the long way home

Grandpa Detrich always liked to take the long way home.

First we'd go to the Dairy Queen for a scoop of chocolate ice cream in a cup...then out on dirt roads where wild turkeys scuttled into the ditch...over rickety bridges spanning dry creek beds...past the field where the '52 flood brought an underground spring suddenly to life...up to the top of Indian Hill to look at the new housing developments or the mist settling grey around the grain elevator and all the way to the eastern horizon.

He liked to drive across the Milford Lake Dam, and the back roads by Easy Jack's, or through the Oak Grove or the Bonebrake, pointing out the skeletons of ramshackle farmhouses and stone structures that used to be somebody's "place."

Grandpa Detrich always had to go check on something...a real estate deal for a new family in town, a property dispute out at the quarry, a file down at the office, or the fence along the creek at our aunt's farm.

Nothing was ever quite on the way and I think Grandpa liked that.

Peacocks roost by walking under their designated sleeping spot and jumping straight up into the air to land precariously on that branch...Clive Cussler writes himself and one of his classic cars into every Dirk Pitt novel...the best cherry pie in the world is made by the women from the Alida-Upland church and sold at Chris Bletcher auctions...a Pizza Hut mint will last over an hour if you just set it on the top of your tongue and try not to suck on it.

That's the kind of stuff you learn on the long way home.

The neighborhood cats will leave the birds alone after a couple of shots from a pellet gun. Other rummy players will overlook what you've laid down if you keep your piles close to the edge of the table and out of order. There is a bottomless pot of coffee at the Senior Center, and an endless game of "guess the number" to see who pays for it each month.

Homemade ice cream tastes best eaten outside. Don't mow the lawn when the grass is damp. The human body is fragile, and prone to mysterious injuries that need bandaids and iodine. There's nothing better than a nap with a lap full of sunshine and prism rainbows.

Small towns in Kansas are worth saving... worth celebrating.

That's what Grandpa taught me.

I pray he found the long way home at last.