GREAT BEND, Kan. - Some people find it shocking that I find Kansas beautiful. I suppose that is the curse of the home town. It is hard to find something beautiful about the town you grew up in, until you leave it.
Every state in the nation has something that is beautiful about it. Michigan has water and trees. Colorado has the mountains. Florida has the wetlands. Kansas has the huge sky. The sky is massive out here, a backdrop of everything else on the prairie.
Besides the sky I have always found beauty in old abandoned houses. Kansas has many, more than I have ever seen in another state. I'm not sure what it is about these houses that draw me in. They seem so dark and mysterious. Harboring secrets of old time prairie families. I often pull my car off the road to take pictures of these "little houses on the prairie".
I make up stories about the past of these houses, families suffering through the dust bowl, farmers waking up to plow the fields. My imagination runs wild. They are a piece of history, but better yet, a piece of history that we can create.
Perhaps my favorite old abandoned home is on 281 between Great Bend and Pratt. Leaves, trees, and vines have begun to take over the house. It is a perfect collage of nature and history. It makes me wonder what the family that lived there would think if they seen it today. I wish I could go inside. I wonder what kind of clues I would find that would fill in the pieces on the family that lived there.
Many people that live in Kansas have families that have lived here for generations. Some of these houses could be where a great-great-great grandparent lived, and you may never know.
They say that Jesse James rode through Great Bend, he may very well have had dinner in one of those gutted homes. Woody Guthrie, who I believe was one of the best writers/folk singers of all time was a lost soul. Wandering about in the states of Oklahoma and Kansas, singing about the dust bowl, and Pretty Boy Floyd. He may have stayed the night in one of those homes. It's not probable, but it is possible, and if this is my historic daydream than I suppose historical accuracy isn't necessary.
It saddens me when people complain about these old homes, wanting to tear them down. They add zeal and intrigue to a state that has a more than interesting past. Perhaps that is why I like to collect old antique items. Even if the item is not worth a dime, and is a piece of junk, I always find it intriguing. Imagining what the family that owned it a hundred years ago thought when they bought it new. A washboard was cutting edge technology at one time, just as these homes were once lit up with light, full of love, family and stories. It may sound cliché, but I do wish the walls could talk!
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