I love Kansas city. A hard working town located right in the middle of heartland, USA. It's big and busy and sprawls all the way south to Belton. It has the Chiefs, the Royals, Livestock Show, BBQ, Blues Bars, Rail yards, NASCAR, Casinos and the Kansas and Missouri Rivers. A city with a rich history. It was divided between the North and South. I consider it the true 'gateway to the west', not Saint Louis.
I will always be a part of Kansas City, Missouri (KCMO). I'm not a native. I was born in Kansas and brought up in Eastern Colorado but KC has been a part of my life for so long, it's part of who I am. I will forever be devoted to the Kansas City Chiefs no matter where I end up in life.
My great-great (great?) Grandfather drove cattle here from Cherokee County in the Kansas territory to sell in the stockyards in the 1870s. He kept a log of his travels and sells.
Having said all that, I don't consider KC my true home. I don't claim any particular place my true home. Not yet. My mother was born on the prairies of Kansas as was her mother and her mother's mother. Just like me. The coastal elite call the western and midwestern prairies "fly-over country". Another words, they consider it nothing and sparsely populated and of no consequence. Good! Maybe the bastards will stay away.
My first recollection of hearing about Kansas City was in many an old Western where the cattle drivers took a herd and drove them along the Chisholm trail to Kansas City, then of course there is the "Chiefs" a team which can cause so much heartache and happiness in equal measure, but to me Kansas City is famous for one thing above all else, being the home of KansasCityBiskit, someone who has taught me so much about the USA, especially the mid west and who has helped to inform my opinions about the USA and the Mid West in paricular.
Posted by: John Redmond | June 23, 2009 at 12:38 AM