I drove through Kansas and Oklahoma to watch the Missouri Tigers in the Cotton Bowl last week. As you may remember, I totally trashed Mizzou football in this very space in about week three of this season. I still have not forgiven myself, but I am trying to become a better fan and therefore I suffered the misery of the Flint Hills and southern Oklahoma to support them.
Anyway, here are some takeaways from driving 18 hours with my 28-year-old daughter to watch a football game. Probably rules of life in these nuggets:
·Max uninterrupted visiting time with any offspring should be capped at 24 hours.
·Kansas toll roads are going to a cashless system in July. The state has spent approximately ten million dollars (my estimate) on signs posted every few miles to tell us this.
·I think cashless means that you will have to get on a website and pay up when you choose to drive through their state. Seems cruel and unusual, but that’s probably for the courts to decide.
·Texas Stadium is nice, but the further south you get in this country the less they believe in zoning. They have this monstrosity of a stadium and in the parking lot is a beat up looking Raytownesque apartment complex that apparently, they couldn’t get to move or something.
·Missouri fans should probably be a little more humble about beating Ohio State Junior Varsity squad, but that’s just me being negative again.
·Did I mention my daughter is a younger, female version of me? I apologize to anyone that knew me when I was 28 years old.
·Oklahoma has a strong casino game going at most interchanges. Each place looks a little creepier than the next. Beyond the gambling odds being against you, mortality rate also looks questionable for any of their patrons.
·I’m not sure allowing casinos is an appropriate reparation for the Trail of Tears debacle, but I’m not an expert on reparations, you decide.
Dave Chappelle’s new special is out on Netflix. He is the best comedian of our time. Uber smart and fearless in his opinions. He is obviously from a bygone era of comedians that actually make fun of things without reservation or fear of cancellation from both the lunatic left or insane right politics of our country. Five stars, or lots of rotten tomatoes, whatever all that means, just watch it, and laugh for an evening, it will be good for your soul.
I don’t understand the Flint Hills. They’re pretty for about five minutes and then they never end. All I can think about as I drive through there is “how the hell do the farmers count their cows” out here?
Each time I see a house situated on a thousand acres or so, I also wonder what it’s like to run out of milk or have to drive to “town” to watch a grandkid play junior high basketball or something. Gotta be brutal.
These are the things that concern me.
Google tells me that they count the cows with drones or aerial photographs. You can rest a little easier tonight. I suppose they milk a cow if they’re out of milk and I’ve never seen a junior high basketball game that couldn’t have been missed, so I guess we’ve solved all these problems. You’re welcome.
(Guy Speckman can be reached at gspeckman@me.com or solving rural Kansas dilemmas)