just thinking about....: Kansas, she said...

.... is the name of the star

So March found us taking a trip to Kansas to see family. It was the first time I have been in Kansas in the spring since 1975. Ahhhh The first few days I thought we had come just a wee bit to early, but by the time we went home the new leafy green was showing and the redbud tree blooms were swelling and opening. That made our timing just perfect.

We took a "blue highway" from Kansas City to Manhattan, watching the prairie sunset over and over again heading west, up and down the hills of the eastern part of the state. We drove through small towns that I had never been in during all my growing up years in Kansas.

The next day, a drive around town and a stop at the University Art Gallery.

The next night we went out to the Konza Prairie and took a quick 3 mile walk just as the sun was setting. Wild turkeys and deer were raiding the green winter wheat.

The seed pods of autumn were falling to the ground.

This rim of rock just under the soil is reason for the name of these hills, the Flint hills. This layer of rock made

this land not very suitable for farming.except in the more fertile river valleys.

The next night, another prairie sunset from the cemetery on the west side of town where my father is buried.

and a drive around town past former homes and schools. Lots of memories. Primary on the steps of that house. The boy that was supposed to be staying at our house while his mom recovered from surgery but was homesick and ran away. (All the kids in the neighborhood walked miles trying to find him). Girl Scouts in the Methodist Church and in the armory. High School marching band practice on the streets in the neighborhood between the high school and the zoo. Yes, that is an amazing location for a high school between the cemetery and the zoo. Babysitting for the people that lived in that house. The bus driver speeding up to go over that hill and driving by his girl friends house so he could honk at her. Letting our voices vibrate in the back seat of the car when driving over the old brick roads. Track and Field day at Griffith park in the spring of Junior High years. The VW bug that was decoration for a church dance (yes it was in the building), walking to the library and the orthodontist. How wonderfully cold the Wareham Theatre felt if you got to go to a movie in the summer. The watermelon seeds I planted when I was 5. (Yes, the plants grew but we moved and they probably didn't mature so late in the season.) raw rolled oats and sugar and cinnamon as a treat when we were playing outside on a hot summer day. The divided highway that my friend thought was a street (yep, she went the wrong way for about 5 blocks before she could turn around) Mrs. Loofburrow always buying a box of girl scout cookies from every girl that came by selling. Playing hide and seek in the street with all the kids from the neighborhood on long summer nights
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This is the place were DER and I had a wedding reception in the late seventies. It has been added to so that it could serve a student ward. The addition is very well done and preserves some of the historic features of this building. Other things have changed some. Downtown is old and new. A Flint Hills center will be opening soon. It has nice public outdoor space and a lovely viewpoint of the hills surrounding Manhattan.

Much in Manhattan has remained the same. This building was the central building in the Dairy barn where my father has some work affiliation. It is now used for other university functions and it's big lawn is surrounded by horticultural gardens. The dairy barns are now moved further out of town. I remember coming here for student club cook-outs and to follow Dad around. Dad was more involved with the food side of the dairy industry, but we came here and saw the cows with windows in their sides for research purposes when I was a child. I have stronger memories of the smell of the dairy plant and of the lab. We stopped at the Dairy bar to buy some "squeeky" cheese (cheese curd) and to have some "Purple Pride" ice cream.

The train station is has undergone a revival since I was young.

It was here that I stood in the wee hours of the morning as the sun was coming up through a misty morning while Dwight David Eisenhower's funeral train came through on the way west to his burial place in Abilene.

It was not something my 15 year old self wanted to do. It was something my father wanted his family to do. He had been a teenager during WWII, and in the Air Force when DDE was president. I had never known anyone who had died at this point in my life (we lived far from extended family in a fairly young community of friends). I was uncomfortable about paying respect to a dead person I had never known in a public way. Dad was insistent and I went along without excessive complaint to keep him happy. We were among a few others at the depot as the train slowed while going by. But I felt other people's respect for someone and I felt respect for their feelings. I felt a bit of what it meant to be an American, to value the leader who served with dedication and vigor. I really didn't know if I valued DDE, but I knew that these people at the station did and that it mattered to them. I became a different kind of American that morning watching the feelings of others who stood in the morning dark and fog to show respect. Sometimes in our current political climate, we forget that we may be unaware of what matters to others. We sometimes forget to value the respect others feel.

A Sunday morning at church found only three old timers. Manhattan never had a very stable long term LDS population. The kids grow up and move away like I did. The older people are getting too old to make it to church or have moved to be closer to their children. The wards consist largely of people there for military reasons and people attached to the universitySunday afternoon was spent in Topeka with the family enjoying really good food. Yummy, yummy. I looked up the recipe for the coconut cake that Stephanie made - going to make it soon.

We also drove around and took pictures of the street signs we could find that represented the families of our children. Sorry M, we couldn't find one with your family name on it.