Yesterday I rented a car and took a six hour road-trip to Emporia, Kansas. What inspired me was this book, "What's the Matter with Kansas?" which says on page 59: "As for the rest of the state, nobody even bothers to try papering over what's happened; it's pretty much in free fall...this is a civilization in the early stages of irreversible decay...Main Streets here are vacant, almost as a rule...The town where this feeling of dissipation struck me most powerfully was Emporia."

Surprisingly enough, Thomas Frank is not popular in Emporia, but truth is not a popularity contest. The first thing I noticed as I took the 2nd exit into Emporia is what looked to be a $400,000+ house sitting by a small lake. I could not tell if it was a residence or some kind of country club and I was not intrepid enough to investigate. The next thing I saw is an Islamic cultural center which seems like quite a bit of diversity for a town of 25,000 in the middle of "Jesusland".

I then visited a used bookstore whose owner said she had been there for 25 years. Then I walked by a gym which had at least a dozen new-looking treadmills (later I saw most of them filled). There was a coffee/chocolate shop which had just opened a few weeks ago. Then I visited the Chamber of Commerce. A woman I talked to there was upbeat as Chamber people usually are. She said they had a couple new dog food factories and that their major employers had been around for about thirty years. (I am not sure if the dog food is bagged, or if this is a type of meat-packing plant. I did see a Spanish grocery that was opening soon.)

At the independent bookstore, the clerk was friendly, although she did not endorse Frank's book and got persnickity when I mentioned Amazon. Emporia has a Wal-mart, but I saw very few vacanies in the downtown. The streets were not empty, but a driver smiled at me when my dog wandered too close to traffic.

The campus at Emporia state was very quiet at 5 o'clock, but I was happy to see a building named after my distant relative Preston B Plumb. I was also very happy to find something else Leavenworth does not have - a Godfather's Pizza (is there anyway for Coke to buy this chain so they can compete with Pepsi Hut?) The restaurant looked like a former bar, but the pizza was delectable.

I stopped at Ottawa on my way home, and found people going to an elementary school concert (which seemed non-religious from the programs I saw in spite of the season). The reference librarian was positive about her town unlike my hometown in South Dakota, where the phrase "we are really hurting for jobs" is common. In Ottawa, I saw a downtown that was lit up, and had very few vacanies.

Anyway, the small town Kansas that I saw was more like what Franks says it no longer is: "friendly folks ambling slowly down the old brick sidewalks, little kids singing in the school, average people in rambling Victorian houses listening intently to the radio broadcast of the high school football game." That is what I saw in Emporia and Ottawa. I am not sure why Frank did not see it. What's the matter with him?