The road less traveled

I wasn't planning on taking 4th Street Road on my way out to the farm, but a collision of coincidences carried me there.


I had hoped to eat lunch at the Carriage Crossing in Yoder, but by the time I got there after loading up the car and running a few errands, the waiting line stretched to the door and beyond...and I didn't have that much time to wait. Too many tasks awaited me in Larned before I ever reached the farm.


So instead of darting off K-96 at Crupper's Corner to take Trail West Road to U.S. 50 and save several miles and several minutes, I tooled on in to South Hutchinson to get a quick lunch. But that meant I would be climbing onto U.S. 50 at a different point - one that took me past Whiteside Road...which had long been our link to 4th Street Road.


I decided to take 4th Street this time, just because it had been so long since I had last touched that road with my tires. 4th Street runs deep in our family's roots. It was the route we took each year to the Kansas State Fair in Hutchinson, the road I rode on my way to Wichita when I attended Wichita State University.


Fourth Street resembles Morse Code for the letter R - dot, dash, dot - in that its length is defined by a short jaunt, a long stretch and then a short final section, split up by stop signs as it linked the outskirts of Hutchinson to U.S. 281 in central Kansas. For some of us in the Finger family, it was also known for featuring one of our favorite stretches of highway anywhere: a canopy of trees shading about a mile of highway a couple of miles east of the Reno-Stafford County line. It was like entering a leafy tunnel that had blossomed amid miles of wheat fields and pasture land, its gateway a tiny corner gas station with two old pumps camped at an angle to the intersection over which they stood sentry.


That gas station looked like it dated back at least as far back as the Great Depression, and the writer in me longed to pull in there one day, introduce myself to the owners, sit down in a lawn chair and chronicle a day in the life of that timeless place. Alas, by the time I was in a position to do that, the gas station had shut down.


But most of the reason I chose to take 4th Street on this sunny, windswept day was just to see how much had changed since I last laid eyes on it. And it didn't take long to spot some. Trees that towered over a country cemetery dating back nearly to the Civil War just west of Whiteside Road looked like they had been sheared off at the top and stripped of almost any branch that reached out beyond six feet - a haphazard pruning so stark I searched my memory for any tornadoes that had hopscotched through the area within the past few years.


The trees weren't dead: tiny branches had sprouted from the main trunks, giving gnarled wood the appearance of peach fuzz from a short distance. But they looked more like battered survivors than leafy lords casting a stately air on the surroundings.


Less than a mile from the cemetery stands the marker denoting the spot where President Warren G. Harding paid a visit in 1923 to talk to unhappy farmers and pitch in on the wheat harvest. It's a largely forgotten moment and monument in Kansas history, but every time I see it I reflect on how Harding was on a long cross-country train trip to revive his flagging popularity when he came to Reno County - and he would not live to see Washington, D.C., again. He died of a heart attack in San Francisco later that summer.


At least the monument is no longer obscured by brush and weeds...only by history, I thought as I drove past it.


Many more trees had the fuzzy appearance of tiny branches emerging from chopped-off trunks as I continued west. While it was still too early for leaves to be seen on those branches, another sure sign of warmer weather awaited me farther west on 4th Street: road contruction. A flagman who looked like he hadn't shaved in days held out a stop sign and brought me to a halt for several minutes. While I waited, I challenged my wisdom for choosing this route, unaware of any projects that demanded such measures and wondering how many more may await me as I continued west.


Thankfully, the wait wasn't terribly long. Before I knew it, I had reached the stop sign that marked K-14, the north-south highway that links Sterling with Arlington and eventually U.S. 54. And then comes the most tempting stretch of 4th Street Road - dozens of miles of asphalt with precious little traffic. Tempting because one yearns to ignore the speed limit. But it's also where I got my first two speeding tickets, because I surrendered to that temptation.

The irony is that long stretch is actually the signal to begin to slow down......slow down to the pace that dictates central and western Kansas. They do things at a certain pace out there, and no amount of effort will change that. Those of us used to life in the city - even a modestly paced city like Wichita - find ourselves having to downshift when we get out there. For those who live on the East Coast, the transition is even more abrupt.

Winter wheat has begun to emerge from its winter slumber, but I can tell it's been a dry few months. The wheat is spotty, and even pale green or yellow in patches. But that's not what made my heart sink. That reaction was saved for when I came to the long line of trees that held such a special place in my memory. The canopy was no more, hacked into history so the limbs didn't threaten the highway or the power lines.

What was left looked decimated, demoralized and denigrated. And I realized I would never see that gorgeous canopy again.

The old filling station has been converted into a small house with blue paint and a white rail fence where the gas pumps once stood. This journey was reflecting change, all right - even more significant than I had anticipated.

I passed the road leading to the Quivira Wildlife Refuge, just a mile to the north. Cattle grazed lazily in pasture lands that still looked asleep for the winter. Cottonwoods not yet putting out buds towered above the grass, and I wondered how many trees settlers saw when they first arrived on this stretch of prairie more than 150 years ago.

I had passed or met only a handful of cars by the time I reached U.S. 281 in Stafford County, which marks the end of 4th Street Road. I had to wait for that many coming north on 281 just to make the turn. It was a symbol that my journey on the road less traveled was over.

It was a trip that told me much of the magic of that ribbon of asphalt now lives in memory alone.