“Kansas?” was often the response I got from friends and colleagues when I told them I was taking a job 1,400 miles from eastern Connecticut’s stone fences and white wooden churches with skyscraping steeples.

Columbus probably got the same quizzical reaction when he told people he was off to find a new route to Asia. And, like Columbus, I half expected them to follow their comment with, “You’ll fall off the end of the Earth.”

But then I told them this story.

A few weeks before I started my job as managing editor of the Lawrence Journal-World, my family and I came to Kansas for a house-hunting visit. My wife, Julie, and our boys Eric, 13, and Thomas, 9, fell in love with the community, as had I.

Everyone we met was so nice and offered to help make our move as painless as possible. It was a good feeling to be returning to our Midwestern roots after nearly a decade on the East Coast.

The boys boarded the plane to Connecticut proudly wearing blue Jayhawks baseball caps.

On the last day of our visit, Thomas lost a tooth that was loose. On the car ride to the airport, Thomas yelped, “I forgot my tooth!” He had left it at the hotel.

“We’ve got others,” I said, reminding him of the collection of the boys’ baby teeth I have stored in my dresser drawer.

Thomas, who already knows the value of a buck, responded: “But what about the Tooth Fairy?”

Julie got on the cell phone and called the SpringHill Suites by Marriott, where we had stayed. She told the clerk who answered the phone about our predicament. He said he would check our room, and Julie thanked him. Thomas was pacified by the phone call, and we drove on.

This happened on a Monday. By the time the mail arrived on Friday, everyone, including Thomas, had forgotten about the tooth.

But that Friday, a letter arrived from the SpringHill Suites. Julie held up the envelope to show me the return address and then eagerly opened it.

There was Thomas’ tooth, placed in a small resealable plastic bag with care. Also inside the envelope was a crisp $1 bill.

I saw a tear in Julie’s eye.

Thomas just said, “Cool!”

When I tell people in Connecticut this story, they are amazed. Some have added, “That would never happen here.”

Maybe.

But one thing is clear; I’m not in Connecticut anymore.