105.5 (leaving Blue Rapids): Turn right (west), water tower on left. 105.8: Cross railroad tracks; turn left and then right two blocks; turn west windmill on right. – Official Log of the Kansas White Way If you want to get a feel for what early travelers faced on Kansas roads, one … More Windmill on right
I wish I’d known when we arrived in early evening at the Pawnee Indian Museum near Republic that my uncle Troy Parker used to impress upon girls that he was a direct descendant of Cynthia Ann Parker and the famous Parker clan of central Texas. He was well aware of the lie, my father told … More The once and future Kansas
Like other frontier folk, they were always on the move, relocating ever westward as settlements became too populous or their distinct brand of religion clashed with others, or for reasons known only to themselves. Sometimes the still, small voice of God called them forth and at others the land itself through earthquakes and … More Fateful journey into the wilderness for the Parker clan
I didn’t know what to expect, only that I’d dreaded the day for a decade or more, dreaded it with a passion that deepened with each heartbeat so that even as the minutes ran the clock and the dawn crept in no different than any other dawn in the last few millennia I … More Just another day on the outer rim of the galaxy
The sun teetered on the rim of the world before slipping beyond the curvature of the planet and still the big cow stood unmoving by the truck. Crouched several hundred yards away behind a clump of sumac I watched it and waited in the hopes that it would lose interest and move off, … More Home on the range
One a.m., my slumbering brain rousing itself in what was once considered merely a temporary interruption between the first sleep and the second (and summarily outmoded by modernity, clocks, industrialization and a work ethic that neatly compartmentalized our lives into cubbyholes), ears pricked to the sounds of a nocturnal house, Lori beside me … More Give me this night
Baseball Hall of Fame inductee Joe Tinker celebrated two anniversaries on July 27—that of his birthday in 1880 and his death in 1948—and 300 or so people from across the state of Kansas, California and Maryland descended on the tiny town of Muscotah to celebrate. That the celebration happened at all was an … More Muscotah’s field of dreams
Darkness does not descend but rises from the earth. Standing near the church stand wreathed within its mouthwatering bouquet of burgers and pies I watched it swallow the grass and lap up the sides of the carnival rides like coalblack floodwaters while all around ebbed and flowed families and children and roving packs … More Fair nights, carnival lights
It wasn’t a road as such, more a grass-choked two-track splitting off the cobbled dead-end street to rise onto what appeared to be a narrow levee separating the town from the railroad tracks. Beyond it an old unused grain elevator jutting into the view. “I wonder if it’ll take us there,” … More Downtown anytown
“How will we do this?” my wife asked. I looked out the window at the Cedar Point Mill and couldn’t help but imagine the entire structure crumbling into the river—with me inside. The cracks and seams spidering the limestone walls seemed wider and more pronounced than during my last visit two … More Time running out
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