Too Long in the Wind

September 2010

A quarter's worth of fun

[September 2]   Does anything say county-seat restaurant like paneling and a bank of quarter-eating machines that dispense candy and trinkets? I'd hate to be a parent trying to guide a child past this bank of goodies after Sunday dinner. When I was a kid, I could have spent an hour there myself just admiring the goods.

This scene is at the Don Do Cafe in Larned.

Back to top

Ad aspera

[September 2]   Rick Clawson wrote in response to my question about Kansas' most famous export after basketball players and wheat. "Remember, Kansas' state motto, means 'To the Stars with Difficulties', which by the man who coined this phrase used it in reference to how much trouble Kansas went through to become a state, much of it self-inflicted..."

Also, this week Rainell Goodale of Hays and Cheryl Unruh of Emporia wrote to identify a couple of people in reunion photos. Rainell pinned a name on Randy Dougherty in the 2009 class of 1973 photo, and Cheryl found Karla Mead in this year's "various classes" reunion photo. (2009 | 2010)

Back to top

Radium Bridge is open again

[September 1]   Barton County has reopened the Radium Bridge, which crosses the Arkansas River east of Dundee and south of the Great Bend airport, according to a story in the Great Bend Tribune. It had been closed for a couple of months because some joints were unstable.

During my visit last month, I slipped past the Road Closed signs by the highway and drove to the bridge. Barriers would have kept my rented car off the bridge itself even if I had tried to cross it. I walked out onto it, 20 feet above the mighty Arkansas, and felt nervously for any twinge that might foretell an catastrophic failure. It seemed safe enough, but I didn't want to tempt fate -- "Fool dies in bridge collapse," the headline would say -- and I retreated with a lively step.

Folks at my school reunion the Saturday before had been describing their inconvenience suffered because the Radium and Dartmouth bridges were closed and the Great Bend U.S. 281 bridge was down to two lanes. I'm sure their stories could have been echoed by hundreds of other drivers.

Back to top

What did Kansas feed these guys?

[September 1]   In recent days it has been publicized that Joe Miller, the Sarah Palin-supported lawyer who may deliver Alaska's junior seat in the Senate to the tea party, is from Kansas. He has already upset the apple cart. Last night Lisa Murkowski, a Republican who was handed the seat by her father on his way out of the Senate and into the governor's office, conceded the primary election. (Newspaper story)

He wants the federal government to give to the state all of its Alaska land, which amounts to considerable acreage. In return, Alaska would stop taking federal money for highways, education, and so forth. Alaska could then hand over rights to its lands to the drillers, miners, lumber companies, and commercial fishing operations that now operate under federal guidance. That would make Alaska the economic engine of the United States, Mr. Miller says.

I guess that would work the same way it does in Kansas, which has almost no federal land yet somehow still carries a very large budget deficit. In Alaska's case, its citizens would have to start paying state taxes. Good luck pushing for that, Mr. Miller. I imagine he would have better luck persuading the 49 other states to stop sending money to Alaska.

Mr. Miller, a Fairbanks lawyer who sports the not-quite-a-beard look favored by pro quarterbacks, dictators, and other men who think they're more handsome than they are, was born in Osborne, up on the Nebraska line. His family later moved to Salina, and then he went on to West Point and Yale law school. His website doesn't mention his Kansas upbringing, but he confirmed his biography to the Salina Journal. (His own website)

Mr. Miller is not the only glint-eyed Kansan to have found a political home in Alaska.

• Joe Vogler, a miner, was the highly visible ramrod behind the Alaskan Independence Party. He advocated the secession of Alaska from the United States. He also lived in Fairbanks, and he kept his promise not to be buried in U.S. land. After he was shot by a burglar in 1993 he was laid to rest in Yukon Territory. He was from Barnes and earned a law degree from KU, and it appears he was encouraged to leave Kansas. (Wikipedia)

• Wally Hickel was Alaska's second governor, elected as a Republican in 1966, but then he was named interior secretary by President Nixon in 1969. He lasted about a year, or the time it took to disagree with Nixon over the Vietnam War -- after he publicly told Nixon to pay more attention to the ideas of young people, he was fired. He tried again and again to become governor, but it wasn't until the Alaskan Independence Party threw out its own candidate and let him have its spot on the ballot in 1990 that he got another four years. Mr. Hickel, a construction company owner, had grand ideas about Alaskans owning their state and piping water to California, and he once told "60 Minutes" that "you can't let nature just run wild." Mr. Hickel was a boat rocker. He supported and then disavowed Sarah Palin, and he called for the resignation of Sen. Ted Stevens, who he had appointed to office in 1968. Mr. Hickel was a pleasant fellow. I talked to him a couple of times, and his brother gave me a tour of the family's farmstead. He died this year. Mr. Hickel was from Claflin. (Wikipedia)

• Ralph Winterrowd was a Patriot Party candidate for governor in 1994 on a platform that was beyond Libertarian. He was defeated soundly and now has a web page and a broadcast career. Mr. Winterrowd says he was from southeast Kansas. (His web page)

I look at all these former Kansans and wonder whether I should contribute more to my adoptive state and its exciting political history. I could run governor under the banner of "Elect me! I'm from Kansas!"

How does Kansas -- the land of Goat Glands Brinkley, Carry Nation, John Brown, and Fred Phelps -- maintain its sanity? I can't say for sure, but sending some of its sons off to be politicians in Alaska seems to be the solution.

Back to top

Sell it

Advertise here to an audience that's already interested in Pawnee Rock:

Or tell someone happy birthday.