A City is Just a City

Our family outgrew our red brick house at 3005 Cornell Drive, an address whose pleasing rhyme still delights me. By the time I was nearing kindergarten, the search commenced. My father would pile several kids in the car on Sunday afternoons to investigate properties on the outskirts of Hutchinson. I loved being part of the important work to find the right place for us. The distances felt epic. The rippling prairie grass and the stately, gnarled cottonwood trees stretched as far as I could see. We hunted for a place to have a custom-built house to suit a family of eight. It was the summer of 1978.

My father passed away in 2013 from a rare, savage disease which took him quickly. We mourned him at Holy Cross Church and buried him at Memorial Park Cemetery, a grave I don’t visit often enough. My trips home to Hutch grew infrequent and then halted during the pandemic. If I could visit his grave today, I would ask him about those drives into the countryside on sleepy Sunday afternoons. I am sure he had lists and charts with property values and construction estimates. He must have labored for hours on the plan to purchase two acres and build a home. He can’t answer now. I can imagine, however, his pleasure in the project and the stress as well. To hear his voice telling the story would be a balm.

Those Sunday drives bouncing on a backseat with my brother, a few sisters, soon ended. He secured the property. The house was built. More of a white walls kind of man, he nevertheless let the kids select colors for the bedrooms. There was a pale purple room, a cheerful pink, a blue, and a bright yellow. There was space for everyone at the dining room table, the piano bench doubling as a seat for two kids at the end. There was a living room window that faced our front acreage, partly left wild and free, filled with swaying prairie grass. The little ones glued our noses to the front window in agonized anticipation for Dad’s sedan to turn onto our dirt road, sending up clouds of dust. We cried with joy at the sight of his car, rushed to the table, and then waited to say grace. 

I am lucky to have grown up in my family, in that house, in my hometown, Hutchinson. We had a rich family life and our faith and education were deeply invested in Holy Cross Church and the Catholic schools. My father was dedicated to Hutchinson. After his retirement from Dillon’s, he worked with passion and conviction to open Sarah’s Catholic Bookstore on Main Street. He believed in community and being active to build a city into a home for all within its boundaries. A city is just a city unless you work to make it your hometown. My mother still embodies this idea with her civic work. And she still lives in that home my father built.

My mother welcomes us home, all thirty-seven of us, for our summer July 4th reunion. We bring our children and share our Hutchinson heritage: the fireworks, the parade on Main Street, a flawless donut (or two) from Daylight Donuts, a buffet feast at The Anchor Inn. We cheer for the Monarchs in Dillon Park. The grandkids love the newer additions to Hutch as well, The Alley and Salt City Splash. Dillon Nature Center is always on our list, often for a family celebration. These sites and the flavors will become their generation’s touchstones. We are building memories for them. I know that when they think of Hutchinson, they will recall our family reunion’s traditional late night drive to the pedestrian bridge over K-61 highway.

 My dad used to take us there as kids and let us walk over the highway. We were thrilled with the traffic noise, the hot sun, the metal clang of our footfalls, and the rush of trucks and cars racing beneath us. Now we take our kids to the newly constructed, exceptional pedestrian walkway. They love it. They beg to go. We go under the cover of dark and park at Union Valley School. From there we walk on the sidewalk, winding our way up the ramp with building excitement. Grandma drives her van onto the highway below us. She honks and we wave and shriek with glee. She drives a bit down the highway toward town. She puts on her hazards. She pauses. The kids shout, “No, Grandma! Don’t do it!” When the coast is clear, she brazenly drives across the grass median and returns under the bridge one last time to a chorus of cheers and delighted grandchildren. 

This July, 2022, our reunion felt almost post-pandemic, though some of us still needed to wear masks. Not all of us have had Covid. Despite Covid, the war in Ukraine, and the political divisions in our country, the summer nights were gorgeous. The late afternoon cotton showers gave way to the softer air and blazing sunsets. The fireflies flirted among the prairie grass. The cicadas sang. The hot, dry air that tastes of harvests and hope blew our hair. As I sat on the front steps only one thing marred the evening–the roar of the newly built highway, which invaded my father’s perfect homestead some years ago. My father could not have imagined that the rerouted K-61 would obstruct our Kansas vista. It made me sad to watch the kids play on the front lawn under the bombardment of highway noise instead of under the watchful gaze of their grandpa. However, my kids barely registered the traffic. They were too engaged in another round of an improvised ball game. They didn’t grow up with the deep black nights and the sounds of nature during a Kansas night. This was how they have always known Grandma’s house. A home.