Tuesday, January 13, 2026
Home Blog Page 60

“Old Iron” speaks memories

By
Milo Yield
-
0
Thayne Cozart
Milo Yield

Last week, I fantasized about the conversations “Old Iron” might have if it could talk. That was all in imaginative fun.

So, this week it’s a bit of serendipity that my friend Canby Handy ran across an “Old Iron” story in Oklahoma that really does “speak family memories” for its owner, Douglas Conrady.

Canby sent me a story about Conrady and his old iron that wuz published in the Oklahoma Living magazine. Giving credit, it wuz written by Hayley Leatherwood.

The gist of the story is that Conrady, from Wakita, Okla., has spent his “fun” time during the past few decades tracking down old tractors and farm machinery that wuz bought and used by his ancestors — and then restoring the “old iron” to working condition and putting it to work in his little farm.

Conrady, an engineering technician for the Alfalfa Electric Cooperative, can tell you what his grandfather paid for a tractor in 1941 — $982 — and he’s got the checks and contract to prove it. Apparently, his Grandpa never threw anything away and the written record speaks clearly.

That tractor, a 1941 John Deere Model D — a Johnny Popper — is still with the family. More remarkably, it’s still running.

Conrady’s interest in mechanical things traces back to his high school years when he discovered fun in nuts and bolts. He remembers clearly the first time he helped dig out the 1941 D from where it sat “retired” on the family farm near Wakita. He, his dad, uncle and grandpa restored it in 1993, launching what would become a lifelong obsession.

The Model D wasn’t the only green machine to capture his attention. His collection now includes tractors spanning from 1930 to 1962, many with personal ties. These include his maternal grandfather’s 1936 D, now paired with a plow from his wife’s family. Another came from his grandfather’s extended family. And yet another was restored five years ago after a conversation with his uncle.

The family legacy is preserved in paint and spark plugs and it’s alive in the work Conrady and his dad do together. They enjoy the restoration work on the family’s “old iron.”

Then last summer, Conrady took things up a notch. He fired up a tractor, hooked it to a 1940s combine, and took it out to harvest a field of wheat outside Wakita. The combine, an Allis-Chalmers Model 40, holds just 11 bushels of grain. Built before World War II, it threshed wheat just as well as it did 80 years ago.

For fun, he posted the impromptu harvest on Facebook and the community’s response was immediate. So next time he “went public,” and 50 people came to watch Conrady and his restored combine harvest just one acre. It got rave reviews.

The combine, which he bought at auction from a relative of his wife’s family, likely cost $345 when it was brand new. Out of 15,000 made, only a handful are still in operation. But using it means repairing it, too. When one of the wooden bats on the header broke, he didn’t look online for a replacement — he made it himself.

The harvest and other public outings provides a slice of pioneer life that comes alive with blacksmithing, plowing, threshing, and saw-milling. It’s a reminder that progress doesn’t always mean forgetting where you came from.

Conrady concluded his story with this quote: “These tractors will outlive me — and, honestly, I’d be OK with that.” The “Old Iron” in the Conrady family keeps speaking.

***

Conrady’s mention of an old Allis-Chalmers combine made a part of my childhood speak to me. The first combine the Yield family bought new wuz an AC All-Crop Harvester with a 5-foot header and canvass feeder. That old combine harvested all regular crops excellently, but I recall it also did a fine job of harvesting fluffy, lighter-than-air native grass seed. I’m not a gear-head, but I do remember that old combine fondly.

***

While the topic for the week is old and ancient, I’ll throw into the mix ways you can tell whether or not you are an “old” farmer or rancher.

You are definitely an old farmer when you complain about the way “that darned kid” does farm or ranch work and “that darned kid” is older than 50.

You are an old rancher when you have the sniffles and you think about the cost and inconvenience of making and keeping an appointment with your doctor, so you seriously consider self-vaccination from the bottle of antibiotics you see in your old dusty refrigerator in the shop.

You are an old farmer when you can vividly recall stacking small square hay bales in a stifling hot tin barn with a hay hook.

You are an old farmer if you can recall using a scythe or a weed whip to cut weeds.

You are an old farmer or rancher, if when you turn the bulls out with the heifers, you sadly think about your granddaughter away at college.

***

I read last week about an urban Home Owner’s Association that now requires that if a home owner finds a pile of dog poop in the yard, and the source is unknown, it can require a DNA test of the poo to see whose dog made the mess. That way a fine can be assessed to the wayward dog’s owner. That’s the lunacy that urban life has fallen to.

***
Words of wisdom for the week: “Judging is easy. Thinking is hard. So, think before you judge.” Have a good ‘un.

 

The Mother Road

By
Lee Pitts
-
0
lee pitts

I know exactly when I fell in love with the West. I’ve always been proud to call myself a westerner but an entire new world opened up to me when at the age of five we took one of only two vacations we ever took together as a family (both of them to Missouri) to visit my grandparents on my father’s side. (It was the only two times I ever saw them.) I guess you could have called us “reverse okies” because my father’s family came out to California during the dust bowl days and here we were headed back on the same road, a road called Route 66.

That’s when my infatuation with the West began when we took what was also called The Migrant Road and the Road of Flight. It was a two lane mostly asphalt highway that stretched from LA to Chicago. Route 66 introduced me to parts of the West I’d never seen and I loved every minute of it. The Mother Road became so famous there was even a popular television show I never missed called Route 66 that featured two guys in their Corvette who, “Got their kicks on Route 66.”

Route 66 was also called “America’s Main Street” because the empty intervals were broken by trading posts, gas stations, motels and restaurants selling everything from “Genuine” Indian moccasins made in Japan, to petrified wood salt and pepper shakers. At Arizona and New Mexico Indian trading posts you could buy Kachina dolls, cowboy hats and belts, long horns from real Longhorns and in Texas and Oklahoma it was tiny vials of black crude.

Route 66 was littered with huge and unique billboards that advertised gila monsters and mountain lions just 30 miles down the road and real rattlesnakes in Santa Rosa, New Mexico. The Jackrabbit Trading Post billboards featured huge jackrabbits telling the kids in the backseat that they should nag their parents to pull in so they could buy “authentic” feathered headdresses and cap guns. Further down the road in Post, Texas, you could stop to see a real jackalope, a cross between a jackrabbit and an antelope. I still have a postcard of a cowboy mounted on one. And who could forget the Burma Shave signs that chopped up funny messages in multiple signs divided by miles of highway like the one that said, “Don’t hang your arm out too far… It might go home in another car…. Buy Burma Shave.”

Gas stations were an oasis on Route 66 and even before the car stopped rolling the car doors would fly open and everyone would head for the restrooms. I’d never heard of Whiting Brothers gas stations before that were advertised on long yellow signs. Nor had I seen a Mohawk, DX, Horn Brothers, Skelly, Hedges, or Phillips 66 station where they not only washed your windows, they checked your oil and the pressure in your tires, offered free ice for your ice chest and they’d fill your water bag hanging off your front bumper that most cars carried in case the radiator blew. All for only twenty nine cents per gallon of gas!

Mostly we ate out of our ice chest but I’ll NEVER forget the potato soup in Shamrock, Texas, the fried chicken at Ptomaine Joe’s Place, the Iceberg Cafe in Albuquerque in the shape of an Iceberg, the Mexican restaurant formed like a sombrero, a cafe cobbled together to look like a shoe, and the orange juice sold from a roadside stand in the shape of an orange. A huge cowboy advertised The Big Texas Steak Ranch in Amarillo and it’s still there today only in a different location. And you can still get a 72 ounce steak for free if you eat it and all the fixins.

Many of the cars we met on Route 66 had a bumper sticker advertising the Meramec Caverns in Missouri or the Meteor Crater in Arizona. My biggest regret was we didn’t stop to spend one night in a Wigwam Village teepee so I could see the inside of one. I also never got to put any change in a Magic Finger’s Mattress featured in multiple “motor courts”. Funny, in two roundtrips to Missouri I never did get to see a single jackalope. Come to think of it, nor have I ever seen one.

But I’m still looking.

Firewood Follies

By
Steve Gilliland
-
0

I used this column once a few years ago, but as fall closes in on us, and I can almost smell the comforting scent of woodsmoke in the air, I think it’s a good fit for this week’s column. Ages ago when I wore a much younger mans clothes, I heated my home with wood. Cutting firewood is hard on the back but was always enjoyable to me, and I’ve had some interesting experiences whilst collecting my winter’s fuel, to include smashing the rear windshield out of my dad’s pickup with an errantly tossed chunk of hard hedge wood.

When I was still in my late twenties, my dad and I got permission to cut dead trees from a patch of Ohio woods that sat well off the road at the end of a long, hilly, winding tractor path. We spent a day cutting and dragging several trees into the alfalfa field that bordered the woods. The following Saturday we again wound our way up the rutted tractor path, looking forward to a rewarding day of simply cutting-up and hauling the now easily-accessible wood. All that greeted us as we entered the field were dozens of neat little rows of sawdust, the only evidence left after someone had cut up and made-off with all our firewood.

A few years later, I found a good-sized uprooted tree in the small woodlot I owned. The hole left in the ground beneath the roots was the size of a Volkswagen and three feet deep. With the tree already flat on the ground, I cut all the limbs and dragged them out of my way, then with the main trunk ready to chunk-up, I started cutting at the upper end and worked my way toward the giant root ball. I hadn’t made it very far when something happened to the saw, requiring a tool that was still at the house. I started to set the saw in the crater beneath the roots, but for some reason changed my mind and placed it on the ground a few feet away. When I returned with the tool, I thought I had stepped through a worm-hole into another dimension or something, cause the downed-tree and the saw were both gone. I wondered around in circles and finally stumbled onto the saw on the ground, but where was the uprooted tree? It took me awhile to realize that removing all the limbs and cutting off the upper part of the tree had allowed the weight of the root ball to stand the remaining trunk of the tree back upright into the crater. Good thing I decided against putting my saw there; even better that I hadn’t sat down in there for a nap!

The granddaddy of all firewood mishaps took place on a dreary fall Saturday while cutting down a huge dead wild cherry tree that stood just across the driveway from our house. My firewood cutting skills were the stuff of legends…. once I got a tree on the ground, but putting it there without catastrophe often eluded me. I clambered as high into the behemoth as I could get and encircled the trunk with a log chain, then attached an old hay rope salvaged from the barn and ran it yards out into the open field where dad sat waiting on the trusty Farmall H. Cutting was a slow process with a chainsaw barely half the length of the tree’s diameter, but a notch was soon cut toward the open field. As I cut on the other side, I motioned for dad to put tension on the rope and chain. The tree began to list slightly, so I cut a bit further then stepped back, figuring to watch our prize topple into the open field. However, the sound of cracking wood was drowned out by the sound of snapping rope fibers as the old hay rope gave up the ghost. Half a year’s firewood teetered and wobbled for a few seconds before crashing the opposite direction across the drive and onto the power lines, putting the whole neighborhood out of power, during an Ohio State football game no less, which was akin to loosing power at the nursing home during Wheel of Fortune. The neighbor’s anger was matched only by the power company guys who had to come out on a Saturday. It seems our firewood heated the entire neighborhood that day…continue to Explore Kansas Outdoors.

Steve can be contacted by email at [email protected].

KU News: KU innovations selected for Rock Chalk Ready program; KLETC expands public safety training

By
Guest Columnist
-
0

From the Office of Public Affairs | https://www.news.ku.edu

Headlines

KU innovations selected for Rock Chalk Ready program

LAWRENCE — The University of Kansas Center for Technology Commercialization has selected six promising faculty research projects for its inaugural Rock Chalk Ready program, a university-wide initiative designed to mature early-stage innovations and position them for commercialization success. Rock Chalk Ready is supported by a FORGE grant from the Kansas Department of Commerce.

KLETC expands public safety training with new site at KU Edwards Campus

OVERLAND PARK — The Kansas Law Enforcement Training Center (KLETC), a division of the University of Kansas, officially launched its new regional training location with an open house Aug. 15 at the KU Edwards Campus in Overland Park. The event celebrated a yearlong collaboration between KLETC and the KU Edwards Campus aimed at increasing access to high-quality law enforcement training in northeast Kansas.

KU researcher examines the ties between language and emotion

LAWRENCE — A new paper from a psychologist at the University of Kansas examines how language shapes our emotional experience of the world. Katie Hoemann, assistant professor of psychology at KU, recently published her findings in the peer-reviewed journal Communications Psychology.

Law scholar examines water law approaches around the world, analyzing how nations protect vital resource

LAWRENCE — A University of Kansas environmental law expert has written a chapter comparing water laws around the world as part of a book that examines how different legal systems handle environmental law. The ways in which nations protect their water, theories they use to support their legal approach, types of water they regulate, how they control pollution and other considerations all vary, according to Robin Kundis Craig, Robert A. Schroeder Distinguished Professor of Law at KU.

Full stories below.

————————————————————————

Contact: Danya Turkmani, Office of Research, [email protected]
6 KU innovations selected for Rock Chalk Ready program

LAWRENCE — The University of Kansas Center for Technology Commercialization (KUCTC) has selected six promising research projects for its inaugural Rock Chalk Ready program, a campuswide initiative designed to mature early-stage innovations and position them for commercialization success.

Supported by a FORGE grant from the Kansas Department of Commerce, Rock Chalk Ready reflects a collaborative One KU approach, inviting participation from innovators on KU’s Lawrence and Medical Center campuses. The program aims to de-risk technologies and business concepts by providing funding, guidance and connections to resources across KU’s innovation ecosystem.

“We were thrilled to see the enthusiastic response from our research community to the Rock Chalk Ready program,” said Cliff Michaels, director of KUCTC. “We expect these funds will help these innovators make meaningful advances over the next six to 12 months and remove some of the risks inherent in early-stage innovations.”

The program received 25 proposals from across the university, demonstrating strong interest and need for early-stage innovation support. A panel of internal and external experts reviewed proposals, with six ultimately selected for funding. Projects range from novel therapeutics and medical devices to industrial and agricultural innovations, highlighting the breadth of cutting-edge research happening at KU.

Funded Rock Chalk Ready projects:

Alan Allgeier – Technologies to Enhance Corn Oil Extraction During Ethanol Production. Allgeier is a professor of chemical & petroleum engineering.
Michael Hageman – Prodrug Formulations for Oral Testosterone Replacement Therapy. Hageman is the Valentino J. Stella Distinguished Professor of Pharmaceutical Chemistry.
Divya Kamath – A Novel Therapeutic for Multiple Sclerosis. Kamath is a research assistant professor of cancer biology.
Simon Patton – A Medical Device for Improved Hysterectomy Surgeries. Patton is a clinical assistant professor of obstetrics & gynecology.
Shyam Sathyamoorthi – Antifungal and Antibacterial Agents for Industrial Agricultural Use. Sathyamoorthi is an associate professor of medicinal chemistry.
Mark Shiflett – Novel Acids for Use in the Fuel and Detergent Industries. Shiflett is a Foundation Distinguished Professor of Chemical & Petroleum Engineering.

The Rock Chalk Ready program embodies a cross-campus partnership where KU Innovation Park, the KU Office of Economic Development and KUCTC all collaborated in securing the FORGE grant. KUMC’s research administration team is helping manage the initiative. The KU School of Business is also contributing by pairing business students with the selected teams to assist with market analysis and commercialization planning.

Innovators whose proposals were not selected received detailed feedback and encouragement to engage with other programs, such as KU Innovation Park’s SBIR/STTR Boot Camp or the Great Plains I-Corps Hub.

Rock Chalk Ready projects will continue through summer 2026.

Learn more about the FORGE grant and KU’s innovation ecosystem.

 

-30-

————————————————————————

KU spent $78.9 million across Kansas on research-related goods and services in FY23.

https://ku.edu/distinction

————————————————————————

Contact: George Taylor, Kansas Law Enforcement Training Center, 620-694-1447, [email protected]
KLETC expands public safety training with new site at KU Edwards Campus

OVERLAND PARK — The Kansas Law Enforcement Training Center (KLETC), a division of the University of Kansas, officially launched its new regional training location with an open house Aug. 15 at the KU Edwards Campus in Overland Park.

Law enforcement professionals from across Kansas toured newly renovated classrooms, tested updated technology and met KLETC staff now based at the Overland Park location. The event celebrated a yearlong collaboration between KLETC and the KU Edwards Campus aimed at increasing access to high-quality law enforcement training in northeast Kansas.

University of Kansas Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Barbara Bichelmeyer attended the open house and praised the initiative’s alignment with KU’s statewide service mission.

“This really meets a need where more people can get quality training without having to spend a ton of money for travel, hotels and per diem when they can stay in their own area,” said Amy Osburn, assistant director of KLETC.

KLETC’s Information Technology department spent the last several months updating four classrooms with the same instructional tools found at the Yoder main campus, ensuring consistent learning experience across locations. The classrooms also received new desks, paint and carpeting to refresh the environment for incoming students.

“This is an exciting next step for KLETC,” said Darin Beck, vice provost of KLETC and director of police training for the state of Kansas. “It’s an investment in the future of law enforcement, and it’s an investment in the state of Kansas.”

KLETC staff based at the KU Edwards Campus include Osburn, Education Program Coordinator Thomas Hayselden and Jonathan Morris, associate director of KU’s Center for Public Safety Leadership (CPSL).

Continuing education classes will be taught out of the new classrooms at the KU Edwards Campus. The site will also host courses from CPSL, such as the Law Enforcement Leadership Academy – Command School. These programs are designed to support career advancement for officers and expand leadership capacity across Kansas law enforcement agencies.

Stuart Day, dean of the KU Edwards Campus and School of Professional Studies, said the new KLETC presence strengthens the campus’s role as a public service hub.

“The KU Edwards Campus is a critical partner with Overland Park, Johnson County, the K.C. metro and the state of Kansas,” Day said. “Having a stronger KLETC presence on campus brings new colleagues into the fold and enhances services to our constituencies. It also offers great opportunities for collaboration, for example, with the School of Social Welfare.”

KLETC now operates its main campus in Yoder and four regional training sites in Dodge City, Hays, Parsons and Overland Park, supporting its statewide commitment to quality, accessible law enforcement education.

-30-

————————————————————————

KU provides fire, rescue and law enforcement training across Kansas.

https://ku.edu/distinction

————————————————————————

Contact: Brendan Lynch, KU News Service, 785-864-8855, [email protected]
KU researcher examines the ties between language and emotion

LAWRENCE — A new paper from a psychologist at the University of Kansas examines how language shapes our emotional experience of the world. Katie Hoemann, assistant professor of psychology at KU, recently published her findings in the peer-reviewed journal Communications Psychology.

“We know from research that different languages have different vocabularies for emotion,” Hoemann said. “A lot of that research focuses on individual words — emotion vocabularies — or whether you can tell how good or bad someone feels from the language they use. What we haven’t looked at in depth is how we can see other aspects of people’s emotional experience beyond just which emotion they’re feeling or how good or bad they feel. What kinds of things are people paying attention to? What kinds of evaluations are they making about their environment? How do they see themselves situated with regard to the unfolding events?”

Hoemann’s co-authors include Yeasle Lee, Batja Mesquita, Èvelyne Dussault and Dirk Geeraerts, all from KU Leuven in Belgium; Simon Devylder from UiT, the Arctic University of Norway; and Lyle Ungar from the University of Pennsylvania.

Their paper surveyed existing research on language and emotion from a range of academic fields and suggests a framework for further study.

“It’s a set of proposals for the scientific community, a kind of synthesis across different areas of research,” Hoemann said. “A lot of the work we cite comes from psychology, linguistics and computer science. The idea is to take what we know about language as a system for scaffolding and communicating our experience and apply that to new directions in emotion science.”

Based on their deep dive into research on language and emotion, Hoemann and her colleagues propose a new paradigm for future investigations: distributing the experience of language and emotion into three aspects — “attention,” “construal” and “appraisal.”

“We wanted to structure it around three dimensions because it made sense to us,” Hoemann said. “The first is attention — what people are paying attention to. If I talk about the weather versus what I ate for lunch, that tells you what’s on my mind.”

The researchers define the second feature, construal, as “the conceptual vantage point which from events are viewed.”

“Construal is more about the perspective you take,” said the KU researcher. “If attention is what you’re looking at, construal is how you’re looking at it. Are you bringing something close, distancing yourself from it, speaking in the present or past tense, or referring to yourself in the second or third person?”

Last, the team of researchers said the experience of language and emotion should be assessed via “appraisal,” or the judging of events.

“Appraisals are the dimensional evaluations people make about their experience, especially how pleasant or unpleasant it is,” Hoemann said. “These are foundational to emotion theory and also present in language. They help us infer how people are experiencing themselves or their circumstances.”

Through study of these three facets, Hoemann and her co-authors argue a more productive understanding of language and emotion is possible.

“I don’t think anyone has a definitive answer to whether language reveals or creates our mindset,” Hoemann said. “It’s both. Language provisions us with a set of tools we can use, and those tools shape our attentional patterns over time. But we don’t just choose tools randomly. We use language in ways that help us affiliate with others and accomplish our goals.”

Hoemann has a research interest in emotions that defy easy description with language.

“There’s certainly a way in which having a word for a feeling makes it a kind of common currency,” she said. “But we can also recognize feelings that don’t have words. We might say, ‘Have you ever felt like this?’ and then describe a situation. Still, having a single word or phrase makes that much more efficient.”

Indeed, for years the KU researcher maintained a database of foreign words communicating “untranslatable emotions.”

“These are emotions that don’t have direct equivalents in English,” Hoemann said. “Of course that’s a limited perspective, because you could do that with any source and target language. People have written books cataloging invented words, historical emotion terms or culturally specific emotion vocabulary. The existence of those words shows how powerful labeling is in shaping how we talk about — and maybe how we experience — emotion.”

The authors use the term “meaning making” to describe how people construct their experiences of the world, including emotion.

“Meaning-making is about categorizing experience — taking in all the sensory and psychological information available and organizing it into something you can describe or recognize,” Hoemann said. “Our experiential space isn’t evenly distributed. Some experiences happen more frequently or tend to co-occur with certain features. These patterns act like magnets, pulling experiences into familiar categories.”

Hoemann joined KU’s social-psychology faculty a year ago, having previously studied anthropology and linguistics. She said her academic niche could be dubbed “emotional psychology.”

“Emotion and language are both social tools,” she said. “The work I do is mostly fundamental science about what emotion is, how to define and measure it, and what it can tell us about the human mind.”

-30-

————————————————————————

A study by global analytics firm Lightcast quantifies

KU’s annual statewide impact at $7.8 billion.

https://economicdevelopment.ku.edu/impact

————————————————————————

Contact: Mike Krings, KU News Service, 785-864-8860, [email protected]
Law scholar examines water law approaches around the world, analyzing how nations protect vital resource

LAWRENCE — Every nation on Earth relies on water. But how those nations access and protect their water varies widely. A University of Kansas environmental law expert has written a chapter comparing water law around the world as part of a book that examines how different legal systems handle environmental law.

Robin Kundis Craig, Robert A. Schroeder Distinguished Professor of Law at KU, wrote “Comparing approaches to water quality law,” a chapter in “Comparative Environmental Law,” edited by Tseming Yang of Santa Clara University, Anastasia Telesetsky of California Polytechnic State University and Sara Phillips of Chulalongkorn University in Thailand. Part of the Research Handbooks in Comparative Law Series, it was published by Edward Elgar Publishing.

The ways in which nations protect their water, theories they use to support their legal approach, types of water they regulate, how they control pollution and other considerations all vary, according to the KU Law researcher.

“In the transnational sense, the norm has always been protecting drinking water. Whatever else you do with water quality, protect the water you drink,” Craig said. “I went for categorizing the basic structural decisions nations make, like do they try to regulate ambient water quality, regulate pollution or do both, like we do here in the U.S.”

Throughout the chapter, Craig cites examples of nations that use a source-based approach, or those who regulate people, businesses and entities that pollute water, and examines subdivisions of water regulation such as what types of water nations regulate, like surface, groundwater or oceans. Similarly, the author examines different methods of enforcement and how nations hold violators accountable as well as the capacity needed to do so.

Craig’s chapter spans the globe, examining legal approaches in the European Union, China, India, pan-Central and South American nations, pan-African nations, Japan, Russia and Islamic regions. While there are unique approaches by nation and region, there are some universal principles.

Right to water

“We now have the human right to water, which is a United Nations policy. A lot of countries say they follow it, but how closely they do and how they apply it differs,” Craig said. “It’s a positive right, so someone has to be there to provide the right to you, and it’s been a little more difficult to implement than some negative rights, like the right to free speech, which holds that the government cannot take action against you for your speech.”

The author analyzes how international water law has trended toward a source-based permit regulation system in which a government determines who can access water at a source and how an ambient water protection approach is more difficult, requires more legal capacity and money to operate.

Comparative environmental law

Craig, who has written extensively on water law and is part of a team working to generate renewable energy, save water and conserve land across California, said the book is a good primer in comparative law and can be beneficial for policymakers or anyone interested in environmental law.

“If somebody is doing something different than you, it’s always worth asking if they are getting better results for less money — or if they are incorporating new values that we should factor into our law,” Craig said. “Or are they getting good results, but at a prohibitive cost? Plus, it’s always good in the law just to know what your options are. It can be a very pragmatic way to look at it, especially if a nation is at a point where they can change or need to change.”

-30-

————————————————————————

KU News Service

1450 Jayhawk Blvd.

Lawrence KS 66045

[email protected]

https://www.news.ku.edu

Erinn Barcomb-Peterson, director of news and media relations, [email protected]

Today’s News is a free service from the Office of Public Affairs

Just a Little Light: “But, Madam, Don’t You Wish You Could?”

By
Dawn Phelps
-
0

Dawn Phelps
Columnist

Many years ago, I made a visit to the home of an elderly man in another town for a painting lesson.  The man’s name was Mr. Nelson; he has since died.  During my visit, he told me a story that I have never forgotten.

He said a lady came to his home to look at his paintings.  As she looked at one of his outdoor scenes which included grasses by the roadside, the lady critically remarked, “I have never seen colors like that in the grass!”

The grasses in his paintings included golds, browns, reds, purples, and greens from his palette.  To the lady’s remark, Mr. Nelson said he replied, “But, Madam, don’t you wish you could?”  He said that he felt sorry that she was unable to “see” the colors and beauty.

Sometimes we too miss seeing “the colors” in our lives because of the many demands that take our time and energy. We may have taken life for granted and forgotten to appreciate the small beauties or pleasures that surround us.  

Mr. Nelson’s story about the colors in the grasses reminded me of the little trips I used to make with my mother in the fall.  During our outings, she admired the colors of the trees, shrubs, and particularly the colors of the grasses beside the highway.  

As we drove along, she would exclaim, “Look at the grasses!  Aren’t they beautiful?  Look at the golds, the purples, the oranges….”  Even though my mother has been gone for many years, each autumn I still think about how she saw “the special colors” in the grasses that many only see as ordinary.  

This past week my husband and I drove to Concordia to eat.  We took the old highway north from Miltonvale toward Ames, Kansas.  As we drove along, we were amazed at the colors in the fields and the many grasses beside the road.  Some we tall; some were short, but all beautiful.

The colors were outstanding.  Some grasses were 3-4 feet tall since the highway department had not done the final fall cutting.  There were oranges, golds, and browns, but the mauves, to me, were the most beautiful.  There were also some shorter white grasses at the base of the tall grasses, creating an extraordinary contrast.

The fields of bright yellow soybeans made a distinct contrast with the dull, brown fields of dried cornstalks.  And a large bright yellow field of soybeans next to a field of reddish-brown milo was breathtaking.  Even though I am not usually an autumn lover (since I dread winter that comes next), the colors this year have been wonderful! 

If you are unable to get out to see the autumn colors, then you may have to search a bit for different ways to brighten your life and add some “spice.”  Here are a few suggestions.   

Find a good book to read

Keep in touch with friends, family, or grandkids

Buy some yummy bright-colored fruits  

Try some dark chocolate

Listen to your favorite music

Prepare your favorite foods 

Spend time with those you love

Write your memories

Feed the birds and take time to watch them

Bake some goodies

Do something good for someone else

Watch a sunrise or sunset

Sit and enjoy the sunshine and a gentle breeze on a warm day

Grow a flower

Watch for pretty colors and scenes in nature as you travel

Life is a precious gift which can quickly be taken away.  So, use your time to see and do things you enjoy while you are here on this planet.  And look for pretty colors.  If you have not seen the colors that are along the highways, I challenge you to slow down a little and look a little harder.  

If you focus, you might discover some new colors.  And if you, like the lady in this story, are unable to “see the colors,” I say to you, like Mr. Nelson, “But, Madam or Sir, don’t you wish you could?” 

 

[email protected]

1...596061...4,775Page 60 of 4,775

Kansas News, Auctions & Classifieds

Trending

Categories

© Rural Messenger