Solitaire score and Zip Code 66542

Tecumseh, Kansas; not an incorporated town. Along the Kansas River in Shawnee County. Named for the Shawnee chief, as was William Tecumseh Sherman. The town, unlike the Union general, was pro-South when Kansas was a territory. Wikipedia says, “Once the northern/southern political issues were settled at the beginning of the Civil War, the village rapidly declined, and it survived as a mere ghost of itself for the next ninety years.” That sometimes happens when you back the losing side.

I don’t know how far Tecumseh is from Pratt, Kansas. My father was stationed in Pratt for a time in World War II, and my mother joined him there not long after their marriage. Daddy never had anything good to say about people in Pratt. Jayhawkers didn’t like Texans, he said. In 1944, Momma and Daddy moved to near Seattle, where Daddy was at the Boeing school for B29 flight engineers. They liked Seattle better than Pratt.

I’ve driven through the Flint Hills of eastern Kansas, and if I had to choose between Kansas and Washington as a place to live, I would hope Jayhawkers wouldn’t mind another Texan.