I’ve written two columns since the big earthquake hit Damphewmore Acres, so I’d better comment a bit in this one before the next earthquake hits.
When the shaker hit, I had just poured myself a cup of coffee and opened the door to go out on our back deck to relax and enjoy the beautiful morning. I wuz in mid-stride across the threshold when the door moved, the blinds on the door swayed and rattled and before I could gather my wits — it wuz all over but the talking about it — and that ain’t stopped since. Everyone has their own little personal story about what they felt when the quake hit.
It shook the Flint Hills hard enuf that a few items shook off of store shelves in Emporia. One of weekly participants at the Old Boars’ Breakfast thinks the quake moved the top of one of his metal grain bins and put a little kink in the grain leg. The Emporia media reported a few residents discovered cracks in their homes or business walls and floors.
Others have reported feeling their bed shake. One persons in a camper thought his mate had gotten up early and wuz shaking the camper just to be funny. My central Iowa friends reported that they felt a little tremor that morning.
I’ve a friend who works at the Oklahoma Geologic Survey in Okie City and I called him in jest and told him to quit goofing off on the job and get those Oklahoma earthquakes stopped pronto.
The only scary thing about the earthquake to me is what MIGHT have happened. Readers will recall that after our recent weekend trip to Okie City we returned home through Pawnee, Okla., and then headed north through Ralston. Well, folks, that wuz the precise epicenter of the 5.6 magnitude earthquake and we’d driven right over it a week earlier. I’m just glad the earthquake gods decided to wait a week to trigger the shaker.
We ain’t supposed to have earthquakes in the Great Plains. We’re just supposed to learn how to cope with tornadoes, blizzards, floods, drought, and fires — not EQs.
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My good friend Mocephus and two of his grandsons spend bits and pieces of 18 months building a wooden canoe that turned out to be an absolute piece of functional woodworking art.
All Mo’s family and friends encouraged him to enter the canoe in the open woodworking show at the Kansas State Fair in Hutchinson. So he did. I’d have bet a pile of money that their canoe would have earned the grand championship of the show.
To my surprise, and disgust, the fair judge must have had a hangover when he judged because their canoe only received a red ribbon.
In spite of the results at the Kansas State Fair, I’ll still make a side bet that their wooden canoe is the best/prettiest one finished in the entire U.S. this year.
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My friends, Canby and May Bea Handy, just returned from a mammoth family vacation that covered more than 5,000 miles in 12 days. I’ll list some of their bucket list stops.
After leaving Platte City, Mo, they headed to Nebraska and South Dakota and traveled through the Black Hills and Deadwood, then on to Devil’s Tower in Wyoming, then on to the Custer Battlefield in Montana, then to the Great Falls of the Missouri River, then up to Glacier National Park, then traveled just below the Canadian line across the Idaho Panhandle and northern Washington, then across the beautiful north Cascade highway to the Seattle-Puget Sound area.
After traffic congestion experiences in Seattle, they headed up Mount Rainier, and then across the Cascade Mountains to the fruit and veggie-filled Yakima Valley, then to Palouse Falls near Walla Walla, then across Lolo Pass from Lewiston, Ida., and on to Missoula, Mont., where they visited the Louis-Clark Interpretive Center and learned about the ice-age Lake Missoula that broke its ice dam 10,000 years ago and flooded and scoured thousands of square miles across the Idaho Panhandle, across the Columbia Basin, and clear to the Willamette Valley in Oregon. That historic flood even made the Snake River flow backwards.
From Missoula, the intrepid vacationers headed south through Idaho and clear across Utah where they visited the Arches National Park and saw a lot of sights in that rough-hewn landscape.
From southeast Utah, they headed east through Durango, Colo, and ended up in Garden City, Kan. The next day they stopped here at Damphewmore Acres for lunch and vacation gab and pictures before the final leg home.
Although he saw lots of scenic wonders, Canby said he enjoyed visiting with residents and fellow tourists along the way about as much.
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I attended a little patriotic meeting in Strong City a week ago put on by Charlie Searle of Monument, Colo. Charlie is on a one-man, 60-day mission to talk to as many folks as he can across this nation about the need to restore traditional American values and patriotic feelings toward our nation — one person at a time.
It’s a big job for one man, but he left the message that each of us “ordinary Americans” can do what we can to put the U.S. back on the right path to rediscover our Constitutional roots. If you get a change to hear Charlie Searle, go!
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I’ll close by saying I’m looking for a T-shirt that says, “A Proud, Patriotic, Deplorable American.” Have a good ‘un.
