January 7, 1982

It was brought to our attention last week that there has been a dearth of controversial letters to the editor in the N.V.N. lately. There are those among us, it seems, who would rather read a saucy note condemning the editor for his shortsightedness than a sociable listing of who went where for dinner. So we promised to do what we could in the next few weeks to foster a certain level of local outrage.
We considered writing a lengthy editorial espousing the virtues of turning off the Pretty Prairie siren permanently. The siren, after all, was the focal point of a good number of letters to the editor in 1981.
But no, that was last year’s controversy and we must move forward in our pursuit of outrage.
Cults have served us well in the past. Some of the most blisteringly eloquent letters we have ever received dealt with cults.
But, no, cults just aren’t “in” anymore. What with unemployment, inflation, Poland, and Rubic Cubes, nobody is too concerned about cults these days.
Politics, however, is always in season. The state legislature convenes next week with a variety of items on the agenda, ranging from prison reform to deteriorating highways to perimutual wagering. While our honorable legislators are diligently contemplating our best interests, there is another consideration which should be added to the legislature docket—our elected officials should vote to make it illegal to grow wheat in Kansas.
Granted, it’s a radical notion, but it may be just what our ailing farm economy needs. Farmers have been wounded by high interest rates, low commodity prices, and government interference. The Carter Administration embargoed grain sales to the Soviet Union and wheat prices fell. The threat of a renewal of such an embargo by the Reagan Administration has again caused prices to plummet. With interest rates at stultifyingly high levels it is no wonder much of the joy has been taken from the farm.
Hence, it is time the family wheat farm was outlawed. The advantages to farmers would be many.
First, prohibiting a product is the perfect way to increase demand. As soon as you tell someone he can’t have something, it is precisely what he most desires. Prohibition did nothing to rid the nation of its alcoholic thirst. If anything, it heightened it—people who had never tasted rotgut whiskey suddenly longed for the romance of sipping illegal booze. The illegality of drug usage is certainly one of its most endearing charms.
For decades the Kansas Wheat Commission has, with dubious result, attempted to get people to eat more bread. All it would take to increase demand drastically would be to tell people they can no longer have Kansas wheat and the thing they would most want is a loaf of whole wheat bread. People would certainly pay more than $3.70 a bushel.
Meeting the rising demand would present no problem. Since we rarely see a state or even a county law enforcement official out here in the country, farmers could continue growing wheat with impunity.
If wheat farming were illegal, there would be a huge influx of capital into the state. Mafia cash, laundered Republican Party money, and big labor slush funds would suddenly be made available to farmers who were involved in the illicit production of wheat. Interest rates would go down due to the availability of funds.
Finally, because wheat would technically be illegal the federal government would be unable to embargo foreign sales. They never embargo sales of marijuana to the Soviet Union, do they?
The farmers’ associations, tractorcades, and rallies have done little to enhance the plight of the American wheat farmer. So now we must turn to our legislators for aid. It’s time they acted together to save the family wheat farm in Kansas. It is time they took bold action to preserve the golden wheat fields of the American plains. It is time the legislature talked about something besides school finance, highway improvement, and the severance tax.
It is time wheat was outlawed in the state of Kansas….

June 24, 1982

June 24, 1982

Scientists, theologians, and poets have struggled for centuries for an understanding of life. Moralists ponder life’s beginning and its end. We guard against aborting life almost as vigorously as we guard against euthanasia.
Life is sacred, something to be preserved, and yet it remains a mystery. Scientists explain it in terms of amino acids and electric charges. Theologians discuss its worth in terms of destiny.
Poets are neither so basic nor so eternal. Robert Browning wrote, “I count life just a stuff, to try the soul’s strength on…” Keats called human life, “the war, the deeds, the disappointments, the anxiety, imagination’s struggles, far and nigh…”
But poetic phrases don’t explain life—life defies grand exhaltations. When the pretense, scientific verbage, theological summation, and poetry is stripped away what remains is a steady stream of insignificant events. Taken together, these easily forgotten experiences form life.
Life is trying to remember the last time you changed the oil in the car. It is telling a joke and forgetting the punch line. Life is a wedding band that has cut off the circulation in your ring finger.
Life is a lawnmower that won’t start, a fight that will, and a payment plan that won’t end. It is a bruised fingernail, a weak knee, a tennis elbow. It is tripping on the family dog and spending a week in the hospital recuperating. Life is placing a wreath of flowers on the grave of a grandmother.
Major events give life ambition, but the trivial give it texture and definition.
Life is defined by carsickness on a vacation, a scar on the foot, a new shirt on the first day of school, a solid hit at the baseball game. Life is scoring a long touchdown and having it called back for a penalty, having a homerun curve foul, missing a shot at the buzzer.
Life is sitting on the bench thinking about getting into the game. It is the bad-hop grounder that chips your tooth. It’s the pain in your lower back when your playing days are over.
Life is hail and snow drifts and lightning flashes and being forced into the basement by the wind. It is mornings in coats and long johns and it is shirtless afternoons. It is watching a thundercloud billow over a ripe wheat field. Life is finding out your camping tent is not waterproof.
Life is finding that special person who laughs at your wit even when you’re not funny. It is sitting up late at night with sick children. It is a kiss before supper. Life is making a mistake and feeling so sorry your bones ache.
We are all so busy with the process of living we sometimes fail to recognize life.
Life is wondering how you would look with a different hair style. It is longing for the days when you had hair. It is standing in front of a mirror gazing at your own reflection. Life is wondering whose life it is you are leading.
Life is a difficult, glorious enterprise that brings bruises and bliss. Perhaps Thomas Hobbes defined life best—“solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”... ~T.Stucky

June 9, 1982

June 9, 1982

The weeds are green and abundant, the sidewalk is littered with skateboards, bicycles, and popsicle sticks, and the air is filled with the sound of breaking windows.
It’s summertime at the Stucky house.
In the two weeks since teachers handed out grade cards and sent their charges home to harass their parents, three windows have been shattered. The hasty explanations rendered have gone from the slightly believable (I was just throwing the ball against the side of the house and it slipped.) to the unbelievable (I don’t know who broke it, but I’m sure it wasn’t me.) to the incredible (I don’t know how, it just broke.).
It’s summertime at the Stucky house.
The kitchen floor is sticky with kool-aid dropped from paper cups. The chain on every bike has come off at least once. The short people have begun discarding summer toys. The latch on the front door has been broken off.
It’s summertime at the Stucky house.
We have already gone through twenty books from the Pretty Prairie library—everything from “Blaze and the Indian Cave” (“It was good, Blaze and his owner rode around with their cowboy friend Jim and he asks if he can camp out in an Indian cave and they like the…”) to “How Doofus the Dragon lost His Head” (“Pretty good. It was sorta funny, but he really didn’t lose his head, he fell into a field and then they hid him in a hay stack and…”). We have made feeble attempts at banjo lessons (“My fingers don’t stretch that far.”), guitar lessons (It hurts my fingers.”), and tennis lessons (“This racquet is too heavy.”). Baseball practice has been missed three times. We have already heard “There’s nothing to do around here.”
It’s summertime at the Stucky house.
A mosquito bite caused Carly’s right eye to swell shut. A damaged ankle made it difficult for Emily to walk. Aaron fell off his bike and wounded his knee. Allison has a cut on her head. The dog has been in heat, attracting every male canine within a two county radius. Four Mississippi kites, a prairie falcon, two cardinals, three turkey vultures, and “something weird” have been spotted in the evening sky.
It’s summertime at the Stucky house.
A host of hamburgers and two chickens have already been burned on the barbecue. Each of the short people has already said numerous times, “Tell me, dad, why do hamburgers and chicken legs end up looking the same when you barbecue them?” More than a dozen glasses of iced tea have been spilled at the supper table, two popsicles have melted on the front porch, three lady bugs have been loosed in the living room, two tennis balls have been misplaced, a can of “Off” has been depleted, two baseball mitts have been left out in the rain, and a wheel has fallen off the lawnmower.
This is only the first week in June. The air conditioner has not been turned on yet. The rodeo is still a month away. And already the first day of school is poised on the distant horizon like a brimming pot of gold….~T.Stucky

March 15, 1979

It starts with a small but significant sensation in the lower chest; a peculiar feeling that things are changing, that the seemingly eternal cold of winter may indeed be coming to an end.
At first it is almost undetectable. It grows as slowly as the snow drifts melt. But with a few days of balmy temperatures and clear skies, the feeling builds, and things do change.
Suddenly it becomes visible. The first sign is a tuft of weedy grass in the front yard. Then a robin appears to pluck a moist worm from the soft soil. Geese and ducks fill the sky, noisily headed north, headed home with the elation of the season. New-born lambs and calves bound across open fields with an air of freedom previously covered by layers of snow.
Spring is here and the entire universe is alive with it. Wheat fields are lush green and growing. The sky is baby blue. The bleakness of winter is gone.
No less obvious than the changing surroundings are the changes in people. They have come out of hibernation and are actively taking advantage of the warmth. They are biking, jogging, or just walking. Motorcycles are revved up and tennis rackets are unfettered. People are stepping lively with enthusiastic smiles that glow like the spring sun. Overcoats and long johns are replaced with shorts and t-shirts. Conversations tend to be more optimistic, more ebullient, more hurried. There are things to do. The siege is over.
Warnings from the weatherman that winter's fury may reappear go unheeded. This is no time for dissension; no one has the right to break this spell, this captivation which has permeated us. The days do not require warning, rather they beg for reverence. They call for veneration in the budding of trees, the building of nests, the brilliance of faces, and the blossoming of emotions.
It is not a time for reality. Reality merely masks the magic. It is not a time for analysis. Rather, it is a time for submission; a submission to the world of life which is being reborn. It is a mystical time of wondrous miracles.
The next ten weeks are the cream of the year, the heart of our lives, the essence of our souls. The next ten weeks are as close to heaven as Kansas can get.
Grab a hunk of spring now before July comes and the opportunity has passed.... ~T.Stucky