From the Steamer into the Frying Pan

Erie and Moran, Kansas

We spent the night in Joplin, Missouri.  It’s hot.  It’s hot everywhere in the country.

We stopped in the little town of Erie, KS, a church picnic spot, for lunch.  It was 91 degrees.  So much nicer than any degrees in that horrible humidity in Mississippi and Louisiana.  Beans is happy.  Me too.

Not much further we passed through Moran, population barely over 500.

Sign upon entering town read: Home of Debra Dene Barnes.  Miss America 1968.

Wow, how cool is that?  Miss America out of a little town in Kansas.

Here she is.

She is 73 today.  This her in later years.  She was being interviewed by CBS as the pageant was disrupted at the time by a women’s lib protest.  I don’t know her age in the photo.

  As we sat there on Main St. a long funeral possession passed by coming towards us.  I stayed put. 

 It made me reflect; live every day the best regardless of the weather.