by RICK DANLEY // November 25, 2017 NEOSHO FALLS — On April 18, 1945, 18-year-old Wesley Carroll stood with the other recruits in line for the 120-foot high dive at the Great Lakes Naval Station in northern Illinois. As he neared the ladder, a man from the master-at-arms’ office approached. He pulled Carroll out of line … Continue reading The Brothers Carroll
by RICK DANLEY // September 29, 2018 The plan was to interview a young man who’d recently been run over by a bale of hay. He’d been standing near the hay trailer, helping unload the cylinders, when one of the giant, 2,000-pound bales slipped from the tractor’s front spikes and began rolling his way. The … Continue reading Part I: A Close Call (hay, heroism & hooey)
by RICK DANLEY // November 11, 2017 On July 25, 1946, at 8:34 a.m., 95 unmanned warships floated idly atop the aqua-blue waters of the Bikini Atoll, a secluded lagoon at the far reaches of the South Pacific. These were the target ships. Just beyond this flotilla, a ring of 150 support vessels, containing nearly … Continue reading Bikini Kaboom
by RICK DANLEY // October 21, 2017 It’s not a coincidence that Milton gave the devil the best lines in “Paradise Lost” or that of the three books in Dante’s “Divine Comedy,” the “Inferno” is the only one anyone still bothers to learn. Or that set next to the regal menace of a character like Darth … Continue reading Ella Reese & the Small-Town ‘Sex Problem’
by RICK DANLEY // March 10, 2017 It was an afternoon in late July of 2014. Aric Toler, living in Charlotte at the time and working in the corporate security division at Bank of America, was at home, scrolling through his Twitter feed. Toler was following the news coming out of eastern Ukraine concerning Malaysian Airlines … Continue reading Open Source
by RICK DANLEY // September 22, 2016 There’s a certain type of American male for whom the Hollywood Western acts upon his system like a comfort food. It’s consolingly basic, composed of the same ingredients every time, and is — aside from a handful of artful exceptions — relatively easy to digest. Looking across the Atlantic … Continue reading Keaton & the West
by RICK DANLEY // October 12, 2016 Muffy Fehr’s sixth-grade social studies class brought the elaborate rituals of the Egyptian funeral to the third floor of Iola Middle School on Tuesday. Employing a teddy bear as corpse, the students reenacted, from mummification to burial, the funerary rites of the ancient civilization. Each of Fehr’s students had … Continue reading Egyptian ‘Bearial’
by RICK DANLEY // January 20, 2018 In 1890, fossil hunter Charles H. Sternberg — a little man with a high forehead and kind, close-set eyes — knelt alone atop a chalk outcrop in Western Kansas, and, with his pick and his brush and with the fervor of a man who’d been fossil-crazy since he’d arrived … Continue reading Shark Week
by RICK DANLEY // January 4, 2019 In the few months since their slow rollout, the guys at Red Beard Barbecue have put together what must be the most ambitious, locally sourced, well-made menu in southeast Kansas. Pulled pork with ancho barbecue sauce and homemade pickles. Fry-bread tacos with smoked chicken and house chorizo. A beef and … Continue reading The Beard & the BBQ
by RICK DANLEY // February 3, 2018 Forty years ago, a small boy in the remote hills of western Nepal waited with the men in his village to welcome the first motorized vehicle to ever enter their town. The approach was a slow one, the vehicle a tractor. When it arrived, the boy’s father and uncles … Continue reading Big Bang, Small Beginnings
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