Rooting against KU is un-American

Mind you, folks who graduated from Kansas State would disagree.....but this column is still a good read. I'm not the hardcore Jayhawk fan my twin brother is (I tease him about that, because he never went to KU), but I do root hard for them come NCAA tourney time. About the only time I root against them is when they play Wichita State (ironically, in their lone NCAA tournament clash, the Shockers won the Battle of New Orleans).

Here's hoping the Jayhawks win another national title in about a week.

Perspective, folks, perspective

I took a chunk out of my Sunday afternoon to watch a History Channel documentary called "Black Blizzard," recounting the origins and impact of the Dust Bowl in the 1930s.

It didn't take long for my brow to furrow as deeply as the parched soil yielded to a plow's blade. They had "experts" pontificating that the Dust Bowl was the earth's protest against "abuse" perpetrated by farmers, who should not have plowed up the tallgrass that kept the soil in place when the prairie winds blew.

Apparently, they didn't realize that the Homestead Act required farmers to plow up the soil to meet the terms of the agreement that gave them the 160 acres of land. Technological improvements (better tractors and plows and harvesters) and soaring grain prices brought about by the outbreak of World War I combined to create a period of prosperity farmers had rarely seen.

It gave them the opportunity to significantly improve their quality of life, to indulge in such luxuries as...real homes built of wood or stone....and an automobile to transport the family. In other words, property residents on the coasts took for granted.

Think about that: it took several years of virtually unmatched prosperity for most farmers to reach something near middle class. Yet they were portrayed as greedy. Who wouldn't want to make most of that opportunity, especially after you'd been desperately poor your entire life?

Mind you, not everyone profited to the same extreme: Dad was born in an earthen dugout in the middle of Kansas in 1924, six years after World War I ended. His father had a strong business acumen, which showed itself for decades afterward, but the Roaring '20s weren't a blast for everyone.

Millions of farmers didn't have electricity reach their homes until the Rural Electrification Administration was created during the Great Depression.

There's no question that farming practices contributed significantly to the Dust Bowl, and measures such as shelter belts and no- and low-till crop management had to be adopted to salvage top soil and prevent the choking dust storms that defined the period.

But I was amazed at how much I heard on the show that reflected a striking lack of knowledge and perspective. It reminded me of the kind of chatter that comes from urban think tanks calling for large portions of the western Great Plains to be transformed into prairie preserves allowing buffalo and other wildlife to roam freely under the adoring view of throngs of tourists. Small farms and the rural way of life are dying, so the thinking goes, so let's do something useful with all that land.

Never mind that studies have shown such a measure would result in less revenue than what is currently generated by the farmers, ranchers and townspeople that currently inhabit the targeted land.

Ironic that I never hear anyone calling for small retailers to be shut down and moved out in cities all over the country because Wal-Mart and other large competitors are, we all know, going to drive them out of business anyway. Or do we really know what we think we know?

Too often in that show, folks showed what they didn't know.

Echoes from the Orpheum

Old buildings have always fascinated me. I find myself drawn to their history, to reflections on what was going on in the world, in the nation, in that city when the building opened...as if the building at its birth was a snapshot of a time and place.

The Orpheum in downtown Wichita opened in 1922, thrived during the age of vaudeville, and showed films from the Golden Age of Hollywood when they were fresh from the studios. Its latter years were a struggle, and it deteriorated dramatically before closing in the mid-
70s.

It seemed doomed to demolition, like so many other historic theaters in Wichita, before a group of investors purchased it. Restoration has been slow and piecemeal, and there are times I wonder whether it'll be completed before the sun burns out.

But stepping into the theater for one of its periodic events reminds me of what's possible some day. The sense of history is unavoidable. Serving as an usher at Gridiron the other night, I looked up at the niches and wooden lattice work along the side walls, the massive arch that dominates the auditorium.

The theater is designed to resemble a garden in Andalusia. Having never been to Spain, I can't speak to how effectively it captures that atmosphere. But I nonetheless value the Orpheum's attempt to create a sense of place, so that what's on stage or screen isn't the only experience of the evening.

After the bane of cookie-cutter mall theaters that replaced so many movie houses, the Orpheum evokes times when a night at the cinema was an event. The Warren Theatres around the city have had success mirroring that concept, marrying it to modern technologies.

Yet I find myself thinking of the Orpheum every time I step into a Warren theater.