As I glided into Hertz to pick up my rental car the agent
noted my Fort Myers address. He said,
“You know your airport has more traffic now than ours.” We kibitzed about the advantages of winter
living in Southwest Florida as he finished my paperwork in record time I
hustled to my car and off to a nearby airport motel that came complete with
bugs in the room. I didn’t care. I just wanted to sleep.
The next morning I managed to time my arrival at Bryant’s
for a lunch with Chris Ronan. It was a
good time to commiserate about injuries while enjoying one of the best barbeque
beef sandwiches ever. Chris went for the
pulled pork. I’m betting Chris rode an
extra 50 miles on his bike over the weekend to work off the excess fat.
Friday was spent with my sister Dianne and my brother-in-law
Bob. The evening turned into a music
fest with Bob running through memory lane of the San Diego music scene in the
mid to late 60’s where the various bands he played in would open for some
pretty amazing acts. The evening
included a slate of bawdy rock and roll and country tunes that were in the vein
of Jimmy Buffett’s epic “Why Don’t We Get Drunk and Screw.” It was awesomely naughty.
Saturday morning Dianne and I took a trip out to the family
farm. We walked across some beautiful
pasture that I had never bothered to visit before. It sits east across a creek from our fields
that are normally teaming with corn and soybeans. Needless to say the drought did a number on
the crops this year.
The toughest moment came at the main farmhouse where a
massive hay barn is showing its age. It
nearly brought tears to my eyes to see it in such a dilapidated state. I doubt that it will be standing in another
five years. It had served as a
mysterious playground for me as a young boy.
I used it to host an epic high school party in which we were allowed to
tear down and set fire to an old chicken coop.
The barn’s current state is just too sad to put into words.
I spent an hour on
Saturday afternoon with Phil Wedge, an old friend from high school and
college. He’s been teaching English at
the University of Kansas for more than 30 years now. I think he’s more proud of his two sons, Roy
and George, than he is about his teaching, his years of softball, or any
championship he’s managed to snare playing ball park baseball.
That night I went to my sister Karen’s beautiful home south
of Lawrence to spend an evening celebrating my late mother’s birthday. It was a chance to catch up with the cousins
and hear their latest triumphs and tribulations. The crowning moment actually came the
following morning when I got to see my 89-year-old Aunt Betty, a lovely woman
who is everything a family matriarch should be.
Monday was spent on the K.U. campus where the television
news program appears to be in a shambles.
All the work that folks like Max Ustler, John Broholm and Dick Nelson
had done to build a very good television news learning environment has been
torn apart. I won’t go into details but
it’s a mess.
I took a trip to the Booth Family Hall of Fame that was
built into the front of Allen Field House.
It is a beautiful tribute to Kansas athletics. Gib and Betty Booth, my old neighbors, would
be proud of what their children and grandchildren brought to the University of
Kansas.
The trip back home was a nightmare. An hour on the tarmac at KCI before a rushed
arrival into Atlanta and another half hour on the tarmac before arriving home
nearly an hour late with plenty of turbulence in between. At least I made
it home.
The result of the trip and the lack of sleep that came with
it was a nasty sinus infection. As I sat quietly suffering Friday night at my
assigned high school football game wearing my Jayhawk polo shirt, the audio operator
leaned over and told me I’d like St. John Neumann’s new fight song. Sure enough, “I’m a Jayhawk” blared out of
the stadium speakers as the Celtics jogged onto a rain soaked field. Too bad they didn’t win. But that’s another
blog for another time.
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