Oh, Give me a Home

I want to read this book called "Pioneer Women: Voices from the Kansas Frontier" as soon as possible. I just got it the other day at God's Storehouse, but I still have about 100 pages about Frida Kahlo to finish. When it gets cold like this out here on the prairie, I always think about my ancestors. I don't know that much about them except that they built sod houses and they had no heat, so when I'm cold in my apartment, instead of complaining, I can be thankful that I have heat. When I am complaining about the wind outside in the blustery cold, I can think about my ancestors and what they must have gone through to settle here. My grandpa had a farm in Silver Lake, Kansas, and he showed me the wagon tracks of the Oregon Trail running through the pasture. I don't know much about the Oregon Trail either. I would like to know how many of the people on their way to Oregon for free land offered by the government decided to stay in Kansas, just what people were thinking who made the trip. Where did they come from? What did they leave? Why did they leave? I have left many times myself, but have always returned, because, I suppose, Kansas is my home. It has always been home. The author of the "Pioneer Women" reported that of the 800 women represented in her book, the women came from Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, and Wisconsin. Some came from Europe, namely Sweden, England, Russia and Germany. The reports were not letters or journals, but rather reports several years after their experience, in other words, memoirs. The pioneers came "by covered wagon, horseback, stagecoach, steamboat, railroad and even by foot," she wrote. Maybe the "travel lust" I have experienced over the years is just in my blood, in my DNA. Could that be possible? I am sure there are some who would argue for such a thing, and true or not, it is something interesting to think about. I remember riding with my uncle who drove a Continental Trailways bus from Phillipsburg, Kansas, to Denver, to visit my cousins, I guess. I honestly don't remember. I just remember the ride with my uncle driving the bus. I liked traveling by bus because I could write and look out the windows. I might have enjoyed traveling by stagecoach in an earlier period of history but covered wagons were probably more uncomfortable. The only trains I remember, in America, that is, was the one they had in the historical museum. It was really cool, even though it wasn't going anywhere. I always thought it would be fun to travel by train in the olden days, but I never did it so I can only imagine. I rode a train in Europe once, from Southampton to London to Calais, one day, long ago, the day I spoke French in Paris, a unique and solitary remembrance. I'm going to quit now, because it's getting late. I am praying for a snow day tomorrow, but I have to prepare for a regular day of waking up to freezing cold weather, warming up my car and going to work. That will be all the pioneering I will be experiencing for now. I want to read a little in the abovementioned book before going to sleep. Perhaps I will have more to share with you at a later date. On the other hand, I may drift to another book before long. Who knows? Seems like to me, snow storms take up quite a bit of prairie history and we may be heading into one tonight. My dad used to sing, "K-K-K-Kansas, beautiful Kansas," instead of "K-K-K-Katy." I can't remember the rest of it because I can't think of another word he substituted for "g-g-g girl that I adore, "but it was about adoring Kansas, and I guess it's more likely that I got some of that in my DNA from him, for real. It's okay to be at home in your home town. All my friends who ended up in California, I'm not going to waste any time envying them. Just "give me a home where the buffalo roam," you know, I'm home, and it's okay. Goodnight.