by Ralph Maltese | Sep 24, 2017 | Uncategorized
Dorothy, We’re Still in Kansas
On the Road Part 3
The eastern part of Kansas is hilly, so much so that one believes one can stand on the roof of the car and see clear across the state. We buckle in, adjust the rear view mirror, pray that the radio or disc player works, floor the pedal, and hunker down to daydreaming driving. Daydreaming driving begins after a hundred miles or so; cruising along at 85 mph with seemingly nothing to hit, the mind wanders. With the Parkinson’s I have to concentrate even harder, making certain I do not wander from lane to lane, but the mind is hypnotized by the monotony of the landscape. Even the billboards are few and far between. And the one we enjoyed the most, the large wooden screen that encouraged us to exit I-70 to see the World’s Largest Prairie Dog, is, alas, gone, Prairie Dog Town closing in 2014.
For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock T.S. Eliot
During daydreaming driving, we measure our lives in waypoints on I-70, cities that roll on by providing the daydreaming driver with mini-goals. Topeka, there that’s done, Junction City, there, that’s done, Fort Riley (Home of the Big Red One Infantry Division), there, that’s done, and so it rolls on, measuring our lives by distance traveled, distance still to go, and cities yet to be traveled by, the dotted line dividing the lanes ticking off our progress like the rolling credits at the end of a never-ending movie, a rolling along into asphalt infinity…. And the dotted line dividing lanes slides like ocean waves by our car. Manhattan, Abilene, Salina, Ellsworth, Russell (which provided us with two Senators, Arlen Specter and Bob Dole.)… Near Wakeeney we are tempted to drop south on 283 and visit Dodge City, the Dodge City that filled our tv screens when we were growing up. I guess we hoped to catch a glimpse of Matt Dillion.
Driving vast distances changes one’s perspective on time and distance, both being compressed as the odometer increases. “Hey, Dodge City is only one hundred fifty miles south of us. What’s that? Two or at most three hours? What’s that compared to the six billion miles and five light years we have already driven?” But Matt Dillon and Doc and Miss Kitty will have to wait. Next trip…. or perhaps on the way home.
We stop at one rest area just east of Hays. We peeled ourselves off the seats of our Outback, and a wave of very warm prairie wind slaps our faces as we enter the stone building, the only structure presiding over the land around us.
On the rest area building is a plague commemorating a battle between settlers and the Kiowa. Hard to believe that anyone would shed blood over this landscape.
But I realize that my perspective on Kansas is narrow. Growing up in New Jersey, I was always hurt by people who only associated my state with the New Jersey Turnpike and what punctuated the land around it—oil refineries, factories, and pig farms. The Garden State? Really? They did not know the Jersey I knew, the rolling rustic hills of the western part of the state, the acres of woods I hunted and fished and the bucolic forested settings I still drive through on 287.
On our family trip to Yellowstone, we got off the interstate near Ogallala, Nebraska to see the wagon wheel ruts that were still there, ruts made by the travelers along the Oregon Trail. The topography changed dramatically from plains to almost a hard rock moonscape, clear blue lakes dotting a rugged topography. It became a fascinating diversion. So who am I to judge Kansas by what I see only from I-70? Hey, the state helps feed us all. That’s what those huge grain elevators are for.
We stop in Hays for a bite to eat. The efficient and friendly middle-aged waitress begins a conversation when she learns we are from Philadelphia.
“Wow, Philadelphia. You folks have come a long way.”
We nodded and sipped our coffee which was really good.
“I lived on a farm most of my life, just a ways east of here. My husband and I, after the kids grew up and moved off, decided to move to the big city, so here we are in Hays. It took a little gettin’ used to, ya know, urban life and all, but we like it. More coffee?”
After we depart the big city of Hays, we can almost smell Colorado. Goodland is on the border and we press on the accelerator. The sun begins to dip ahead of us as we leave Kansas, leave the acres and acres of tall and mighty Windmills that stand like sentries over the Sunflower State, leave the massive white grain elevators which seem to grow from the soil and dominate the landscape, leave the prairie. Farewell, Kansas. “Rock Chalk Jayhawks!!!” (Kansas University basketball yell) What that means, I have no idea…..Jumping Jayhawks!
by Ralph Maltese | Sep 10, 2017 | Uncategorized
Rocky Mountain High
On the Road, Part 2
We wake up in Terra Haute at a time to coincide with the earliest serving of complementary breakfast at the motel. We fuel up for the relatively short journey to St. Louis. Almost every summer in our early years of marriage we made the pilgrimage to the Gateway to the West to visit Polley’s family, and almost every summer the line which delineated Eastern Time from Central Time changed. During our student days we entered Central Time by driving NORTH in Indiana toward Chicago. Funny how that demarcation zig zags.
We adjust our seat belts, put the visors back up, and brace ourselves for the trek across Illinois. Illinois….Land of Lincoln, Springfield, and that city of broad shoulders, Chicago. But where I-70 crosses the state, the highway is flanked by low fields sprouting spinach or soybeans or cauliflower. The flatness of our journey begins in Illinois, and the landmarks are few. The huge cross in Effingham is one of them, and, like all symbols, this one is subject to interpretation.
Another landmark which always intrigues me is the Cahokia mounds, a Native American site near the border of Illinois and Missouri that provides a stark contrast to the flat lands around them.
’”Although there is some evidence of occupation during the Late Archaic period (approximately 1200 BCE) in and around the site,[6] Cahokia as it is now defined was settled around 600 CE during the Late Woodland period. Mound building at this location began with the emergent Mississippian cultural period, about the 9th century CE.[7] The inhabitants left no written records beyond symbols on pottery, shell, copper, wood and stone, but the elaborately planned community, woodhenge, mounds and burials reveal a complex and sophisticated society.[8] The city’s original name is unknown.
The Mounds were later named after the Cahokia tribe, an historic Illiniwek people living in the area when the first French explorers arrived in the 17th century. As this was centuries after Cahokia was abandoned by its original inhabitants, the Cahokia tribe was not necessarily descendants of the original Mississippian-era people. Most likely multiple indigenous ethnic groups settled in the Cahokia area.[9][10] Though widely debated, some archaeologists connect Dhegihan Siouan-speaking tribes to Cahokia. They include the Osage, Kaw, Omaha, Ponca, and Quapaw. These peoples are generally believed to have migrated from the east of the Ohio Valley. Many Native American tribes migrated over the centuries in response to local conditions and intertribal warfare. Those living in territories at the time of the European encounter were often not the descendants of peoples who had lived there centuries before and built the mounds.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cahokia
I am always tempted to stop by Cahokia, explore the area and step back in time, perhaps pay homage to the peoples who dwelled there. Next trip….perhaps on the way home.
A broad smile brightens Polley’s face as the top of the St. Louis Arch first appears on the horizon. This is her home of the past, a past filled with summer vacations at the Lake of the Ozarks, warm stays with her grandparents in Jefferson City, a quaint capital if there ever was one, and growing up in the shadow of the Gateway to the West. I smile, too. St. Louis is the home of the FeatherCraft fly fishing store, and there is some shopping to do before I wade the streams of Colorado.
Our stay with Meredith and Ronak is, as always, a joyous one. They are expecting an addition to the home they have shaped in Tower Grove. Visiting one’s children is not only a happy occasion, it is an affirmation of life. A few days later we made a short ride to Columbia, Missouri, home of the Mizzou Tigers, to visit Polley’s sister Martha and her children. Good food, good drink, good conversation. Ahhh…family.
We were both tempted to drop south and visit the Lake. The Lake, to Missourians, is like The Shore to Philadelphians. Polley is nostalgic about swimming off the dock and water skiing on the Lake. I inwardly smile as I remember slinging hula poppers at waiting bass along the shoreline, fishing with Polley’s grandfather. Nothing is as good as family. Next trip….perhaps on the way home.
One of my thrills on this trip was to play with Jasper, Martha’s grandchild. For me it was not always that way with my in-laws. Of course, big mouth moi started off on the wrong foot. Upon first meeting my future mother-in-law, I said something like, “It is nice to be here in Missouri.” My pronunciation of the state name pronounced the second “I” as an “ee” as in banshee. My mother-in-law-to-be corrected her daughter’s fiancé. “It is Missouri.” The last “I” is pronounced like the “a” in “aw.” I scratched my head. Any intelligent person would have let that conversation lapse into the annals of the history of East meets West. Any intelligent person. Before I knew it, my New York City dagger of a tongue was out of its sheath, “I am curious. How do you say the state of Mississippi? Missassappa?”
We left Martha’s early because, if we were to keep to our timetable, we would have to put some big miles on the odometer this day. In western Missouri I-70 crosses the Mighty Mo and leaves the distinctive bluffs for less hilly ground. Billboards suddenly sprout on both sides of the road, most of the advertisements seem to fall into two categories. Highway signs which promote attendance at church and prayer, warning about the Almighty’s wrath should we stray off the road. These biblical admonishments are interspersed with billboards promoting attendance at “Gentlemen’s Clubs,” while others advertise the assets to be found at adult stores. God, apparently, does not mind sharing advertising space with those who promise more carnal virtues.
The hills begin to flatten as we drive past Royals Stadium and Kansas City Missouri into Kansas City Kansas. Kansas. The Sunflower State…..miles and miles of the Sunflower State. Kansas deserves its own blog.
