{"id":7979,"date":"2018-05-01T16:49:24","date_gmt":"2018-05-01T16:49:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/silveridge.com\/?p=7979"},"modified":"2018-05-01T16:49:24","modified_gmt":"2018-05-01T16:49:24","slug":"silveridge-may-newsletter-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/silveridge.com\/?p=7979","title":{"rendered":"Silveridge May Newsletter 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/h3>\n

The latest in our series..<\/strong><\/h3>\n

THE PEOPLE OF THE PARK: <\/strong><\/h1>\n

Darrell & Marilyn Decker<\/strong><\/h1>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd That Was It\u201d:<\/span><\/h2>\n

A Love Story, with Corn<\/span><\/h2>\n

By Dale Dauten<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

There\u2019s something about corn. It just makes you smile, right? And I\u2019m smiling because I get to write about a couple at Silveridge who\u2019ve had corn play a role in their story. <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"Darrell & Marilyn Decker<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>First of all, going way back, Darrell and Marilyn first met when she was selling popcorn at the Golden Buckle Theater in Rockwell City, Iowa. It was a part-time job while in school and a friend brought Darrell along to a movie and, in Marilyn\u2019s words, \u201cthat was it.\u201d Which makes this the perfect time to insert a Valentine\u2019s Day card I ran across, one that will let us get the corn puns out of the way before we go any further.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/p>\n

Jumping ahead to current times, you might have chatted with Darrell and Marilyn as they sold popcorn at a Silveridge event like the Craft Fair. The popcorn they sell comes from the farm where they lived for many years and where their son grows and packages his brand, Farmer\u2019s Best.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
But, hold on… let\u2019s back up and trace their journey from the Golden Buckle Theater to Silveridge.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
After high school, Darrell signed up for the Navy. He served on aircraft carriers and, among other voyages, got to the Mediterranean twice and the Caribbean three times. He sums up those years by saying, \u201cI saw the world and I found out this is best place in the world.\u201d So he came home to Iowa and took over the family farm in Rockwell City, known as \u201cThe Golden Buckle on The Corn Belt.\u201d (And if you\u2019re paying attention, you\u2019ll have just realized that we now understand the name of that movie theater where they met.)<\/span><\/div>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Marilyn had settled into a job as courthouse stenographer, and the two of them picked up the romance that began that night at the movie house.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\" \"\"<\/span><\/p>\n

They married, and being a young couple without much money, decided to honeymoon at the hunting cabin Darrell\u2019s father has recently acquired. It was a honeymoon without running water or electricity but hey, the scenery was idyllic (as can be seen in the photo of how the place looks today\u2014 still in the family but with much improved living conditions).<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\" \"\" \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Deckers have three children: there\u2019s Tom, who took over the farm and who decided to start the popcorn company; there\u2019s Matthew, who\u2019s Chief Development Engineer at Toro in Minneapolis; and there\u2019s Suzanne, who works as an early childhood teaching assistant in Rochester. As for the old family farm, Tom has added land and they now have about 3000 acres. The latest addition is a new packaging machine for the Farmer\u2019s Best Popcorn \u2013 it can produce 400 packages a minute.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was only recently that Darrell gave up driving the combines for harvest. He says, \u201cYou start at 8AM and you don\u2019t get out of that thing till 11 at night. When I turned 80, I decided I\u2019d had enough practice and turned it over to others.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s been 29 years since the couple first visited Silveridge. They\u2019d come to visit friends in a nearby park. That led to three years of renting and then they bought a place. Why Silveridge? Marilyn says, \u201cWe looked, but this place just seemed so spacious.\u201d And so they spend their winters at the park, and split the rest of the year between Iowa and Canada.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/p>\n

If all of this popcorn talk is making your mouth water, you can wait for the Deckers to get back to Silveridge this Fall, or you can go FarmersBestPopcorn.com<\/a> and check out their products.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The latest in our series.. THE PEOPLE OF THE PARK: Darrell & Marilyn Decker   \u201cAnd That Was It\u201d: A […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[24],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/silveridge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7979"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/silveridge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/silveridge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silveridge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silveridge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7979"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/silveridge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7979\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7992,"href":"https:\/\/silveridge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7979\/revisions\/7992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/silveridge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silveridge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silveridge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}