A week in Arkansas

RUSSELLVILLE, Arkansas — As promised, I didn't fly Boutique Airlines when I decided to come to Arkansas for Father's Day. Since my last malady with them, I have heard negative stories from other people about the service with all the problems originating in Denver. This obviously isn't fair to local Boutique employees who are doing nothing wrong but one of the assurances we have is that when you fly out of a place, you'll be able to fly back in. That's often not the case with Boutique.

So I had to decide whether to drive to Denver the day before, spend the night and catch an early flight out, get up very early, drive to North Platte and take the United jet to Denver or to simply drive myself. I opted for the latter.

It's ten a half hours from McCook to Russellville and always before I've driven it without stopping for anything but gas and food. But I'm older now so this trip I decided to drive about halfway to Wichita, spend the night and continue on the next morning. I always stay at Embassy Suites but since there isn't one in Wichita, I opted for another full-service hotel operated by Hilton. I was given the Presidential Suite which looked like an apartment. It has a full living room with gorgeous appointments, a kitchen with a microwave, refrigerator and freezer, a full bedroom with a Jacuzzi and a full bathroom. In fact, the appointments were superior to Embassy Suites. I enjoyed an afternoon happy hour that included real food instead of snacks along with wine or beer and a full breakfast in the morning. The only problem was its location, some five miles away from the Interstate, but that was a minor distraction. If I decide to divide the trip into two days again, you can bet that's where I'm going to stay.

Will came down from Fayetteville for Father's Day and he, Michael, me and their mother dined on Steak and adult beverages and had a wonderful time doing it. Since Will and his wife are in the process of closing on the new house they've just had built, he left Sunday afternoon to return to help her. They called us on Wednesday to tell us that the closing had just occurred and they were given keys to their very own house. The movers came the next morning (Thursday) to move their belongings from the house they were renting to the house they now own. Michael, Linda and I are driving up to Fayetteville later today (Friday) to see the new house, take them out to dinner and a movie and then return to Russellville before I head back to McCook on Sunday.

Michael was notified last night by text that he is a finalist for a high school social studies teaching position at the Helena, Ark., Charter School and will do a phone interview with them tonight at 6 pm. He's currently a broadcast meteorology student at the University of Oklahoma but would certainly make the transition from being a student to a full-time teacher again if given the chance. In his case, dreams are good but reality is better.

I hope I haven't bored you with this column essentially about me and my family but some of you have expressed a desire for me to write about my family more often and this seemed a perfect time to do it.

This has been perhaps the most controversial week of Donald Trump's Presidency in regards to children being forcibly removed from their parents attempting to cross the border illegally and after doing research on both sides of the issue, I'll most likely address that in next week's column. I understand the perspective that if mother's don't want their children taken from them, they shouldn't be committing illegal behavior but it's not the child's fault and they're the ones being punished.

The political party that claims an allegiance to family values surely recognizes that.