NO PICTURE OF KANSAS

As I pulled into a restaurant parking lot yesterday in a little town in western Kansas...there was a graying wild haired guy standing by his vehicle in the next parking space. The picture here pretty much captures the hair style though this guy still had a little black hair mixed in and most of his forehead was covered too. But seeing him there wasn't quite by happenstance...

My older brother was telling me about a mexican food place and agreed to buy my lunch if I'd meet him there. Well that sounded like a good deal all the way around, get a chance to visit (until I can talk him into leaving that picturesque mountain and getting him a nice trailer house to put out here in the pasture out back here in Okie land...and I aint throwed in the towel on that persuasion idear yet) but until then.. I'll probably only get to visit him on such limited occasions as a holiday a year and maybe a lunch when we can. Anyway...a chance to visit..AND a free lunch.

I brought my camera along but by golly by the time I had passed all the way thru Kansas the picture taking spirit had just been sucked out of me like the drought has done the water in my pond. The problem was, after passing thru that much of Kansas I just didn't have the desire to even get the camera out. I should have at least snapped one of that graying wild haired guy that was standing there giving me a funny look when I pulled into the parking lot...turns out that odd look was on account he was saving that parking space I was pulling into, for his brother...glad he finally recognized me.

Anyway we quickly bounced thru a variety of topics...books, movies, mountain camping site by a waterfall, archery, our unique wives, and we were both in agreement...the 6-7 hour drive to the dinner place didn't seem all that bad (but like the guy swimming out into the ocean, reaching the turn around point...the shore was yet a long ways off).

One memory he brought up was from the backs of comic books when we were kids. (Growing up in a remote forest, in that day and time technology wise, it can't be adequately emphasized what a major part of our perception of the outside world was based on the ads in the backs of comic books!) The one he brought up yesterday with enthusiasm in his memory...was the "build your own submarine". Yeah! I remember that! I looked at that alot and thought about it alot! Interesting that as we age and he looks back and tells me things that caught his interest...how many are the very same things I had daydreamed about too back then, but most of it...back when the picture was "live"...we probably didn't know we shared the interest .

Turns out it there is some fine print involved...while I was dreaming of the uses for such in a big pond, lake or pool...my brother was dreaming of hitting the salty seas with the sucker...as I viewed the ad closer a few minutes ago, I saw the key word "fiberboard"...its a glorified commercially printed/cut cardboard box!! Wow... But hey, we weren't the only ones bro...I enjoyed reading this post in The Adventurer's Club .
There seem to be quite a few websites where people just hash over that kind of stuff.

At one point in time...after we were already a bit older...there was an ad for a zorcom spaceship, not only did ya get a cardboard box already decorated up like a spaceship but you get an audio tape with it of your space adventure to make things more realistic. Wow again. I'm thinking about that post by K about walking around a neighborhood with a box on his head, a space helmet of his own making much more portable and usable than the big one in the ad I read about. Wow, if he had only put in flashing led lights and a sound system and sound track...he would have had something. Come to think of it, that would probably still market well. LOL. (If ya build that "K", for my "inventor idea" share I want one in adult size). Next time if I'm the one waiting around in a parking lot, I'll put on my helmet and walk around in the space I'm saving...that oughta work.