This is a story (you may begin to find a theme with these posts) about hospitality. It is also about the town of Coldwater, Kansas. The names and relationships below are falsified, but the fact that they were there remains the same.
The summer between my 8th and 9th grade, my family moved from Farmington, Missouri to Carson City, Nevada. My parents, me, my younger sister, and our college-age brother along with four horses, a Welsh pony, and two cats. We set out from Missouri in a U-Haul pulling a four and a half horse trailer, a Volare station wagon pulling an 18′ boat, and a Toyota Celica from back when they were tiny sports cars.
Well into Kansas, my mother and I (in the Volare), noticed the left rear wheel on the horse trailer beginning to wobble. We noticed it about five seconds before the wobble went volcanic and the whole wheel ripped off the trailer and went bounding across a wheat field. A few lug nuts had been loose, and the whole thing had gradually sawed itself off the lug bolts.
My brother (his car was the ancient Celica) retrieved the rogue wheel. We loaded it into the boat and very carefully began to limp along the edge of the highway. VERY slowly. We definitely weren’t going to make Amarillo, where we had stalls and hotel reserved. My parents portrayed it diplomatically as a grand adventure as evening started to roll around. Privately, I think we all thought it was going to be a very long, horrible day.
A highway patrol officer came along and stopped us. A very nice man, who looked at our caravan, and the Welsh pony with her head out the side to see what was going on, and decided we needed help. “Well I’ll tell you what. Go on up another X miles. Milepost Y. There’s a road on the right. Go on up there ten miles and turn right, and you’ll see a sign for the fair grounds. My brother’s buddy is up there. I’ll call ahead and let him know you’re coming.”
We thanked the officer profusely, loaded ourselves back in the parade vehicles and limped along until we came to a fair grounds outside of Coldwater, Kansas. The manager there explained that the stalls were… well, not so great. But he could let us put the horses in the arena overnight. Worked for us, they were used to being in pasture together. The horse over the lost wheel got out of the trailer so shaky we were afraid she’d fall down. We got them all brushed down, fed, and turned loose, and my dad was explaining cheerfully that we were going to camp out in the U-Haul when the manager came back.
“My sister-in-law’s cousin has a bed and breakfast she opens up when there’s a county fair or the rodeo. I told her about you all and she said to send you over.”
We blinked. Blinked. Gulped. Thanked the manager profusely.
“I’ll talk to Lenny over at the garage. He has a nephew who does welding. Between the two maybe they can help you out with that trailer. Enough to get you into Amarillo, anyway.”
We thanked the manager some more, got into the station wagon and the Celica and headed down the road to see his sister-in-law’s cousin. The Lady of the house came out to meet us, bundled us into her house and fed us dinner of left over stew with fresh rolls she took out of the oven as we sat down. The rooms were freshly opened, the beds newly made, and she apologized for the closed air smell. “Make sure you let the poor kitties out to stretch their legs. Yes, yes, I know what the sign says. It’s a misspelling.” My mother found she had something in her eye.
In the morning this Lady fed us fresh-fried donuts, more biscuits, eggs, bacon… the whole midwestern ranch breakfast. She sternly lectured my sister and I that we were to make sure we took donuts for the road. We thanked the lady and went to feed the horses, my dad and brother went to take the trailer to the garage. An hour later they were back. With the trailer with all four wheels. We loaded up four horses, one Welsh pony, and two cats. We went on our way.
Those people scraped us up off the side of the road and were altogether amazing and wonderful to complete strangers. Coldwater, Kansas will stand out in my mind to the end of my life as a town of exceptional grace, kindness, and hospitality.
Tags: horses, story
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