Alva Review-Courier -

A couple of times, Aunt Blanche and Uncle Ott traveled from Wichita, Kansas, to visit our family in Hugoton, and once during school holidays we kids got to ride back to Wichita with them on a weekday. The plan was for Mother to come get us on the following Saturday.

We kids knew the route to Wichita by heart, which basically followed Kansas Highway 54. But Aunt Blanche, as was ever the case, felt duty bound to take a shortcut that only she knew. And thus began her combination history and geography narrative on the subject of navigating the shortest route through the plains of southwest Kansas.

Shortly after our mixed family group departed Hugoton in her trusty Packard, she began her shortcut by taking a series of left and right turns, and the road surface changed from an asphalt two lane highway to a narrow dirt road, and then further narrowed to two tire tracks snaking through a field of tall weeds. Finally we ended up in front of a closed gate in a barbed wire fence.

For the first time in recorded history, her car and her narrative came to a complete stop at the same time, and the silence was deafening. For several moments, no one dared say a word. Finally Aunt Blanche said, “I just don’t understand why they changed the road this way, it doesn’t make any sense.” And then she turned around and drove to a nearby farmhouse.

She quickly exited the car, and engaged the resident farmer in conversation on his front porch with her doing 90% of the talking while the rest of us waited silently in the car. The two conversants frequently gestured in one direction or another. In a short while Aunt Blanche raised the level of her voice, which by this time had a trace of annoyance in it.

“Well I’ll have you to know that I’ve worked in the tax assessor’s office in Liberal for over twenty years, and I definitely know that direction is east.” The farmer waited patiently for a number of minutes, and then countered, “Well lady, I’ve lived here for nigh on to 50 years, and in all that time, I was always led to believe that direction was south.” They continued to discuss the matter for several more minutes.

Uncle Ott, followed his instinct for self-preservation, and kept totally silent throughout. We kids only occasionally whispered something to each other to break the gathering tension. Finally Aunt Blanche returned to the car, turned it around and left in the opposite direction from which we had been traveling, muttering the whole time that farmers just weren’t as savvy as they once had been.

On the return trip to Wichita, we seemed to take roads that added to the length of our trip, but all the while the passengers in the car remained wisely and respectfully silent. The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says that was our right.