Flyover People Daily News

Found this cute Little Free Library in Strong City this morning, near the park/caboose. We also noticed that restoration work is being done on the Strong City Depot.

small towns

Today’s Flyover People column as seen in The Emporia Gazette: Pawnee Rock Bergthal Mennonite Church, May 2013. GOOD STEWARDS Last week, while sorting though a box of my late father’s photographs, I found several pictures of our family church. Had my dad been alive this past year, he would have been deeply saddened by the […]

churches, nostalgia, small towns

Today’s Flyover People column as seen in The Emporia Gazette: NAMING NAMES Once upon a time in Kansas, there were towns called Milo, Mimosa and Moonlight. Those towns have faded into history now, but they are three of the 4,281 post offices established in Kansas between 1828 and 1961. In a book called “Kansas Post […]

cities, columns, history, small towns

Today’s Flyover People column as seen in The Emporia Gazette:   In Toronto TRAVELS WITH MOM The pumpkin cheesecake tasted even better than it sounded. When my mother visited recently, she insisted on taking Dave and me to Ad Astra in Strong City. So we had no choice but to go – and to eat […]

columns, landscape, nature, seasons, small towns, traveling

Today’s Flyover People column as seen in The Emporia Gazette: Here’s a photo I swiped from my brother’s blog (Too Long in the Wind). This part of the Pawnee Rock fire station building was the city hall/library. Photo credit: Leon Unruh.   LIBRARY LOVE When I was a little kid, the best thing about my […]

columns, life on the ground, nostalgia, small towns

Today’s Flyover People column as seen in The Emporia Gazette:   ‘DOG OF THE AFTERWORLD’ I’m keeping my eye out these days for handsome Russian assassins. I had never considered the possibility of one roaming freely around Kansas until I read my brother’s newly released first novel, “Dog of the Afterworld.” His story is a […]

columns, Kansans, life on the ground, other people's stuff, small towns, writing

Today’s Flyover People column as seen in The Emporia Gazette: ROYALS REBOUND The Kansas City Royals are having a good season. I don’t watch baseball, but the team has been playing well enough that even I have paid attention. During the past two decades, I’ve observed a pattern. Each April as a new season begins, […]

columns, history, nostalgia, on the radio, small towns

Today’s Flyover People column as seen in The Emporia Gazette: ADVENTURES IN READING One day this month, the Miracle Café in Reading posted a Facebook message announcing that strawberry-rhubarb pie was available that day. I reposted their note, and within a few minutes friends Greg Jordan and Lisa Soller suggested I meet them in Reading […]

Art, columns, Kansans, other people's stuff, small towns

Hey, I forgot to post a link to the latest radio piece I did for Kansas Public Radio. It aired on June 25 and I told about the closing of the church that I attended as a youngster in Pawnee Rock. Here’s the link: Death of a Church. By the way, you can follow Flyover […]

churches, nostalgia, on the radio, small towns

Today’s Flyover People column as seen in The Emporia Gazette: ‘DUST IN THE WIND’ Over the past few weeks, I’ve taken a few drives into the country looking for combines. And I’ve found them chugging through fields of gold, their shapes nearly obscured by self-created clouds of dust. The combines eat their fill, separate wheat […]

columns, Kansans, life on the ground, small towns

Today’s Flyover People column as seen in The Emporia Gazette:   (I stole this photo of Patches from my brother’s blog: Too Long in the Wind) ME AND MY SHADOW On one of my recent walks, a man and his dog were out in their yard. The dog was tethered, but it ran toward the […]

life on the ground, nostalgia, small towns