Jim and I took a short road trip and had a few days vacation in Kansas City the first weekend in June. We seldom get away from home for even one night, so spending three nights away was a real treat.
We drove up on Thursday and it rained on us most of the way. Finally, the showers stopped when we were only about 30 minutes away from KC.
The occasion for our visit to KC was the 2014 Jehovah's Witnesses "Keep Seeking First God's Kingdom" regional convention. We attended three days of meetings featuring intensive Bible study, Bible-based talks and demonstrations, a couple of moving dramas and the baptism of 102 new Witnesses.
For parts of the program we shared a video link with the international convention in Detroit, Mich., and heard several good talks by Austrian-born Gerrit Losch, a member of the governing body. We shared lunch each day in the meeting hall and enjoyed the rich blessings of fellowshiping with others who were seeking to put Jehovah first in their lives.
Our meetings were held in Kemper Arena, a 19,500 seat indoor arena named for R. Crosby Kemper, Sr., a member of the powerful Kemper financial family who donated $3.2 million from his estate for the building.
On Friday evening we visited Aunt Mary and Uncle Holland in North Kansas City. We drove up to their home on Northeast Terrace Drive and enjoyed a short visit with them, then they took us out to eat delicious seafood meals at a nearby restaurant. We all ordered pie to go so Jim ate a piece of cherry and I dug into a good-sized slab of coconut cream as we watched TV later in the evening. When we left, Mary sent a box of goodies with us, including a lovely crystal candle holder and candle, a couple of clothing items, pictures and a few books, including a book of poems purchased in Canada in 1975 and Larry McMurtry's "Buffalo Girls," detailing the life and times of Calamity Jane.
Saturday evening we drove over to the Longhorn Steakhouse in Olathe, Kan., for our evening meal. We shared a fried green tomato appetizer, then ate Caesar salads and steaks. Jim ordered seasoned fries with his and I had a loaded baked potato. We both had to take some of our food in a to-go box.
After our meal, Jim took me over to the nearby Bass Pro Shop where I enjoyed seeing the saltwater and freshwater aquariums, waterfall and pool stocked with rainbow trout and perky ducks swimming beneath the bridge. I admired the shiny new boats and other outdoor sporting items and bought a floor mat with a log cabin design.
Jerry Nichols, author of the "Now and Then" column in The Times of Northeast Benton County, wrote a couple of weeks ago about the origins of the names of several area towns. He said Pea Ridge was named from the ridge on which the small village began to form in the 1830s and 1840s. Many pea vines, a variety known as Hog Peanuts or Turkey Peas, grew on the ridge. Benton County and Bentonville were named after the prominent Missouri politician Thomas Benton, who was influential in getting Arkansas admitted to statehood in 1836. Rogers was named after a St. Louis and San Francisco Railroad official who helped bring the railroad through Rogers in the early 1880s.
We drove through Peculiar, Mo., on our way to and from Kansas City. Josh Young's book, "Missouri Curiosities, Quirky Characters, Roadside Oddities & Other Offbeat Stuff," tells us how this town, south of KC in Cass County, got its name. In the late 1800s an appointed postmaster, Mr. E.T. Thomson, was trying to set up his community's post office. He sent in an application and petition to the U.S. Post Office Department requesting the name "Excelsior" and was told it was already taken by another Missouri community.
Mr. Thomson reapplied with a second name only to be told it too was taken. Again a third time he submitted a name. It was taken. Finally a frustrated Thomson wrote asking that if all the previous names were taken, would the Post Office just give the community some "peculiar" name -- and he made the mistake of enclosing the word peculiar in quotation marks. He received his commission from Washington as postmaster of Peculiar, Mo.
Editorial on 06/18/2014