Editor’s Letter

Acouple months ago, I had one of those newfangled smart thermostats installed. It was a hassle-free process that will theoretically save me some money, and the installation guy got everything set up just how I wanted it.

“Sir, what temperature do you want the heat set on?” he asked toward the end.

“Not too warm, like sixty-eight degrees.”

“And what about the air conditioning?”

“Uh, well, also sixty-eight degrees.” He grimaced, asked if I was sure, then grimaced again. My house has been at a steady sixty-eight since, bills be damned. Which is a somewhat long-winded way of saying that I sure am happy to see the arrival of autumn. Oh, sure, summer is great. And spring and winter are not without their charms. But if we’re being honest, I’m a fall person. I like the temperature to top out around seventy and dip into the fifties at night. I want to be wearing a fleece, watching football, drinking crisp lagers and listening to Neil Young’s autumn albums (After the Gold

Rush and Harvest Moon). I think it’s genetic: My mom stocks enough of her preferred pumpkin spice creamer to last the year. I’m a little extra excited about this fall, given everything going on in

KC. Last year, the activities that weren’t canceled were iffy. This year, with pretty much anyone who wants and needs a vaccine having got one, things are full go. We’ve got picks for Oktoberfests, pumpkin patches, a newly renovated Kansas City Museum, the return of the Plaza Art Fair and a couple months with all three of the city’s teams playing at once. As a Cleveland Browns fan, I’ll just go ahead and put myself on the record as predicting the Chiefs don’t have a strong start to their season, but Sporting absolutely looks like a championship caliber club. For this month’s feature, we’ve sorted through everything going on and highlighted the absolute best events between now and Thanksgiving. Elsewhere in this issue, we’ve got a fall fashion photo essay with looks we love, analysis of what new laws that open up sports gambling will mean for local teams and a somber feature in which notable local people share their memories of where they were on September 11. Oh, and we found the best apple cider and doughnuts in town (page 66). This is a big issue that’s packed with Martin Cizmar things we’re excited about. Here’s hoping EDITOR IN CHIEF it’s helpful as you plan what to do these MARTIN@KANSASCITYMAG.COM next three months. Chris Mullins

PHOTOGRAPHER The photos from this month’s featured home were taken by Chris Mullins, a former musician turned full-time commercial photographer. He’s an avid golfer, art enthusiast and coffee connoisseur.

Joseph A. Zagorski

WRITER The Backstory about the longest game in NFL history was written by Joseph A. Zagorski, a U.S. Army veteran, former schoolteacher, former park ranger and former sports writer for two newspapers in Pennsylvania. He is a member of the Pro Football Writers of America and the author of America’s Trailblazing Middle Linebacker: The Story of NFL Hall of Famer Willie Lanier.

Kayla Szymanski

PHOTOJOURNALISM INTERN This month’s fall fashion section was styled and shot by Kayla Szymanski, a photojournalism intern currently studying at Mizzou.

NUMBERS FROM THIS ISSUE

>$10 $500 14

Billions that an average NFL or MLB franchise could be worth in the era of legalized sports gambling.

PAGE 26

What it costs for a pair of authentic handmade leather boots like those worn by the living historians who will appear at Raytown’s Festival of the Trails.

PAGE 29

Seasons the Kansas City Chiefs went without making the playoffs after losing the longest NFL game ever played.

PAGE 104

DUST, OIL AND BLOOD

The most talked-about story from our August issue was a feature on Killers of the Flower Moon, Martin Scorsese’s adaptation of journalist David Grann’s book. The story focuses on the systematic murders of what were probably hundreds of Osage people. The movie, which stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro, is being filmed mostly in northeast Oklahoma, right along the Kansas line. The film crew has bought out the stock of antique shops in the Flint Hills to outfit the set with appropriate period pieces. Our story featured an interview with Geoffrey Standing Bear, Chief of the Osage Nations, who talked about his hopes for lasting changes to the community as a result.

“Thanks so much for sharing this article. I’m sharing it forward and hope that many people will see it.” —Lani HosmannHalter “Such a good book about a terrible wrong. Can’t wait for the movie.” —Linda Young-Teppo “Great story about how Martin Scorsese won the trust of the Osage people and the many ways the production itself is giving back to the people it portrays.” —World Indigenous News “Interesting story about filmmaking with a conscience, discovering history and exposing greed.” —Linda Hughes “I read it and always hesitate to see a movie based on a well-written book, but way more people watch movies and this is an important history that too few know.” —Sue Moen “European exploiters were and are still the biggest threat to every living species on this small planet. They can never right every wrong ever done everywhere.” —Denise Toleu “I want to see Louise Erdrich books brought to the big screen!” —Michaela Gillespie “I was in Texas for work in February of 2020. There were already commercials about how Martin Scorcese was going to be filming a movie nearby and the local news station was doing some type of cold case investigation into the story. They were super hyped about it. —Major_Warrens “I still can’t believe we’re getting Brendan Fraser in a Scorsese movie. It rocks.” —DeepSixWrestlin

SHOUT-OUT

The month’s cover was shot at Liberty Corn Maze in Liberty on a hot August day that featured sweatmopping breaks. Thanks to the staff for setting us up with a roaring fire.

BEHIND THE SCENES

Photojournalism intern Kayla Szymanski lays on the sidewalk on a ninety degree day to get her shot for this month’s fall fashion feature.

CORRECTION

Our August issue used the incorrect word to refer to the beef shawarma at Palestinian restaurant Baba’s Pantry.

CONTACT US Kansas City

P.O. Box 26823 Overland Park, KS 66225-6823 (913) 469-6700 EMAIL: editor@kansascitymag.com

My concern grew out of the absurdity that being on the wrong side of the street could put you in the system,”

—PRAIRIE VILLAGE COUNCILMAN IAN GRAVES, WHO SOUGHT TO DECRIMINALIZE MARIJUANA IN PV

LEADING THE CONVERSATION IN KANSAS CITY

LIGHT TOUCH

Subtle symbols of America’s ‘problematic history’ are mostly unnoticed on the River Market’s Lewis and Clark mural, the artist says.

BY LAUREN FOX

As a landmark mural gets a touchup, the artist explains the subtle symbolism you might have missed.

HIGH ON A BOOM LIFT in the heat of the summer, a Kansas City artist is touching up one of his old murals. José Faus has been repainting portions of the Lewis and Clark mural in Kansas City’s River Market neighborhood since early July. Faus was one of three artists commissioned to create the mural for the bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark expedition in 2004. It stands more than a hundred feet high and about fifty feet wide, occupying the side of River Market Antiques.

In 2020, tuckpointing repairs to the building erased portions of the painting. So Faus was asked to touch it up fifteen years after painting it with fellow artists Jesus Ortiz and Alisha Gambino.

Faus said he’s enjoying restoring the mural and reminiscing about his experience painting it—but the mural represents a “problematic history,” Faus says. “We were very aware of that when we did the mural,” Faus says, “so there’s some sly things that we put into it.”

The painting depicts a general scene of the explorers along the Missouri River, but it’s not meant to be located in Kansas City. Sacagawea, who is pictured in the painting, did not join the expedition until the travelers reached present-day North Dakota. Here are four small details to note in the mural, which hint at the artist’s view of the expedition.

1On the right-hand side are William Clark and Merriweather Lewis, standing above Sacagawea, Sacagawea’s son and York, Clark’s slave. The latter are positioned below Lewis and Clark as a symbol of their second class status, Faus said. They even sit on the same level as Seaman, the dog who accompanied the group on their expedition.

In the center of the mural, people involved in the expedition are seen taking items from the land and loading up their ship. Faus described this as foreshadowing. “Eventually there was going to be a lot more taking,” he said.

On the left-hand side of the painting, Toussaint Charbonneau, Sacagawea’s husband, is seen walking toward the group carrying a turkey and a rifle. Faus said the turkey represents the first Thanksgiving and how, if not for the hospitality of the natives, the colonists might not have fared as well.

At right, overlooking the scene, Clark’s thumbs-up pose glorifies the actions occurring and the future bounty to be taken.

2 3 4

PRAIRIE GRASS

A bold proposal for decriminalizing marijuana in Prairie Village failed, but it may hint at a coming battle.

BY EVAN MUSIL

PRAIRIE VILLAGE sits right between two sides of the marijuana decriminalization debate, literally. To the east, in Missouri, possession has been decriminalized in Jackson County and a full-on recreational legalization effort is planned for the 2022 ballot. But in Kansas, a gram of cannabis could land you in jail for six months.

Two members of the Prairie Village city council tried to change that with a proposal that would have made it the first city in Johnson County to decriminalize pot. Their proposal ran into a buzz saw of opposition that included the city’s police chief testifying that legalization would turn the leafy suburb into a destination for drug dealers. In the end, the measure was effectively tabled, and the decriminalization effort is at a standstill.

“My concern grew out of the absurdity that being on the wrong side of the street could put you in the system,” says council member Ian Graves, who proposed the issue along with council member Inga Selders.

The mechanism for decriminalization discussed was an opt-out of statewide marijuana possession provisions, which would’ve removed possession from city codes. But it wouldn’t have prevented officers from enforcing state laws. Instead, anyone arrested for pot in Prairie Village would be tried in county court, which Graves ultimately felt might be worse for those charged. “You want as few people as possible to have records,” he says. “And you don’t want to spark an unproductive lawsuit with the attorney general’s office.”

The lawsuit is not just theoretical. In 2015, voters in Wichita decriminalized marijuana. However, the state’s conservative Republican attorney general, Derek Schmidt, who is running for governor next year, took the city to court and won a decision striking down the voter-approved measure on technicalities. In Prairie Village, the matter is not purely academic: Public records show that from 2019 to 2020, the city had one hundred and two marijuana arrests. That accounted for about seven percent of the city’s total arrests, though the city was unable to provide stats on how many included other charges.

Council member Selders still believes the opt-out method is the most direct way of addressing racial disparities in marijuana enforcement. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, Black people in Kansas are nearly five times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than whites. Incomplete data suggests the number jumps to more than eight times more likely in Johnson County.

“If we had gone this route, it would have sent a clear message to our district attorney that we as a city no longer support this facet of systemic racism,” Selders wrote via email.

Police chief Byron Roberson, who told the council that the measure “will make our city more attractive to drug dealers and drug users“ rejected the equity argument. “I can only speak for my agency in my area, but I don’t see that marijuana is something that’s attributed to systemic racism,” he says.

Roberson says decriminalization would limit officers’ discretion in conducting stops and deter them from searching further. But he also doesn’t recognize marijuana as a top priority for the department. “In most instances, marijuana finds us,” he says. “It’s a random thing that an officer finds in a traffic stop.”

For now, the measure is stalled. Graves says a state-level approach would be the best path forward. “This is the state’s problem to solve,” he says.

7%

of arrests in Prairie Village include a marijuana charge

BOOK IT

The new NFL season is here, and it may mark a bold new era as the league’s new deal with sportsbooks remakes the sport.

BY HAMPTON STEVENS

YEARS AGO, there was a Simpsons episode where Lisa and Homer bonded over watching pro football. At one point, Homer lets it slip that he bet fifty bucks on the game to make it more exciting. Lisa was shocked and disillusioned. “What could be more exciting,” she asks, “than the savage ballet that is pro football?”

America is about to get the same sort of wake up. This spring, the National Football League announced its first-ever U.S. sportsbook partnerships. Caesars Entertainment, DraftKings and FanDuel all reached agreements to become official sports betting partners of the NFL. They’ll offer retail and online sports betting and even bring betting content directly to NFL.com and the NFL App.

The first impact of this will be pretty obvious. NFL owners, already among the world’s richest humans, are about to become even richer. Analysts predict the worth of the average franchise could jump three to fourfold, into the double-digit billions.

More relevant for the average fan, though, is that the look and feel of your favorite team’s game-day broadcast could be about to change. You can already get a glimpse if you tune into a Royals game—on a sports network now branded by the Bally’s gambling empire. Frankly, it’s been a long time coming. For a nation that prides itself on individual liberty, the United States has long clung to its Puritan roots in regards to gambling. Attitudes, however, are changing. Over the past several decades, as the country has seen a general relaxation of mores in regards to sexuality and recreational drug use, the same has happened for betting. Look at lotteries. The first modern, U.S. government-run lottery was set up in Puerto Rico in 1934, and it was thirty years before the second was established in New Hampshire. Today, most states have them. Or look at casinos. Nevada became the only state to allow legal casinos in 1931, and it took forty-five years before New Jersey followed. Today, most states have commercial or tribal casinos. Sports betting, though, was still mostly a no-no until three years ago, when a national law that banned sports gambling most places was struck down by the Supreme Court.

The floodgates opened. Major League Baseball and the NBA have both inked massive deals with FanDuel and DraftKings. A month ago, NBA commissioner Adam Silver gave an interview to celebrate the opening of a sportsbook at the Wizards arena in Washington where he explained their rationale. Silver claimed that league participation in gambling will protect the integrity of the game. They can track crooked behavior in sports gambling, Silver said, only by participating.

There are also, of course, a few extra billions to be raked in.

The NFL is the big boy on the block, though, and their new agreements could represent a sea change in how Americans interact with their favorite teams. We’re quickly heading for a future more like Ireland or the UK, where betting parlors dot the streets and people can legally wager on practically anything—even, say, the next president or royal baby name.

What’s really creepy, though, is the possibility of full scale integration into the broadcasts themselves. It’s easy to imagine a Black Mirror-esque, dystopian future where the TV networks include betting content in broadcasts. Already busy with graphics and data crawls, we might soon see gambling prompts as well. Imagine a graphic popping up that offers a chance to bet instantly, through your phone, on whether a kicker makes a field goal or the defense can get a third down stop.

Like it or not, this is the future. We’re looking at a U.S. where betting is ever-present, government-sanctioned, and—legally anyway—seen as simply another form of entertainment, no more or less moral than seeing a movie.

For me, come Sundays in the fall, I’ll take the Lisa Simpson route. When it comes to football, it doesn’t take any more than the savage ballet.

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