Bushong, Kansas – At the back of the auditorium light spills through roof beams onto the keys of this old Hensel standing grand piano. The school was a combination elementary / high school, a handsome building completed in 1952, one year before the town’s connections with the railroad were lost. Now the old school is unused and in ruins. Weeds have overtaken the sidewalks that skirt the shell of a city bank. An old general store has collapsed into rubble. However, next to it one remaining functional building has fresh paint, an accessible ramp to the front door, signs of life and care. The iron has long since been reclaimed from the nearby railroad bed, it’s pathway is now part of the Flint Hills nature trail, the edges thick today with ripe blackberries.