prairie dogs

Grandad bought a couple huskies a long time ago. Those huskies fell in love and pretty soon, those two dogs turned into an entire dog sled team. They weren't so happy about being stuck in the middle of Kansas and at night, they dreamed of living somewhere colder and whiter. A few years ago, my cousins and I went fishing around in the garage and found the dog sled my grandfather had made about twenty years earlier. This was no ordinary dog sled. He had replaced the runners  with wheels. Although the huskies were all gone, we decided to try running with the sled, hopping on, and rolling down the hill (the only damn hill anywhere near Salina, Kansas). As we rolled down the steep, gravel driveway overlooking the wheat fields, I tried to imagine Grandad getting pulled along the prairie by a pack of huskies. He was probably wearing his red jumpsuit and looking out at what a lot of people would call absolutely nothing, but he would call endless sky and exactly the place he wanted to be forever. He sang "Home on the Range" nearly every morning and told us again and again, "You know, nobody would even know that song if it weren't for my father. Did I tell you that he fought to make it the state song?" Of course, he had told us. A million times. I didn't really see what the big deal was, but he looked so proud. He would always go back to singing, then we'd roll our eyes but I was secretly jealous. I wanted to be that kind of matchmaker, matching up a state with a song or a dog with a sled or a story with a meaning.