of other songs about money, but this is the one that stuck out to me as I placed the headline last week on the front page.

Parkersburg City Administrator Chris Luhring spoke to the school staff at Nodaway Valley before the first day of school. One of the things he impressed upon them during his speech was the weight of the opportunity they have in front of them this year to impact young lives in a positive way. This is, of course, despite all the challenges our community in Greenfield has faced through this summer. Going back to school is a sign of “normal” for some.

Orient-Macksburg is also trying to make the most of a sad situation as they face the possible closure of their district, probably in the next couple of years. I wouldn’t think this would lead their staff to think in a similar way. They’re trying to make this year extra special, in case it is their last together.

All this reminds me to focus on what we have, instead of what we don’t. It’s been a rough summer, for sure. There are things some of us don’t have anymore. For some of us, that list is a lot longer than what we still have. That’s really hard.

To be frank, the headlines this summer have been kind of depressing around here. While we realize it is hard, we can also see around us that hammers will keep hammering, sanders will keep buzzing and paint will keep drying as we rebuild our town. Kids will keep learning, teachers will keep teaching, touchdowns will be scored on the football field and new scales will be learned in the music room. All this is a sign of normal, and our journey back to normal remains a marathon, not a sprint.

Like Luhring eluded to, getting back to normal and to the proverbial finish line of the rebuild of our community will take all of us. Whatever it is we have to offer, it will take all of us, because it’s quite possible that the most important things in life indeed cannot be bought, even by a million dollars.