by RICK DANLEY // July 31, 2017 Dennis Polson is a pleasant, genial man in a cowboy hat, tasselled boots and a turquoise neckerchief, who doesn’t mind smiling on occasion but who is dead serious about his barbecue. He’s the sort of kindly stickler given to the phrase “the rules are the rules.” The 73-year-old … Continue reading The BBQ Crew
by RICK DANLEY // December 2, 2015 Santa Claus is inviting area children to Iola’s courthouse square Thursday between 5 and 7 p.m. Old Saint Nick, currently on the road promoting Christmas, met with the Register in a back booth at the A&W on Tuesday. He spoke expectantly about the kids he’ll meet this week … Continue reading Lunch with Santa
by RICK DANLEY // January 14, 2019 Once upon a time — let’s call it the early 1950s — three colossi of the American theater overshadowed all the other playwrights in the land. Award-winning scripts tumbled from their desks and were picked up by Broadway and performed for packed houses and praised to the skies … Continue reading On Inge
by RICK DANLEY // February 1, 2019 There was a day in the middle 1950s when Spencer Ambler betrayed his instinct and agreed to join his friends at the Silver Grill Restaurant in Chanute. “All the kids said, ‘Let’s go to the Silver Grill,’” remembered Ambler. “I said, ‘No, I don’t want to go.’” But … Continue reading A Spirit of Love
by RICK DANLEY // March 10, 2018 You’re in the cockpit of a B-1 bomber. It’s the middle of the night. You’re somewhere over northern New Mexico, slicing through the black sky at about 600 knots. There are four of you in the plane. The copilot to your right, his face made ghoulish by the green … Continue reading The View from Above
by RICK DANLEY // July 14, 2018 In place of the usual hello, Mike Hook, the veteran pawnbroker and manager of DM Past and Present, has a phrase prerecorded on his mobile phone, which he plays when a customer first enters his small Iola shop. The audio is of a woman’s voice, tinny, robotic — … Continue reading The Value of Things
by RICK DANLEY // April 24, 2018 There was a moment sometime after the close of the 2014 election when independent candidate Greg Orman, having just conceded a high-profile, tightly fought U.S. Senate race to longtime Republican Sen. Pat Roberts, fell into conversation with another of Kansas’ political veterans, Bob Dole. Orman recalled the exchange. “You … Continue reading Orman for Gov.
by RICK DANLEY // December 23, 2017 At least according to the 1959 tome “Swedish Christmas” — now, sadly, out of print — Christmas wasn’t Christmas without the yuletide pig: “It was not easy to slaughter the Christmas pig in the correct manner. It must be done in the first light of early dawn. One … Continue reading Swedish Christmas: Little Hus on the Prairie
by RICK DANLEY // April 7, 2018 The artist’s consolation is that she can take as her subject the everyday turmoil of life and make of it something beautiful, she can rescue from despair those essential splinters of light that go into making a dull thing gleam. “Everything is copy” Nora Ephron’s mother used to tell … Continue reading Father, Son, Feature Film
by RICK DANLEY // August 12, 2017 CHANUTE — The summer has hardly reached its down-curve and already a string of Kansas politicians are launching themselves across this imperfect rectangle in their 2018 run for governor. Topeka physician and former state senator Jim Barnett met with local residents and healthcare professionals at the Neosho Regional Medical … Continue reading Barnett for Gov.
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