Lawrence, Kansas - Day 1

Entertaining drunken college students playing beer pong (look it up) is not my idea of a good time, or the political aim of Mike’s band, but it does make for good fun. A fellow named Lance, an excellent singer songwriter and a friend of a friend set up our show in Lawrence at The Crossing, a college bar only a stone’s throw away from the University of Kansas. Lance performed his brand of punk infused folk music with an energy and humor that was inspiring. Denell, Lance’s sister and our friend from the Northwest, has been out for a visit this week and joined Lance during the set singing some sweet harmonies and pushing air through her accordion. Their performance together was heartfelt without being sappy, a nice set that felt more like sitting around the campfire than sitting in a beer soaked college bar. Denell also played the accordion and sang during Colin’s set, bringing a full sound to the band that I haven’t heard from them yet. They keep getting better every night, it is nice to see them progress every evening.

The City of Lawrence is a beautiful, well-kept college town with no shortage of parks, coffee shops, and good food. It is a liberal town that feels worlds apart from the neighborhood we spent the most time at in Wichita. Lance labels it an oasis in the mid-west, and so far it really does feel that way. The look of the town today distances itself from the violent period of time in the 1850s known as Bleeding Kansas, when the people in this area struggled to sort out their status as a free or slave state. Kansas did eventually become a free State, but not without its share of bloodshed staining the minds of Americans.

As a visitor, it is difficult to determine how the sentiments that ripped Kansas apart 150 years ago have evolved. With the disaster in New Orleans reminding every American that racism and class are a matter of life and death, it is something worth thinking about. While pondering these things here in Lawrence, I keep going back to a bumper sticker I saw on a small foreign car on the streets of Wichita that read “Kansas, as bigoted as you think.” I hope it isn’t.