The Splendor of the Grass

An article in the Kansas City Star about a couple's multi-million dollar gift to revitalize the Tallgrass Preserve in Kansas brought back some nice memories for me. I grew up in the northern fringes of Tulsa, Oklahoma. We actually lived in Osage County, which was also the Osage Indian Reservation. The Osage Hills began there, and as a Boy Scout we camped in what would soon be a housing development. But then it was the start of grass country. We had oil wells pumping nearby, and a few cattle checking us out, and bobwhites taunting us from the brush. I loved the early mornings and late afternoons when the sun would make the hills seem like rustling gold. It's the type of country that people don't ordinarily think of as scenic... until they spend some time there. Then it will stay in your soul forever. When I was a baby TV producer in Tulsa, I got to take a ride in the station helicopter to get video of what had just become the Nature Conservancy's Tallgrass Preserve in Osage County. It was late afternoon, the sun lit the grass, and I was taking my first ride in a helicopter flying over an ocean of rolling grass hills. It was perfect.