Ramona: Art of sausage-making comes alive
By JESSICA GILBERT
Ramona correspondent
(785) 965-2621
It's great having the Ramona Café open again — it makes gathering the news so effortless because you already know where many folks had Sunday dinner.
By the time Pat, Tooltime Tim, and I arrived at the restaurant for the Sunday buffet, all the tables but one were full. I saw Rick and Barb Hanschu, Donita Ryff, Treva Schneider, Merv and Leona Deines, Junior and Jeanetta Hanschu, and Lowell and Marge Hanschu. Erich Utech arrived just as we did, so we were neighborly and invited him to join us. The buffet was superb with several options.
Sitting next to us was Betty Ohm with two young people I'd never seen before. I wondered if they were grandchildren, but the only grandkids I knew were young ones, 10 and under. So I was snoopy and went to their table and asked. "This is my oldest grandson, Craig Heuton," said Betty with obvious pride. "He lives in Des Moines, Iowa."
Craig brought his girlfriend, Kandi Hibbs, along for the visit to his grandparents. Craig and Kandi met while going to college at Buena Vista University in Iowa. Kandi is a teacher in Blair, Neb., and when she saw Emily Staatz eating with us, she wanted to know if this was the young lady in the book "Emmy Takes a Census." "I have the book," said Kandi, "and I read it to my kids in class." After lunch we took a picture of Kandi and Emily so Kandi could show her students the real Emmy from the book.
Jeannie Weber was out and about visiting friends on Sunday. "It's so beautiful outside, I just had to take a walk," said Jeannie. She stopped by the bank building where we have our offices. We were chatting about upcoming town events when an unfamiliar red car pulled up in front of the senior center.
The couple emerged from the car and began walking over to the post office and started taking pictures. Jeannie and I were so curious we walked outside and introduced ourselves.
Tim Riffel and his girlfriend Melissa were visiting from Ridgecrest, Calif., They were visiting Tim's father, Larry Riffel, who lives in Junction City. "So what's your connection to Ramona?" I queried. With the last name of Riffel, I knew he was connected somehow!
"My great-grandmother Hanschu used to live there," said Tim, as he pointed to the small house on the corner of 3rd and E. "I'd come into town with my grandmother to see Great-grandma and we'd always walk to the post office to get the mail," continued Tim. That explained why they were taking post office pictures.
Later Sunday evening, I was telling Pat and Tooltime Tim about the mystery guests. "They look about your age," I told Tim. And suddenly Tim exclaimed, "I remember Tim Riffel! He was at the yearly Hanschu reunion that was held every Christmas at the Lutheran Parish Hall." "How do you know that?" I asked. Tim (Steinborn). He explained that he was at the same annual reunion that Tim (Riffel) was, since he had ties to the Hanschu family through his step-grandmother, Carrie Hanschu Buxman.
Tim Riffel had mentioned the annual Hanschu gathering as we chatted in the street. "It was the reunion for my grandmother's side of the family," said Tim. Tim's grandparents were Sylvester and Irene (Hanschu) Riffel.
The last time Tim had visited Ramona was in 1978, for his great-grandmother's funeral.
On Jan. 15 I received the most charming phone call from a young man. "Happy birthday to you, Happy birthday to you," sang my charming caller. I recognized the voice and replied, "Well, happy birthday to you too, Tanner." Tanner Brunner was celebrating a birthday on the 15th, as well. And when he heard it was my birthday, he gave me a call, along with a song. What a charmer he is!
When you're in the 4th grade it's tradition to bring treats for the class in celebration of your birthday. "I made the treats," said Tanner's mom, Yvonne, "and his dad is delivering them. I think that 4th grade is the last year for such traditions," added Yvonne. Ah, how fast we grow up — I guess when you're in the 5th grade, you get more dignified and you simply mark the years and forfeit the treats.
But for my sister and me, "treats" is what a birthday is all about. This year, however, I was making that challenging because I've been doing a cleansing fast for a couple of weeks (a birthday gift to my body), and somehow a "birthday salad" just didn't seem festive enough — and where would you put the candles?
My sister really gets into birthday celebrations and it seemed to her that my choice of how to celebrate was just a bit ho-hum. I voted for solitude and doing my own thing this year, so I took off on a trek to Salina by myself.
I took myself out for lunch to Capers restaurant, where I pretended to be in California eating a fancy salad (artichoke hearts, feta cheese, Greek olives and baby balls of mozarella cheese, and fresh French bread), and then remembered I was in Kansas, and raced home, hoping to beat the sleet and snow that was predicted that day.
When I got home, Pat was waiting, "I've got the fixin's for banana splits," she announced with a gleeful grin. "The bananas are my concession to your fruit fast!" she said with a mischevious grin. Oh my — I haven't had one of those in years and I briefly abandoned the cleansing fast and indulged, rationalizing that I did a "cleansing" so I could eat stuff like this once in a while. What fun we had making towering concoctions of whipped cream and nuts.
On the morning of my birthday, I took some favorite folks to breakfast at Butch's Diner in Tampa. I like the tradition of giving something on my birthday — I got the idea many years ago when reading about the Indian tradition of "the giveaway." So I treated my two aunts Naomi Fike and Gertie Schubert, along with my mother Martha Ehrhardt, and of course my sister to a delicious breakfast. Joining us were Yvonne and Orvell Brunner, who traditionally come to Butch's on Wednesday for the Ramona ladies' coffee gathering.
Martha got a bouquet of pink carnations that day — carnations are the January birth flower. I often send my mom flowers as a "thank you" for bringing me to life — I'm hoping that continued flower delivery will help erase the memories of a much more challenging delivery when she had me!
Late on Wednesday evening while still celebrating my birthday by watching videos, the telephone rang. It had started to snow by now and the caller on the phone wanted to know if our bed and breakfast was open. "Because of the snow we have four stranded railroad employees," said the caller.
Within minutes we were hustling to the house, turning on lights, cranking up the heat to overcome the cold outdoors. When the guys entered the warm, toasty house, I said, "Welcome to Cousin's Corner. It happens to be my birthday today — care for an ice cream sundae?"
Birthdays often make one feel like "Queen for a Day," but Chelse Brunner, daughter of Mark Brunner, really was a queen! Chelse was crowned homecoming queen at Centre High School last Friday night. She shared her reign with Mark Pagenkopf who was homecoming king.
"Of course we were at the game," said Orvell Brunner, Chelse's grandmother. "And Ann, Bernie, and Emily Koch were here too, for homecoming," added Orvell, "Well, the whole clan was there" as she abandoned the idea of listing everybody. "We all hung out."
These events can be quite emotional and Grandma Orvell admitted to shedding a tear or two as she watched her cherished granddaughter crowned queen.
The Ramona City Council met Jan. 13 at the senior center. The main item of business was selecting a city maintenance person since Paul Jones quit Jan. 8.
The mayor had spoken with the League of Municipalities about proper protocol for filling the position since Paul quit suddenly. "We were left with no alternative but to fill the position immediately to continue to protect the citizens' investments and city property," said the mayor.
Mayor Smith introduced the council to Nick Elmore, who was at the meeting and was qualified and also interested in the position. Nick recently moved to Ramona from Kansas City. He is the fiancé of Kathy Werth, Ramona's postmaster.
Nick has experience in building maintenance, plumbing, electrical and welding, and also is skilled in automotive repair. He's willing to become certified to maintain Ramona's sewer lift station, which is one of the major responsibilities of the city maintenance person. At present, Ramona uses the services of Don Beisel of Tampa to inspect the lift stations.
While city council members regretted that Paul Jones resigned, they also felt it important to find a replacement as quickly as possible so that city services continue without interruption. So the council voted to hire Nick Elmore to fill the position.
As I walked out of city council Monday evening, I saw the city Christmas wreath lights still hanging on the light poles. The city maintenance person always puts up the wreaths and takes them down — one of the more minor jobs of this important position. And they mow the park, the sewer pond area, and in our city ditch banks. They flush the sewer system (with the help of the fire department) a couple times a year, keep the city streets maintained, trim trees along the streets and in the park, keep the sewer lift stations maintained, and help folks when they have emergencies. The list goes on.
Thanks Paul, for helping care for this special town. Paul was great with the kids and caretaking of all of us, along with the city property he maintained. We're thankful for his years of service to Ramona. And we're also grateful that Nick is willing to take over where Paul left off.
And that's the news from Ramona where it takes a lot of folks to keep a town rolling along — even a small one — and a traffic jam is two parked cars and a dog in the road.
