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Welcome home. Or so it seems that's what the wind is saying as it screams across this open piece of ground I like to call home. I totally understand why non-Midwesterners despise this part of the country. The wind slaps you in the face, tangles your hair, stings your eyes and throws dirt in circles. It drops twisters out of thin air without any warning. Yet, I keep coming back. Aside from the fact that so many people that I love live here, there's something endearing about the rough nature of the conditions of my state. Tonight my dad, granddad and Rodney all had a conversation about the Dust Bowl days in the kitchen. They had the computers out to confirm their facts and everything. I was listening, thinking about how the people that survived the 30's in Kansas endured treacherous conditions for a long and dreadful period of time. Those people had children. Then those children had children. And those children are me and all my friends. I have to believe that there's a little something special about a group of people who can withstand hard times like that. And i guess I take a little pride in the fact that I grew up in a place where the wind tries to knock you off our feet and the twisters try to take everything you own. Still we manage to stand up tall anyway. It's not all yellow brick roads around here. But, gosh, it sure is something beautiful like that.