Wichita!
july 25, 2009 03:19pm – in Korea
Wichita is the biggest city in Kansas. To a jaded Californian, that sentence MUST be followed by a joke to the extent of "that's like being the sexiest woman on the cast of The Golden Girls." But I'm finding Wichita agreeable. Can I say that?
Yeah, from a car, Kansas looks more or less like you'd expect. Yates Center, Kansas, where I have a few more relatives, calls itself "The Hay Capital of the World."
Wichita itself is more cosmopolitan... Within reason. But I like the feel of the place. It's like if you took the feeling you got by being in The Orange Circle, or Brea's Best (Two places most of my friends know about) and made that feeling into a major city.
The picture above (kudos if you're one of the relatives pictured, and you see this blog and leave a comment) is one of a few pictures I took inside Old Mill Tasty Shop, which, in California would be called something like "Lucille's Rockin' Diner & Malt Shop." But this place was just born in the thirties, and has carried on with the same foods without ever looking at itself and saying "Hey, people come here out of nostalgia," and putting pictures of elvis on the wall and blaring goofy surf music from jukeboxes.
I got a chicken salad sandwich heavy with mayonnaise I saw them making. There were malts and floats and the coke, in all seriousness, has probably ruined me for any other coke I'll ever drink anywhere.
We're staying at the Broadview Hotel. A local landmark whose history includes hauntings, basement stills and visits from Al Capone.
This is the lobby.
I can't imagine this is someplace where I could live. But on the other hand, it makes San Francisco, where I just came from, seem phony by comparison.