For quite some time now it has seemed to me that the long term prognosis of the human species would depend more on the ability to conquer our social hobgoblins than on any technical puzzle that would be thrown our way. But David Leonhardt’s brief, but well-articulated, reminder of How Politics Saves Lives in this morning’s Morning Briefing in the New York Times makes a better case than I could and reminded me why I pay the $20 per year to continue to try to do something with this site. I hope you will read it. Politics is both the problem…and the answer.

More immediately, though, I continue to spend most of my time writing about my long-ago baseball adventures in In League with America. I am now about two thirds finished and hope to have the draft complete by the end of May. In case you missed it, there are brief daily updates, kind of a appendix in progress at inleaguewithamericabook.wordpress.com.

It has rained the last two days here in Vermont but we needed the moisture and I’m grateful for it. I hope that spring has found you as we turn over the calendar tomorrow and you look forward to a nice weekend.

Bill

Hi folks,

Happy Friday! I hope it is as nice where you are as it has been here in Vermont over the last few days. Summer time weather in April in these parts never lasts for long but I’ll take it as long as we can get it.

A bit of an update on the plans for this blog in the weeks ahead.

Today is the 30-year anniversary of the first stop on my 1991 baseball trip. On April 9, 1991 we visited the first of the 178 ballparks we saw that summer on “Bill & Sue’s Excellent Adventure” and the weather in Oakland, CA that day was as lovely as it is here this afternoon. The A’s who were the defending American League Champions that season bested the Minnesota Twins 7-2 that evening, although it would be the Twins that ended up World Champions after our last game in October.

My absence from this site over the last few weeks has certainly had something to do with college basketball, as I predicted in my last post. However, I have also begun work on a new, actually quite old, writing gig and have been spending my keyboard time dedicated to that. After several fits and starts over the years I have finally picked up the project of writing a book about my excellent adventure of 1991. I am planning to use the title I have always intended, In League with America, and have about seven chapters completed in draft form. My hope is to finish sometime later this spring or summer. Stay tuned.

But here’s the thing…

This site, since I first launched it nearly six years ago, has really had one central theme, helping Americans try to rediscover common cause with each other. To be clear, I still care very deeply about this mission and plan to write about it more as ideas that might help occur to me.

But last summer, discouraged by politics and searching for things to do in my pandemic-isolated world I began to blog about the baseball parks I has visited 29 years earlier and included a video series called the Low Mileage Tour.

While I would not say that either of these topics has earned me a large audience, they have both seemed to strike a chord with a few people that found value in them and like most writers I would guess, that makes me want to keep writing. However, I do not think the are necessarily the same people.

A Venn Diagram of the PFA audiences might go something like this. There are the folks that started reading the Project to Find America over the years and found the discussion of how to get Americans to listen to each other again worthwhile, I’ll label them the Common Causers.

Then, more recently, there have been some folks that were kind enough to take interest in my baseball travels…Baseball Boosters, let’s say.

And then there is a probably growing list of folks that started in one of the other two camps and are now just confused and wondering how I keep showing up in their inbox.

So, over the next few months as I work on trying to finally finish In League with America, I will be also be writing a very short daily post about where we were thirty years ago today. If you are in the Baseball Booster camp or just think it might be occasionally interesting and want to get it I would like to have you along for the ride. You will find today’s first post at inleaguewithamericabook.wordpress.com and can sign up for daily updates there. You can also find the daily posts on my In League with America Facebook page

On the other hand, if baseball isn’t your thing I do not want to keep sending you daily missives about a baseball road trip that took place 30 years ago. The discussion here will remain focused on the topic of reconnecting America.

Whichever camp you are in, thanks for reading! I hope you have a joyful Friday night.

At least I saw it coming this time, I just didn’t know when. As I wrote my Groundhog’s Day post earlier this month I tried to make a point, probably more to myself than any readers. My PFA travel trail concept is likely to be a work of fits and starts. I have enjoyed the first round of stops and discovered some issues that really need to be explored and understood better in parts of the country that don’t feel them so acutely. I expect that, as time and enthusiasm allow, I will continue to write about visits to these places, virtual and otherwise. But as I was wondering yesterday when the NCAA college basketball conference tournaments would begin I was startled to find out that they would/did begin last night.

If I were to try to wrap up my whole, obsession really, with the varied nature of the many cities and small towns across the United States into some kind of sports metaphor, the college basketball landscape would be about as close as I could get. The NCAA tournament, with 68 teams taking part, is already the most open of any team sport’s championship. College football has just four teams in its championship playoff, which admittedly is four more than it used to have.

But March Madness is only the beginning. Going into the month of March each season nearly all of the nation’s 350-plus Division One teams still have a theoretical chance of cutting down the nets as national champions. That’s because all 32 (31 this year) of the college basketball conferences send the team that wins their post-season tournament to the NCAA tournament and most of them allow all their teams to play in those tournaments. Last night I watched the Mastodons of Purdue-Fort Wayne University avoid extinction (sorry I couldn’t help it) with a very entertaining 89-84 double-overtime win over Green Bay in the first round of the Horizon League Championship. So far this year the ‘Dons have struggled to an 8-14 record, but if it could reel off nine or ten more wins (depending on NCAA seeding,) the team would wake up the morning of April 6 as national champions.

An outcome like that is pretty far-fetched but it is possible and that’s the thing. It was just three years ago that the team that finished second in the previously pretty unknown (outside the northeast anyway) America East conference got on a run in its conference tournament and then pulled off the biggest upset in the sport’s history. UMBC beat the number one team in the country, Virginia, by 20 points in the first round of the 2018 NCAA tournament.

So, for the next few weeks my discretionary time will be spent, as it was last night, down in the corner of the man cave amid the obsolete video game systems with as many screens going as I can conjure. Through the $6 per month miracle known as ESPN Plus it is now possible to watch all the early round action from even the smallest conferences. There are no tournament games today but tomorrow the aforementioned America East begins its men’s tournament as does the Big South. Another 12 conferences start their tournaments sometime next week and then the remaining 16 join the fun the following week. By Selection Sunday, March 14 this year, the 320-plus teams that are still in the hunt will have been trimmed to 31 conference tournament champions and another 37 at large teams.

Incidentally, in the spirit of the kind of minutiae you can always count on this blog to dig up for you, I found this on the Wikipedia page devoted to the Fort Wayne Mastodons.

“In 1968 a large bone was discovered during the installation of a farm pond near Angola, Indiana, about 40 miles (65 km) north of Fort Wayne. The farmer contacted professors in the IPFW geology department, who identified his discovery as the leg bone of a mastodon. Faculty and students from the geology department excavated the greater part of an adult mastodon, including the skull and tusks. The bones were cleaned, preserved, and placed on permanent display at IPFW. In 1970 members of the geology club, led by professors who oversaw the excavation, successfully lobbied the student government committee charged with choosing a name for the university mascot to select the mastodon. And thus, the IPFW Mastodons were born”

The PFA Trails will be back but for now you know where I’ll be.

Stop 1: Kansas City, MO

One of the tragedies of the depressing news of the past several months is that it has threatened to overshadow the legacy of all the amazing things that have been created in the 245 year history of this country. Indeed, I guess my primary purpose in writing this series is to do what I can to mitigate that threat. But nowhere does the risk of losing this connection to our past seem greater than in the arts. Human beings have created art since the beginning of our time on this planet, not because it put a roof over our heads or money in our pocket, but for a higher purpose – somewhere farther up Maslow’s Hierarchy

In the relative brief existence of the United States our nation has already contributed much to the global art gallery and this trail will celebrate those achievements across the spectrum of artistic expression. I cannot think of a more natural place for it to begin than the middle of it all…Kansas City.

Worth Celebrating

I could probably pound out a couple of paragraphs about why jazz is important and what its all about but that would be even dumber than describing what baking bread smells like. So, do me a favor. Put on a pair of headphones..make sure your device or computer is unmuted and then click on this link…you might need to wait through an ad or two and then close your eyes…I’ll see you in three minutes. Oh, and turn it up.

Didn’t that feel good? The American Jazz Museum opened up in Kansas City, MO in 1997. It is in the revitalized downtown neighborhood known as the 18th and Vine Jazz District and is one of a few museums in the area. The museum is currently open for visitors although there are some changes and restrictions to accommodate for Covid-19. I don’t expect to be in the Kansas City area again in the immediate future, though and perhaps you are not either and the museum also has a nice virtual exhibit called AJM@Home, which gives a very nice overview of its collection and the role of jazz in the city.

Jazz is a uniquely American art form and its importance has stretched across the nation so other cities could perhaps been the site of an American Jazz Museum. But Kansas City has a history with jazz all its own. Kansas City Jazz gets its own entry in Wikipedia. Legendary pianist Bennie Moten was from Kansas City as was saxophonist Charlie (Bird) Parker, who you listened to a minute ago. Count Basie became famous in Kansas City and together with the aforementioned artists and many others created a different sound that was unique to the area.

The musical differences between Kansas City Jazz and other styles are nicely expressed at the bottom of the Wikipedia page above but if you would rather listen to different styles than read about them then check out the cool page linked below. It was created to help musicians learn the differences between different styles on their way to playing them but the 10 Key Tunes (scroll down in the post) are just fun to listen to. Check your pulse if you are not inspired to listen to some more jazz by the end.

If you are feeling thus inspired, here are two more things to continue your journey. Last fall Kansas City PBS produced a program entitled Bird: Not out of Nowhere to commemorate what would have been Charlie Parker’s 100th birthday. I haven’t watched the whole thing yet but it looks awesome and will be on the Craib family viewing docket tonight.

Also, tomorrow, February 12th from 1 pm-2 pm Eastern (12-1 CDT) the Blue Room at the American Jazz Museum will be doing a Facebook livestream of its Jazz at Noon music series featuring the Will Matthews Organ Trio. The concert is virtual-only and free though a donation is suggested on the site. As a side note, the link on the Blue Room page appears to be broken but it looks like we will be able to find the concert here.

https://www.facebook.com/TheBlueRoomKC

A Work in Progress

Like any large American city (KC was 38th among US cities in 2020) Kansas City has its share of challenges. The timing is good to write about them, though, since just last night the Mayor delivered his 2021 State of the City address. Quinton Lucas, in his second year as mayor, delivered the speech virtually this year. In his remarks, the mayor said, “I pose three important questions for us tonight…”

First: How do we learn from the past year about health, our economy, and our budget to move
more responsibly into the future?

Second: As we work to rebuild economically, how do we ensure equitable economic development
that will improve Kansas City for the next generation?

Third: How do we keep Kansas Citians safe, implement transformative, long-term violence
prevention strategies, and build community trust?

The impact of Covid-19 on the city was underscored by a heartbreaking segment of his speech when the mayor expressed his condolences for the families who have lost loved ones to the virus. He mentioned his sign language interpreter, who lost both her parents to the virus in the last week but continued to translate his remarks. If you do not have twitter on your computer or device you can watch this moving segment as part of this report.

The second question references a debate many communities are having about whether it is appropriate to use city funding for the development of attractions, such as stadiums, that are more often used by visitors than residents. The city is expected to refinance a large chunk of debt it took on help pay for the development of the Kansas City Power and Light District, which includes KC Live, a popular outdoor entertainment hub. Covid-19 has hit the area venues hard for obvious reasons but the Kansas City Star reported earlier this year that even before the pandemic the area wasn’t producing enough revenue to pay for the bonds used to build it.

Toward the end of his speech Mayor Lucas’ talked about the third of his questions above. Missouri had the third-highest per capita rate of gun deaths in the nation in 2020 and Kansas City was second in the state (to St. Louis) with 161 of those.

“More often than not, homicides are not random. They happen when there are no readily available support systems, mental health services, no alternative path for reconciliation, and, often, little trust in law enforcement,” Lucas said. (Our) ..” framework incorporated four areas of focus:

• Prevention, through impactful programs and opportunities that work to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline, improve safe spaces, and remove economic barriers that impede individual success.

• Intervention: through identifying individuals most at-risk for committing violent crime and intervene with necessary resources to help set them on the right path.

• Law Enforcement and the Community: though accountability measures and increased outreach for law enforcement, encouraging communication and collaboration with the community on the most violent crimes.

• Administrative Reform: having fair and equitable laws and community trust in our legal institutions.”

The topic is getting a lot of attention in Kansas City. Next week the Kansas City Star is partnering with another local organization to produce a series of events entitled Gun Violence in Missouri: Seeking Solutions beginning with a virtual roundtable on February 17 at 1:30 pm EST (12:30 central time.) The host is an organization called American Public Square at Jewell. Anyone who has been following this blog for awhile will know why I admired the site at first click. It’s tagline is “Building Communities with Civil, Fact-Based Discourse. Sign me up.

Coming up next on the Project to Find America, we will launch the Parks and Rec trail with our first stop in the Northeast, Down East in fact, on the beautiful Maine Coast.

Stop 1: Kent, WA

Today we embark on the third of our virtual trails, one devoted to the businesses that make this country great.

Great companies turn great profits. In a capitalist system, no company is going to be considered successful unless it eventually returns a significant profit. But those are table stakes and the best companies aim higher. Yes, they produce great returns but they do so while also inspiring their employees and customers, strengthening their communities and making the world a better place. In fact, after the last 15 years at an organization called The Human Capital Institute, I have long since consumed the Koolaid that says they turn great profits because they do those other things.

On the Industry for the 21st Century trail we will visit the towns and cities these companies call home, starting in the Pacific Northwest.

Worth Celebrating

It is probably obvious since I have included it here, but I believe REI, the outdoor retailer based just south of Seattle, is an unusual company. I could write several long paragraphs explaining why but I think this video from the company itself sums it up nicely in less than two minutes.

A few years back, I was emceeing HCI’s annual Employee Engagement Conference in San Francisco. We have put on dozens of conferences on a variety of talent-related topics over the years but I have always found the topic of engagement to be the most inspiring. For those outside the realm of Strategic Talent Management, which I expect is most of the readers of this blog, the idea of engagement is simple; the more you are engaged with your work the better your work will be and the happier you will be with your job. There are all kinds of benefits of this, engagement leads to productivity, engaged people tend to feed the motivation of others around them too and engaged employees stay with the company longer and thus lower recruitment costs.

At this conference an HR executive from REI presented on the topic of employee experience and mentioned an idea that motivated me to do something I do pretty infrequently, get out my phone and open up Twitter. She referenced the hashtag #OptOutside. For the last five years, on November’s Black Friday – the busiest retail day of the year, REI has given all of its employees the day off to be outside with their friends and family. Other companies have gotten in on this act and I applaud all of them, but REI was the first I heard about and the move was also so completely in line with the company’s values I found it (and find it) inspiring.

Corporate Social Responsibility has been all the rage in big business for the last decade or more and on most of the Fortune 500’s websites you will find mission statements about “giving back to the community” and I am all for it. But it is not hard to see that for many of them it is a PR effort and not much else. The Stewardship Report at REI feels quite a bit different than that, not just because of what the company does, but because of the way they talk about it. My friend David Forman, the longtime Chief Learning Officer of HCI, uses a term he calls the Triple Win in some of his work. It represents a symbiotic world in which companies, their employees and the communities they live in all thrive by looking after their collective best interests. REI, which has been on the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For list every year since 1998, feels like a company that embraces that concept.

This is not utopia, though. REI has challenges too. Covid-19 has hit the company hard, as it has with many retailers – it had a number of layoffs last year and it made headlines when it sold a brand new 400,000 square foot headquarters it had just completed to Facebook last summer without ever moving in. But even that direction, perhaps, was set with the same compass it has always seemed to use, the best interest of its overall ecosystem including its employees, members and the community.

Lest it seem that this post is about to embark on an anti-capitalism rant, I will clarify, I am all for corporate profits and big business. Not all companies can be co-ops like REI even if they wanted to be. But it turns out I think, that doing the right thing by employees, customers and communities is also good business.

Writing this post has caused me to think back to other Human Capital Institute conferences over the years. It has been more than a decade since with we had the author and professor Gary Hamel of London Business School as a keynote at our annual Human Capital Summit. His talk was about his, then, recent book The Future of Management. I listened as he made the comment in the quotation above and found it thought-provoking then, as I do now. His talk was quite similar to the one in this link below -I think it is as relevant today as it was then. If you have 15 minutes I highly recommend it. Better yet, watch it and then send it to your boss.

https://www.managementexchange.com/video/gary-hamel-reinventing-technology-human-accomplishment

A Work in Progress

Kent, which is the sixth largest city in Washington, sits about halfway between Seattle and Tacoma and a bit farther east than either. It is quite a bit larger than the two cities we’ve covered in other trails thus far and it is growing much more rapidly. The city had 17,711 residents in 1970 and 131,118 in 2019, which represents growth of 640 percent.

Not suprisingly, that pace of growth has brought about a new set of challenges. Kent, which operates on a mayor-council system of government, announced its 2021 legislative priorities last month and many of them are consistent with a city trying to keep up with the rapidly changing needs of its residents.

There are several projects aimed at making commuting easier in the crowded roadways of the area, though it will be interesting to see what impact the decision by REI and other area companies to continue allowing large groups of employees to work from home, even after Covid, will have on traffic. However, tops on the list of priorities is Social Justice Reform. The City Council in its statement was relatively specific about what it means by that:

• Social Justice Reform
  We are listening. We are learning. We are changing. The City is committed to working with state legislators, community members, and other stakeholders in identifying and supporting social justice reform. Specifically, the City requests that the Legislature fund mental health professionals to work alongside police officers, establish standardized use of force reporting requirements, fund data collection from law enforcement agencies to identify and address racial disparity, and allocate funding to ensure improved communication and access to government for non-English speaking individuals.

Balancing the desire for a change in the way police work with the continued need for police work is a front and center issue in this part of Washington and many cities across the nation. Last month, on the same day the legislative priorities were announced, a police car was set on fire outside City Hall and the city’s police chief went before the City Council two weeks later with some grim statistics on crime calling it “a little bit of an open season” due to Covid-19.

This interesting article about the Biden administration’s similar balancing act at the federal level appeared on the Voice of America website last week.

Coming up next on the Project to Find America, it’s back to the middle of the country for the launch of the Arts & Culture Trail.

Stop 1: Sanger, CA

The second of our virtual trails begins today on the topic of Food. This one will encompass a lot of things that make American great – great restaurants, great food producers, great craft brews and wine, great food trucks, etc etc etc. America’s history as a melting pot of all cultures has made it the most diverse food scene in the world but as much as that is true, it all starts with farms.

Worth Celebrating

When I think of farms I tend to think of the Midwest, it’s the whole Amber Waves of Grain thing. And if you have spent any time driving in the middle of this country you know that there are miles and miles and miles of just that. It is also tempting to think that farming is something that happens “out in the country,” far away from cities and towns.

But the largest U.S. state in terms of agricultural output is California, which, of course, is also the nation’s most populous and much of that farming is done within a few hours drive of both San Francisco and Los Angeles. Nearly all of the top 10 ag counties in any given year are in California and tops on that list recently is Fresno County…right in the middle of California’s Central Valley.

There are not that many restaurants of note in Sanger, CA – a search on Trip Advisor reveals that Starbucks is 9th and Jack-in-the-Box 12th among the best restaurants in town. But every great restaurant in San Francisco or Los Angeles (or New York for that matter) owes a debt to Sanger and the other towns of Fresno County for many of the fruits and vegetables on which their chefs work their magic.

I’ve chosen Sanger as the base for this stop on the Food and Drink Trail but it might easily be nearby Clovis, or Kingsburg or Reedley, where the 2021 Fresno County Blossom Trail officially opened yesterday. Here’s a cool video of what the Blossom Trail looks like from this time last year. For those watching from snow-covered climes, that white stuff on the ground isn’t snow…it is almond blossoms.

California is said to produce a third of the nation’s vegetables and two-thirds of its fruit and most of that is grown in the Central Valley, an expanse of about 18,000 square miles primarily made up of the Sacramento River valley in the north and the San Joaquin valley in the South.

Fresno County is particularly known for fruit and nuts. Roughly 80 percent of the world’s supply of almonds grows in the Central Valley, much of it here and grapes (and the raisins they become) are also a huge commodity. The burgeoning Almond industry is controversial on multiple levels (see below) but it has been a boon to the area’s farmers as prices for almonds, which now rank as the US’ most valuable specialty crop export, have risen steadily over the last decade.

Today’s virtual celebration, though, is really about all the crops that grow in this region. I have never been to the Central Valley at blossom time, which is about to begin, but I spent a lot of time going up and down the region during my two baseball trips in April of 1991 and again in 2003. There are minor league teams in several towns in the region and everywhere I went I was blown away at the abundance of fruit and vegetables growing in the fields all around you. I camped next to an almond grove outside Modesto and recall buying artichokes 15-for-a-dollar a little farther west near Salinas.

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In addition to being a fan of restaurants I also like to cook so posts on the Food & Drink trail may also include recipes. Here’s one from Chicago restaurateur Rick Bayless for Mole Poblano. It is a classic Mexican sauce most notable because it contains chocolate, but both of Fresno County’s prime crops, Almonds and Raisins, also play a starring role. I’m going to try it with some roasted turkey this weekend, if you make it let me know how it turns out.

A Work in Progress

As abundant as the farm lands of the Central Valley are, they are equally controversial. Water – where it comes from and how it is used is a vitally important issue throughout drought-stricken California but nowhere is it more front and center than in the Central Valley.

Almonds are a particular source of contention. As successful as almond growing has become many critics worry that the water they consume (apparently much more than grapes, for instance,) is endangering the state’s water supply, perhaps permanently. There are one-sided shame pieces under helpful headings like “nuts you should stop eating” like this one and more well-researched articles like this one. There are also articles encouraging people to stop vilifying almonds.

Like most other tough challenges facing the United States there are plenty of strong feelings and it is much easier to say what should not be done than what should be. Meanwhile the issue has created a growing gulf between the urban dwellers who live on the coast of the state and the farmers in inland California. Valley PBS, the Central Valley’s public broadcasting station is in Season Two of a fascinating program called American Grown – My Job Depends on AG…it’s worth a look some evening even if you live far away from this area…chances are some of the food in your pantry comes from here.

That’s it for this week. Enjoy Super Bowl weekend, we’ll see you next week for the start of the 21st Century Industry trail and if you missed last week’s post, here’s the start of the Innovative History Trail.

Stop 1: Atchison, KS

Happy Thursday! Since this is the first entry in this series I want to try to explain a bit about what I have planned in the days ahead. We will launch six “virtual tours” – perhaps someday they might even be actual tours of the United States. Each of these tours is going to follow a “trail.” Pre-Covid anyway, these had become all the rage in the world of tourism. There are Craft Brew Trails, Bourbon Trails, Fruit Trails, even Quilting Trails and, perhaps not surprisingly, I love the concept – find something you are passionate about, then travel around and experience lots of it…yes please, sign me up!

The six topics behind the trails represent things I am interested in, you might choose some different ones or an entirely different six so feel free to skip over trails that don’t interest you. If it seems interesting or valuable to you, I could even try to figure out if it is possible to subscribe to the different series separately. Drop me a line.

Why am I doing this? First and pretty simply, I think it will be fun…fun to research and fun to write. Why am I writing about it and sharing it with others? Well, beyond being fun I am hopeful that these stories will be reassuring to me and perhaps to you. If our view of the outside in our Covid-confined and confused world comes from the headlines in Google News or the nightly news broadcasts or worse, social media, the United States can feel like a pretty hopeless place. But for all its warts, which have been on full display for the last year, I believe it is still a pretty amazing country full of amazing people and places. Thus, the first order of business in each of these posts will be to share something that, I think anyway, is Worth Celebrating.

But I also want the posts to go a little beyond the Chamber of Commerce view of the world. Each of the stops on these trails are real places with cool stuff to be sure, but also real challenges that they often have in common with other communities across the country and around the world. So the second focus on each stop is entitled A Work in Progress. It will be made up of a few links that cover a particular challenge that the community is working on and various solutions that have been presented to it.

Also, a note about the stops on these trails and the order in which they are presented. This is not meant to be a ranking of the “Top 50 Fabulous Historic Sites to read about before you die.” I think the last thing this country needs is yet another reason to compete with itself. Instead, geography is driving what is included here. Four of the trails will begin in the four corners of the country and the other two, including today’s, will begin in the middle. My hope, if the project lasts long enough, is to include stops in all 50 states and multiple parts of each state but the stops will mainly be contiguous, meaning that, most of the time, the next stop on each trail will be in a neighboring state to the last one.

Finally, this wordy post notwithstanding, I am hoping that most of these posts can be read in five minutes but link to information you could spend a weekend on if you so choose. Without further ado…

Worth Celebrating

I expect that the members of my family knew what the focus of the first post was going to be as soon as they saw Atchison. My brothers and I grew up in a train-focused household. My dad worked for railroads, covered railroads in magazines and even wrote a book about railroads and, in his spare time, took, literally, thousands of pictures of trains. It is not an exaggeration, I don’t think, to say that for every baseball park picture and video I’ve taken, he took ten of trains. At some level he passed on that passion to each of his boys and I have crisscrossed the country by train several times over the years, most recently with my own son.

The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe railroad no longer exists by that name, it merged with the Burlington Northern Railroad to become the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway at the end of 1996. But for more than a century the AT&SF was one of the most important railroads in the country and a primary driver in the country’s westward expansion. It was chartered in February of 1859 and although it progressed relatively quickly on the 55 miles between the first two cities in its charter, it was another 692 to the next one. The railroad originally bypassed Santa Fe, New Mexico and it’s mountainous terrain and had been connected all the way to the west coast for several years before its namesake terminus finally got train service via an 18-mile branch line from Lamy, NM. A bit of trivia, that short line railroad, more recently known as the Santa Fe Southern was reportedly recently purchased by a group that includes George R.R. Martin, the screenwriter of Game of Thrones.

There is a nice summary of the AT&SF history in that region on the New Mexico Museum of Art’s website and here is a longer but nicely complete Wikipedia entry on the railroad overall.

The AT&SF is the long checkered blue line that covers most of the bottom left of the map in the board game Rail Baron

Unlike some of its competitors, the Santa Fe made passenger travel a priority. It ran several famous passenger trains all the way from Chicago to the West Coast through the first half of the last century and before dining cars became commonly used on long distance trains, the Santa Fe partnered with the Fred Harvey Company to feed passengers at a growing network of diners and hotels known as Harvey Houses. They became so famous they were the subject of a movie musical starring Judy Garland; my brother Rory loves both trains and musicals so this video is for him.

Atchison, a city that today has just over 10,000 residents might seem a strange place to be the eastern terminus of one of the country’s most important railroads but the pictures below from a trip Alistair and I took in 2019 explain part of why it is was chosen. The city sits on the banks of the Missouri River and the Lewis and Clark expedition passed through on July 4, 1804. That’s the Lewis & Clark pavilion in the picture below along with, notably, a railroad bridge that connected Chicago to Los Angeles.

One final note on this city’s incredible history – Amelia Earhart was born in Atchison in 1897 and the city’s airport bears her name today.

If feeling inspired for more – both Amelia, a 2009 film starring Hilary Swank and The Harvey Girls are available for rental on Amazon Prime and a few other platforms.

A Work in Progress

Despite its very unusual history, Atchison has many of the same challenges as small cities across the country. This interesting infographic from the city’s website tells a tale many other communities could tell too – a gradual decline in population (the city had just over 12,000 residents in 1970 and just over 10,000 today, ) declining home values and fairly stagnant wages. To underscore this last point, the most recent median household income figure was $41,268 in 2017, an annual increase of $1,151 from seven years earlier. Written this way begs the question..is that good or bad? But that increase works out to 2.8% – barely above the 2.1 percent inflation rate over the same period.

Not surprisingly then, wage growth was at the top of the list of “frequently cited concerns” in the city’s 2016-2030 strategic planning document and that is despite the fact that Atchison has a more diverse population of employers than many cities of its size. Local Benedictine College was the largest employer in the city at the time of this 2020 infographic and the city’s hospital was second, but third and fifth on the list are local manufacturers. Bradken, an Australian corporation is the current owner of a steel foundry right in the center of town that has been making rail and transit components since 1872 and MGP Ingredients, which makes a variety of distilled spirits and food ingredients is headquartered in Atchison and employs more than 200 people.

Why are wages growing so slowly? This article from the nearby Kansas City branch of the Federal Reserve Bank looks at that very question. More stories are here and here

There are no easy answers to this challenge but it is one I expect to see repeated in many other communities across the country.

Coming up Friday, we will start the wheels moving on the Food and Restaurant Trail in the town of Sanger, CA – right in the heart of California’s Central Valley.