Memoirs from Kansas, Missouri (And No, I Did Not Err in the Title)

One of the perks of my current job is that I get to travel a lot on someone else’s dime.  No, I don’t get to enjoy whatever that location has to offer, but I get to color in another state and that’s pretty cool.

A while back, I got to cross off  Missouri and Kansas off the list.  It’s a testament to how awful the traveling was that my traveling plans only called to be in Missouri while I was at the airport but I spent as much time there as I did in Kansas.

Despite my mockery of the plains thanks to the eternally idiotic John Steinbeck, I enjoyed my brief time in the Heartland of America, and not just because of its politics, with which there is nothing wrong regardles of what some elite reporter thinks.

From the air, you can see there is nothing but greens in Kansas.  Once you’re on the ground, you realize there is nothing but flatness.  You understand how wanting the area is of heights when your driver tells you there is a skiing area about an hour away that doesn’t have a lift but has those machines that pull skiers up.  That’s not a mountain and not even a hill.  It’s a molehill.  “The Plains” is a succinct yet most accurate description of what the area is like.

“Rural” would also be accurate.  Where I went was not thirty minutes from Kansas City International Airport, which, incidentally, actually has international flights unlike Key West “International” Airport.  Apparently, enough Canadians got lost on their way to Florida and settled there that Air Canada has a presence.  Or perhaps people in Kansas fled nowhere with occasional tornados to escape to nowhere with perpetual snow.  Regardless, getting around the place is remarkably difficult.  I had to arrange for a hotel shuttle the night before to get to a location only five minutes away because taxis don’t come around that often.  That didn’t surprise me in the least.  I couldn’t even find a cab at the airport.

For anyone who ever wondered whether those dollar bills claiming to be from the Federal Reserve of Kansas City, Missouri are fake, as I have, rest assured, they are not.  Kansas City is in Missouri.  But it’s also in Kansas (which I actually knew, but officially confirmed).  The cities are connected but they are distinct towns because they are in different states.  I didn’t go to downtown Kansas City, Missouri, but I did see Kansas City, Kansas.  It’s unlikely there is a downtown Kansas City, Kansas since I’m not sure anyone lives there.  The driver pointed to the town as we drove right through it and I didn’t see a single house.

That doesn’t mean that the state isn’t without history.  The famed baseball manager Charles Dillon “Casey” Stengel got his namesake for playing most of his career at Kansas City.  Walt Disney, before he made it in Hollywood, oversaw two failed ventures in Kansas City.  And after World War I, Kansas City was apparently the American cultural center, although I probably wouldn’t have known that even if I had lived through the period.

The first thing everyone in Kansas tells you when they find out you’re from New York is that the pace is much slower there.   And people much nicer.  My trips are often unpleasant because they don’t want to be dealing with lawyers asking questions they don’t care about and they’d rather not answer, but I didn’t meet a single person who wasn’t pleasant and helpful during my stay in Kansas City (except, ironically, at the hotel).  Sure the restaurants at the airport closes at 7:00 P.M.–people stuck at the airport due to the weather be damned–but just because it’s Friday night and they have homes with kids to go back to doesn’t make them bad people.  In fact,  I’m glad someone has a life–and a nice, leisurely one at that in Kansas.

Even the nicest people, though, have a breaking point, and apparently that was reached at 10:30 P.M. on my way out of Kansas City, four hours after the last flight was supposed to leave.  The boarding area still left with people waiting for three flights, one of the two unfortunate Continental employees remaining to deal with the mess finally lost it when people flying to Cleveland forgot the meaning of orderly boarding.  “People!,” she yelled into the PA system, sounding exasperated.  “Go in order so we can board quickly.”

That’s the last thing she said that night, even though she boarded our flight another half an hour later.

Thanks for the pleasant memories.