Too Long in the Wind

Law of The Jungle: For those of you who haven't already read Cheryl Unruh's piece on the Tyson meat-factory layoffs in Emporia, hie yourself over to FlyoverPeople.net.

Fifteen hundred people -- that's five times Pawnee Rock's population -- are going to lose their slaughterhouse jobs. Tyson decided to shut down part of its plant in Emporia because it costs less to cut up cattle in Holcomb.

Back to top

A photo I like: No. 71

[January 26]   How many roads in Kansas, or even near Pawnee Rock, do you think this sign -- "Minimum Maintenance. Travel at Your Own Risk" -- is appropriate for? As it happens, I've seen it just once, on a dry-wash-crossed dirt road in Brown County east of Sabetha.

I was in the neighborhood and thought I'd drop in on Sabetha, a town whose name has intrigued me since I first read it on a map back in grade school. The town struck me as a pleasant, Larned-esque place, although smaller than I expected.

The sign has a practical purpose, but I like its metaphorical meaning a lot more.

Back to top

My BAK can be yours too

Margaret Unruh photographed her bikers in Troy, Doniphan County, on BAK 2007.

[January 25]   It's almost time for the folks at Biking Across Kansas to open their website so people can sign up for the 2008 ride. On Kansas Day a year ago, I was itching to do just that, fearing that 800 other people would beat me to the Enter button on the first day.

As it turns out, I made it in plenty of time to enroll myself and the boys to ride and my wife to be our escort.

Our main intention was to introduce the boys to Kansas from Colorado to Missouri. They rode the entire distance, 500 or so flat and hilly miles, in sun, rain, and wind. They also go to see grandparents and Aunt Cheryl and Peg Britton. They got a really good look at the Sunflower State, and they seem the better for it. All that knowledge, and wisdom about what they can accomplish, is stored away somewhere in their minds.

I wanted to see the full-length state again too. I had done BAK twice, in 1984 and 1985, and in '84 I also rode twice from Oklahoma to Nebraska. I even met my future wife on BAK (I say it was in '84; she says '85).

But that was then. My main concern, besides keeping the boys safely on the road, was whether I was the athlete I used to be; BAK still made up a large part of my self-image. Could I, 22 years older than before, still make it across Kansas?

I'm proud to report that I did it, and I took ibuprofen only on the last two days. (Read about the trip in posts I made in June.)

Now that I've proved it to myself, I invite you to do it too.

Here's how it works: If you're not in shape, start riding now a few miles at a time, then ride a little longer each week over the next five months so that eventually you can ride 50 miles in a day at least once.

The nice thing about BAK is that you have all day to go 60 or 70 or 80 miles. That's all day, and you can stop for snacks or a meal in almost every town you pass through. No matter your speed, you'll find someone comfortable to ride with. BAK people in vans trail behind the riders to pick you up if you falter.

If you're in good shape and can ride 15 miles an hour steadily, you can start each day at 7 a.m. and be done riding by noon. If you want to.

A lot of people camp in their own tents next to the schools where BAK spends the night, but others like to spread a sleeping bag on the gym floor. (Our family used an RV this time, so we could keep better track of the boys.) Showers are available in the school. BAK transports the tents and sleeping bags for you.

Getting to Colorado may present a problem, but I bet you can get a friend or relative to drive you to the border if you pay the expenses. Ditto for coming home after the ride. Some riders carpool.

And, listen, if you are tired up to here with the city, you need to meet the folks in towns with wide streets lined with elms -- Tribune and St. Francis and Sabetha and Coldwater and Harper. Even if you're not from Pawnee Rock, chances are you or your parents came from a place like that, and you will love getting back onto the plains and prairie for a week.

Like all Pawnee Rock kids, I was on a bike not long after I learned to walk. I got hooked on the idea of touring when I met Bikecentennial riders in 1976, and in 2007 I passed the dream along to our sons.

What I wanted to them to get out of it was what I felt when BAK passed by Pawnee Rock in 1984 and I pedaled into town: I was the proudest rider on the road.

This year, that can be you.

BAK lasts for only eight days, Saturday through Saturday in early June. This year, that can be your best week too.

Back to top

Mr. Dunavan and Mr. Harris

The Pawnee Rock Christian Church

[January 24]   Two men known in Pawnee Rock died this week.

Michael James Dunavan: Michael James Dunavan died Tuesday at home outside town. He was 27 years old and a deacon at the Pawnee Rock Christian Church. He was an educated man. Mr. Dunavan's funeral will be at 11 a.m. Saturday at the Christian Church, and he'll be buried in the Pawnee Rock Cemetery. His survivors include his parents, Robert and Janice Dunavan. (Obituary)

Raymon Keith Harris: Raymon Keith Harris, who had lived in Pawnee Rock and then moved to Larned, died Sunday. He was a retired truck driver. His survivors include Phyllis Agee of Pawnee Rock. Mr. Harris' funeral will be at 2 p.m. Saturday at Morell Funeral Home in Larned. His ashes will be placed later in the Pawnee Rock Cemetery. (Obituary)

Back to top

License tags of the past

[January 23]   Leon Miller sent a follow-up note about the photo of the Mercury Eight mail car, which appeared yesterday on the homepage and now in the Gallery.

"A little bit of trivia about the license tag on Dean Ross' car: Back in those days the license plate identification started out with numbers unique to each county in the State of Kansas. Pawnee County was 69, Barton County was 33. I'm not sure what year the state changed from numbers to letters, i.e. Pawnee County being PN, and Barton County being BT.

"But you always thought you were a little bit better (a myth) if your car license had a 33 rather than a 69 in it."

Well, fortunate me: I happen to have a doubly blessed piece of metal -- a truck tag from Barton County in 1933.

Back to top

History of the New Jerusalem Church

The New Jerusalem Church in 2005.

[January 22]   My parents had told me that the New Jerusalem Church had split off from the Russian Mennonites, who arrived in 1874, but those things are hard for a child to understand.

Finally, thanks to a little research and a few years of growing up, the facts are soaking in. I probably still don't understand a few things and would be glad to correct anything written here.

A history of the Bergthal Mennonite congregation says that the split occurred in 1888, when 21 members organized the church around teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg, a Swedish scientist and theologian.

In my young mind, I never quite understood the idea behind the New Jerusalem Church. But the notion of following a Swedish scientist couldn't be much different from following a Friesland minister named Menno Simons or another preacher named John Wesley, who had a method.

In the late 19th century, there was competition for church members in Pawnee Rock. The Herald in 1926 cited an 1882 town directory showing three congregations in 1882 -- Baptist, Evangelican, and United Brethren -- none of which remained when the story was printed.

The Mennonites' suppressed animosity over the split lingered in the voice of adults who tried to teach us to call the other congregation the New Jew Church. (I rather hope there was a similar nickname for the Mennonites.) A few of our Mennonites didn't go out of their way to do things with the New Jerusalem congregation, which I suppose is a natural reaction to being reminded that some extended family members thought they had found a better way to heaven.

I, however, found the idea of the New Jerusalem Church slightly exotic, and many of my good friends attended there.

The two congregations no doubt split a lot of families. My dad's family stayed with the Mennonites, but other Unruhs and our relatives joined or married into the New Jerusalem Church. Benjamin P. Unruh, who owned Pawnee Rock (the Rock) before selling it to the state in 1908, was the New Jerusalem Church's first ordained minister. Galen Unruh, son of Ben C. Unruh, was the pastor in the mid-20th century.

In 1891, the young Swedenborgian congregation built a frame church -- identified as "Russian Church" on the 1902 plat -- a mile south of where the Mennonite Church now sits. At the time, the Mennonites were still meeting in an 1875-built stone church near Dundee.

In 1899, the Mennonites built a frame church a mile north of the New Jerusalem Church.

In 1907, the New Jerusalem congregation moved its frame church to Pawnee Rock.

After the New Jerusalem Church was moved, the Mennonites turned those small acres into a cemetery. In 1915, the Mennonites built a brick church on its present site.

In 1924, the New Jerusalem congregation built its own brick church on the north side of Santa Fe Avenue.

Back to top

Lesson learned lightning-quick

[January 21]   You know how teenagers are -- bulletproof. As far as I was concerned, they were lightning-proof, too.

I used to stand outside and watch thunderstorms roll in, and I'd park my camera on a tripod out on a road somewhere and try to take pictures of bolts not too far away. Once in a while, I'd even watch storms from atop the pavilion at the Rock -- that tower with the heavy iron pipes around the top.

There would be stories in the newspapers about how lighting had hit some golfer or hiker, but I paid those little attention. How bad could lightning be if it just blew your shoes off?

And then in September 1974 I was motoring along the road to Macksville and saw a couple of driveway elms that had been ripped from the crown to the ground. They were still standing, but their yellow inner flesh was exposed for all the world to see.

Lightning had struck the trees the night before, and it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that if lightning could do that to a tree, it could do that to me.

Our Troop 444 scoutmaster, Ron Stark, had once explained that wood was at least 18 times harder than skin. The same pressure that could scratch wood would gash a human, and that's why we were to be careful with knives and hatches.

And, obviously, with lightning. After seeing that blown-out tree, I didn't think a human (specifically, this human) could count on surviving the experience of being an electrical conduit between sky and earth.

So now I'm smarter about lightning. I hope I'm more careful too, but I'm definitely smarter.

There are other lessons as well that should keep us from taunting Nature. For example, tornadoes are "Wizard of Oz" fun until you walk up to a family that just lost its home. Swift water is pretty until you stand against it. Desert heat is the stuff of cartoons until you see someone blistered and black-tongued. There are diseases we all make fun of until someone we know gets them.

When we see what Nature can do, we stop laughing.

When I was seven or eight years old, I caught a stomach virus and spent the morning in the bathroom. After coming up for air, I told my very patient mom: "I'm never going to make fun of throwing up again."

Well, that's certainly a promise broken.

A violent stomach virus, like lightning, will strike repeatedly in our lives, and it doesn't matter whether I'm smarter or more careful. Sometimes Nature simply reaches out with her wand, taps you on the crown, and says, "Your turn."

Back to top

We know someone at the big game

[January 20]   This afternoon Steve "Manuel" Crosby will coach the San Diego Chargers' special teams in the American Football Conference championship game against the New England Patriots.

Steve, as I'm glad to remind you (here, here, and here), played high school football and basketball at Pawnee Rock before going on to Fort Hays and stardom. (The photos show him as a pro coach in 2007, as a basketball player in 1966-67, and as a seventh-grader in 1962-63.)

In addition to being a skilled coach, Steve is very well connected. Check this out:

• In 1991-95, Steve coached under Bill Belichick, the current New England coach, when Belichick coached the Cleveland Browns.

• Steve played three seasons (1974-76) for the New York Giants, one of the two teams in the NFC title game.

The other team in the NFC title game, the Green Bay Packers, beat the Seattle Seahawks last week. Seattle is where the Ransom Rabbit, Nolan Cromwell, coached the wide receivers this past season. As of January 5, he's the offensive coordinator at Texas A&M.

Kansans have another reason to be interested in the NFC game: Packers coach Mike McCarthy played college ball at Baker, in Baldwin, and then coached at Fort Hays in 1987-88. Now he coaches Bret Farve.

So, even though our Kansas City Chiefs had a miserable season, we can still enjoy the games today. It's not necessarily who you're a fan of that counts, but who you know. And although not every Pawnee Rock may know Steve Crosby, we all know people who know him.

Back to top

A photo I like: No. 70

[January 19]   Like many Pawnee Rockers, our family made its first real vacation trip -- that is, one that didn't involve visiting relatives -- to Colorado. We stayed in a cabin along a creek and toured Rocky Mountain National Park. But for me, a junior high student, the highlight was going to Garden of the Gods park near Colorado Springs.

Being from Pawnee Rock, I was of course interested in large red blocks of sandstone. I had never seen anything so magnificent as these monoliths. This visit later became the setting for my imagination when I turned to books -- notably "Desert Solitaire" -- about the high country and the mountain desert.

Back to top

Where the cars ran fast

In the days before the tennis court was painted and before the fire station replaced the lumberyard, Lawrence Bright ran his racing cars on the Pawnee Rock tennis court.

[January 18]   The noise was like that of a million mosquitoes -- a tortured screech -- and no boy could resist it.

When Lawrence Bright set off his miniature race cars on the Pawnee Rock tennis court, he could count on gathering a crowd no matter which evening of the week it was.

Lawrence had something magic: a lighter-fluid-burning car that drove endless circles on a tether connected to a pivot mounted on a block.

Lawrence, I think, could be classified as a Popular Mechanics guy. He worked at the power plant northwest of Great Bend and on machines at home. At the tennis court, he was always adjusting this or that on his cars to get the most out of them until dusk ended the day, and even then racing might go on if the tennis court lights worked.

While a lot of boys came to stand at the edge of the concrete and look knowledgeable about the cars, few fathers did. Sure, they had other things to do, like rest after a hard day of work. Putting myself in their shoes, I suspect that they also didn't want to concede that another father had something cool going on.

There was another dad who raced, or maybe flew. Was it Darrell Batchman? Someone ran the same kind of attractive nuisance on the school parking lot.

It was easy enough for us boys to imagine ourselves in the driver's seat of that foot-long speedster, and we all itched to get our hands -- "Can I help?" -- on the cars or the electrical starter.

I didn't have a car with a motor, but I had the next best thing. I had a roller skate, the kind that fit on the bottom of a shoe, and I tied a very long string to the front and then to the back. When no one else was around, I'd take my little four-wheeler up to the tennis court and spin in circles until the skate crashed or I fell over dizzy.

So that is why, when my sons beg for radio-controlled cars, I don't mind if my wife and I cave in. Every generation wants the next one to have what it couldn't have.

For the past couple of evenings, I took the boys out in our neighborhood so they could run their battery-powered FJ Cruisers up and down the plowed streets and sidewalks. Sure, the batteries don't last long at 15 degrees and we have to watch for moose as well as trucks, but the boys want to drive as long as they can.

They don't get the piercing whine or the sweet smell of fuel that my friends and I did. The boys are in the driver's seat, however, and at ages 11 and 9 that's what counts.

Back to top

Hello, Robert Givens

[January 17]   Robert Givens, who grew up a couple of miles south of Pawnee Rock on the way to the O'Rourke Bridge, wrote from Wichita to say hello and ask to be listed on the Friends of Pawnee Rock page.

My mom and his mom were great pals, so my sister and I spent many afternoons playing with the Givens brothers in their yard and driveway. I still think of their bustling home: kitchen on the right as you walk in the door, living room on the left with a big south-facing window, bedrooms to the rear.

The hidden map: Cal Wiebe, also of Wichita, brings to our attention a Hutch News story about a Larned couple who found a Civil War map behind a framed print.

Here is how Clara Kilbourn's story starts out:

"LARNED -- In their own version of "The Antiques Roadshow," Ronald and Donna Vanhorn's discovery of a Civil War map behind a framed Western print could be worth thousands of dollars.

"Lovers of everything connected to the Old West, the couple bought the ornately framed print 20 years ago at auction for a high bid of $75 -- thinking it was a photo from the Santa Fe Trail days."

You and I have both looked through many boxes in our day, hoping to find that one piece of Americana or Kansana that we'll boast about forever. I don't expect to find anything valuable in the money sense, and I'd probably never sell it anyway.

Still, knowing that I might uncover something that no one else has seen for generations -- or that perhaps I alone understand the significance of (it's unlikely but possible) -- makes the hunt worth a day in old dust.

Counting the days: Speaking of dusty old things, Kansas Day is coming up in 12 days. It'll be birthday No. 147.

Back to top

The dog that was done wrong

[January 16]   If they knew about it, my young sons would accuse me of being a softy -- their jokingly derogatory term for someone who performs an act of kindness.

One day in the mid-1970s the neighborhood was full of howling, and it went on and on. I traced the ruckus to the lot behind the fire station, which was next door to our house.

Someone had strung up rabbit fence around the tractor shed and turned it into a dog pound. Inside the fence paced a German shepherd, lonely and hungry and happy to see someone who wasn't carrying a stick.

Being a righteous young man, I looked for a way to let the dog go. The fence was padlocked. I or Mom called the marshal and was told that the dog was going to stay there.

That's how I discovered that Pawnee Rock faced a menace: one dog.

Even in our town there were occasional calls to the marshal about a pest dog. You know, the one that chases kids or refuses to stop sleeping in the middle of the street or that Mrs. Neighbor thinks is rabid and about which something should be done.

So the town's maintenance man or marshal enclosed the tractor shed and called it a dog pound.

That was a dandy idea for the marshal and council members, none of whom lived nearby.

My bedroom window, however, was less than a hundred feet from the dog pound. The Flicks, Mamie Howerton, and the Rosses, on the other side of the alley, were just as close.

Now, if I had had my adult set of wits, I would have called the humane society or the Tribune and twisted somebody's knickers. But I didn't, and the dog and its neighbors suffered together for two more days.

It still bothers me that an anonymous dog was mistreated because our town wasn't prepared to handle it properly -- and that I wasn't a big enough softy to fight the injustice.

Back to top

Homer Dirks' new car

[January 15]   Homer Dirks dropped by our house one evening in the 1960s with his family and new sedan.

Homer, who was Dad's cousin, lived north of town and ran a land-moving operation that graded and scraped terraces into fields all over the rolling parts of Pawnee Rock, Clarence, and Liberty townships. He was doing OK.

I'm pretty sure it was a Mercury that Homer was driving that evening. We stood out by the front ditch -- this was before cubs and gutters were installed -- and looked over the car.

Being a guy who knew machinery, Homer had to show off the Breezeway retractable rear window, which was slanted inward and could slide down behind the back seat.

"And it doesn't get frosted, either," he said. How that line from forty years ago stuck in my memory, I couldn't say. Maybe it sounded like the enthusiastic thing a salesman would say just before you nodded and handed over your savings.

I wish I had that car now. Well, not that car, but definitely that rear window. A window with a heated grid is fine, but there are mornings and evenings when I'd love to have one less window to scrape.

Back to top

One-lane roads

Virgil Smith made this photo of a one-lane road in the sandhills south of the Arkansas River.

[January 14]   Yesterday I wrote about four-lane and two-lane roads, completely omitting the one-lane roads we all know from around Pawnee Rock.

These are the roads that only farmers and hunters use, because they almost never go past a house. Virgil Smith sent a photo of just such a sandy road south of the Arkansas River, but you can find them in the uplands north of the highway too.

Doesn't the photo of the road make you feel at home?

Virgil also sent along another great essay, which he had written for his family a while back.

You can find the farm where he grew up on the map below his essay. Look for the Elerick Smith (actually, Elrick) farm in the northwest corner. Only one or two of the farms identified on this 1960s-era map still belong to the farmers whose names appear.

Rough roads, by Virgil Smith

In the 1920s & '30s, the only paved roads were the major highways. Even state highway K-156 running west of Larned was graveled. Such heavily traveled gravel roads became like a wash board. If you drove at a certain speed, the car would shake so that your teeth chattered. You had to drive slow or fast enough so that you just hit the tops of the ridges.

The township roads in the vicinity of where we lived had very little gravel on them and, when it rained or snow melted, it would like they were greased. They would get ruts in them and the smartest decision would be to drive in the ruts rather than risk going in the ditch. You may not be able to get out of them for a while and they were never straight so you would get jerked back and forth if you tried to drive too fast.

The road maintenance and grading required two men. One drove the caterpillar tractor that pulled the grader and the other rode on the grader and operated the adjustment of the blade.

There was a road between the county line and the highway south of our farm that was known in our family as the "Upset Road." It was north of the Spreier and Dufford farms and the intersection where Dick Spreier later built his house. This road had very little gravel and the grader sometimes left the sides sloped away from the center.

It seems that, when I was still a baby, we were driving on it and went into the ditch and turned over. Apparently, we weren't going very fast and there were no serious injuries nor much damage to the car. They told me that my mother was holding me and I didn't even wake up. Contrary to the opinions of some in my family who thought that I was a laid-back, heavy sleeper, I was just being considerate of my parents, who had enough to deal with.

The cars were not very spacious then and our family filled our car. Being the youngest, sometimes I would sit between my parents in the front seat and other times, my siblings would make a spot for me on the edge of the seat in back.

Back to top

Where the road goes

Driving along a two-lane road, such as K-156 near Jetmore, provides an opportunity to stop and smell the yucca.

[January 13]   Being Kansans, we have always loved the road.

Much of what we know of the land is formed by what we've seen on the road. We know where animals live, because we see where they get run over. We know where a half-dozen Zion churches are, because we see the signs directing us 4 S, 1 W. We see the crops and the farmhouses and dozens of towns.

Kansas is a great two-lane state. You can -- and often must -- get just about anywhere on two-lane roads. It's the curse and the blessing of the Sunflower State.

Despite being rural roads, some two-lane asphalt might as well be part of a city. When you get on the road, you know where you'll end up. Tenth Street Road is just Great Bend extended. Fourth Street Road may be a tedious two-lane speedway with risky intersections, but it's also a 44-mile-long foyer for Hutchinson.

And for all their scenic sunsets, two-lane roads are a battleground. Drivers must always be alert for vehicles closing at 120 mph (your 60 plus his 60), and pickup headlights are a sure cause of night blindness. Anybody who passes with oncoming traffic is a jerk who doesn't care if you're killed.

You don't see many cars heading your direction, because everyone heading your direction is moving about the same speed except for that cellphone-using jerk in front of you who doesn't know what the gas pedal is for and who takes his half of the road out of the middle.

You can't let your mind wander on two-lane roads. There are potholes and opossums, dead-ends and deer. And gentle grandparents pulling out of driveways.

Growing up where I did, I felt comfortable on blacktops and distrusted four-lane highways. I suspect that's because they were foreign to Pawnee Rock's backroads style of life. But then Gary Romeiser, my driver's ed teacher, took our class to Interstate 70 between Hays and Russell, and I had a great time.

Even though an early attraction was the 75 mph speed limit and easier access to Denver and Topeka, there's more to driving on I-70, I-35, I-135, and the Kansas Turnpike.

On an interstate, a driver has time because he's usually going somewhere distant. I can listen to a complete book on tape or an entire Royals game. Without having to concentrate on the 300 feet of road right in front of me, I can look at the scenery long enough to count cattle.

Four-lane highways also foster a temporary sense of community. In a way, you get to know your fellow travelers. You learn which 18-wheeler is going to give you plenty of room when he passes and won't mind if you repeatedly pass him going up hills, and you can windowshop in the back of an SUV carrying a family's household away from Missouri. Drivers cover dozens of miles in packs and play leapfrog between gas stations and rest stops.

We're all going the same way; some are going a little farther. I have a chance to admire other vehicles' license tags: California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, SN, CK (hey, he's a long way from home), TH, GO, TR, EL, RH, PN, BT.

We see other Kansas cars on the interstates, and we can be excited for an SN County driver pulling a pop-up trailer toward the mountains and sad to see him dragging it back toward home.

I feel kinship with drivers I've never met and will never see again.

But four-lane roads, for all their familiarity, are isolationist as well. It seems to be bad manners, or even dangerous, to do more than glance at a driver sliding past you two or three miles an hour faster than you're going. Interstate highways, as is well known in stranger-danger lore, are where creeps hang out, and in this time of national paranoia and cellphone communications we can imagine a trooper pulling us over for getting friendly with the wrong family.

All the towns along the interstate are friendly, though, and they tell you so on a dozen billboards leading up to their exits. But despite the yearning of folks to let us pay to see their concrete gopher and museum of telephony, the interstates were made for a bigger purpose than home-state sightseeing.

The interstates really are pipelines that carry human slurry across our state. Out-of-state travelers do stop for gas and a McMeal and a motel-chain room, but these are people on their way to somewhere else and they'd like to cross Kansas as quickly as possible.

It's fun to join that 24-hour caravan from time to time. Still, two-lane roads are what Kansas travel is all about.

Every mile or so along a two-lane road, there's an invitation to turn off and explore the countryside, and I've taken quite a few dirt roads just because a meadowlark on a fencepost suggested it. When you gas up in a town, you're assumed to be from around here.

On a two-lane road, it's pretty rude not to wave to another valiant traveler sharing the asphalt. If I'm lucky, he'll flash his lights to warn me of the deputy parked behind the next shelterbelt. And I'd stop to help him change a tire or get gas, even if he's from SG County.

It's just the two of us out there, so we take care of each other. I'm going where he's been and he's going where I've been, and we'll meet again.

Back to top

Alan Alda, and "In Cold Blood"

[January 12]   After following the saga of a young reader, Leon Miller and Joan Smith wrote yesterday to mention a couple of books.

Joan recommended a book by one of my favorite actors.

"I just finished a delightful book -- 'Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself' by Alan Alda," she said.

Leon wrote about an incident that brought more fame to western Kansas than it wanted. I was 2 or 3 when the Clutter killings happened, but a few years later I did run across Life magazine's full-color explanation of how it happened.

"Were you old enough to remember the Clutter killings in 1959?" Leon wrote. "I'm sure you've read 'In Cold Blood,' by Truman Capote. I recall a little blip in the movie where they show the killers driving through Pawnee Rock, on their way to Holcomb, Kansas.

"A little anecdote about this incident was when my father passed away in 1967, the man in charge of his funeral, which was held in Great Bend, told me he had also handled the Clutter services in Garden City, in 1959.

"He told me an eerie story that just as the funeral service (for the Clutters) was about to begin a little short man wearing a disheveled raincoat came into the back of the chapel with a copy of the New York Times hanging out of his pocket, gazing over the people in attendance. The audience gasped with the thought that the killer had come back to view the climax of his deed.

"No one had ever heard of Capote, and he was quite a contrast in cultures to the people of Western Kansas. According to the funeral director, he managed to blend in and informed the locals he planned to write a book about the killings and killers. Over a period of time he was eventually accepted in the community and was able to incorporate the lives of those in Western Kansas with the diabolical event that had taken place.

"No one had any idea the effect this book would have on the literary world or how it would make Capote a name in the annals of history."

Back to top

A photo I like: No. 69

[January 12]   This morning view looking west from Susank Road, north of Hoisington, reveals a lot of what we know of Barton County:

Long grasses in the ditches, where rainwater recently collected. Shorter, drier grasses spreading out of the pasture, where black and brown cattle graze. The wind, pushing the grass north.

A few cottonwoods nestled in the draw. Distant clumps of trees signifying a farm -- or what used to be a farm or a stock pond.

A couple of limestone fenceposts, supported in their later years by metal posts to which barbed wire is attached. A small wooden sign, its no-hunting message nearly erased by the elements.

Young sunflowers with broad leaves, and small wispy thorn plants.

The wheat, a week before harvest. A driveway across the ditch into the wheatfield.

A hazy sky, too dry to bring rain and too moist to go blue.

After you sprayed 6-12 around your ankles, wouldn't you like to go for a walk toward the distant fenceline?

Back to top

By his books shall you know him

When I was in high school, I photographed some of the books that made me what I am today.

[January 11]   I was a teenage intellectual. What happened later, I can't really say, but I started out fast.

Like a lot of kids, I read for school and for fun. And then in 1971, when I was almost a freshman, I spent a lot of time being driven across the country on Trailways buses with the rest of the Argonne Rebels drum and bugle corps. Because the macho rifle squad got its kicks by hazing the newcomers, we younger members quickly learned to keep our heads down. I buried my nose in books. Thick books.

I was the first person I knew to read "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee," and I might be the last person, too. After all these years, I can remember only the sense of the book: that U.S. federal policies caused ethnic cleansing, and that the long war enabled the eventual creation of plains towns like Pawnee Rock.

Then came "The Valley of the Dolls," which turned me sharply toward popular California storytelling. I loved it, because I couldn't believe there were such filthy, naughty books. And the "Exorcist" -- it had a purple cover and green soup.

There were romances and spy stories, and "The Godfather" and "Serpico." They introduced me to the America I couldn't see from the top of Pawnee Rock.

I don't know I got wrapped up with "The Greening of America," unless I had read about it first in Newsweek; it certainly wasn't reviewed in the Great Bend Tribune. That book made me think I could make a difference in society. And then came "Clockwork Orange," a violent British tale that made me think society wasn't worth saving.

And so it went for three years. Joining the Rebels got me out of town and threw me in with a lot of overachievers. They understood reading and encouraged it, intentionally or not.

I still read voraciously. As in my teenage days, I swing recklessly between popular and academic subjects. I've come to realize that reading doesn't, by itself, make me an intellectual, and I'm OK with that.

And if I'm OK, you're OK. I read that in a book, too.

KansasMemory.org: The Kansas Historical Society's website, KansasMemory.org, has added some stereograph photos of Pawnee Rock and a really nice photo of an emigrant camp near town from the 1870s.

Look around the site. You might find some good shots from other towns you know.

Thanks to Larry Mix for the heads-up.

Back to top

George Bauer, a man with a dream

[January 10]   Back in the really old days, people came to Pawnee Rock with big dreams. I suppose they still do, but George Bauer had his heart set on making a park on the plains despite Nature's wind and dry dirt.

George had been through a lot, including Sherman's March to the Sea in the Civil War. Who can blame him for wanting a nice place northeast of town where he could sit back and watch a beautiful Barton County sunset?

The following material comes from the "Biographical History of Barton County, Kansas," published in 1912. George and Margaret (Maggie) Bauer are buried in the Pawnee Rock Township cemetery, in section 2, plot 69, just east of the vacant area at the front.

George Bauer

George Bauer who lives four miles northeast of Pawnee Rock was born February 14, 1841, in the Province of Bavaria, Germany, and came to the United States with his parents in 1852. They at first made their home near Cincinnati, Ohio, where they settled permanently.

He was educated in the public schools and found employment there until August, 1861, and then enlisted as a private in Company B, 25th Ohio Volunteers, and served four years, being discharged at Atlanta, Georgia, while on the March to the Sea under General Sherman. He was wounded in the left hip in the battle of Chickamauga and was in the battle at Mill Springs, where General Zollacoffer was killed, also at Perryville, Kentucky, and numerous other smaller engagements and skirmishes.

He was in the division and corps commanded by Gen. Thomas and the brigade commanded by General Cook, and as they were fighters of note it is evident that this soldiering experience was no child's play although Mr. Bauer is inclined least boastful than many.

George Bauer came to Barton County, Kansas, in the spring of 1876 and being an ex-soldier, entered a homestead of 160 acres. This he proved up and at a later period bought an additional eighty on the same section which makes a farm of 240 acres. It is in a high state of cultivation and improved with a one story frame cottage, containing nine rooms. A good barn, granary and other outbuildings are also found on the place.

Tree culture seems to be a thankless task in this neighborhood and attempts in this line have heretofore been of no avail, but Mr. Bauer still hopes that his efforts will be crowned with success and that he may in time enclose his premises with a park.

George Bauer was married to Miss Maggie Stump of Cowley County, Kansas, April 12, 1874. She died on August 26, 1905. Mr. Bauer has three living children as follows: Mrs. Ada Shorpy who lives with her father and cares for his home. Mrs. Emma Lamb of Pawnee county and Miss Laura Bauer residing in Larned, Kansas.

Back to top

"Why didn't I listen more?"

[January 9]   Our friend Ray Randolph of Indiana wrote yesterday about my piece on the German naturalist, who wrote about his journey into the American "west" nearly 200 years ago. I think we all know how Ray feels:

Re: the second last paragraph of today's piece. I am currently working on a chronological autobiography (or an annotated chronology) -- along with genealogy material and all the stuff I have collected over the years -- to leave for my kids and any other interested people.

I have numerous "holes" (questions without answers and photos without IDs, lack of details), which unfortunately will never be "filled." Lately, and over the last several years, I have always asked myself why didn't I listen more, ask more questions, write down more things, and take more pictures. The answer is that I was too busy growing up and later too busy living and making a living. Had I only known what the future might hold!

Hindsight, they say, is 20/20. I agree, but say maybe it's more like 20/15 or even 20/10. As you get older, you're supposed to get wiser, or at least better informed. I think maybe I'm wiser now, but also sadder because hindsight has shown my deficiencies and because many of my sources are no longer living and therefore unavailable. Nevertheless, I carry on.

I've been asked if I would go back to an age, say 30 or 21. I always answer only if I knew then what I know now . . . and have a full set of audio/video and photographic equipment (modern-day "journals") and reliable transportation.

Sorry to carry on, but your piece stirred me.

Santa Fe Trail Research: Larry and Carolyn Mix, the guardians of the Santa Fe Trail in our neck of the plains, have shed their Internet provider and have gotten their own domain. You can find them and their wonderful historical site now at www.santafetrailresearch.com.

It's as if she's driving with you: Cheryl Unruh took a day off from watching over Emporia to drive out to Barton County recently. And you know how it is -- when you're driving alone, you have time to think. Cheryl put her time to good use, which you will discover when you read her Emporia Gazette column, In Between.

Back to top

The naturalist

A cedar stump, trimmed close to the ground, can help us imagine the tree that grew here. Maybe you walked beneath its branches. In your mind, can you put your hand on the bark of that old tree, and can you detect the scent of the trunk?

[January 8]   Last week I read the journal of a German prince who came to the United States in 1833 and spent more than a year observing people, places, plants, and animals from Boston through Pennsyvania and on into Indiana and Missouri.

The prince didn't think much of most Americans he met unless they were published scientists, and I suppose that's understandable. We all like people who are like us.

The prince did, however, find our countryside fascinating. He filled page after page with details of trees he came across. He pulled dozens of mussels off riverbeds and sorted them by species, looking for a new one, and he killed (or had killed) a Noah's ark of birds and mammals so he could "describe" them to his journal and then stuff their carcasses for shipment back to Germany.

He was annoying as well as insightful. After deriding a village in Indiana for destroying as much of its natural heritage as it could, he lamented that the turkey population was nearly gone -- he had had dozens killed for his own purposes and it was getting harder to find any more.

But what really impressed me was his attention to detail. When he went for a walk, he saw the plants and he knew them -- or he figured out what they were. He recorded the morning temperature and the clothes that backwoods Indianans wore.

You know, he was the kind of guy I wish I had been when I was growing up in Pawnee Rock. I would now have journals describing Pawnee Rock's houses and what our gardens were like. I would have in writing, and not just in faulty memory, descriptions of stores and playgrounds. I would be able to tell you who had what kind of car parked under a tree and what the preachers said and what the farmers wore.

Is having boxes of journals necessary for having a fulfilling life? Of course not. Yet, it would have trained me to see -- really see -- my world. Not just the world of Pawnee Rock, but the world I'm living in now.

Back to top

The GI who caught a ride

[January 7]   Leon Miller, who has a knack for details, remembers when he met a certain soldier near the Great Bend air base during World War II. The soldier would eventually own property, run a drugstore, have a wife and four sons, and work at the salt plant.

"I was riding with my mother and sister as we were driving home from Great Bend after a shopping trip one afternoon and we noticed this lone GI standing along the side of the road looking for a ride. As it was a patriotic thing to do, my mother offered him a ride as far as we were going, which was Pawnee Rock.

"When we got there we dropped him off at the intersection of the highway and Centre Street and went on to our house. About 10 minutes later there was a knock on our front door and when my mother answered it, it was this lone GI, who we would know later as Stanley Tutak."

Wind power: The big wind farm near Ellsworth is about to start spinning its blades to make electricity.

Our friend Peg Britton says the turbines are a raw deal for Kansas electric customers.

Back to top

Francis T. Belt, 1842-1914

The Belts are buried in the old section of the Pawnee Rock Township Cemetery.

[January 6]   One of Pawnee Rock Township's major landowners in the early 1900s was Francis t. Belt. He and his wife, Mary Jane, held title to 1.75 sections north and northwest of town.

Little of the family is left today in Pawnee Rock but for their cemetery plot: a large white marker flanked by five smaller markers. Francis' has a metal star, signifying his Civil War service to the Union, stuck in the ground beside it. Francis was born in 1842 and died in 1914.

The cemetery itself sits on land donated by Belt and Benjamin P. Unruh.

The following information about the Belt family was taken from the "Biographical History of Barton County, Kansas," published in 1912. The segment of township plat shows ownership in 1902.

Francis T. Belt

Francis T. Belt, who now lives in Topeka, Kansas, is one of the really old timers of Barton County, he having come here in 1878 from the State of Illinois. He took up the occupation of farming immediately upon his arrival and his home place is located in section 21, township 20, range 15, where he resided for a number of years and cultivated the land. He remained here until 1901, when he retired and took up his residence in Topeka where he now lives.

He was married June 14, 1880, in Brussels, Illinois, to Miss Mary Jane Flanagan and they are the parents of four children: George F., 32 years of age, is in the real estate business in Kansas City; Charles T., 27 years ef age, is engaged in the farming business in Barton County; Nellie A., 26 years of age, resides in Topeka; and Caroline, who died when she was one year of age.

Mr. Belt is a prominent member of the G. A. R. and served his country in the civil war from February 28, 1862, until April 9, 1865. He was a member of the 5th Missouri Cavalry, which for a time was actively engaged in the capacity of body guard to General Schofield, and saw much service in skirmishes in Missouri and Arkansas.

Mr. Belt was born in St. Louis, Mo., July 23, 1842, and during his residence in Barton County was one of the most active in the upbuilding of the town and the development of the soil. Mr. Belt's family now owns 1,520 acres of land in this section of the state and are among the best known people who had a part in making Barton County one of the best in the State of Kansas.

Mr. Belt says he held one public office while living in this county, that of justice of the peace but he resigned after a short time because he could not spare the time from his private affairs and when his first case was brought to him he acted as adviser and succeeded in settling the case of out of court. Mr. Belt is one of the few men who turned down a senatorial nomination in the Seventh congressional district of Kansas.

He can relate many interesting incidents of the early days and is one of those men to whom this part of the state owes its present high state of cultivation and high standing as one of the most productive counties in the country.

Pawnee Rock vs. Sylvia: Leon Miller remembers the Braves playing Sylvia, which has been mentioned the past couple of days.

"In my senior year at PRHS, 1951, the basketball team won the South 50-6 tournament and in their pursuit of a state championship they had to play Sylvia, who had a crackerjack player and was far better than anything Pawnee Rock had. ... The coach's strategy was to play a slow down game, constantly having 2 and sometimes 3 players guarding this fellow. It almost worked but Sylvia ended up winning the game by a score of 17-15. You wouldn't see that today or the coach, and team, would be booed out of the building."

Back to top

Heartland Farm in the Hutch News

[January 6]   Pawnee Rock's Heartland Farm is written up in the Hutch News. Reporter Kathy Hanks tells the story:

Sunday, 3:55 p.m.

Heading west from Great Bend, just over the Rush County line, a small shape weathered in wood identifies Heartland Farm.

As one drives up to a large, old farmhouse, dogs wag their tails, happy to see the visitor.

"Park the car and come on in. I'm making an apple pie for supper," Sister Terry Wasinger calls out, stepping briefly from the back door of the house. Read the story

Back to top

A photo I like: No. 68

[January 5]   Every time we drive through Burlington, in eastern Colorado, we stop at the city park and give ourselves a shady break from the eyestrain of Interstate 70. The boys love the wooden playground, but I am always drawn to the circular fountain with the water-spitting frogs. It is so un-high-plains whimsical that I admire the town just for having fun.

Back to top

Electronics -- why we have kids

[January 5]   Kay Steed, like many of us, is a happy Jayhawk fan after Thursday's Orange Bowl victory over Virginia Tech. She e-mailed on Friday:

"Are we proud to be Kansans, or what? It was a great game and when you wrote about your son recording it for you, I just had to laugh. My brother, Lee Peters (older than me so I won't say how old) recieved a new DVD player for Christmas but it took him two days to figure out how to hook it up to the TV and then the satalite dish wouldn't work, so he spent another hour on the phone with reps trying to get that straightened out, no luck. The dish guy had to make a house call. So darn funny. I don't even attempt such things anymore; I just call my daughter, Mandy Jo, and she fixes me right up whether it's a computer problem or recording device. I knew there was a reason for having kids.

But isn't it great how savvy they all are with the electronic gadgets? I don't feel dumb when I watch them, I'm just amazed at how their little brains soak it all up like sponges."

Sylvia photos: Cheryl Unruh, the voice of the Flint Hills, saw our mention of the Hutch News story about tough little Sylvia and mentioned that she had visited Sylvia on behalf of her site, FlyoverPeople.net.

I haven't been through Sylvia for a few years, but I always liked the town; maybe it was the name, which brought to mind a glade in the Ninnescah River valley. Our school used to play sports against their school, too.

(Of course, Sylvia, 10 miles east of Stafford, is not to be confused with the similarly named and likewise pleasant Sylvan Grove, which is east of Lake Wilson and north of I-70.)

Back to top

The game was a click away

[January 4]   Son Nik recorded the Kansas football game at the Orange Bowl for me last night while I was at work. I'm reasonably adept at electronics, but there are times when you have to rely on a 9-year-old.

Our Pawnee Rock grandparents didn't understand how much could be done with the old two-button clicker when those came out, but you and I did because we learned when we were young and thought in segments as long as a TV commercial. Now Nik, who has seen Sony TVs and remotes practically all his life, can make the cable recorder spin on a dime. I suppose I should bemoan the loss of The Old Ways, but it's fun to watch a digital whiz at play.

Of course, Nik has a speed and quality advantage with cable. When our choices on a good day in the 1960s were broadcast channels 2, 7, and 10, we didn't work up much of a sweat.

Sylvia cooks up a future: A lot of towns in western Kansas have lost population over the past couple of decades, and with it the stores and cafes that make life more pleasant.

Sylvia, a burg the size of Pawnee Rock on U.S. 50 west of Hutchinson, isn't going to give up. Reporter Amy Bickel of the Hutch News produced a hopeful story run under the headline "Sylvia fuel stop/eatery reborn."

SYLVIA -- The worn-out fuel stop on the outskirts of Sylvia had been abandoned for a few years. Once in a while, someone would talk about reopening it, but the rumors never seemed to materialize.

Most residents here figured that when the convenience store/restaurant closed in 2005, it probably closed for good.

Sylvia, after all, has been declining for decades -- its population now around 300. Car dealerships and a lumberyard once occupied space in Sylvia. But that was years ago.

"Sylvia is another one of those dying towns," said Carl Marks, the mayor of the western Reno County community. Read the story

Back to top

The trail is our trail

This photo, sent by Larry Smith, shows the field just south of the Rock where the Santa Fe Trail ruts existed for many years after Pawnee Rock was settled. This photo was made in the late 1910s. Below, the Daughters of the American Revolution placed a marker near the park entrance. The marker is dated 1906, two years before the Rock was deeded to the state for a park.

[January 3]   One of the neat things about Pawnee Rock is our kinship with the Santa Fe Trail.

Growing up here, we spent so much time driving along the trail and across it that it might as well be ours, although I doubt we think of it that way. The trail, even when I was a kid in the 1950s and 1960s, had already been obliterated by graders and plows to the point where the trail's route was known only by some of our parents and members of historical societies. I think we all took it for granted.

The history books tell us what wagon ruts were like -- well-defined trenches created by thousands of wheels and hooves. I suppose they were sharply cut at first, but Kansas soil is soft and would soon smooth the ruts into long swales in the grass and mud.

My closest knowledge of wagon ruts came from following the trail carved into my Unruh grandparents' pasture. It wasn't the Santa Fe Trail, but it was the route taken by wagons to the one-room schoolhouse a couple of miles north of the intersection where the trail came out.

That soft-edged route was a pale echo of the Santa Fe Trail. In the 1980s my dad took me out to the spot where the wagoneers had forded Ash Creek. There was still a window in the cottonwoods where the wagons had worn down the banks, a dip in the geology.

Even with all that, I never understood the trail's relationship with Pawnee Rock, the park or the city. I had assumed, because it was convenient to think so, that U.S. 56 was laid upon the trail's route.

So it was with amazement that I read Jim Douglas' statement that the trail ran between his grandparents' place -- the big house just south of the Rock -- and the Rock. All these years, I had driven over the trail, ridden my bike across it, and, west of town on the little road that is no longer a road, maybe even walked where other boys had strode beside their family's oxen. The trail must have come close to the Russells' place, then passed by the foot of the bluff a mile out on the correction line and rolled on to the ford across Ash Creek.

Suddenly, our little bit of the trail was real to me.

The trick is to see the grassy land as the wagoneers saw it, without the town, the farms, or the roads. Then it's easy to imagine the trail in its native setting, running close to the area's landmarks as it followed the path of least resistance between New Mexico and Missouri.

Our town's ancestors came along the trail, too. They got off the train starting in 1872 or arrived in their own wagons, and they stayed. They built a town where the pioneers had camped and sometimes had fought for their lives.

The Santa Fe Trail really is our trail, as the Rock is our Rock. They are the reasons our town is here.

Back to top

Who those names belong to

[January 4]   Rick Skelton and Rick Tutak solved Rick Tutak's nickname puzzle in e-mails sent yesterday. Mr. Tutak included a few more nicknames and their owners as well.

Rick Shelton wrote: "I can identify a couple of the nicknames that Rick Tutak listed. Squinty: Terry French. Gopher: Gary Ritchie. And a couple that are missing are Orley aka Verlin Morgan and Manuel aka Steve Crosby."

Rick Tutak wrote (in response to my guesses): "Correct on all your nicknames. Here's the rest: Domple -- Randy Unruh, Vernie -- Don Crosby, Biggy -- Lanny Unruh, Daylite -- Marvin Johnson, Greaser -- John Johnson, Buff -- Bill Ritchie, RD -- Stanley Ritchie, Bugs -- Doug Unruh, Gopher -- Gary Ritchie, Goofy -- Larry Hixon, HS -- Jerry Hixon, BJ -- Jon Hixon, Festus -- Brent Bowman, Philly -- Phil Flick, Turdby -- Steve Crosby, Squinty -- Terry French, Bub -- Gary French, Speedway -- Jack Wilhite, Gomer -- Carl Hinds. Too many more to think about!"

Back to top

The big house north of town

On the north edge of Pawnee Rock, just south of the Rock, rises the home Ben C. Unruh built in 1912. It had changed little by 2005. A view from the north is available in the Guardian of the Trail photo in the Gallery.

[January 2]   Jim Douglas wrote this week from Idaho about the big house on the north side of town where his grandparents, Ben C. and Suzy Unruh, lived.

I've always thought it was a magnificent home and asked him for more information, such as whether Benjamin H. lived there. He replied:

"The house was built by Ben C in about 1912. Ben H never lived in it. My mother Geneva Unruh was 10 yrs old when it was built. Ben C and Suzy lived there all their lives and then mother's brother Galen worked the farm and lived there until they moved out and lived in the Swedenborgen parsonage since he was the pastor. My mother, sister Miriam and I visited many times when I was a child. My father sent us there during WW II when he thought the Japanese were going to invade California.

"The land North of the house was Santa Fe trail. I remember the wagon ruts there when I was about 6 yrs old (1944)."

Everyone knows your name: Rick Tutak of Great Bend, as you'll remember, sent a list of nicknames bestowed upon Pawnee Rock kids back in the 1960s and '70s and challenged us to list their real names.

I've come up with a few, but I was surprised that I got only a third of them, and I may not even be correct about all of those. Here's Rick's tough list, and then my answers:

Tuk, Domple, Vernie, Biggy, Daylight, Greaser, Buff, RD, Beans, Diggs, Bugs, Gopher, Gil, Buck, Goofy, HS, BJ, Jake, Tub, Cricket, Cotton, Boo, Festus, Philly, Turdby, Marion, Squinty, Bub

Beans = Ed Crosby, Gil = Kevin Unruh, Bugs = Doug Unruh, Buck = Kent Tutak, Jake = Larry Crosby, Tub = Ray Tutak, Cricket = David Smith, Cotton = Mark Smith, Boo = Craig Smith, Marion = Glenn Mull

I admit that I had help from an unidentified correspondent. (Also, I'll point out that the family of Cricket, Cotton, Boo, and their sister Liz moved into the Ben C. Unruh house after Galen moved into the parsonage at the top of the hill.)

Rick added this week that his older brother, Allen, lives in Hays, and younger brothers Kent and Ray live in Great Bend and Kingman, respectively.

The big game: Leon Miller, after reading about the bowl games, wrote from sunny Dallas:

"This is the week for us Jayhawkers to rise up and yell, ROCK CHALK JAYHAWK, KU-U-U-U!

"When I was a young teenager, I, like many others, had a diary. I still have my diary in a box of old mementos with a note of my activities of January 1, 1948. 'It was a cold day so I stayed inside and listened to the KU-Georgia Tech football game from the Orange Bowl. KU lost, 20-14.' I would love to see this event in person today but would not be willing to stand around in the crowds, waiitng to get in the stadium. I can't stand in one place longer than 15 minutes in the first place (construction accident injured my back many years ago), so I'll watch the game from my TV in the living room."

Nippy morning: The temperature reading at 3:45 a.m. today was 7 degrees, measured seven miles north and three west of Pawnee Rock, a little beyond 10th Street Road. That's according to APRSWXNET, a personal weather station used by wunderground.com.

Back to top

Gathering 'round the TV

[January 1]   I don't think of our hometown or even the county seats as big party towns on New Year's Eve or New Year's Day. The idea of a Times Square party in the Barton County courthouse square is practically unimaginable.

Kansans are like cats; I don't know how you could herd them together into a large enough mass to actually create an event.

Still, New Year's Day, in my younger years, strikes me as a time when we did get together, in lots of small events. We gathered 'round the TV for college bowl games.

Almost all the boys and men and a good share of the women would watch the four tradition-bound New Year's Day bowls: Rose, Cotton, Orange, and Sugar. We all had an interest in the games because it was what the whole season led to, and there weren't two dozen bowl games dissipiating the excitement before the champion was crowned.

If your team wasn't one of the best in the country, it stayed home and you cheered for a team you liked because of its mascot or because your cousin's nephew worked with a man from that school. Now almost half the large schools go to a bowl game. Everybody's special, so nobody's special.

January 1 used to be like Super Bowl Sunday is, but with less hype. If the conversation lagged, there was football, all afternoon and all evening. That pretty much got it out of our systems.

Sadly, the bowl season has decayed into a pigfest of advertising, and the games are scheduled willy-nilly. The real losers in all this are the extended families and the networks of friends who no longer have that reason to be together and cheer for a common cause.

Of course, when the Jayhawks play Thursday in the Orange Bowl, in a game scheduled to sell ads during a slack time of week, I'll be yelling as if it were the most important game of the season. It'll be like sharing a punch bowl with every other Kansan.

Back to top