Sunday, November 25, 2007

Hanover, Kansas



My wife's mother lives in Hanover, Kansas, population 653. It has a grocery, two gas stations, two restaurant-cafes (Ricky's is the place to see and be seen - everybody meets at Rick's), a bank, two bars (although they can only sell 3.2 % alcohol beer under state law), a post office, a tiny hospital, a hardware store and a grain elevator. As the Rolling Stones once said, you can't always get what you want but if you try sometime, you get what you need.

It's like Cheers, the place where everybody knows your name. The people are warm, generous and open. If they wondered about a city slicker wandering around their town taking pictures, none of them were forward enough to ask who I was and what I was doing. When I hang around here I'm always ready with, "Hi! I'm Bob, Elvira Kruse's son in law. You got some beautiful..." whatever. It's never necessary. Visits here are always a treat.



5 comments:

U "R" Us AKA Captain Crowe said...

I'm in Hangover, KS right now. *rimshot* Actually I'm OK. But the joke popped into my head and I couldn't resist. I can't have been the first to crack that.

Anonymous said...

This was such a great post, both for the photos and for the commentary--though now I'm probably going to have the cheers theme song stuck in my head...

Olivier said...

je trouve ta photo de l'église en b&w magnifique.


I find your picture of the church in b&w magnificent.

Andree said...

so many similarities to my small rural town. there are a lot of differences, too. The sky in the first photo is perfect for the church.

Anonymous said...

This picture is of my great grandfather's gas station...he passed away last friday, the 4th of June. He was 100 years old. It's nice to see a pic of his gas station since I won't be able to make the trip to his funeral.