A scene from Dorothy's House -- Photo by Pat Bean
- Western meadowlark, photo by Kevin Cole
“It’s a warm wind, the west wind, full of birds’ cries; I never hear the west wind but tears are in my eyes. For it comes from the west lands, the old brown hills, and April’s in the West wind, and daffodils.” — John Masefield
Travels With Maggie
Kansas: The sunflower is the state flower and the western meadowlark its state bird. While I was a bit too early for sunflowers, I saw lots of western meadowlarks. This is a bird whose beauty I failed to see until I first looked at it through binoculars 12 years ago.
It’s golden breast, adorned with a black necklace, is so brilliant that on seeing the feathers magnified I forgot to breathe for a bit. Now when I see one flitting alongside the road as I drive, and I saw lots this day, I remember the intensity of the golden color even if all I see to identify the bird is its outer white tail feathers as it skims the grasses in the opposite direction from the road.
Besides meadowlarks, I also experienced plenty of Kansas’ Oz-Land winds, although not quite as bad as the one that sent Dorothy’s home flying out of this world. The state, in case you’re interested in trivia, is named after the Kansas Indians, who were once known as People of the Wind.
While the wind blew outside this morning I, appropriately, toured Dorothy’s House that sits beside Liberal’s Coronado Museum. Both the historical museum, and its recreated kitchen of Aunt Em’s time reminded me of my grandmother’s home, perhaps because I was born the same year the Wizard of Oz movie was released.
Two antiques on display at the museum, an icebox that was kept cool by a daily visit of an ice wagon and a treadle sewing machine that was foot-powered, had strong memories for me.
I remembered waiting for the ice man to come to my grandmother’s home before she finally broke down and bought one of those newfangled refrigerators, and I remembered the time I played around on her sewing machine and put a needle through my thumb.
Gosh! I hadn’t thought of those things in a long time.
Back outside in the wind, Maggie and I only made it to Garden City, just 65 miles up the road from Liberal, before calling a halt to our travels for the day.
“I’m tired of fighting the wind,” I told the clerk when I checked into RJ’s RV Park.
“Perhaps,” he said as he assigned me to a site on Tinman Alley, “it will be calmer tomorrow.”
I doubted it. After all, unlike Dorothy, I was in Kansas.
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