A passing motorist stopped to warn us about a coming storm, in defiance of the red sky that greeted our first evening in Kansas, allegedly an indicator of “sailor’s delight” and good weather. Dusk found us chatting with a rancher and gaining permission to set up our tent on his land. I secured the tent as well as possible, battened down the hatches so to speak, to protect us against the looming southwest Kansas dust storm.
I have protected ourselves successfully from all manner of mountain weather with my tent, but the fierce winds across the open Kansas plains bent our tent poles down to near their breaking point. By morning the inside of our tent was coated with dust, as were the inside of our nostrils. We had to shake the dust out of the tent the best we could as part of breaking camp, gaining an appreciation for what the Dust Bowl truly meant.
During our first Kansas town stop in Syracuse I gave talks at both their Lions and Rotary clubs. The Lions Club meeting was held at the Methodist Church and the pastor allowed us to sleep there that night. We also attended the Community Friendship supper held at the same church once a month. Attendees donate most of the food for the supper, they then use the collection at the supper for needs such as people’s fuel bill.
We learned at the Lions Club meeting about a fascinating entrepreneurial effort that the club wanted to encourage others to emulate. Like many southwest Kansas towns Syracuse is aging, but one native son became disenchanted with city and corporate life in Denver and returned home at age 33. After the meeting we took a field trip to witness Matt Gould’s plans for renovating a depressed downtown property he acquired “dust cheap.”
Matt combined his interests in hunting, photography, brewing and raising bison in his creation of The Loft. Downstairs, The Loft will be a restaurant that features Matt’s bison and beer. We toured the finished upstairs, which can hold up to eight guests. Matt will lead guided hunting tours in season and house his clients in The Loft. His photography will be displayed, and available for purchase, on both floors.
Matt’s entrepreneurial spirit contrasted starkly with another Matt we met in Utah. We had partied with Utah Matt and his buddies in their neighboring campsite to ours. They treated us to a feast that resulted from their hunting trip, a trip designed to ease Utah Matt’s pain from recently being laid off. They also supplied plenty of beer and in an inebriated state Utah Matt went on an emotional rant about the evils of corporations.
We got along well until I suggested to Utah Matt that he use his skills in concrete or hunting to either become or work with a proprietor. He then defended how necessary corporations are for things like pensions and health care. Kansas Matt escaped the clutches of corporations for a return to small town life; Utah Matt succumbed to the clutches of the corporations he hated.
Having pensions and health care contingent on employment gives corporations a large competitive advantage over proprietors and small businesses, and that is just the tip of the iceberg. Over the past few decades bankruptcy laws have tightened for small businesses, while bailouts are saved for the corporations “too big to fail.” The cost of higher education has escalated to the point of making graduates indentured servants to the corporations that most readily can provide gainful employment to pay down student loans, rather than risk entrepreneurial endeavors.
Still, Utah Matt was the more blatantly bitter person from feeling he could not escape corporate employment, while Kansas Matt displayed refreshing energy in his innovative zest to overcome the hurdles. Plus Kansas Matt was better poised to be a contributor to the health of his community.
Somebody hit and dented Ky’s bumper again while we attended the community supper, just a week after the previous accident to her parked car. Once again she took the news admirably well, even though this time the van could not be left somewhere for a week to be repaired. Fortunately, by this time I had received word from our Kansas City friends we met in Frisco. Ardie and Gretchen arranged an itinerary for me with four speaking engagements in the area. Ky contacted them for a place to get her car repaired again during our stay in Kansas City.
Our next town stop was Lakin. We did not meet any new friends here, however the town has a policy of providing a motel stay for wayward travelers, for which we qualified. Lakin’s population was only slightly larger than my home town of Norfolk, Connecticut but because of the wide open spaces and sparse populations out west, places like Lakin could be considered a city, while Norfolk is a quaint village. A sign revealed that Lakin had a different church denomination for about every 150 residents.
We arrived at Garden City in time for Halloween. We first stayed at the United Church of Christ (UCC), where the next morning I spoke at their church service and played guitar for their offertory during their Mission Sunday. The last UCC church that hosted us was in Auburn, California. We had a natural connection with this denomination, the same as our home church who vouched for us throughout the journey, but we were very ecunemical in where we laid our sleeping bags at night. Any church floor would do as we crossed the plains.
We talked for a long while after church with Pastor Mike Lake and wife Mary about the kindness and friendships met along the way. I confessed the bittersweet feelings I had in making good friends only to part from them in such a short time. Mary shared that she often found herself in that situation as a pastor’s wife and would tell people upon leaving: “Thank you for being a part of my life.” I would use that parting as we traveled farther along.
After coffee hour, we moved to the home of Dale and Debra Bolton, which became our home base while we slackpacked the next two days. That Sunday evening the Boltons threw their customary dinner party. We recalled our first night in Kansas and the futility of securing ourselves from the dust storm. That led to a host of stories around the table about the Dust Bowl years in southwest Kansas, when people placed wet cloths around all the windows and cracks in their own futile battles against the dust. I am not sure anyone can fathom the futility these stories convey unless they experience ahead of time like we did.
Debra worked for the Cooperative Extension of Kansas State University and shared with me an interesting finding from her research: the diets of immigrants are healthier in their homeland than after they move here. Health also was on Debra’s mind for Halloween, as she handed out toothbrushes, donated by dentists, to the 1600 kids that came by that evening. Meanwhile, we learned that Halloween back home had been cancelled due to an early snowstorm that dumped 18 inches in Norfolk, even more in some other places.
