About a half hour south of the city, following a winding two-lane highway that hugs the partially built but mostly forested banks of the larger Brown River, is the small bedroom community of Columbia Heights. Only one street for a business district. And that’s the highway running through it. Sitting beside an old wooden wharf, where a hundred and fifty years ago settlers arrived by paddle wheel steamboats to immigrate out onto the Kansas prairies, is a small restaurant called O’Malley’s. It’s a rambling old warehouse converted into a restaurant and sports bar. Walk in the door and turn left you move into the restaurant. Turn right and you’re in the pub fluffing down peanuts and chugging beer with the other patrons as you watch whatever major league baseball game is up on ESPN.
We turned l
