Paul Worthington

My grandmother died recently, almost two weeks after suffering a stroke. She’d lived her entire life in Kansas. My sister and her family live near where my grandmother died, a few miles away in another town. All the children, grandchildren, great- and great-great-grandchildren were going to converge on the spot for the funeral. Grandma wanted her grandsons and great-grandsons to be pallbearers. That’s where I came in.

My next work project had already started. I had to be in Seattle the next Sunday night so I could begin a workshop with my client bright and early Monday morning. The prep work for this kind of workshop is long and intensive, and the funeral was going to put a crater in my week. But we don’t choose when we’re going to pass after something incapacitating like a stroke. There was never any question I was going to go be part of the funeral.

I made my travel arrangements. I could pay for a flight out of my frequent flier miles on United. The little Kansas town is Pittsburg, halfway between Kansas City and Tulsa. I needed to get there in time for the services Wednesday afternoon. Nothing from Denver to Tulsa would get me there in time, considering I’d have to drive more than two hours from anywhere I touched down. So I got a flight to Kansas City Tuesday night. I’d be able to drive without it getting too late, and without me getting too sleepy behind the wheel.

I planned to stay in Kansas Wednesday night, then fly home to Denver Thursday morning. On Friday, I’d have to drive my wife to the airport so she could fly to Chicago to visit her ailing father. She’d be coming home late Sunday night, but I’d be leaving for Seattle early Sunday afternoon. So we would miss each other in transit. I arranged for our next door neighbor to take care of our dogs for several hours until my wife got home. In the meantime, in addition to prepping for work, I’d be setting things up for the dogs and neighbor and getting a few things in place for my wife while I was gone for the next five days. The weekend was going to be action-packed.

Tuesday came. I was ready in the afternoon, and getting from home to Kansas City was a breeze. I travel a lot for work, and it’s tiring but old hat now. In the car on the way to the Denver airport, I realized I had forgotten to bring a light winter coat. I had checked the weather forecast for that part of Kansas, and I knew there were severe thunderstorms predicted for Wednesday night through the first half of Thursday. But the weather in Denver was so sunny and mild that I completely forgot. I decided to buy a light coat when I got there. I would be driving past much of a major metro area and was sure I’d find something.

The Kansas City airport is a dump. Maybe I’m spoiled by Denver International Airport, the crown jewel of America’s air transportation system. I had brought my work laptop in the naïve belief I’d be able to do some work while not involved in family matters. I’ve got a card for it that lets me get online almost anywhere. I found a place to sit in the KC airport, got online, and looked for locations of Kohl’s and Wal-marts along my route. Time was a critical factor, because I would have just enough to make it to the Pittsburg Wal-mart if everything went right. But it was April and I knew my chances of finding any cold weather garments would be dwindling as the seasons changed. I headed for the Hertz rental car counter.

The Kansas City Hertz rental car system is broken. Long waits while the agents looked for available cars, Gold reservations unconfirmed because of stupid business rules, etc. I don’t want to waste time writing any more about them. I finally got my car and left the rental lot. Within minutes I was headed the wrong direction on the highway. Wrong turns and u-turns were the rule for the next hour thanks to Kansas City’s pathetic and confusing highway signs and names. One such wrong turn put me in Olathe, Kansas. I knew how to get on the right track from there. The silver lining was that I was in a retail district and almost immediately spotted a Target. I stopped and went inside.

The clearance racks in the men’s department were full of some things that might have worked for me, but they were all in sizes small to medium, which wouldn’t fit, or extra large to extra-extra large, which would just look ridiculous. Also, men in Kansas apparently wear a lot of caps – baseball, golf, trucker – and pullover sweatshirts.

Back on the road, my next chance was the Wal-mart in Fort Scott, Kansas. Time was running out, I was getting hungry, and I was happy to see the Wal-mart as I pulled into town. If I could find what I needed there, I wouldn’t have to speed like I’d been doing, past farms and cows for the last two hours. It was dark now, the temperature was dropping and the wind was growing. This store had a greater selection of everything – the hats and sweatshirts and more seasonal items and even one or two attractive jackets – but it was still all the wrong size. Some of it would have been inappropriate for the time, anyway. So I headed to a checkout lane and bought two protein bars and two bottles of water. I waited while a family paid for groceries ahead of me. I rushed back to the car and headed south to my last chance.

The Wal-mart in Pittsburg, Kansas, is mercifully located at the north end of town. I knew from the web lookup I had done three hours earlier in Kansas City that the stores along my way would close at 10:00. I pulled into the parking lot at 9:48. Inside, there were tempting t-shirts from all the local schools – Frontenac, Girard, Pittsburg, Columbus, even Pittsburg State University. I found lots of casual winter outerwear possibilities, too. Almost all of the items were mediums – too small for me. There were some smalls, some XXLs. In the last corner, I found a clearance rack. It was like others I’d seen earlier in the night – nylon shells for golfers, breathable tops for runners, tracksuit slouchwear. There was a black and dark-blue jacket, it looked like a combination of some water-resistant polyester panels and polar fleece. Size large. My size. I pulled it on. I couldn’t believe my luck. It fit, looked appropriate, wasn’t too light or too heavy, had deep pockets. I checked the rack for others, but in my hands was the only one in my size. It had been marked down due to the approach of Spring, and the price was finally $7.

At the checkout lane, I waited while a group of four young men bought beer and cigarettes ahead of me. I paid for the jacket and made happy small talk with the little old cashier. She thoughtfully asked if I wanted to wear the jacket out, and I said I did. She apologized that she didn’t have a way to cut off the tag hanging from my jacket, but I assured her it was okay. I put it on while walking out the door at 10:02, and at that hour in that weather it was the warmest and most perfect jacket I had ever owned. I bit through the tag’s plastic ring with my teeth while I watched the guys from the checkout lane speed away in their truck. I zipped the jacket, got in my car, and cruised slowly to the south side of Pittsburg, to the Econo-Lodge where I had reserved a room. That jacket kept me warm and dry for the entire trip, and I took it with me to Seattle the next week and the week after that. I’ll have that jacket for a long time.