Daily News

Today’s Flyover People column as seen in The Emporia Gazette:

MY SISTER AMY

Weather-wise, that Saturday could not have been better.

Happy sunshine landed on the 78-degree Kansas prairie and there was barely a lick of wind in the air.

It was gorgeous out, but what made the day perfect for me was hearing my friend, Amy, laugh. I’m thinking that if I had to name one sound to define my childhood, Amy’s laughter would be that sound.

I had driven east from Emporia; Amy traveled west from Lenexa and we settled in for lunch in the Franklin County town of Wellsville (pop. 1,631.)

The meaty aroma drifting outside Smokey’s BBQ pulled us in like willing hostages. I sat at a booth across from Amy.

“They have fried pickles,” I said, pointing to the appetizer list.

“Pickelos?” Amy asked, recalling an item that Sonic Drive-In served when we were teenagers.

“They call them frickles here.”

When the waitress brought the plate of freshly fried dill pickle slices, Amy dipped one in the ranch dressing and popped it into her mouth.

“Oh, I shouldn’t have done that,” she gasped, her mouth burning.

And I couldn’t help but remember the time when we were about 9 or 10 and Amy and I had a contest in the lobby of the Pawnee Rock Post Office to see which one of our mouths could hold more Hot Tamales. We had fire in our cheeks and red drool on our chins.

Here in the restaurant, our conversation was a catch-up time, sharing what we each had been up to lately. Her story included a recent Habitat for Humanity trip to El Salvador. The conversation ping-ponged with our updates but we didn’t go back in time to the Pawnee Rock days.

Still, even as we talked about her daughter in college or her son, the high school wrestler, visual images from our joint childhood flickered in my mind.

I recalled the two of us turning cartwheels in her grassy side yard in Pawnee Rock; running in circles on the tractor tire beneath the black walnut tree; sneaking up on her sister, Ida, who was sitting on the front porch with a boyfriend.

Together, as kids, we were never bored. One day when we acquired a large cardboard box, we set it on roller skates; one climbed in and was pushed down the sidewalk.

Then we thought, how much more fun that box would be if we rode it down the staircase in her house. That was a fast trip down the stairs and into the wall.

Amy lived two-and-a-half blocks from me. We probably wore a trough in the sidewalk between our homes. Mom would tell me I could play at Amy’s house for 30 minutes. When time was up, Amy asked her mom if she could walk me home. When we got to my house, I told my Mom I was walking Amy home. Often that went on for hours. Amy and I never ran out of things to talk about.

We’d play Monopoly all afternoon and kept the pieces in place to continue the game for days. We played rummy using seven decks of cards so the match would never end. We giggled and we laughed until we forgot what we were laughing about.

It would be impossible to unravel the strand, to separate my memories of Amy from the rest of my childhood.

We were best friends, sisters by mutual proclamation. We never fought or argued, not once.

And now, the truth of the matter is that in adulthood, Amy and I only occasionally e-mail, we never call, and we only get together every year or two. But that heart-to-heart connection has never failed us.

After talking in the restaurant for two hours, Amy and I stepped into the warm sunshine. We walked around downtown Wellsville. Up Main Street, down the other side, back up Main Street, over to the library, then to the high school, up and over, back down Main Street and finally to our cars.

We were walking each other home.

***

*****

***

Cheryl Unruh writes Flyover People, a column about Kansas topics, published every Tuesday in The Emporia Gazette. Copyright 2008 Cheryl Unruh.

Filed under: Kansans, columns, life on the ground, small towns on May 27th, 2008