Tuesday, March 12, 2013

A weekend trip to Southeast Kansas

Photo: Patkoshuk won 1st place in the grass dance category in Coffeyville, Kansas
Let me tell you this story about a short trip into southeast corner of the State of Kansas and you have to have a reason to go there and for us it was to watch our grandson Patkoshuk dance at a pow-wow.

After crossing Potato and Opossum Creeks and driving through many failing towns, we arrived in Coffeyville, Kansas.  As we all know, food on the road leaves a lot to be desired.  If you want to make it to your destination on time, a sit down breakfast is pretty much out, so that leaves McDonalds or junk food at gas stations as the only real options.  Once we arrived and drove around town, we bought some tamales from some old white guy who swore up and down his wife was Mexican. The food was good, though.  

Patkoshuk took first place in the grass category.  He is doing well with his dancing and we try our best to support his efforts, plus he expects us there. He rode the bus down.  I think he prefers to be with his friends on the bus rather than us old folks.  I told Voncile on the way, that we have been doing this for a lot of years –supporting our kids, and now our grandchildren by going to just about every event they had. We’ve seen a lot of pow-wow dancing, softball games and basketball games all over, far too many to list.  But looking back, there was nothing wrong with that.

On the way home, we were fully intending to hit the nearest Indian casino to help the Indian economy, but decided against it since we would be home late and we don’t do well driving late at night.  You know the routine, arguing over who is going to drive, etc. We took a county road toward Independence, Kansas and this area had some might big churches along the way.  Bible Belt, I guess. And there were also some huge homes, so there must be some wealth in the area and we saw the other side of the spectrum, too, when we saw a man with a huge backpack walking down the train tracks. Two young boys, probably his sons were walking with him. A scene like that should make us thankful for having a roof over our heads.

 I drove a bit faster than normal going home since I wanted to see the end of the KU game.  I even passed up some old folks. The draw-back was we had to listen to KU radio announcers Bob Davis and Greg Gurley.  Davis has a good voice and is a top announcer, but this Gurley guy tries to overcompensate his weak voice by acting like he knows everything and that is so distracting.  We arrived for the last 10 minutes of the game. I should have taken my time since KU took a first class beating reminiscent of a routine police brutality scene, but they will learn from this loss and do what has to be done in the future.
And as I always say, I will return if God’s willing and the creek don’t rise and we did make it home, safe and sound from another road trip supporting one of our own

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