You can take the girl out of Kansas, but you can’t take the Kansas out of the girl.
Don’t take that statement the wrong way, please. I’m enjoying it here in Iowa — in this community and surrounding communities. I love my job.
But...
I finally had a chance to call and catch up with my dad over the weekend. I was so jealous when he began telling me his “fish stories.” He has taken out four or five “good-eating” size catfish out of his pond.
Now, I have to tell you, the Sheets’ family pond is not a typical farm pond. My parents owned 60 acres of land when I was growing up. A lot of that land was timber, with natural springs feeding creeks. They decided to build a pond under a federal program.
The pond was built in the woods. It is about three acres, spring-fed and stocked with catfish, bass and bluegill fish. We finally developed areas around the pond for picnics. My parents trucked in loads of sand to build a small beach area. There’s trees all around it. It’s never gone dry.
It is one of my favorite places to get away and enjoy. I love to toss a line in the water with a worm on it, and just wait. Fishing is something I can do with my dad. We may not say much to each other for hours down there. Maybe — “are you getting any bites?”, “what was that?”, “you want to move to the other side”, or “you ready to go up (to the house)?”
Coming here this summer, cut out my fishing time. I miss those lazy summer and fall weekends when I’d go to Dad’s and we’d head down to the pond. He always had worms ready for me.
“I’ve cleaned them, wrapped up and put them in the freezer. Maybe when you come home, we’ll have enough for a fish fry.”
ANOTHER THING I MISS is being on the sideline at Kansas State home football games. It's my school, my teams. No matter what the season brings, there's nothing like a fall Saturday afternoon at a college football game.
I grew up listening to stories from Mom and Dad about their days at K-State in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The football games were played in the stadium right on campus and there’s was plenty of room for everybody to go to the games.
Yeah, yeah, I know. K-State was not very good back then. The Wildcats weren’t much better on the gridiron when I got there in the 1970s. I was in the marching band all four years and the word was “this was a band concert and football game broke out” on Saturday afternoons.
I never gave up on the Wildcats, ever. I’d listen to games on the radio with my parents, growing up. Win or lose — and there was a lot of losing — I loved the Cats.
When I was in Manhattan (1975-1979), the KSU Marching Band would form a tunnel for the players to run out through onto the field. The chant was “Bring on the Cats. Bring on the Cats.”
Also, I was in the band under the direction of Phillip Hewett. You know that rocking and dancing to the “Wabash Cannonball?” I was there when it began. The band started it. Mr. Hewett seemed to put a little jazz influence into our programs and it was born.
The “Wabash Cannonball” has played a vital part in K-State spirit, dating back to December 1968 when Nichols Gym burned. The fire destroyed most of the band’s instruments and sheet music. With a basketball game coming up three days later, the band scrambled to find instruments and sheet music. Mr. Hewett had sheet music at his home, which included the “Wabash Cannonball.”
Marching bands and football, throw in some fishing and I’m good to go on a nice fall weekend.
So, there’s no way the Kansas is leaving this girl. I bleed Purple and White, and my favorite movie is ... you guessed it — “The Wizard of Oz.”