The Emporia Gazette

May 27, 2012

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Kansas treasures have been sent to England.

Another package is on its way to my Internet friend, Simon.

I’ve mailed him several boxes packed with Kansas newspapers and books, a Jayhawk T-shirt, Emporia Gazette coffee mugs, a road map, sand hill plum jelly, an old Pawnee County license plate, and one of Dave’s storm front photographs.

Simon and I have corresponded for about a year and a half, ever since he stumbled onto the “Flyover People” Website and was awestruck by Dave’s photos of the vast Kansas landscape.

He’s one of many wonderful people I’ve met on the Internet. Of course, you have to be careful with whom you converse online, because the World Wide Web is also frequented by axe murderers and such.

But, so far, so good. As near as I can tell, Simon is a kind-hearted guy who is my age, with a wife, three kids, a great sense of humor and his own business. He’s a writer.

I tell Simon about Kansas’ falling-down barns, dusty little towns and the land which runs headlong for miles until it slams into the vertical sky.

He’s interested in our strange customs and quirky people. But most of all, he’s attracted to our enormity of space which contrasts with the complicated countryside in England.

“We’re a small island with a village every couple of miles mostly,” he said, while explaining why it’s pointless for his car to have cruise control.

Warwick has medieval architecture. Castles and ruins add texture to the area’s landscape. On weekends, Simon walks to quaint country pubs or watches his boys swing on a rope and splash into the River Avon.

My ordinary life is different from his. In an e-mail, I once mentioned hearing a train. Simon replied, “’Train is blaring through town’ — dull to you, an entire Bob Dylan album over here for me.”

“For some reason,” he said, “I always think of Kansas farmers striding about the prairie chompin’ beef jerky — I could be entirely wrong!”

I suggested that farmers are more likely to be chewing Skoal than jerky.

When I described a visit to the Kansas Capitol, he responded: “Topeka, yet again, another local town for you. We Brits would spend thousands on having the chance to travel there.”

OK.

When Dave and I headed for Arkansas last spring, Simon wrote, “What may seem like a dull drive to you from Kansas to Arkansas, I’d pay a lot of money to do that trip. Think of that when you stop at some gas station and look around and see the same old same old: I’d be fascinated and start engaging the tired clerk in conversation.”

And Simon does come to mind when Dave and I travel the Kansas roads. Simon would get a kick out of exploring ghost towns. And I know he’d love the Ball of Twine, old windmills, hand-painted signs and Luther’s Jerky.

Simon’s a traveler himself and it seems like he’s always on holiday. He explained, “We Brits try not to work too much. That’s why we lost America.”

Last winter, following a ski trip, he wrote, “Take it from me, the Pyrenees are surprisingly steep. I’m the sort of person who quivers when getting on a ski lift, expecting it to snap and propel my frail body hundreds of feet to a bloody death on the snowy rocks below. Other than that, all was well, though the mountain French do eat a lot of cheese fondue.”

How can Kansas compete with a Pyrenees experience? I’m sure the French don’t melt Velveeta in their fondue pots, which is what we would be inclined to do.

Kansas doesn’t have medieval castles, or rugged mountains, or a ready supply of unpasteurized cheeses, yet our humble state has something the English bloke would love to see — the wide and open prairie.

That, we have.

“Flyover People” is online at www.flyoverpeople.net.

F Cheryl Unruh can be reached at cheryl@flyoverpeople.net.