Ned the Impresario of Columbus, Kansas

The novel is based on an embarrassing, but actual, event. In 1915, Ned Aitchison, then a senior at Cherokee County (Kansas) High School, produced a student play that was condemned for being “one of those risqué girly shows”; a hootchie-choochie burlesque romp complete with chorus lines, ribald jokes, saucy music, and costumes no decent person would have worn to an orgy. The school expelled him. Six decades later, the elderly Judge Aitchison sits down in his favorite, form-fitting parlor chair, s