Up the Family Tree

 

                

 Happy Kansas Day!

By Judy

I live in Kansas. Oh yes, I know some people don’t think much of Kansas. But, those people probably have never taken the time to drive through Kansas.  And, let me tell you, time it does take. I don’t have an accurate actual amount of time it takes because each time I have made the trip, there have been a lot of variables.

The first time I traveled from one side of the state to the other side, I was in college. One of my roommates and I decided it would be a fun if we drove from Eastern Kansas to Western Kansas to visit another one of our roommates during the summer. Not only did I underestimate the amount of time the journey required, I underestimated the effect a landscape with no trees would have on me.

Oh yes, the Flint Hills were beautiful. The drive through the city of Wichita didn’t bother me. (I grew up in the country and didn’t have much experience with city driving.) Somewhere west of Wichita, I noticed the landscape was different. Gone were the trees. Gone with the wind perhaps? But no, the wind was still in Kansas.  I knew that because as I drove west, the blowing south wind kept pushing the car toward the ditch. Too, the car was not air conditioned and the wind kept smacking my hair into my face. At the end of a long, long day, we arrived at my roommate’s home, and the hospitality shown us was worth the drive.

I am much, much, much older now and do not remember how many times I have crossed Kansas in an automobile. I do remember one trip was on a commercial bus as I headed to work a summer vacation in Colorado. Another time a different friend and I experienced car trouble on a return trip from Colorado. We blindly trusted the unknown mechanic who replaced a hose, didn’t overcharge and wished us a good pleasant rest of the trip. Most Kansans are still trustworthy.

There was a family trip to Colorado, too. I had a tape of some of our family’s favorite songs, and by the time we were closing in on the Colorado line, every member of the family knew all the words to Lollipop, Mr. Lee, and Stand by Me. That was the trip, too, when the five-year-old talked his way across Kansas. Fifty miles from home, the talker finally fell asleep.

I’ve been in Dodge City at 10:00 o’clock at night and realized I had to be at work at 8:30 the next morning. Don’t underestimate the fun of driving across Kansas during the night in a van filled with teenage boys returning from a ski trip.

Kansas is a great state. It has hills, valleys, and a lot of flat land. It has farm, country, small town and big city folks. It is filled with good, kind-hearted, trustworthy people. It is home. Happy Kansas Day!