Ainsworth

"We're going to Ainsworth..."We went to the tiny town of Ainsworth so often that we had been known to pick up our mail there. We went to our cousin�s farm so often we had our own favorite cups in Aunt Pearl�s kitchen cupboards. When we weren�t driving through the plains of Nebraska on our way there, my brothers were clamoring to go there, conning, pleading, wheedling and bargaining with Mom and Dad about it.And on every car ride home, amidst the raucous laughter, the begging to go back began, and when would it be, and why not sooner?When the words, "We're going to Ainsworth," were spoken on a spring Sunday afternoon, it made the last three weeks of school stretch on forever. It made the big round clocks on the old walls of the classroom burn permanent images into my eyes. I suppose the math and English was supposed to do that. Burn its images into my mind. Science, history, wind blown dust... the mystery of Great Uncle Claude's disappearance all those years ago... a man named Beard... and the Ghost Dance!Fiction, Growing up in Kansas.