RIVER CITY JOURNAL: WITH FARAWAY SONS, REMINDERS ARE NEARBY

Whether making chili or answering the telephone, you never know how one of your sons will be involved -- even from Kansas or Africa.

When you have two sons who live far away from home, it is downright amazing how close they are sometimes.

When I say far away, I mean far away. One son lives in mid-Kansas, which is pretty much the same as mid-nowhere. That isn't a slam at Kansas or its inhabitants. Plenty of folks think solitude, endless wind, broad horizons and spectacular sunsets are the cat's meow. Most of them live in Kansas.

Our Kansas-dwelling son is in his senior, but perhaps not his last, year at Kansas State University's Salina campus, which is the College of Technology. He is getting a degree in aviation and flying a lot. This makes sense, because the campus is actually a former World War II airbase. It all fits: Flat terrain, plenty of wind and minimal damage to the prairie if a plane crashes.

The other, and older son, lives in Boston where he does medical research for a living but spends large blocks of time traveling around the world, something both of his parents always wanted to do but haven't. For one thing, both parents were busy raising two sons. But that was a sober and wise choice, so there is no mumbling or grumbling when Older Son sets off for a year in Africa.

On the night of Valentine's Day, my wife fixed chili for dinner as a special treat. Ask me what my last meal would be if I were condemned to die tomorrow morning, and the menu surely would include chili. I've never eaten a bowl of chili I didn't like. If I were about to be gassed, of course, I might include fried chicken and French fries too. And a double cheeseburger.

OK. And some nachos with jalepenos. But I digress.

My wife said she had stopped by the grocery store to get some Worcestershire sauce to make the chili and had found a bargain and had bought four bottles.

This is where the absentee-son factor becomes important. You see, while visiting several months ago, our Kansas son persuaded us to purchase Worcestershire sauce and other cooking spices and flavorings in large batches. Really large batches. Like gallons at a time. It made sense then. Except every time a bottle of something like Worcestershire sauce is empty, we keep forgetting to look for the barrel-sized reserve hiding in the pantry somewhere.

I mentioned to my wife that she needn't have bought the extra Worcestershire sauce. She wanted to know why not. I reminded her of the Kansas son's involvement in preparing us for crash in the Worcestershire-sauce market.

Needless to say, the chili was saucy and delicious.

Older Son, meanwhile, is in about his fourth month of his yearlong return visit to his favorite continent. Right before Christmas he called from the only telephone in Tanzania capable of making international calls. It sounded like he was downstairs. Since then we have had one postcard (others have been more frequent recipients of his messages).

Then one evening last week the telephone rang. The young woman at the other end of the line identified herself as Older Son's friend from Boston who now lives in San Francisco. She had just received a fax from Africa with instructions to call us and let us know Older Son was doing well.

I don't know about you, but I would have preferred to get that fax myself instead of from some pretty young thing by way of a city some 2,000 miles away.

And the next time we need Worcestershire sauce, I hope to goodness we remember that vat of brown liquid aging somewhere in the kitchen.

Sons. What can you say? Except not having them would mean pretty boring chili and no faxes from Africa.

~R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.