Thoughts of Fred and western Kansas
T he Marshall family lost a good and valued friend last week. Fred Bevan, our neighbor to the south died in his sleep at home. Fred and his wife, Virlee, were a third set of grandparents to our daughters and the other youngsters who grew up in this neighborhood in the late 1970s and the 1980s. Back then there were kids everywhere on Walnut Street — these days we are pretty much a child-free zone.
Fred and Virlee had unlimited patience with the neighborhood children. The youngsters bounded in and out of their house as if they belonged there. And they were always welcomed.
They sat on the porch with Fred and heard tales of his youth. They "helped" Virlee in the kitchen, canning produce from the Bevan's garden. There were crafts to be made and songs to be sung.
They were invited to stay for lunch or supper and in the evenings they gathered to watched fireflies from the porch while Fred smoked his pipe and listened to the events of their days and Virlee snapped beans for the next day's canning project.
I was but one mother who had to drag her child home for bed. There was ever so much more interesting stuff going on on Fred and Virlee's porch.
I have no idea how much Fred influenced our daughters and the other children on Walnut Street. Those memories are theirs. But I know that he and Virlee were very much a part of their growing up. No one could have asked for better neighbors and no child could have ever asked for a better or more patient friend than Fred Bevan.
Perhaps that is the most any of us could wish for as a legacy: To be remembered and valued by a younger generation. When my 26-year-old "baby" broke down in sobs at the news that he had died, I realized again how much he had been a part of her childhood. She last saw him at Christmas and was pleased that he knew her and relished her visit.
Fred, we miss you already.
Boy, there is nothing like a tale about throwing up to make a writer one with the world! Egad, I had no idea how many people have had to throw up in public! And they all agreed with me — there is no way to do it with any sense of style.
Whew, I'm glad I am not the only one. I might note here that if you are ever on I-70 with a medical emergency, the hospital at WaKeeney is just about as good a place to stop as you might find. They got a doctor there in less than five minutes and he was willing to give me a great deal of credit for understanding my own situation and what I needed. It was as good an experience as I had on that trip across Kansas. Tell them I sent you!
I also have one thing to say about Kansas vs. Colorado. People say that western Kansas is borrrrrr-ing. Well, they might be right. To many it is just one pasture after wheat field, after pasture, after wheat field.
The first time we traveled west to help move daughter number two to Ft. Collins, Colo., we didn't leave until 8 p.m. and it was pitch black from McPherson on north and west. I complained that I was in Western Kansas for the first time ever, but was unable to see a thing. The mister informed me that it didn't make any difference whether I could see it or not.
Having made the trip several times now, I beg to differ. I feel about the mountains (when I am in them), the way other people feel about Western Kansas. To me, the mountains are just so much rock and stone, rock and stone, and rock and stone. You can have it. I have lived on the prairie far too long to feel anything but claustrophobic about the mountains and the roads that lead up into and down out of them.
The day that I looked up and noticed that the boulders above me had the same type of bolts and flat iron plates in them as the Burns school, was the day I decided that wheat field after pasture after wheat field was where I belonged.
The mountains are beautiful and majestic from a distance. I just don't want to be in them (particularly those that are bolted together, for Pete's sake!). I think Western Kansas has a beauty all its own — most especially in daylight. I will take this flat state over mountains and oceans any day. And you can tell every tourism bureau in the country I said so!
— SUSAN MARSHALL
