Another Day in the Country
The week that was
© Another Day in the Country
It’s been a grand old time at the little white house on the corner of 5th and D in Ramona, Kansas, population 100±.
My daughter and grandson came from California to visit for a week. We dropped them at the airport in Wichita to go back home Saturday. This was the week that was.
Before they came, we went to the store and bought so much food that we had to store extra lettuce in a refrigerator at Ramona House across the street.
“Is there anything that you’re hungry for?” I asked my grandson.
This kid is a freshman in college and eats most of his meals at a cafeteria.
“Pot pie. Pancit and glase,” he texted back.
Really? I already had these things on a list of potential meals I could cook with all the groceries I bought. My sister always wants me to make a list of what we are going to have for meals so that she can rest easy. She’s my right-hand in the kitchen when we have company.
“Here’s my list of 18 regular meals that we can cook,” I told her, “and two possible restaurant experiences” including the cafe in Durham and a pizza place I heard about in Moundridge.
There also are eight possible breakfast ideas, and the kids were going to be here for only seven days.
I felt pretty smug about all this planning.
For the week, I was a full-time cooking machine. We cleared everything off the breakfast menu except biscuits and gravy. That’s because one morning we met friends in Abilene for breakfast instead of cooking at home.
I must explain the enormity of this feat because my sister and I don’t eat three meals a day anymore. It’s two most of the time plus what we call “popcorn and apple night.”
This task of keeping a teenage boy plied with food three times a day was something else!
Saturday night, as we drove back from Wichita to an empty house in Ramona, Jess said, “Remember, tomorrow is Sunday, and we usually have breakfast together. What do you want to have?”
“Sleep in,” I said. “I’ve officially stopped cooking for a while.”
My family loves playing games, and we managed to play more than 30 during the week they were here. The winners’ tally marks are carefully logged on a mirror until they visit again for another round.
Usually, my grandson, Dagfinnr, wins the most games, but believe it or not, this time I did. What’s the deal? Were they just being nice?
On our last evening together, we finally got around to playing a game I created with one of my cousin’s kids 30 years ago when he was bored.
It’s called “Schubertville” and it features the area around Ramona with what once were familiar places like “the farm,” “the post office,” “the Starlight Ballroom,” and “Betty’s Cafe,” to name a few.
You start the game as you drive over railroad tracks — just as you do in Ramona — in the vehicle of your choice, and proceed around town, ending up at Lewis Cemetery.
Dagfinnr chose a semi-truck to drive, and it really fouled up traffic on the narrow game-board streets. It reminded me of when we first moved back to Ramona and we had several professional truckers living in town. Sometimes that fouled up things, too.
In the game, you can get stuck on mud roads and have to skip a turn. Sometimes, you get to take a shortcut past Grandma’s house, or you land on a “?” slot, where you have to answer a question before proceeding.
At the end of the game, you are called upon to draw cards labeled “Deep Thoughts” that you ponder — one card at a time, for four turns — while everyone else is moving around the board, catching up.
You can share the Deep Thoughts or roll snake eyes to proceed. There’s really no rush to get to the cemetery where the game ends.
Afterward, everyone was packed and ready for bed when Dagfinnr said, “Baba, are you sleepy? We could watch another segment of ‘Detectorists’ before we go to bed.”
Who could resist? It was just another day in the country, and I was so lucky to be sitting there cuddled under a fuzzy blanket beside my almost six-foot grandson that we watched not one show but three!