January 13, 2025
“Damn it The Kansas Gastronomist!!! You need to stay away from our sister!!!” Bob Dalton yelled as he slammed his fist on the kitchen table.
“Yeah…yeah TKG! Eva don’t need you around with your stunning good looks and wicked sense of humor!! She’s already head over heels for you, and we ain’t gonna tolerate it!” Emmett Dalton joined in.
The year was 1890 and I was sitting there in Eva’s home in Meade, Kansas. The Dalton boys thought they were so cool. But really, they didn’t know who they were messing with.
“You know what Dalton Boys. I’m gonna tell you something and tell you just this once,” I said in a quiet, but authorative tone as I dug my knife into the kitchen table. “I have a milkshake. And you know what that does? It brings all the bois to the yard. And you know the bois say?” Bob and Emmett Dalton shook their heads as they gazed downward toward their boots.
“They say it’s better than yours. Damn right!! It’s better than yours!” I screamed out loud as I did a little jig on top of the kitchen table.
As I toured the Dalton Gang Hideout and Museum in Meade, Kansas, and visiting the house that my former lover Eva once owned, all those memories rushed back. I couldn’t believe the Dalton Gang had been gone so long — felt like more than 100 years. But I’d moved on, and here I was. While there, I learned that my old stomping grounds had been listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2015.
— TKG out
