Journal entry by Al Negstad — a minute ago
Ours was a commuter marriage, for a time, and she did all the commuting while she was President/CEO of Lutheran Social Services, South Dakota. At the beginning she suggested that perhaps I should retire and join her in Sioux Falls. That idea shipwrecked on the shoal of S. D. politics so I stayed put, working and living in Minnesota. Given my schedule of working weekends it wasn't practical for me do the driving, so drive she did, averaging 40,000 accident free miles a year. Many of those miles were crisscrossing the state as she raised 5.8 million dollars for Lutheran Social Services youth programs.
When she came home for weekends that meant over 500 miles of driving winter and summer. Today I drove that route from Minneapolis to Sioux Falls; #169 to Mankato, #60 to Worthington, and I-90 to Sioux Falls. While driving I was very conscious of the (ca.) 400, times Joanne drove it when she worked in S. D. The stretches of two lane highway with which she wrestled have been converted to four lanes now...no two lane road left on that route. The ache in my heart was exacerbated by a powerful wish to tell her about this road improvement. The least Minnesota could do is name the route, "The Joanne Negstad Memorial Highway."
At a funeral home in Sioux Falls for a visitation of a friend from our days in Mohall, the first person I saw was the consultant who with whom Joanne worked raising that 5.8 million. Both the death, and the chance encounter, are exactly the type of occurrences that I long to recount to her. So it goes in the land of grief.
Blessings,
Al
When she came home for weekends that meant over 500 miles of driving winter and summer. Today I drove that route from Minneapolis to Sioux Falls; #169 to Mankato, #60 to Worthington, and I-90 to Sioux Falls. While driving I was very conscious of the (ca.) 400, times Joanne drove it when she worked in S. D. The stretches of two lane highway with which she wrestled have been converted to four lanes now...no two lane road left on that route. The ache in my heart was exacerbated by a powerful wish to tell her about this road improvement. The least Minnesota could do is name the route, "The Joanne Negstad Memorial Highway."
At a funeral home in Sioux Falls for a visitation of a friend from our days in Mohall, the first person I saw was the consultant who with whom Joanne worked raising that 5.8 million. Both the death, and the chance encounter, are exactly the type of occurrences that I long to recount to her. So it goes in the land of grief.
Blessings,
Al
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