Nancy B King

Daughter’s class reunion at Southwestern College was last weekend and my high school class reunion is this weekend. Daughter and Ski Boy extended their stay three days, and I came down several days early so we could overlap and do things together. This was Sky Boy’s first trip to Kansas—he grew up in the Boston area, went to law school in Chicago, then came directly to Alaska.

I arrived Sunday afternoon in time to join Daughter and Ski Boy and Daughter’s favorite prof and his wife for dinner. A great time was had by all.

Yesterday, the three of us drove 45 miles east to the ranch where I grew up. My family lived there until my dad died; then my mother, sister, and I moved to Winfield.

We made our way down memory lane, fortified with Daylight Donut pine cones and College Hill Coffee drinks of one kind and another. We stopped at various geo cache sites—some successful and some not. We took a side trip to look for the remains of Grand Summit, the railroad terminal the ranchers, including my dad, used for shipping cattle to Kansas City. All along the way, we stopped to take panoramic photos of the Flint Hills grass land and cattle. Finally we arrived in  Grenola—the nearest town while I was growing up on the ranch. We  drove by the school I attended from fourth through sixth grade, went out to the cemetery where my dad is buried, then toured the historical museum. There we got to see a pair of my dad’s chaps.

After our extended stop in Grenola, we drove 5 miles south past Hardpan school, a one room country school house—or rather, the place it had been. I went to school there from first through third grade. It covered first through eighth grade, however, only six grades were represented. Two of us were in my first, second, and third grade class.  After pausing there for a family story or two, we drove on down the road a mile and a quarter to our home place. Nothing is left—five or six years after we moved to Winfield, a tornado destroyed all the buildings. We paused along the road for a few minutes to pay respects to my early up bringing on the ranch. After that it was  back to Winfield,  dinner, and in for the night.