This fall’s HPPR’s Radio Readers has a Kansas-pertinent theme focusing on borders and migration. Recent ads posted in papers as well as on the internet and bulletin boards reveal that local communities joyously celebrate immigrant legacies. If you adopted our region, join the fun and learn our stories. Our area is home to many cultures, and folks rooted here reap the benefit of tradition.
Summer is over so if you missed Nicodemus’s annual gathering of descendants and guests, you’ll have to wait til next July to enjoy their remembrance of Juneteenth and what that meant to their ancestors. Consider attending the upcoming celebration where you can sit on a curb to enjoy a small town parade or treat your taste buds to amazing southern barbecue or fried catfish. If you hang around long enough, you’ll meet local legends and listen to Blues with riffs that make you ache to your toenails.
Add to your dose of local culture and head to Wilson the last weekend in July. The signature, gigantic Czech-inspired decorated egg will dazzle you. Downtown, you’ll find lovely lasses and handsome lads festooned in bright Bohemian clothing and discover fresh-baked kolaches to tempt your taste buds. Those who love stone buildings will enjoy roaming the streets to find one of the most interesting old jails in the region and the renovated Midland Hotel. Sit a spell in its lobby and listen to old-country tunes playing down the street while you pay homage to ancestors who sailed to America and worked hard to realize their dreams.
If you missed these earlier opportunities to celebrate western Kansas diversity, mark your calendar to attend upcoming Oktoberfests. You don’t have to love beer to have a great time. These festivities remind us of old European revels where neighbors gathered to rejoice in the harvest and to have one last hurrah before winter drove them inside their homes. While modern life may require less hard labor for most of us, our busy schedules often prevent us from connecting to our communities. Thank goodness, these local commemorations help us foster neighborly relationships.
Besides meeting, greeting, and sipping a brew, you’ll sample the best food in the new world. Local cooks have perfected bierocks, galuskies, spitzbuben, hertzen, noodles, and other delicacies to a degree that would make Guy Fieri of Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives high-five the chefs constant knuckle bumps. If he spent October in Kansas savoring traditional foods, he’d need a bigger wardrobe before he could go home in November.
Did I mention local music? If you have toes, they’ll tap out polka tunes long after the last accordion squeezes out its final bit of air. Even folks who prefer rock and roll can’t resist jiggling a knee or bouncing a toddler to these vibrant melodies. Watching multiple generations enjoy the performers and the dancing is one of the best parts of the day.
These annual fests remind us that we descend from stout souls brave enough to begin life in a new land. They brought favorite foods and recipes, fashion, and music and passed them to their descendants. Joining these celebrations encourages us to maintain and share family customs. They link our past, present, and future.
Native Kansan Karen Madorin is a local writer and retired teacher who loves sharing stories about places, people, critters, plants, food, and history of the High Plains.