Too Long in the Wind

February 2010

Radium, Kansas

[February 25]   PawneeRock.org has a new electronic neighbor to the south. I'd like you all to stop by Radium, Kansas, a blog recently created by Beccy Tanner and Kathy Foster, who have long ties to the Stafford County crossroads.

Here are a few paragraphs from an essay posted by Beccy, who is a writer at the Wichita Eagle.

"Too many of the people we've looked to as anchors -- close friends and family -- have passed away. We created this blog as a way to not only record their stories but honor their efforts. They worked too hard to simply let their stories disappear for all time.

"But this blog is more than just a nod to the past.

"We also want to stay in touch with the friends we made as children and hear about their present lives and families.

"Each one of us has a story. Each one of us has a proud legacy.

"This blog is a way we can track our stories. It a way to let future historians and generations know we care very deeply about this community. Our roots run deep. Technology is such that we don't have to let go of those ties -- we can still be connected. Geography no longer matters."

Kathy has generously sent family photos to PawneeRock.org, and I hope that our readers will dig deep into their photo albums and send Radium-related photos and memories to Radium, Kansas (http://radiumkansas.tumblr.com).

Good luck, Kathy and Beccy. Let's meet for a Pepsi down at the elevator.

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A feel for country life

[February 25]   Living in rural Kansas is a load of sensation: sight, sound, and sometimes touch.

There's the feel of a rusty wire between your fingertips, and the weak-behind-the-knees certainty that running your hand over weathered wood will place a splinter in your palm.

There's the heat of a sun-baked car hood in August, and the deep chill of a car's steering wheel in January. There's the soft grass beneath your bare feet in May and then a patch of thorns in July.

And there is another joy in the grass -- the dry, gliding feel of a skin recently shed by a bullsnake.

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Branches and twigs

[February 24]   My sister, Cheryl, wrote yesterday to borrow a couple of photos of our Unruh grandparents' farm so she could illustrate her weekly column, which runs in the Emporia Gazette and which she also posts on her FlyoverPeople site. I shipped her this one and then off and on during the day took a few more looks at it. I found myself increasingly amazed at how such a down-in-the-mouth collection of siding and shingles could have contained so much life.

My dad's grandparents built it, and his dad's parents, Otis and Lena, later took over the house. They raised four kids, and those kids came up with a half-dozen grandchildren who spent a lot of time at the farm. For me, it was my country home, where I'd check in with Grandma and then take to the pastures, wheatfields, and shelterbelt.

We celebrated Christmases and birthdays and Gemini launches in this frame house, and we cousins slept over in the upstairs bedrooms and camped out in the front yard. We painted the porch floor blue-gray. There used to be a porch swing in the back corner, next to where an air conditioner once poked its head out of the house. In fact, the porch was like a room itself, and in the days before TV and air conditioning it needed to be a place where the family could sit in the evening and get a breath of clean Kansas air -- or just a breath of wind -- without having to stand in the sun or do chores.

Within a couple of years of when I made this photo, the house was torn down. It struck me yesterday that the shadow of the tree skeleton on the house was perfect for this stage of the house's existence; there's nothing left but its bare, weathered bones. But in the same way that I remember the green and yellow leaves of the honey locust, I can drape myself in the memory of a host of untroubled and happy days -- when even the tribulations of being a teenager were held at bay -- in this steadfast farmhouse on the edge of a wheatfield.

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June McFann heads for 80th birthday

[February 23]   Marsha Bouker asks us to send a card wishing Happy Birthday to her mother, June McFann.

Here is what Marsha wrote:

June Arlene Rogers McFann will celebrate her 80th birthday on March 8th with a card shower. She was born March 8, 1930, in Barton County to Calvin and Elsie (Sayler) Rogers. She has spent most of her life in Barton County, at Albert, and then Great Bend after she retired.

June's love for people was shown daily as she worked for her parents at the family gas station in Pawnee Rock and then later for the Otis Bison School District as a Bus Driver and a Janitor for many years.

She was known by all that rode her bus, and the students that attended the schools she made sparkle. Since retiring she has been doing volunteer work for the Barton County Musuem and reads at the grade schools in Great Bend, along with other volunteer duties through out the town.

June goes to the Health Club, and seldom misses a day at the Spa with her friends, who have become her extended family.

June is Mom to a large family of 7 children, with 20 grandchildren, and 10 great-grandchildren and counting.

Help celebrate her birthday with a card, which may be sent to her at 5210 W. 10th St., Apt 1, Great Bend, Kansas 67530.

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Lunchtime at the Pawnee Rock school

The high school lunch line stretches back into the hallway in 1966. Barb Schmidt sent these photos.

Fourth-graders get lunch in 1967.

Karen Miller, Faye (Wilson) Steffen, H.A. Smith, Clifford Riddle and another boy line up by the cooler.

[February 22]   Barb Schmidt sent three school photos and some lunch-line memories:

"These three photos are "lunch line" photos and really bring back happy memories. The women working the lunchroom were always so nice and with friendly smiles. The cornbread and chili was great. The burgers were good, and the boys always got to eat as many as they wanted. I've wondered sometimes whatever happened to those metal lunchroom trays.

"And I see in one of these photos that we evidently got some sort of ice cream or cold drink freezer at some point? Had forgotten that. Looking at these photos also reminded me that for years we never paid anything extra (or at least not that I was aware of) for the hot lunch. But then we started having to buy lunch tickets.

"I don't recall the price, maybe 10 to 25 cents? But requiring those tickets meant that some kids began to go without a hot lunch or, if they were lucky enough to live in town, started bringing a bag lunch or going home for lunch rather than staying in the cafeteria. I could be wrong but think the imposition of lunch tickets came after our school was consolidated with Larned. Maybe someone else can recall better."

For those who can't remember what they had for lunch yesterday, here's a reminder of what you had for lunch the first full week of December 1982 -- if you were a student in the Pawnee Rock school.

We might remember being put upon to eat school food, or perhaps we remember it as fondly as we do the several women who prepared it for us. Either way, I say with no doubt whatsoever that our balanced menu beat the tar out of the factory-made, industrially inexpensive food-looking products served to children these days.

Monday -- Chicken and noodles, mashed potatoes, green beans, baravian fruit, rolls, milk.

Tuesday -- Orange juice, chili and crackers, dill spears, apple crisp, French bread, milk.

Wednesday -- Bologna salad in pita bread, dill pickle slices, tater wedge, peaches, cookie, milk.

Thursday -- Burrito/chili sauce, lettuce salad, corn, 1/2 orange, milk.

Friday -- Cook's choice.

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Background information

Members of the third- and fourth-grade classes pose for a photo in the 1930s. Kathy Foster sent this photo.

[February 22]   Susan Unruh Ellis, who grew up on the northwest corner of Santa Fe and Houck, saw a familiar landmark in Friday's photo of 1930s children taken across the street on the old grade school grounds.

"That looks like 'my' house in the background of today's picture. Not too sure, though. The extra buildings to the north of the house don't look right. Might have been torn down during the '40s. Looks like the kids were facing east at just about where Milton & Merita Rice's house now sits. Love the pictures!"

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The oasis

[February 19]   I was feeling lonesome for green and so I dug up this photo of sleepy Pawnee Creek. Green trees, green water, green aroma -- it's all the stuff of life.

This photo was made one August afternoon, almost evening. You can imagine what it would be like to step across the creek on a string of flat and somewhat slippery stones. You wouldn't mind getting your feet wet, but in Pawnee Creek that also means getting them muddy, clingy mud with the tenacity of clay.

Think back 150 years. You've been sitting on a wagon's flat board seat or walking behind the oxen since you left Pawnee Rock headed toward Fort Larned, and all the water you've seen since Walnut Creek was the muck in Ash Creek. You would have been looking forward all day to this little river.

Maybe 150 years there weren't many trees and instead there was tall grass drooping off the banks, but the livestock wouldn't mind and you might not either.

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Remembering Clyde Tombaugh

[February 18]   Phil Bowman sends us a good reason to mention Pawnee County's homegrown astronomer. He wrote:

Leon,

Other Pawnee Rock graduates from Pawnee County might be interested to note that Clyde Tombaugh discovered the (dwarf) planet Pluto 80 years ago Thursday, February 18th. Tombaugh was from Pawnee County. His birthday was earlier this month also. We don't have many people of notoriety from Pawnee County, so we need to take note of those we can.

Phil

(In celebration of Tombaugh, we also have Pluto getting its due and Burdett's historical marker.)

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Weather and the map

[February 17]   Once in a while during tornado season, you'll hear radio weather readers state that a storm is near some burg -- Hamburg, for example -- and headed toward Ray.

And that's all fine and dandy if you've lived in Pawnee Rock long enough and have driven around often enough and talked to guys down at the elevator frequently enough to know where every whistlestop is (or used to be).

Now there's a solution to this problem, and it's one I am fascinated by.

I grew up a dozen miles from Anchorway and never -- until this very hour -- knew it existed. For the record, it's west of the deadly turn U.S. 56 makes at the southwest edge of Great Bend.

This revelation comes via a new weather map offered by Weather Underground, which PawneeRock.org has used for years. Use this link to get there. It's a road map, weather map, and topo map and a forecast all on one page.

Anchorway is a place name so obscure that it might be reserved for a grade crossing or a mobile home park. That's the level of detail I like in a map.

I'm afraid this map will be like crack for me. I started following one familiar highway and then another, watching the temperatures and landforms change along the way. Maps like this go a long way in explaining why towns and roads are where they are.

Plus, you can see that the 2,000-foot-elevation line crosses the Rock and the front of the cemetery before wandering north and west.

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Mickey Smith dies

[February 16]   When Durward and Mickey Smith finished building their new home at the base of the stately wooden farmhouse on the hill, they threw a big party. There were games for the children, of which I was one. There was, if I remember right, homemade ice cream. But what I remember most is that there were a lot of people.

Pawnee Rock people seemed to enjoy being with the Smiths. They were "square" folks in the sense that they were kind, practical, helpful and, not least, fun to be around. They told jokes, often with sly and understated humor in the way of rural Kansans.

The Smiths raised good kids: Brenda, Kirk, and Jeff, all of whom were within three years of my age and were athletic and outgoing. Brenda, for example, took a summer job at a tourist lodge at a national park, and what kind of mother would let her high school daughter do that? Maybe because Mickey was one of thirteen siblings herself, she understood.

When I was at the Smith house or among them in church, I knew she was a safe mother to approach. She handed out self-assurance to kids, and she did it with a smile.

After I left Pawnee Rock, I don't know whether I saw Mickey again more than once or twice. She and Durward bought my grandmother's farm, which was across the road from their place a couple of miles northwest of Pawnee Rock, so the Smiths have been practically family and in my unexpressed thoughts.

Minetta "Mickey" Smith died Sunday of cancer at age 75. She is survived by Durward, whom she married in 1953, and the three children -- Kirk of Pawnee Rock, Jeff of Kechi, and Brenda of Denver -- plus six grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. Her funeral will be Wednesday morning in Great Bend, and she'll be buried in the Pawnee Rock Cemetery. (Full obituary)

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Lions Club noodle dinner on March 6

[February 15]   Janice Schmidt sent news about this year's Lions Club fund-raising dinner, scheduled for March 6.

The menu will have a couple of main choices: chicken and noodles and beef and noodles. Lions Club members themselves will make the noodles.

The meal will be from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, March 6, at the Depot.

Meal tickets are $6, and children under age three are free. Tickets can be purchased from any Lions Club member or at the dinner, Janice says.

There also will be a raffle. Raffle tickets cost $1 apiece or $5 for six tickets. The prize list -- so far -- is this:

• Wal-Mart cards (2) worth $25 each.
• $25 cash
• Oil change (2)
• 4 fleece blankets and a basket of goodies

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Crush me now and get it over with

[February 12]   Here we are on Abraham Lincoln's birthday, on the cusp of another Valentine's Day. We honor a president who got shot, and then we celebrate the arrival of an aggressive little dude with a bow and arrow.

As a grade schooler in Pawnee Rock, I suffered like any other boy and maybe more than most because my romantic entreaties were not only unrequited but also rebuffed, ignored, and sometimes laughed at. As often as I got into crushes, I sometimes felt like Cupid had left me to bleed in the playground dirt.

Eventually I grew out of that phase, and I imagine you did too. But there are dozens of kids in school now for whom today, with its classroom mailboxes covered with red and white construction paper and filled with a bunch of pro forma valentines and one secretly heartfelt card from each sender, will be an adventure in high anticipation and torture.

Good luck to each of them.

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Church news, June 1983

[February 11]   The Larned Tiller and Toiler had a page of church news every Friday as a way to provide information to subscribers and sell a lot of small ads to companies that wanted to appeal to people who read that page. Farmers Grain, Fuel & Livestock Co. was the only Pawnee Rock company that showed up in the 31 ads.

Pawnee Rock churches were represented. Gerhard Peters, the pastor of the Bergthal Mennonite Church, provided the week's mini-sermon, "God is always present."

Under the page's main headline -- Worship In The Church Of Your Choice Sunday -- were a few dozen blurbs listing the church's name, pastor, and week's schedule. Here are Pawnee Rock's:

Pawnee Rock Christian Church

Bob Miller, minister

10 a.m. -- Sunday School.

11 a.m. -- Morning worship.

6 p.m. -- Youth Group.

Monthly Board meeting first Sunday of each month, following evening services. Second Wednesday: Christian Women's Fellowship.

United Methodist

Earl McGinnis, pastor.

10:15 a.m. -- Worship.

Second Thursday:

2 p.m. -- United Methodist Women.

New Jerusalem

Eric Zacharias, interim minister, Pretty Prairie. Phone 459-xxxx. Organist, Edna Welch. Sunday School Supt., Love Unruh. Choir director, Aletha Loving.

10 a.m. -- Sunday School.

11 am. -- Worship Service.

2nd and 4th Sundays, Rev. Zacharias. Other Sundays, Lay Leaders Ladies Service Alliance, 1st Thursday of month, alternate second Saturday of month. Youth League, second Sunday of month.

Bergthal Mennonite

Gerhard M. Peters, pastor.

8:45 a.m. -- Radio Devotional program. Radio Station KVGB, Great Bend, Ks. Theme: "A Life that Pleases God!"

9:45 a.m. -- Sunday School.

10:45 a.m. -- Worship service. Father's Day. Sermon Topic: "Good Seed in Fertile Soil" Matt 13:8.

2-4 p.m -- Open house in the Fellowship Hall for the celebration of Mrs. Edith Smith's 80th birthday. Her children will host the celebration.

"Nobody will know what you mean by saying that 'God is Love" unless you act it as well."

You might wonder why this particular verse -- out of the 31,173 in the Bible -- was chosen to appear on this particular religion page:

Jesus said Repent!

And I gave her space to repent of her fornication; and she repented not. Revelations 2:21

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The big dream

Cessna 172 from the Goleta Air and Space Museum.

[February 10]   Airplanes played a big part in my childhood.

I had plastic fighters of the Vietnam War. In fact, I spent many hours with an aircraft carrier and its swept-wing and open-nose fighters. Stuffed in one of my drawers was a set of collectible cards showing interesting aircraft from World War II. My dad, who grew up with classmates from the Great Bend air base, carved a balsa B-24 and hung it from the ceiling of the office in his carpentry shop. The first model plane I constructed was a German propeller-driven fighter plane; it had decals and a clear plastic canopy that I could remove so I could pretend to take the seat (I knew nothing of the realities of the war) and pilot on amazing spins and dives and rolls.

I passed up no chance to stand close to airplanes back in the heady days of Flying Farmers and their propeller-driven Cessnas. It was the 1970s, and all the world could be seen for the charitable donation of a penny a pound.

Like all kids, I spent many a moment gazing at the then-uncommon jetliners as they dragged east-west contrails across our Barton County sky. It was the next best thing to parking at the airport -- any airport -- and watching Cessnas and DC-6s ascend and descend.

As an adult, I have spent uncounted hours on turboprop puddle jumpers, 727s, 737s, 757s, 767s, and the Airbus menagerie. The trips have dulled my enjoyed of the middle seat, but it still doesn't take much talking to convince me to drive through the airport just to see what's there.

That's why I counted down the minutes yesterday afternoon until I could take son Sam to our city's airport to pay homage to the world's largest useful aircraft.

The Spruce Goose of Howard Hughes fame is larger, but it flew once and for just a short distance. The big Boeing 747 can be adapted to tote the space shuttle. The Ukrainian Antonov 225 -- nicknamed the Dream by the Soviets and the Cossack by the U.S. military -- was built to carry the Soviet Union's shuttle but never was needed for that failed purpose. Now the AN 225 is the world's largest commercial plane, and we found it as it sat on the apron at the Fairbanks airport, where its crew was taking a layover on a long trip from Japan to Haiti -- a plane strong enough to ferry a railroad locomotive was carrying equipment to help after the earthquake.

I have to tell you -- and this is coming from a guy who actually saw the U.S. shuttle atop a 747 -- the AN 225 is a magnificent bumblebee. The Cessnas I once found so roomy would be small insects next to the 32-wheel Dream.

Still, now that I think about it a few hours after seeing the big plane, there have been no aircraft better suited for me than my own dream planes -- the models I glued together and flew in contradiction of all the laws of nature.

At dusk, the Antonov 225 sits at the Fairbanks airport.

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The Girl Scout and The Sale

[February 10]   Anyone who remembers Cheryl Unruh, Carl Johnson, or Girl Scout cookies should take a few moments and read Cheryl's column published Tuesday in the Emporia Gazette and posted on her site, FlyoverPeople.net.

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Birds of a flighty feather

A flock of birds swirls southwest of Pawnee Rock in early February. Jim Dye made this photo.

[February 9]   Jim Dye has captured one of my favorite parts of central Kansas -- blackbirds swirling en masse above the chilled fields and leafless trees.

What says Kansas better than birds in the big sky?

I wouldn't want to be standing under the flock as it dives and climbs, but I've been near enough to hear the beat of thousands of wings, the air being pushed out of the way so that a flock can follow the whim of the lead birdbrain. Or maybe there's no lead bird; maybe it's a group decision to go hither and then yon.

In the presence of such an active flock, it's tempting to draw parallels between the birds and crowds of people who mindlessly follow -- parrot, in bird terms -- those who claim to be leaders. But let's not romanticize those folks. The birds are birds.

Really, it's enough to simply stand there and be amazed and intimidated by nature once in a while.

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Home security

[February 8]   Pawnee Rockers were cordially invited to a scary movie -- what's more dramatic than finding out how your property and loved ones can be destroyed by fire?

Fortunately, disaster wasn't preordained, if only the good residents of Pawnee Rock would heed the advice of a company that sold sprinkers, extinguishers, and alarm systems.

Here's the text from a typewriter-sheet flyer handed out in Pawnee Rock in autumn 1982:

To the People of Pawnee Rock

FREE MOVIE on household fire protection and home security alarm systems. Businesses are welcome too.

There will be REFRESHMENTS and DOOR PRIZE.
(Must be 16 years old or Older to Win)

NO OBLIGATION  NO SALESMAN will call on you unless desired.

Time -- 7:300 p.m.
Date -- 20th October, 1982
Place -- Pawnee Rock Depot

Demonstration will be presented by
Ron Winsor of CENTRAL PLAINS PROTECTION

This is brought to you as a public service by the
PAWNEE ROCK VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT
and
PAWNEE SERVICE now with its new Mini-Mart.
Don invites you to stop in and see what is new to Pawnee Rock.

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From the Foster family

[February 5]   Kathleen Foster e-mailed this note, which made my day. But beyond that, she helps tie together some of the strands of important families in Pawnee Rock.

Here's her note:

Thank you for this wonderful site! Having just discovered it in the last weeks, I am still exploring all the information available.

My connection to Pawnee Rock is many. My father is Doyle C. Foster, son of Ella and Mel Foster. Velda Foster Pfister is my aunt. Kay Steed posted a picture of Velda. Kay's father is Jimmy Peters. My brother's name is Bob Robert Foster. I have lost my father, brother, aunt, among too many friends and relatives in the last few years.

My cousins are June and Margaret Ann. My cousin Verdal has passed on. They all attended Pawnee Rock schools.

My mother and father have ties to the Cooper/Foster families of Pawnee Rock's history. My mother is Earl and Effie Brannan's third of fourth children.

Pawnee Rock is a significant part of my family's history. This site is a fantastic way to reconnect.

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The north face

The north face of Pawnee Rock State Park, photographed in the summer, shows the exciting stretch where we sledded in the winter.

[February 4]   Jim Dye's end-of-January photo of a snowy Pawnee Rock State Park brought to mind cold fast days on a sled.

Half the fun was pulling the sled -- ours were already second- or third-hand by the time my sister and I got them -- from town up the long slope to the top of the Rock. We could slide down the park's road, but although that was fast it also carried a lot of risk. Instead we headed for the north face, where the slow lasted a little longer in the shade.

There at the edge of the dirt road by the pavilion, we pushed the sled down into the snow so it wouldn't head downhill without us. We adjusted our hats and gloves. We approached the sled from behind, if it was the Flexible Flyer, and lay down on it, the rope draped across the boards under our chests. If we were on the blocky sled with the big green curved-pipe runners, we sat on it and lifted our plastic-booted feet straight out ahead for balance and brakes.

Then there was a moment of weak-kneed nervousness before the suicidal first run down among the trees.

Some trips ended when we sidewiped the rough bark of an elm or cedar. If we had a good run, the sled would carry us all the way to the ditch, and a ride like that could carry memories of sledding a long way into the future.

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Academics and business

[February 3]   There were some smart Pawnee Rock kids, back in the day.

The Larned paper of November 5, 1982, mentioned that Amy Deckert, daughter of Adam and Helen Deckert of Pawnee Rock, was one of 10 Larned-area students to receive a scholarship from the University of Kansas for the 1982-83 school year.

Also, the Pawnee Rock Junior High School announced the honor roll for the first nine weeks of the school year:

Honor roll, 3.5-4.0 grade average -- Carrie Jost, 8th grade; Jodie Allen, 7th grade; and Greg Epperson, 6th grade.

Honorable Mention, 3.0-3.49 grade average -- James Maxwell and Kevin Welch, 8th grade; Johnnie Anthony, Amanda Maher, Chris Strobel, Gary Unruh, and Jennifer Wyman, 7th grade; and Kent Welch, 6th grade.

Need a doctor? The Tiller's business directory of medical doctors might ring a few bells for those of you who went to Larned for checkups and physicals and deliveries. Actually, you could ring their bells. Five of the Larned doctors listed their home phones along with the clinic's number.

• Dr. V.R. Cade, osteopathic physician and surgeon. 818 Broadway.

• W.R. Brenner, T.D. Ewing, and J.D. Smith, all medical doctors working at their clinic at 804 Carroll.

• O.R. Cram, medical doctor, in his office at 722 Mann.

• Mian Shah and Nasreen Shah, medical doctors, working at the Shah Clinic at 313 W. 14th.

And, of course, there was the veterinary clinic:

• A.D. Apley and Dennis Huck, vets in general practice 1/2 mile west on Highway 156 and 1/2 mile north.

The only dentist listed was:

• G.L. Rutherford, in his office at 110 1/2 E. 6th.

The guy who measured your vision and sent you off with new glasses was:

• J.R. Harrell, in his office at 422 Broadway.

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View from the missile base

[February 2]   Anyone who grew up before the Soviet Union fell apart is familiar with a certain kind of nightmare.

That would be the nightmare in which you're in a car passing the missile fields south of Wichita and one of the concrete lids cranks back and the ground shakes as a rocket lifts off.

It would be the nightmare of knowing that the commies were going to blow us up. We saw the military films of mushroom clouds and superheated winds blowing away frame houses like the ones we lived in.

It would be the civil defense drills that sent us to the school basement, down there among the olive-green barrels of water. And the manuals that showed our families how to dig their own backyard bomb shelters, not that gamma rays would pay any attention to that.

And that was smack-dab in the middle of North America. We would have had a few minutes' warning before being vaporized by a warhead arriving via the North Pole. Imagine what it was like to be a kid living closer to Siberia, maybe in North Dakota or Saskatchewan.

I once thought I had outgrown that, but then came the two 1983 movies The Day After and Testament, which I saw in a theater. A few years ago my wife bought me a copy of Testament, but I can't watch it. Nor can I erase the post-detonation screech of President Henry Fonda's phone in Fail-Safe.

So with that baggage, I had a certain amount of unease when I took our sons to pick blueberries a couple of autumns ago in the mountains near our home in Eagle River. Atop Mount Gordon Lyon is an old Nike missile installation with big bay doors that opened toward the north.

I led the boys on a tour of a bunker where spare anti-missile missiles were stored, as if there would be time to reload after the first wave of Soviet missiles arrived. We went to the mountaintop, where big radar dishes have been shuttered for good behind big metal doors.

The view from the mountaintop is expansive. To the north is Mount McKinley, and out of sight beyond that is more of Alaska and eventually the Arctic Ocean and finally Russia. The Nikes were to knock down enemy missiles and planes before they could destroy the local military installations and Anchorage, where other bunkers once held some of our own nuclear bombs. Now there are better radars and other missile sites elsewhere, and this one isn't needed anymore.

Between our home and Anchorage is Fort Richardson, and adjacent to that is Elmendorf Air Force Base, where the F-15s that used to rip into the sky have been replaced by F-22s. There's always some reminder that the United States is ready to project its power against Russia, China, or North Korea.

A parent's job is to give the kids a sense of history, to put things in perspective. If they don't know what we and our parents were up to, they'll never be able to do better.

On this particular day I wore a fleece jacket, so the boys didn't see my goose bumps as I talked about the bad old days. I know that sometimes my voice choked and I felt tears well up with anger and frustration. How do you tell young boys about the real world and its fascination with mass death? How do you explain the bunkers amid the beauty?

Missile contrails and radar stations make up my dreamtime landscape, and I'm sure they'll be with me always. The boys have their own future muddled by crazy people on airplanes -- and maybe they're better off. They know the Nike outpost as a quiet place where blueberries grow.

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Have a prairie dog over for supper

Prairie dogs in a field south of Pawnee Rock.

[February 1]   It hardly seemed like a year has passed since we last celebrated Prairie Dog Day, but here it is again. February 1, the day we honor our burrow-dwelling friends.

In the past year it has come to my attention that some folks have developed a taste for the flesh of our town's rescuer. Indeed, there are recipes for prairie dogs . . . and a drink with which to wash down their flesh.

Newcomers to our site may not be familiar with the legend of the prairie dog. Briefly put, here's the tale: In the winter of 1875, Pawnee Rock was a starving community. Were it not for the unexpected generosity of prairie dogs, Pawnee Rock could have been a ghost town with tumbleweeds rolling up against the unpainted storefronts of Centre Street.

But now we've moved on. Pawnee Rock doesn't celebrate the holiday much anymore, except in the privacy of some homes. Most of the town's spiritual account will be spent, unthinkingly, instead on a secular television cliche in Pennsylvania. It'll be all over the morning TV shows tomorrow.

But back to today's discussion, with a reminder to watch out for plague-carrying fleas:

Tukya (Hopi banked prairie dog)

1 fresh-killed prairie dog per person
pepper
salt
seasonings

Kill prairie dogs; immediately singe the fur completely to get rid of fleas. Scrape the carcass to remove any fur or ash, and wash it well with clear water. Dress as you would a rabbit and leave whole. Stuff body cavity with salt, pepper, and seasonings. Bake in a 350 degree oven for three hours, or until tender.

(Thanks to Native American Recipes)

Here's another recipe and a whole pile of them.

And should you be bent toward a drink, here's the reputed recipe for the Prairie Dog:

1 ounce vodka
3 dashes Tabasco

Now the guys who go out with their .243s and shoot prairie dogs "because the farmers hate them" have no excuse for not eating what they kill.

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Sell it

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

Or tell someone happy birthday.