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.
by RICK DANLEY // September 2, 2016 TORONTO — It’s a wonder that in southeast Kansas Courtney’s isn’t a household name. The Wichita Eagle gave her the front page a couple of years ago, calling her restaurant “a big-time Italian restaurant in tiny Toronto.” A PBS affiliate in Topeka broadcast a special on her in … Continue reading Courtney’s
by RICK DANLEY // November 18, 2016 Aleksander Sternfeld-Dunn, a professor of music at Wichita State University and an amiable evangelist for the importance of the arts in public education, appeared before a small crowd in the recital hall at the Bowlus Fine Arts Center on Wednesday to make, as the title of his lecture … Continue reading Arts Ed
by RICK DANLEY // October 21, 2016 Death proved no hurdle to the man, Mark Twain, who made a special appearance at the Iola Public Library Tuesday night. Shuffling up to the stage, wearing an all-white Stacy Adams suit and a satin cravat bundled under his chin, clutching a pipe, and casting a quizzical look … Continue reading Twain Brain
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