Dispatches From Kansas

tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-193009922009-07-16T13:36:21.318-05:00Dispatches From KansasEssays taken from a weekly newspaper column published in the Washington County News, Washington, Kansas. Look for my book, "Dispatches From Kansas," available from Amazon.com or from the author.tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13351116214626024883noreply@blogger.comBlogger433125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19300992.post-89530455538475562472009-07-16T05:11:00.001-05:002009-07-16T05:15:16.656-05:00The house Chivers built--within the octagon

tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13351116214626024883noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19300992.post-808955943400881132009-07-16T04:48:00.001-05:002009-07-16T04:51:14.105-05:00The shape of a future that never was (Part 3)

Mosquitoes brought Edward G. Lewis to St. Louis, but magazines made him famous. Famous at the time. Ask the average citizen who Lewis was and they’ll say, “Who?” For that matter, ask the average Blue Rapids resident and the response will be the same. Mention the Woman’s League chapter house, though, and a few will say, “Oh, Betty and Loren’s place.” Before the chapter houses and the magazines,

tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13351116214626024883noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19300992.post-6913438830837619542009-07-09T09:05:00.000-05:002009-07-09T09:06:11.694-05:00The shape of things to come...

tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13351116214626024883noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19300992.post-53372684404323697412009-07-09T08:45:00.000-05:002009-07-09T08:47:12.162-05:00The shape of a future that never was (Part 2)

As a historical rule, utopias are rarely successful. The frontier, at whatever ill-defined patch of land it happened to occupy at the time, served not only as a jumping off point for western expansion but as a breeding ground for social reform movements, whether from religious, cultural, sociological, ideological or theosophical doctrines. Within those geological petri dishes every manner of

tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13351116214626024883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19300992.post-54474394995826836622009-07-02T07:32:00.000-05:002009-07-02T07:33:30.123-05:00

tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13351116214626024883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19300992.post-48413413934891967982009-07-02T07:21:00.000-05:002009-07-02T07:23:07.203-05:00The shape of a future that never was (Part 1)

Time is linear but memory is not. And yet in the case of octagons there was clearly an initial, if scant, revelation, a mere four pages in Paul Collins’ The Trouble With Tom: The Strange Afterlife and Times of Thomas Paine, followed in short succeeding steps of interest, discovery, research and desire, only to incrementally erode as old interests succumbed to new. Which might have been the end of

tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13351116214626024883noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19300992.post-85163975720833732132009-06-25T09:00:00.000-05:002009-06-25T09:01:58.448-05:00Cahokia

tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13351116214626024883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19300992.post-25803966748987722092009-06-25T08:44:00.000-05:002009-06-25T08:46:28.487-05:00Other places, other gods

All road trips come with their own unique admixture of successes and disappointments, of highs, lows and humdrums that are no more, and no less, than manifestations of the ordinary lives we lead. Someone once said that you don’t know how good you have it until you don’t have it anymore, which is about the same for digesting the afterimages of an outing. In my case, our recent visit to St. Louis

tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13351116214626024883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19300992.post-43998176763681021512009-06-17T06:25:00.001-05:002009-06-17T06:26:48.414-05:00Something in the night

Things always seem better in the half-light of dawn, though that’s a long way down the road. For now there’s only the unrelieved darkness and the faint call of a nightjar, and a lingering nightmare of broken pipes, water up to my knees and upset neighbors hammering at the door. A clamoring mob with lighted torches and noose might have come next had I stayed in bed. When dreams reach a tipping

tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13351116214626024883noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19300992.post-55075264077925955522009-06-11T08:03:00.000-05:002009-06-11T08:04:16.180-05:00

tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13351116214626024883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19300992.post-15479572798769991462009-06-11T07:59:00.000-05:002009-06-11T08:00:33.413-05:00

tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13351116214626024883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19300992.post-12078749367496559232009-06-11T07:52:00.001-05:002009-06-11T07:54:45.756-05:00A gap of unbridgeable proportions

It’s disconcerting to discover that the body you thought your own has been swapped with that of another, like a changeling left by fairies. That’s the only way I can account for what’s happened to me other than taking personal responsibility, and considering that even as I write this I’m savoring a tub of vanilla frosting, such an admission would be unbearable. Ours is a blameless society, and

tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13351116214626024883noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19300992.post-87954057548122191462009-06-04T05:51:00.001-05:002009-06-06T05:21:16.300-05:00The uncompromising wild

Twilight, and the low dusky form of the woodchuck shuffles past the shed and melts away into the gathering darkness. Not a bent blade of grass to mark its passage, not a whisper of sound. Only a fading retinal imprint and a pulse quickened to a dangerous level, and an unbidden memory that comes at me with bared fangs. It was long ago in an age where anything that moved fell to our guns, and we

tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13351116214626024883noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19300992.post-44359774365267679762009-05-29T06:44:00.000-05:002009-05-29T06:46:12.945-05:00A few flower studies... works in progress

tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13351116214626024883noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19300992.post-20898946819395757122009-05-28T06:55:00.000-05:002009-05-28T06:56:57.744-05:00Got grass?

tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13351116214626024883noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19300992.post-3960169513416396332009-05-28T06:53:00.001-05:002009-05-29T13:25:47.836-05:00Dialogues with the unknown

Evening came with the dawning comprehension that a thousand years had passed since Lori left for work. Music alone couldn’t alleviate the suffocating stillness of rooms hollowed and gutted of life so I put the computer to sleep and moved outside to look for rabbits. This has become a nightly event and I can usually find several, but one in particular likes to hang out under the Austrian pine by

tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13351116214626024883noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19300992.post-12173959376579382032009-05-27T11:23:00.001-05:002009-05-27T11:26:33.673-05:00The ugly seedling

It started, as these things always do, in a place of darkness known only to earthworms and grubs. One day it wasn’t there and the next it was, a tiny sprig looking more furry than vegetal. My initial reaction was of delight, quickly dampened. The tiny seedling had sprung up in the flower bed next to the house, which, considering the location, was the last place we’d want. “It’s going to be a

tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13351116214626024883noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19300992.post-15160914293157221862009-05-21T08:28:00.000-05:002009-05-21T08:30:23.371-05:00Back to Watkins Woolen Mill, Missouri--a few exploratory shots

tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13351116214626024883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19300992.post-7671619372112549652009-05-21T05:17:00.000-05:002009-05-21T05:19:33.153-05:00Lurker no more: coming out, narcissism and the hunger for validation

For a long time I stood on the side porch, camera in hand, waiting for the quail to show. The morning was unseasonably crisp and damp, heavy dew refracting the early sunlight into a clear cerulean sky like a thousand glittering shards of glass. A slight tremor shivered through me as my toes passed from mild discomfort to outright numbness, and still there was only the back-and-forth whistling

tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13351116214626024883noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19300992.post-71725972075192140952009-05-14T08:15:00.001-05:002009-05-14T08:15:29.668-05:00And one more...

tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13351116214626024883noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19300992.post-7553570846703579102009-05-14T06:14:00.002-05:002009-05-15T21:22:07.366-05:00Triumph of the past

I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well. – Henry David Thoreau ‘To be above the fray,’ Pym wrote to himself on a separate sheet of paper. ‘A writer is king. He should look down with love upon his subject, even when the subject is himself.’ – John LeCarre, A Perfect Spy The moment of completion was almost surreal. The last few days of August

tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13351116214626024883noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19300992.post-67305245338590871052009-05-13T13:33:00.000-05:002009-05-13T13:34:39.474-05:00This one didn't seem the least bit afraid. Is it—?

tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13351116214626024883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19300992.post-4146580882328912922009-05-13T13:29:00.000-05:002009-05-13T13:31:09.732-05:00A few shots with a new lens...

tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13351116214626024883noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19300992.post-18327344517089193482009-05-07T07:12:00.002-05:002009-05-07T07:15:28.965-05:00The future forest

It’s disconcerting to discover that what one thought a willowy Kansas wildflower is actually a noxious weed hellbent on dominance, sort of the Super Wal-Mart of the plant kingdom. A starling with stems, stamens and stalks. Disabused of any romantic notions of a flowering Garden of Eden spreading from the woods behind our spare lot into the remnants of a yard I am so carefully noncultivating, I

tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13351116214626024883noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19300992.post-53092291301480062872009-04-30T05:52:00.003-05:002009-04-30T14:36:20.499-05:00The far side of midnight

After the coughing and hacking, after the dollop of honey that was supposed to alleviate the coughing and hacking, after the subsequent gagging and gasping for breath and other associated symptoms of a nasty cold grown nastier, there came a tightness in my chest settling down like dusk. Everything prior to that moment suddenly seemed minor annoyances, mere grievances of the most inconsiderable

tomhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13351116214626024883noreply@blogger.com2