Abolish Kansas winter? It wouldn’t be the dumbest thing lawmakers could do | Opinion

It’s time to abolish Kansas winter.

There is everything wrong with these winters and nothing good about them.

Growing up the son of a mining engineer who moved from project to project throughout the American West, I’ve had experience with winter in other places.

We lived for a time in a town called Wallace, Idaho. It was generally a miserable place and the town’s leading export was ignorance.

But winter was the highlight of the year.

We had a ski area called Lookout Pass that got about 30 feet of snow, and you could ski from mid-November to mid-April.

There was even a bus that picked you up and took you to the ski hill for a couple of hours after school. Or, you could clear the snow off of a pond and skate. Folks had snowmobiles and even horse-drawn sleighs to pass the time.

And Wallace winter gave me my first introduction to the ways of local government.

There was a well-established red-light district in the middle of Wallace and brothels operated openly on a wink-and-nod basis.

The local police would regularly “raid” the houses, fine the prostitutes, test them for VD and then release them back to their jobs.

My dad thought that was kind of distasteful and took me with him to a City Council meeting where he raised a complaint.

When he finished his comments, one of the council members leaned back in his padded chair and said, “Mr. Lefler, are you aware that the fines from these establishments pay for all the snow removal from the streets? Do you want to pay higher taxes for that?”

Dad looked him square in the eye and said “You know, I don’t think I should have to pimp to get the snow off the streets.”

Let’s face it, Wichita winters bite. If we had a mountain and snow we could ski. And if it were cold enough long enough, we could skate.

The city only plows a small fraction of the streets when it does snow, so we have to put up with icy ruts as the runoff thaws and refreezes for weeks at a time.

Maybe we could use some brothels after all.

The one thing Kansas politicians all agree on — and talk incessantly about — is the need to attract and retain talent for the betterment of our economy. Abolishing winter would be a good start.

I, and I suspect many other Kansans, got tricked into coming here. Twenty-five years ago, I interviewed for a job at The Eagle, puffing cigars on the porch at Mort’s on a sunny October afternoon, blissfully ignorant that October’s the only decent month Wichita has.

I arrived for my new job in January in the middle of an ice storm. I’ve settled in now, but if I’d interviewed that January, I’d still be sipping piña coladas in Pasadena.

They say Kansas has four seasons and they’re right: ice rut season, tornado season, hotter than hell season and October.

Ice rut season is just beginning and the only choice we have is to hunker down and take it.

Sure, you might say we can’t get rid of winter just by passing a law against it.

Maybe not, but it wouldn’t be the dumbest thing the Kansas Legislature does all year.

Sometimes, politics is more about making a statement than recognizing reality — kind of like blaming the governor of a small state for global inflation, which our legislators have been doing for months.

And Kansas’ draconian marijuana laws never stopped anyone from lighting up a joint, no matter how much our lawmakers like to pretend otherwise.

The big problem is, if we did outlaw winter, Kansas politicians wouldn’t be able to start every speech they make on a freezing or snowy day with the line “Well, I guess it’s really global warming out there, ha ha ha ha.”

Maybe I am on the wrong track. Instead of abolishing winter, maybe we need a law fining politicians $100 every time they make that stupid joke.

That’d make more money for snow removal than brothels.