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George Gurley

George Gurley

George Gurley is a Lawrence resident who writes a regular column for the Journal-World.

Lawrence aspires to become ‘Utopia on the Kaw'
Sunday, May 1, 2005
Pascal described the universe as an infinite sphere, "whose center is everywhere, whose circumference is nowhere." To paraphrase Pascal, the most insignificant, obscure dot on the map is the center of the universe if that's where you happen to be.

Battle with stubborn pig inspires a troubling tirade
Sunday, April 3, 2005
The toy-like piglets had evolved into 300-pound behemoths in just six months. It was time to take them "to market," euphemistically speaking. But first they must be coaxed from the pen to the trailer, a project that filled me with dread.

Trip to pristine location provides no vacation from rules
Sunday, March 6, 2005
The guest house on the Oregon coast was perched on a hill over-looking the ocean and beach, the guide book said. Rustic and cozy, well-equipped and cheap, "a great place to hole up with family or friends," it sounded like just what we were looking for.

New Yorkers may scoff, but heartland has plenty of culture
Sunday, February 6, 2005
"Here's another argument against living in a cultural wasteland," said my wife. She was reading a review in The New Yorker about "The Modesty of Icebergs," a dance piece by Daniel Leveille, playing at St. Mark's in the Bowery. "The four men in the hour-long work wear no clothes. But their dance is not erotic. In their methodical balances and jumps, they resemble gymnasts, not strippers. And when they squat, backs to their audience, or lie supine and spread-legged, they radiate a sober detachment. A naked woman who enters the mix is treated no differently and a Chopin piano accompaniment lends the work a wistful tinge."

Malice needn't accompany political change
Sunday, December 5, 2004
On the eve of the recent election, the Wall Street Journal suggested that this one wasn't really any more vitriolic than past elections and that the nation wasn't really as divided as it seemed.

Musings of fall weave a poetic web
Sunday, November 7, 2004
No one would mistake my office in the basement for the headquarters of a $200-an-hour lawyer or a high-powered CEO. No plush carpet on the floor, no walnut paneling or fox hunting prints on the walls. No ebullient receptionist stationed at the entrance to greet you and inform you that Mr. Gurley is in conference, closing a big deal.

Politics brings out the radical in all of us
Sunday, October 3, 2004
Everyone knows that right-wing conservatives are holy-rolling, snake-handling religious extremists who believe the Earth is flat, that it was created literally in seven days and that it doesn't matter if we destroy it since Judgment Day is at hand.

War seems to be always with us
Sunday, September 5, 2004
Last spring, we traveled to Wurzburg, Germany to celebrate our son-in-law's return to his home base after nearly a year of piloting a helicopter in Iraq. It was a sobering experience for us, who take security for granted, to be in the company of someone whose daily routine was haunted by danger. I've never seen anyone take more delight in the simple pleasures of life or dote on his family more than that young man.

Summer thoughts turn to turtles -- and life
Sunday, August 1, 2004
Toward the beginning of "The Grapes of Wrath," John Steinbeck describes a turtle attempting to cross a road -- a negligible feat for a human being, but for the turtle as much an epic as the Joad's calamitous migration from Oklahoma to California.

Kansas-bashing book has it half right
Sunday, July 4, 2004
Once upon a time there was a dysfunctional state populated by simpletons, cretins, dolts, bumpkins and lunatics. That's a shorthand version of Thomas Frank's book, "What's the Matter with Kansas: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America."

Midwestern rubes have got it good
Sunday, June 6, 2004
According to a writer who grew up in Kansas City but long ago made his escape to New York, Midwesterners suffer from Rube-a-phobia, the morbid dread of being taken for a rube.

Morel hunting offers metaphors for life
Sunday, May 2, 2004
They say that even a blind pig sometimes finds a truffle. I'm not so sure. I've been pursuing morel mushrooms (Kansas truffles) for years. I have yet to find one.

Virtue still triumphs in world of fantasy
Sunday, December 7, 2003
Last Halloween, my 9-year-old grandson dressed up in a "Star Trek" uniform, pinned on a "communicator" medallion and sallied forth on a candy quest, armed with a "phaser" pistol.

No time, or need, for petty squabbles
Sunday, November 2, 2003
We may lose touch with them. Our interests may diverge, our characters and tastes may change. But no one can stir quite the same sense of commonality as our original friends.

Protecting the sacred spots of nature
Sunday, October 5, 2003
I was sitting in one of my favorite spots, by the side of the pond, enveloped in cattails, watching a little green heron poke in the shallows for frogs. It was mid-September, season of late bloomers. Maximilian sunflowers, blue sage, heath aster, tall thistle flaunted their colors against the waning grass. Above the flowers, an ethereal fabric of butterflies rose and fell. A few brushstrokes of cirrus clouds were all heaven had to show for itself that day.

Can creatures offer a lesson on love?
Sunday, September 7, 2003
A frog took up residence in our gutter this spring. How he managed to get there remains a mystery, along with the question of how he supplied himself with food and drink.

Wide open spaces strike fear in city boy
Sunday, June 1, 2003
Before we moved to the country, my visions of a bucolic, Thoreau-like existence were haunted by nightmares of intruders taking advantage of our rural isolation, murderous vagabonds creeping up the long driveway in rusted cars with broken windows, seats held together with duct tape, tailpipes dragging on the gravel.

Battle only a fantasy for 8-year-old
Sunday, April 6, 2003
When my grandson was about to go into surgery a few months ago, he quizzed the doctor. Was it going to hurt? Would the anesthetic affect his brain? Would he lose his "files?" (His memory, in other words.)

Could we just fight Iraq on reality TV?
Sunday, March 2, 2003
The Bachelorette looked up at her boyfriend, eyes sparkling, lips aglimmer. She shared her vision with him: She in a white dress, kids followed by grandkids and who knows what other standard flapdoodle signifying true love.

Animals with names are hard to eat
Sunday, February 2, 2003
My dogs see themselves as mighty hunters and often I catch them striking heroic poses, the canine version of bodybuilders flexing their muscles on a beach.

Rural life changes perspective on poaching
Sunday, January 5, 2003
Private property is supposed to be the foundation of good citizenship, the instructor of personal responsibility, a stimulus to industry as well as the key to golden prosperity.

Letters awaken historical curiosity
Sunday, December 1, 2002
A small granite slab embedded in the earth, half a block from the Old West Lawrence house where I used to live, informs the passerby that “Here Griswold, Baker, Thorp and Trask were shot August 21, 1863.”

Leap offers a new look at chicken culture
Sunday, April 7, 2002
By George Gurley

"The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing," according to some sage. I am a slow learner with limited aptitude. I don't pretend to know many things. But I have learned one great thing: Leap before you look.

Musical generation gap more like a chasm
Sunday, February 11, 2001
I was standing in line at the coffee shop. The music was turned down so low that I couldn't hear the words. But the voice was unmistakable, Cat Stevens.

Retirement inspires squirreling behavior
Sunday, January 28, 2001
By George Gurley

One thing about retirement is that it focuses the mind on the bottom line. Reduction of income inspires economy and resourcefulness. One is always on the lookout for another way to cut a corner, to cadge food and drink, to get something for nothing.

How could half the voters be so wrong?
Sunday, January 14, 2001
By George Gurley

We learned a little � about ourselves and our country � didn't we? For one thing, we learned that the slighter our differences, the greater our animosities seem to be.

Child has grasp of patriotic consumerism
Sunday, December 17, 2000
By George Gurley

Ancient wisdom teaches that the key to happiness is the abandonment of all desires. Unfortunately, if enough Americans embraced that philosophy the economy would collapse.Our blessed prosperity, we're told, is based on consumption. Since most of us have the basics, the desire for superfluities must be stoked to keep the great GNP machine purring.

Work holds new allure in retirement
Sunday, September 10, 2000
By George Gurley

Retirement was supposed to be a return to the sandbox, to the simple, neglected pleasures, to the unstructured life of an endless summer vacation. It was supposed to mean liberation from clocks and schedules. Time to sit on the porch in a rocker swatting flies.

Kansas City suffering from low self-esteem
Sunday, August 27, 2000
By George Gurley

Parade an inferiority complex before the world and before long the world will become convinced that you are, in fact, inferior.

Wireless communication ensnares Americans
Sunday, July 30, 2000
By George Gurley

Watching someone talking and gesturing in a telephone booth exemplified what John-Paul Sartre meant by "the absurd."

Canine coup puts dogs in control
Sunday, July 16, 2000
By George Gurley

Ever since a pair of monstrous bunions decreed an end to my jogging, I've been riding my bicycle on a prominent hill in town in a vain attempt to thwart the hooded figure who wields a scythe.

Concert a step back in time
Monday, July 3, 2000
By George Gurley

A desperate need to express individuality propels many Americans these days. With a gaudy assortment of embellishments � tattoos, dreadlocks, metallic fixtures inserted in the skin, even branding iron insignias that only cattle used to sport � people are obsessed with making a statement: I am I.