A Drive Down K-42…and Memory Lane
This particular ribbon of asphalt doesn’t stand out on the Kansas map, linking a series of blink-and-you-miss-it villages like tiny bulbs on a string of Christmas lights. But K-42 is a highway I have traveled often over the course of my journalism career, and a recent journey for a series of interviews for a magazine piece turned into a trip down memory lane.
You’re barely out of Wichita’s shadow before you come to Schulte, which once was a tiny farming village surrounded by crop fields. But suburban sprawl and development has encroached, meaning folks there can no longer talk about being “out in the middle of nowhere.”
A few miles down the road, you reach Clonmel, which is little more than a church and a grain elevator. I have been there multiple times over the years for weddings, dances, and other special events. It does remain isolated, and folks there insist the city will never swallow them. But I remember people in Schulte saying the same thing, so time will tell.
Angling southwest, you cross the north fork of the Ninnescah River and reach the turnoff for Viola – which I took many times for interviews with a family that lived in rural Sumner County to talk about the abuse their son suffered at the hands of a Catholic priest serving their local parish. Those interviews began about the same time of year as I made the recent trek, with snow lining the ditches and the cold clinging to us like an unwanted hug.
Those interviews were long and grueling, but they prompted a broader investigation that led to criminal charges against the priest, Robert Larson, who was eventually convicted. The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) has told me it’s the only instance in the nation where a newspaper’s investigation led to criminal charges and the conviction of a priest who abused children.
That family paid such a tremendous price in suffering, but in sharing their story they have helped countless victims of clergy abuse and their loved ones.
If you don’t turn off at Viola, you eventually reach a fork in the road: stay on 42 and you pull into Norwich. Turning south on 2 will take you to Harper and Anthony. I made that turn many times almost 20 years ago when one tornado after another struck Harper County.
It was as if Mother Nature had set up a conveyor belt and just kept hammering the same area. I still remember interviewing the couple who cowered in their basement as a stationary tornado chewed their house to bits. I’ll never know how they survived, because it was not a wisp of a twister.
While I reflected on those various stories, I also noted how many years have passed since then. They aren’t kidding when they say time flies. Many of those I talked to are no longer with us, residing instead in our memories…and our hearts.
