Floating An Idea For Next Year’s Anniversary

by Kevin Burton    From out of the blue, (and from the Associated Press) I get a super idea for a fun adventure. And my wife is shooting it down.    But wait.  I say this is a developing story. We have almost a whole year to talk things over.    Stay tuned dear readers, …

Our Getaway In Beautiful Downtown Newton

by Kevin Burton    “There are no boring towns, just boring people,” said my first editor. Not all his nuggets were golden. That one was, and is.    My wife Jeannette and I are not boring people Thus we were in no danger of being bored, though we made the curious choice of Newton, Kansas …

Finding Contentment In The Little Dance

by Kevin Burton    Perhaps you noticed that all the teams in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA basketball tournament this year were from the Big Four conferences.    That and Kansas losing in the second round has dialed my enthusiasm down very close to zero.    A pox on all 16 of their houses …

Mike Kennedy, Forever Voice Of The Shockers

by Kevin Burton     Tomorrow Mike Kennedy will call his final regular-season game after 46 years as the voice of Wichita State basketball.    This is one of those blog ideas that showed up on the spreadsheet long ago. But it keeps moving down the page. I’m having trouble delivering it.    I don’t want …

The Weather Outside Was Cold, Not Frightful

by Kevin Burton    Those color-coded national weather maps always showed the true snow calamity hitting other regions. We in Central Kansas were to be spared.    But there were breathless local forecasts calling for eight inches of snow on Saturday. My “rule of half” said we would get about four.    Sure enough, by …

Fantasy Playoffs: Happiness Is A Warm Kicker

by Kevin Burton    The beginning of week 14 of fantasy football saw me in a (rare) good mood.  I love it when a plan works out!    Most of the fantasy world pays scant attention to kickers. In fact, some leagues have eliminated kickers from their scoring. This must be a macho thing. Kickers …

Look Both Ways And Beware Of Jay Drivers

by Kevin Burton    What I see 20 feet away, you can see 200 feet away. By definition therefore, I am legally blind.    So you would think, all other things being equal, my career as a jaywalker could/should be painfully short, or maybe even disastrously shortened.    I was very nearly run over by …

Vet Says: Your Cat Only Has Meows For You

by Kevin Burton    How well do you know you cat, asks a Good Housekeeping article that my brother sent me.    Well I am in tune with our two cats, enough so that my wife Jeannette calls me a cat whisperer. If you have cats you know whispering doesn’t always get it done.     …

Fall Colors Are Part Of What I Want To See

by Kevin Burton    I have at times, felt sorry for those Americans who live in places that do not have four discernable seasons.    Spring, summer, fall and winter.    I have lived in the Midwest most of my life and have experienced times when those four seasons all came within the same week.  …

How Deep Is Your Love?, Good Question

by Kevin Burton   My sister and I had one last shared musical moment, in the days before her death Aug. 25 of last year.    We had thousands of them over half a century together. What I wouldn’t give to have a few more of them now.    The final one came last August, …