MissouriLife Articles

French Lessons

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 20:15:40 GMT

Ste. Genevieve helps us look back ... and forward

By Arthur Mehrhoff

Some people sample and collect fine wines, but I like to collect and savor vintage museum experiences. Following a workshop last spring at Cape Girardeau, I visited the Felix Vallé House State Historic Site in historic Ste. Genevieve. The experience of discovering a truly unique aspect of Missouri life interpreted by a first-rate museum made this French-American varietal a very special vintage indeed.

While Missouri was the American frontier for a very long period of American history, it was also the New World long before there even was an America. My German ancestors in the nineteenth century envisioned the Missouri River valley as a New Germany that would preserve their culture in an abundant natural setting; many French people a century before them also projected their dream of a New France into the fertile river valleys of North America. Missouri had a way of transforming such cultural dreams, though, and the Felix Vallé House State Historic Site at Ste. Genevieve tells the story of what happened in the New World to their dream of a New France.

The Felix Vallé House State Historic Site in historic Ste. Genevieve offers visitors an opportunity to see how French cultural traditions, especially their unique architectural style, were translated here on the Missouri frontier. The site features the 1792 Amoureaux House, a rare example of traditional French architecture in North America, and the 1818 Felix Vallé House, a residence and mercantile store that interprets American influence on this French community following the Louisiana Purchase and subsequent American settlement.

Telling the story does require a little bit of French vocabulary. Parlez-vous Francais?

Les Habitants

Or as Mr. Rogers might say, who are the people in your village? Ste. Genevieve was founded by French Canadians (the term Cajun, for example, is a shortened version of Acadians, people from a region in Quebec) who followed the explorations of Joliet and Marquette. According to Bonnie Stepenoff of Southeast Missouri State University in her book From French Community to Missouri Town: Ste. Genevieve in the 19th Century, by 1750 Ste. Genevieve was a mature village of some six hundred people. It was also a diverse, Creole society, free and slave, French, French Canadian, American-born French of mixed racial backgrounds with few traditional feudal obligations on land ownership, opportunities for a rising merchant class, and even strong rights for women under the law. More French moved west across the Mississippi River after 1763 in the wake of the French loss to England during the French and Indian War. Even though France ceded its western land claims to Spain, Ste. Genevieve remained a French colonial village with light Spanish control or influence.

At the Felix Vallé House, you can see how Americanization and mercantile capitalism brought dramatic changes to this unique cultural landscape. As contemporary America struggles mightily with the concept and issues of cultural diversity, we might want to consider going back to this period and talking with les habitants about their experiences.

Le Grand Champ

The Great Field, or common land, at Ste. Genevieve, represents both a unique and tangible system of land allocation and some highly intangible French beliefs about the New World. Le Grand Champ was three thousand acres of rich, alluvial soil given to Ste. Genevieve by King Louis XIV as common lands. The land was then divided into extremely long, narrow lots, one mile long and 192 feet wide, reaching all the way down to the river. This system of long lot subdivision ensured all farmers in the village access to good river land and reinforced village life, still a core value of French culture. You can still see the long-lot pattern from the air in Louisiana parishes, and you can still see the pattern of tight little villages surrounded by open space on train trips across Quebec. Or you can come here and see both in an impressive diorama of Ste. Genevieve in 1832, on display at the 1792 Amoureaux House.

Behind the very practical applications of long-lot subdivision lay some very deep-seated French beliefs about liberté and equalité. In his famous novel Candide, French Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire criticized European society but ultimately recommended tending one’s garden rather than revolution as the answer.

Although he strongly criticized French colonial policy, he, too, envisioned New France as the garden of the world, an abundant new natural environment where Frenchmen could escape from rapid population growth, crowded cities, and oppressive social institutions. As I watch development oozing across the Missouri landscape, I think about Voltaire and Le Grand Champ quite a bit.

Poteaux en Terre

The Amoureaux House faces Le Grand Champ but adds some new vocabulary to our French lessons. The walls of the Amoureaux House were formed from thick, hand-hewn logs that were then set upright in a style known as poteaux en terre, or posts in the ground. It is one of only five known surviving examples of this style in the United States. The vernacular, or common, style of the building is that of the French Norman countryside, but quite intelligently adapted to its specific Missouri setting. Its builders used Missouri cedar, a hardy native species strongly resistant to rotting; it seems to have worked. But they also incorporated a steeply pitched, hipped roof from French Canada to deal with occasionally heavy snow, along with breezy wraparound porches called galeries adapted from the French West Indies to capture as many cross-currents of air in the steamy Mississippi River valley as possible.

How many buildings being constructed these days will attract visitors two hundred years from now? As Bonnie, who is also director of the Historic Preservation Field School at Southeast Missouri State University, observes, “It’s one thing to read about vertical log construction; it’s another to stand in the cellar of the Amoureaux House and touch the eighteenth-century timbers in contact with the ground in their original location.” We hear a lot these days about “green architecture,” but a building that has endured for 215 years surely has something to say to us.

À la Recherché du Temps Perdu

“When to the sessions of sweet, silent thought,” Shakespeare wrote, “I summon up remembrance of things past …” Why should we preserve the memory of our long-lost French colonial traditions for Missouri life? Historians sometimes employ counter-factual history, or alternative endings, to better understand the network of relationships in a particular period. Here we can participate in “sweet, silent thought” about how Missouri might have developed differently, perhaps revealing some cultural heirloom seeds awaiting transplantation to the right conditions.

For example, I often think of Sacagawea’s son Jean-Baptiste Charbonneau, unwelcome in two worlds, and how he might instead have helped bridge American Indian and American cultures.

What if we re-imagined cultural diversity? How we subdivide land? How we build our dwellings? These issues remain very much alive.

Jim Baker, site administrator for the Missouri Department of Natural Resources Felix Vallé House State Historic Site, also mentions that the site has become increasingly a focal point for the study of French colonial society, creating a unique kind of knowledge industry with wonderful possibilities for cultural heritage tourism.

“The past is never really finished,” William Faulkner wrote. “It’s never even really past.”

Perhaps it’s time for a cultural exchange program with ourselves, to clarify who we became and think about what we have left behind that we might yet go back and reclaim.

April 2008

Carefree Comfort

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 15:39:44 GMT

Tucked in and around Branson with the King

By John Robinson

“Historic?” The chamber of commerce lady didn’t buy my logic.

I persisted. “If I were a vehicle, I’d have a historic tag. And Rock Lane Lodge was already historic when our family stayed there thirty years ago.”

She motioned down the narrow peninsula called Indian Point. “It’s near the end of the road, and now they call it Rock Lane Resort.”

Rock Lane Lodge holds special memories for my family. Our daughters grew up drinking out of big plastic cups with Rock Lane Lodge logos emblazoned on the sides, functional mementos of a fun family vacation. But alas, things change. The logos wore off the cups, victims of abusive dishwashers. The rock cabins are gone. The lodge still stands, though with all the changes, it bears scant resemblance to my memory. The resort features modern condos, swimming pools, and plenty of activities. I could see that the old “historic” lodge of my memories was gone.

Not to worry. I soon discovered that the path winding around Table Rock Lake reveals some real romantic hideaways.

I backtracked up the peninsula and crept past the parking lots for Silver Dollar City, the Ozarks theme park that sits atop Marvel Cave.

Intersecting with Route 13 at Branson West, I turned south on that twisty two-lane road. Detouring down DD, I passed Sho-Me Baseball Camp, where our oldest grandson Dylan—my retirement package—first learned the pitching form that will make him the next Walter Johnson. Along the way, I saw the physical embodiment of the phrase, “a man’s home is his castle.” In this case, the man’s castle is his private home, complete with turrets.

Not far from there, Skyview Lodge sits high upon a bluff looking down on the lake on either side. Skyview is a wonderful log structure that didn’t make it as a hotel and switched to condo life. At the end of the road, I discovered a quaint fishing village. Maybe it’s not quaint like a European postcard, but it’s quaint by Ozark standards. The cottages were tidy and clean.

Rejoining Route 13, I headed south and stumbled upon one of the truly great sculptures in Missouri. Forget that it’s an icon for a real estate company; this twenty-foot bronze balloon is a grabber.

I turned down Route RB. Most state road names have no real significance. They’re just numbers or letters. Not so with roads named RA or RB. RA denotes a public recreation area somewhere along the road, usually at the end. RB means much the same, (in my mind RB stands for recreation/boating access ... and I can’t find a road that defies this). Sure enough, the end of this road delivered a Corps of Engineers waterfront park.

Once again I retreated from the water’s edge and headed back to Route 13, where I spied a handsome little log cabin doing business as Jill’s Ozark Bar-B-Que. My stomach said, “Yes,” so I took it in with me and sat down in one of the world’s coziest little two-top booths, a chess-match-sized wooden table framed by two wooden one-seat benches. Jill’s specialty is baby back ribs, but I had a pork sandwich. I couldn’t decide which of a dozen different sauces to try. They had Jill’s Pig Out Hot Sauce. And Liquid Stupid. I shunned Liquid Stupid ... I don’t need help. As I left, I noticed Jill’s stand-alone outdoor, screened-in pig-out station to keep people from harming the bugs.

Rolling south, I entered the realm of the Lampe Litter Lifters. I know this because that’s what the Adopt-A-Highway sign said. Ha-Bob’s One Stop hails at the corner of Routes 13 and H, which leads to Bread Tray Mountain and the lake.

In my online research to find Table Rock’s most romantic spot, White River Lodge jumped out and kissed me. Lovingly built by Bill and Becky Babler, the lodge is a picture postcard of alpine purity, situated on the lake just north of Blue Eye. The lodge is hewn from huge pine logs. Such log structures became a theme in my travels that day. The great room has a large stone fireplace. Handcrafted log beds fit the homey ambience in rooms named Couple’s Cove and Foggy River Room. From the lodge’s ample back balconies, the lake view inspires the windows to your soul.

My car roller-coastered back to 13, and we rounded the horn at the southern end of Table Rock, on the approach to Big Cedar Lodge. In all of Missouri, there may be a handful of spots that can lure super-wealthy world travelers. This is one of them.

Big Cedar is legendary. And I can understand why. The property is charmingly woodsy, but it’s the staff that makes the difference. They attend to your every whim. Cookies delivered to your cabin. Firewood at your door every morning. Stuff like that. Cheryl and I stayed there years ago, and I remember the cabins bordered on rustic opulence, if there is such a thing. Big fireplaces. Showers with multiple nozzles resembling a balneal firing squad. Truthfully, Big Cedar is grand, but I’d be content with Medium Cedar or Moderate Cedar. Cheryl loved it.

I left the luxury of Big Cedar and reentered reality, driving along the southwest fringe of Greater Branson. It’s still amazing to me that you can be so close to glitter city and yet be enveloped in the woods. I passed Table Rock State Park and crossed the dam, with Chateau on the Lake framed in my windshield.

I must confess—I’ve stayed in some fine hotels over the years: The Waldorf-Astoria. The Conrad Hilton. The Fairmont. The Adolphus. The Grand. Four Seasons. The Fontainebleau. But the Chateau offered the finest suite I’ve ever occupied. Too bad I was there for only about five and a half hours—by myself. I’d driven late one night from an Ozark trout stream to reach the Chateau. I checked in well after midnight. My first meeting in Branson was at 7 am. But I had enough time to examine the exquisite furnishings, the leather chairs with iron and wood, the rich tile floors with thick throw rugs. A wet bar. A Jacuzzi I never used. A bed I barely warmed. Someday Cheryl and I plan to return and stay for more than a cup of coffee.

Next day, Thousand Hills waited. As Branson diversifies with a new convention center and a new airport in the works, folks are warming to the fact that Greater Branson is fast becoming a preferred golf destination in Missouri. And Thousand Hills plays a vital part. Tucked down in the crack of Branson, the course winds along a creek, manicured to rugged perfection.

I knew about Thousand Hills golf. I didn’t know about Thousand Hills cabins. How would I? The Cabins at Grand Mountain are hiding in the woods, right in the middle of Branson! Seriously. You could hit the outlet mall with a nine iron shot, and shoppers wouldn’t know where it came from. The cabins’ exteriors are pleasing enough, standing on steep hillsides amid the forest. Inside, they’re downright stunning. Last time I saw pine logs that big, I was in Utah’s Wasatch Mountains at the fabled Huntsman home. Because the cabins are individually owned, they’re decorated to the nines with beautiful appointments, tastefully done. It’s romantic and insulated from the neon noise.

This time around, I saw a different side of Branson. Driving downtown to view The Landing, I noticed the vibrancy that eight million visitors afford a small town. A thousand shoppers caromed between Dick’s 5 and 10 and Chick’s Barber Shop. Rocky’s Italian Restaurant, an original stand-alone, non-chain restaurant, seems to be doing a solid business.

Time for lunch. I’d sampled much of the Mexican cuisine around town, and it was good. But I’d never stopped at Casa Fuentes near the intersection of Routes 65 and 76. Strange for me, since I gravitate to Mexican restaurants that look like houses. It’s a sure sign that the food will be phenomenal. I wasn’t disappointed. From the beginning of the experience, I loved it—the thin, crisp, homemade white corn chips and a salsa with character. They even put romaine lettuce in their tacos. Nice touch.

I’m beginning to learn how to traverse Branson. They say if you live there, you’ll soon learn the network of back roads. A few months later, you’ll learn the third layer: the real network with the best shortcuts, many of them legal. Old bank robbers in the thirties called such shortcuts “the cat roads.”

And if I ever need to hide, I’ve picked out wonderful spots: secluded along the southern edge of Table Rock and tucked in the middle of Branson.

August 2008

The Acid Test For Gold

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 19:55:23 GMT

By Danita Allen Wood

The story started out as a special project
by a University of Missouri journalism graduate
student, Ali Ryan, who was working for
us. She initially surveyed readers, prominent
Missourians, and state travel experts to propose
a list, and then we had the excruciating
task of narrowing it down to a mere one
hundred. Rebecca French Smith came
onboard to complete the project and
proved so savvy an editor of the package
that she is now overall managing editor.

We’ve won four other IRMA awards,
but this was our first gold. We appreciate
the validation, of course. It’s a
real honor to be given a gold, along
with other gold winners in other categories
by magazines such as Arizona
Highways, Texas Parks & Wildlife, and Cottage Life.

But then I started thinking about
gold, the value of gold, and what
winning the award meant. I recalled
a term associated with gold, which is
“the acid test.” The term refers to the
fact that nitric acid is used to confirm
the presence of gold because gold is
insoluble in nitric acid, which will
dissolve other base metals and silver.

We realize the acid test for us isn’t winning
awards. It’s keeping you reading. That’s what
we strive for—simply to entice you into reading
as we celebrate and explore Missouri and
it’s people and places, past and present.

The Civil War in Missouri
I’m also pleased to announce that The Civil
War’s First Blood, Missouri 1854-1861 is finally
off the press. You can read about the book on
page 142. We spent almost two years creating
the book, and authors James Denny and John
Bradbury have done a superb job telling the
dramatic story of the Civil War in our state
before and through 1861. Our state actually
saw the first battle, five weeks before the Battle
of Bull Run (Manassas) in Virginia, and of
course, Missouri saw some of the most vicious
guerrilla action along the border even before
the war began.

Our New Gift Shop
If you’re looking for Missouri-made gifts this
holiday season, visit Missouri Life Marketplace
online at MissouriLife.com. You can also come
see us in Boonville and visit our small gift
shop in the Hotel Frederick, right on Highway
5, next to the river. Our office is only a block
away, so stop and say hello to us, too. We’ve
also compiled a gift basket of Missouri-made
products to go along with a gift subscription,
which you can see on page 10 or online at
MissouriLife.com.

Biggest Issue Ever
This issue has the most pages we’ve ever produced,
with a whopping seventy-one pages of
editorial. That’s more than were in the entire
magazine in our early days, when a typical
issue was sixty-eight pages, containing both
advertising and editorial. We thank you for
reading Missouri Life, and we thank our sponsors
for making it possible for us to continue
offering the magazine at the same price as
when we revived the magazine, back in 1999.

December 2007

Bounding Around The Burgs

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 19:12:44 GMT

By John Robinson

Like a Silent Conductor, the big, green highway sign along
interstate 70 announced we were approaching aullville. “no services,” the
same sign warned. that message spurred my recollection of a comment
years ago from an aullville resident, who was upset because the sign discouraged
traffic to his town. i asked him if greater aullville offered any services
for interstate travelers.

“Well, not at the exit,” he said.
aullville itself sits two miles off the interstate. assuming the collective
temperament of interstate traffic trends toward immediate fulfillment, if
not gratification, it’s hard to argue that the “no services” sign is misleading.
With no such warning, impatient drivers would reach the top of the exit
ramp and face an uncertain choice between aull or nothing.

My car wasn’t due to lash up to a parking meter in Warrensburg for two
hours, so we coasted up the aullville exit ramp. at the top, i surveyed land
around the interchange that wasn’t so desolate as it was pastoral—rather
refreshing, this panoramic view
from the crown of a hill along
this crowded highway. We turned
north on route T and drove a couple
miles. Just short of the banks of
Devil’s creek, a tributary of the Black
river, we rolled through aullville.
indeed, if tiny aullville, population
seventy-two, doesn’t provide
for most of the basic needs of an
agrarian community and its visitors,
neighboring Higginsville can.

We motored four miles farther
away from the interstate, north
to Higginsville. along the way,
we passed the republican cemetery—no sign of a Democrat cemetery ...
yet. We passed a flagpole flying a more historically correct version of the
Missouri confederate battle flag—not the ubiquitous southern cross. the
flag reminded me that Higginsville is home to the confederate Memorial
state Historic site.

Minutes later, i was strolling through the old cemetery on this historic
site, the grounds of the old confederate soldiers Home of Missouri (civil War
series, February 2007). the home provided refuge to more than sixteen hundred
veterans and their families, beginning in 1891, for nearly sixty years.
the home is gone, but several structures remain, including a chapel.

Walking down the rows of tombstones, i spied the marker. His name
startled me at first, though i knew his remains are interred on these grounds.
Well, at least part of William clarke Quantrill is buried here: five bones and a hank of hair. Other parts of him lie in a Dover, Ohio, cemetery, near his
boyhood home. Author Edward E. Leslie recounts the journeys of Quantrill’s
skull and bones and separates fact from fiction in the 1998 biography The
Devil Knows How to Ride, an exhaustive examination of this infamous character.
Despite Quantrill’s mother’s wish to bring his body back to Dover, only
part of his corpse made that journey. Grisly capitalists intervened to pilfer
body parts from Quantrill’s remains, and the skull and several bones ended
up in Lawrence, Kansas, in the possession of the University of Kansas. They
stayed there, in and out of museum displays, until Jefferson Citian Robert
Hawkins, a member of the Sons of the Confederacy, negotiated to have him
interred in Dover (skull) and Higginsville (bones).

I’m not the first person to retreat from Quantrill, but my reason was
trivial. Hunger held my attention. Angling east to Route 23, I dropped into
Concordia, where a burnt-ends sandwich at Biffle’s Smoke House Barbeque
thoroughly satisfied me. Please understand that while discussions about religion
and politics can become heated, arguments about barbeque often result
in chokeholds. So I will reserve my comments about Biffles’s world ranking
for my book on Missouri’s best barbeque, to be released after my death and
the safe relocation of my relatives.

Leaving Biffle’s Smoke House and traveling south on Route 23, my car
made no complaint as it absorbed the faint wood-smoke smell from my
clothing. We crossed Highway 50, eschewing the most direct route west
to Warrensburg, and continued south past Whiteman Air Force Base,
where glider pilots practiced during World War II. We turned west on
Route DD, which dissects Knob Noster State Park. Knob Noster, the town,
became a familiar name to faithful listeners to St. Louis’s KMOX radio in
the 1970s. Announcers loved reading weather reports from Knob Noster,
just to say the name. Well, Knob
Noster may never eclipse St. Louis
in size, but it helps play an equal
role, arguably, with St. Louis in our
national defense.

When viewed in the air, the B-2
Bomber resembles an attempt to
wrap a flight of geese in black plastic.
The first time I saw this flying
wedge—I didn’t hear it until
it passed—we were biking the
Katy Trail east of Clinton. The jet
appeared from nowhere and flew
directly over us. It made several
wide circles over the next hour,
each time flying precisely over our
heads. Since then, I’ve often wondered
if the bombardier was lining
us up in the cross hairs, just to
practice. If so, I guess I played a
small role in national security. But
I’ll never know.

Even without a bombardier’s
view, I knew Montserrat Vineyards and Bristle Ridge Winery were nearby,
and I vowed to return when time would allow. But the clock required that I
lock my sights on the ’Burg, as college students began calling Warrensburg
at some point after a blacksmith named Warren settled in the area back in
1833. Students may not know, or care, that the town has many textures.

The ’Burg claims at least two world-famous former residents, forever captured
in song, verse, and bronze. In fact, their statues have become my favorites
in the world, one because of its style, both because of their significance.

The first statue is a favorite of Baskin and Queenie, my Yorkshire Terriers.
Together they weigh only a fraction of the statue’s subject, but they share
that canine trait the statue celebrates. They’re convinced that every time
I walk out our front door, I’m headed to sniff out Old Drum, the central
character in the story about man’s best friend.

Old Drum unwittingly strayed into controversy, which evolved into a court case, Burden v. Hornsby. It wasn’t poetry. Hornsby shot the beast of
Burden, aka Old Drum, for trespassing. When Burden and his attorney
entered the courtroom to sue Hornsby for the loss of his dog, most everybody
thought the shooter should pay. They didn’t realize they were about to
witness history. The lawsuit, which wound through the courts and ended up
before the Missouri Supreme Court, asked fifty dollars in damages. Burden
received an award ten times that amount.

More lasting is the attorney’s speech, or at least part of it, which produced
the most famous line in the history of inter-species friendship. Nobody kept
records of the first half of George Graham Vest’s argument, but the second
half contains this phrase: “The one absolutely unselfish friend that a man
can have in this selfish world, the one that never deserts him and the one
that never proves ungrateful or treacherous, is his dog.”

Since 1958, the statue honoring man’s best friend has stood guard on
the grounds of the Johnson County Courthouse, on the Warrensburg town
square. Nice dog. Handsome courthouse grounds. Nice town square, too—
well-preserved, a menagerie of shops, restaurants, and saloons.

From the courthouse, I walked downhill toward the
Amtrak station, to view my other favorite statue.

I was mortified to discover the statue missing.
For years it stood in plain view of passengers aboard
Amtrak as the train idled at the Warrensburg depot. It’s
a likeness of Willie, who sits on a bench at a piano on
a downtown sidewalk. Well, he doesn’t quite sit. From
this most animated statue, Willie’s arms are not merely
extended, they’re launched forward, fingers splayed like
ten cobras striking in precision. He’s leaning back, to
offer a better glimpse from the train when it stops. Or
at least, he was.

Even before Warrensburg became a college town,
young John William “Blind” Boone was sharpening the genius that would
jump from his fingertips, transforming a piano into a worldwide messenger
of inspiration. Concerned about the fate of this most animated of all statues,
I inquired at the nearby Tee Haus, on the town square.

“Not to worry,” Tee Haus proprietor Sandy Irle says. The statue was hit by
a car. After repairs, it went to a new spot, in the park that bears Blind Boone’s
name. She sent me west down Pine Street to see the park. Overgrown and
overlooked for years, the park shows new life.

And across the street, the old Howard School—one of the first segregated
schools in Missouri—stands defiant against time, even though its classrooms
have been dormant for many years. After decades of neglect, loving hands
are preparing the school to tell its story of educating thousands of young
African-American children.

These icons—the school, Blind Boone, Old Drum—form a metaphor.
This territory can tell about a turbulent past. Bushwhackers. Dog slayers.
Segregation. Through it all, those venerable ideals of opportunity, perseverance,
and loyalty—nurtured here in Warrensburg—have survived. Blind
Boone would be proud. Students are enlightened. Dog lovers are inspired.

Someday, I’ll tell Baskin and Queenie that Warrensburg has a pair of petfriendly
motels. Oh, and there’s one in Knob Noster, too. Hear that, KMOX?

December 2007

Living A Dog's Life

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 17:10:13 GMT

By Ron Marr
BORIS, MY BLIND AND MASSIVE MALAMUTE, has just come
awake with a silly grin on his face. He’s a happy fellow this late night,
having just become the proud recipient of a gigantic “dog pillow,” the
canine equivalent of a feather bed. He stands, turns three times (as dogs
are prone to do), and plops his 115 pounds into a more comfortable position.
Within seconds, he drifts back toward peaceful slumber.

Such was not always the case. The rare syndrome with which Boris
was afflicted stole his sight within twenty-four hours. That would shake
up the best of us.

Two years later, Boris doesn’t care that he is blind. Animals have the
sense that adaptability is the key to survival, and Boris adapted with flying
colors. He navigates steps and jumps in the car with nary a worry. As
long as I don’t move the furniture, you wouldn’t know he was sightless.

I’m more than a little impressed with Boris. His surroundings may
be dark, but his mind (if behavior is any judge) is ablaze with light and
color. Simply, he has made the best of a bad situation.

At the foot of the bed, the venerable Henry, a red dog of indeterminate
lineage, is crashed on a slightly smaller dog pillow. I don’t want to
say Henry is old, but I suspect he remembers reading the original patent
for dirt. Strangely, Henry’s advanced years don’t concern him; in fact, he
ignores them completely. Some days it is an effort for him to get to his
feet—arthritis has rented a time-share in his hips—but once up, that
dog is a blur of movement from dawn ’til long past dusk.

I don’t know that Henry has adapted to age. It’s more a case of his
refusing to give up his fun. Hen moves with reckless abandon, tumbling
and leaping like Olga Korbut after twelve cups of coffee. He races the
fence line, barking and howling at floaters on the Gasconade.

When he decides to come in the house, he doesn’t stand patiently at
the door awaiting a pat on the head. He bounces. Literally. I look out
the window and see nothing but a head and torso doing a Yo-Yo imitation.
Open that door, and Hen explodes through my cabin, searching
for a squeaky toy that would have long ago been destroyed if he still had
upper teeth.

I’m more than a little impressed with Henry. This sort of energy
should have faded, but Hen apparently missed the memo. When the
ravages of time try to sneak up on him, he chases them out of the yard,
barking and snarling and refusing to play by the laws of nature. Henry
has his own laws, and they’re gorgeous to behold.

I’ve always said my dogs give me far more than I give them, both
in terms of love, joy, care, and laughter. However, I think I need to tack
“education” onto that list.

Most of this past fall I was wiped out with a case of the old-fashioned,
full-blown flu. I started reading up on pandemics, pondering my own
pile of years, questioning mortality. Those latter two subjects rarely come
to my mind … for I’ve spent most of my existence attempting (with
some success) to remain a juvenile delinquent. But the illness lingered,
morphing into a variety of related ailments that made the world spin
before my eyes and my sinuses scream for mercy.

Finally it ended, but I was spent for weeks. I fell behind on work. I
worried. I was unconscious for about sixteen hours at a stretch.

Yes, there was some self-pity involved, but it didn’t last long. I looked
at a blind dog. He can no longer jump fences and crash through the
woods like a four-legged bulldozer, but his spirit has not dimmed. He
smiles and sings and his unseeing eyes never lose their twinkle.

I looked at an ancient pup, one who refuses to give an inch to time,
one whose energy level is that of dogs ten years his junior. He throws
his sixty pounds from bed to couch to the great outdoors, always ready
to rock and roll.

Finally I listened to my boys. I dragged myself
from bed and went back to living. Like Boris, I
thought, I may have to adapt a bit or at least take
care of myself. Like Henry, I thought I should
remember that while age is a thief, thieves can
be locked behind bars. Hen has shared his secret,
and I would do well to take heed. I must not forget
to fight age tooth and nail, laugh in its face,
and let it know I’ll give back as good as I get.

You wonder why I buy my boys dog pillows? It
is a small price for such grand lessons.

December 2007

The Lodges of the Meremac

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 18:37:09 GMT

By John Robinson

I SETTLED in my lawn chair for the show.
Silhouetted by a spectacular sunset over a picture-
postcard valley, five musicians launched
into vocal harmonies punctuated by fine fiddlin’
and pickin’. Their stage was a concrete
poolside tarmac. The crowd sat in lawn chairs
and on blankets in this natural amphitheater,
a gentle slope softened by thick bluegrass.

Traditional bluegrass fans have little tolerance
for a band that strays so easily into
Buddy Holly anthems. But the crowd loved
the Stringtown String Band in this intimate
venue where folks mingle with bands like
The Amazing Rhythm Aces and Asleep at the
Wheel. The lineup this fall is no less impressive
with legends Poco, Arlo Guthrie, The Guess
Who, and Ozark Mountain Daredevils.

Where is this place? It’s near nirvana. And like
nirvana, you take a winding road to get there.

It was late Saturday afternoon. I’d just
departed from a delightful walk through
Dillard Mill, a relic fixed firmly against a
hairpin turn in the Huzzah River, a vigorous
Ozark stream often overlooked until it meanders
nearer the Meramec. Taking the back
roads, I crossed the Huzzah thrice more before
descending into Steelville.

As the self-proclaimed Floating Capital of
Missouri, the town caters to lovers of the
great outdoors. Before there was a Luckytown,
Steelville won the lottery. Well, to be precise,
the town is the beneficiary of a lottery winner.
In 1990, telephone regulators held a lottery
to determine which phone companies would
provide rural service to the burgeoning cellular
phone demand. Among the winners was tiny
Steelville Telephone Exchange. The company
parlayed that windfall into great service, not
only to telephone customers but to the community
and its schools.

Just up the hill from Steelville, overlooking
the Meramec River valley, sits Wildwood
Springs Lodge. For eight decades, the lodge has
clung to its lofty perch. And like many of the musical acts performing poolside or in the
cozy lobby, the lodge is a survivor. Like most
eighty-five-year-olds, the lodge has endured
peaks and valleys.

Today the lodge thrives. Owner Robert
Bell brings in the talent, including the
bands, the hotel staff, and the cuisine. He’s
revived a long history of great music and great
times at the lodge.

Like a proud grandparent, the lodge displays
its photos, visuals of pleasures and performances
past. Here, a young St. Louis musician,
Gordon Jenkins, honed his chops. Jenkins later
became a famous producer for Decca Records.
Listen to Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole, and
you’ll witness Gordon Jenkins’s handiwork.

Bill Freeman can tell you about that. A
retired state trooper, Bill is affable, polite,
and knowledgeable. And he keeps the hotel’s
systems running. Bill’s also a walking history
book, readily telling stories about the river,
the region, and the lodge.

The lobby’s charm overflows, especially
when a crowd gathers around Michael Martin
Murphy or America playing unplugged before
a roaring fire in the fireplace during the
Living Room Concerts.

The long dining hall could be a movie set.
Its hardwood floors, linen tablecloths, and gorgeous
floor-to-ceiling French windows serve
up splendid scenery. The guest rooms’ comfortably
Spartan appointments offer a subtle
hint that rooms are for sleeping. Daytime calls
for vigorous action in the great outdoors.

Like Wildwood Lodge, the story of recreation
on the Meramec River has its own peaks
and valleys. In the late 1890s, St. Louisans
would hop the Frisco Railroad for a short
ride to the Highlands resort and recreation
complex, just west of Kirkwood. Anticipating
the arrival of thousands of visitors to the 1904
Louisiana Exposition, the St. Louis World’s
Fair, developers built the Highlands, offering
enough activities to ensure fatigue: swimming,
boating, dancing, and tennis. Alas,
the Meramec Highlands suffered fatigue and
disappeared before World War I. City folk then
traveled further upriver to find Meramec hot
spots around Valley Park and Fenton.

About the same time, St. Louisans discovered
the lodges in the Steelville area, along
the Meramec. They’d take the Frisco to Cuba,
Missouri, where shuttles would deliver them a
few more miles to the river resorts.

Most of those lodges have vanished, victims
of time, the Great Depression, increased traveler
mobility, and new levees. Along the river, concrete
steps remain as memorials leading from
the water, up the bank, and into the woods.

But a few resorts still stand with Wildwood
against the ravages of time and the trend
toward corporate conformity. Cobblestone
Lodge is an octogenarian, too, and offers an
all-inclusive vacation that includes sumptuous
meals in a classic dining hall and floating the
Meramec, to boot!

Float like I did from Ozark Outdoors
Riverfront Lodge, which offers everything from cabins to the Grand Suite. It’s a great
place to launch an expedition to check the
health of the stream. Look closely into the
water to examine some of nearly four dozen
species of mussels, including the Washboard,
the Pocketbook, the Pimpleback, and the
Spectacle Case. Don’t be fooled by their seeming
inactivity. Some of these living water
filters are better bass fishers than anybody
pictured on a cereal box cover. The mussel
lures a bass to snap at a fleshy appendage that
looks like a minnow. The bass gets injected
with a mouthful of baby mussels, who attach
to its gills and take a ride for a few days as the
mussels grow stronger. Don’t worry, the bass
survives to face more challenges.

More challenging is the search for an Eastern
Hellbender, a salamander whose numbers are
declining. That’s a concern to herpetologists,
who wonder why this species is disappearing.

With a name that recalls another disappearance
from the Meramec basin, Indian Springs
Lodge offers individual cabins that honor great
Native American leaders including Black Eagle,
Red Cloud, and Crazy Horse.

Historic Bird’s Nest Lodge trumpets new
log cabins with all the amenities. On the
Huzzah, Eagle Hurst Ranch names its
thirty or so cottages for permanent residents:
trees like the dogwood, redbud, and
hickory. The Huzzah Valley Resort features
the Huzzah Hilton, Big Bear Bunkhouse, and
a pair of original farmhouses. Situated near the
Huzzah and next to Courtois Creek, Bass River
Resort offers a multitude of cozy cabins, log
cabins, A-frames, and hideaways.

The river and the resort business both
endure ebbs and flows. But two events nearly
changed the face of the region forever. Three
decades ago, the specter of a dam loomed
in the Meramec valley. Actually, the idea of
damming the Meramec goes back to 1830
when the Iron Works at present day Maramec
Spring Park near St. James promoted a dam to
improve navigation for moving iron ore.

The most recent plan would have impounded
forty-two miles of the Meramec River, nine
miles of the Courtois, and twelve miles of the
Huzzah. A group of concerned Missourians
realized that many Meramec treasures,
including Onondaga Cave, would be lost.
Several groups, including the Meramec Basin
Association, united to defeat the dam.

The second threat occurred almost twentyfive
years ago in Times Beach, a resort community
where Route 66 crosses the Meramec
River. To control dust, a contractor sprayed
oil contaminated with deadly dioxin through
the streets. The federal government made
history by forcing an evacuation and buying
out the entire town. After many years
and an expensive contamination cleanup, the
state established Route 66 State Park on the
property. The welcome center sits in a venerable
old roadhouse called Steiny’s Inn, next to
the historic Meramec River Bridge. Ask folks
who’ve lived nearby for more than a generation,
and everyone has a story about Steiny’s.
It’s a survivor.

Yep, the Meramec has endured both natural
and man-made disasters. But today, thanks to
healthy stewardship, the river has a fighting
chance at survival. And the historic lodges of
the Meramec offer their silent approval.

Traveling in Bingham’s Footsteps

Mon, 28 Jan 2008 16:50:42 GMT

The King of the Road traces the trail of Missouri's fighting artist

By John Robinson

The fire consumed almost everything, including Henry Clay, Andrew Jackson, and the Father of our Country.
     Jefferson City was basking in an unusually warm 76-degree temperature on February 5, 1911, when an evening thunderstorm churned across town, sending lightning bolts into the capitol dome, the city’s centerpiece. Fire spread quickly, granting occupants only a few moments to grab treasures and escape the conflagration.
George Caleb Bingham’s portrait of Thomas Jefferson survived the firestorm that consumed Missouri’s capitol building. His portraits of Clay, Jackson, and George Washington perished. That may reflect the love for Jefferson in his namesake city. Or maybe it was the only painting Senator Michael Casey could reach on his way out the door.
      Regardless, the story of the rescue of that Jefferson portrait kindled my interest in tracing Bingham’s steps, leading me on a lengthy journey with surprises around every corner.
      It’s hard to keep up with George Caleb Bingham, even though I have a car and much better highways. You could start in a dozen cities to trace the trails of Bingham. My journey began in Columbia, where Bingham’s good friend Richard Henry Jesse named George the University of Missouri’s first art professor. Fitting, then, that on this campus, The State Historical Society of Missouri houses an extensive Bingham collection, with thirty-three paintings, including the surviving Thomas Jefferson, and one of two versions of his most lasting political statement, Order No. 11, depicting a Union move to banish Missourians from their homes in western Missouri during the Civil War.
      From Columbia, I drove west, into the land where Bingham formed his first impressions. Unlike young George, who ferried across the Missouri River from his home at Franklin to a bustling Boonville, I drove across a modern span, complete with a walking and biking lane. The bridge may be modern, but downtown Boonville broadcasts its past like a living history channel. Here, Bingham got his start as a cabinetmaker, evolved into sign painting, then started painting portraits.
      Retracing one of Bingham’s early trips to St. Louis, I was surprised to learn George would thumb a ride. Either unwilling or unable to pay for a stagecoach, he hitchhiked toward St. Louis along a trail that eventually would become Highway 40. He never made it to St. Louis, laid low somewhere along the way by a severe case of measles. For weeks, he barely survived in a rural shack, fed by a good Samaritan farmer. Measles made his hair fall out, and he wore a rug the rest of his life. When his fever subsided, he limped back to recuperate in Franklin.
      I turned around, too, stopping in historic Rocheport. I heard there was a big party there, when the Tyler party Whigs convened their state political convention in June 1840. According to Bingham biographer Lew Larkin, Rocheport was the spot where “A tall, Ichabod-like, thirty-one-year-old named Abraham Lincoln gave a stirring speech that shaped Bingham’s political focus.” Bingham sketched many characters in the crowd, in various stages of speechifying and drunkenness over many days. He would use many of these characters in later genre paintings on politics.
      There are at least three ways to access Rocheport: by river, by auto, or by cycle on the Katy Trail. Trail traffic has helped launch a resurgence at Rocheport, anchored by the School House Bed & Breakfast for the sleeper set and the Rocheport General Store for revelers. The general store purveys fun and food and some of the best blues on the river.
     Back in Boonville, it’s a short drive—even shorter by river—to Arrow Rock, Bingham’s home after the 1829 flood washed Franklin away. From atop his house in Arrow Rock, Bingham could look across the river to the Boone brothers’ burgeoning salt business. The name of that business became the appellation for the whole region: Boonslick. Prevailing winds from the other direction may soon carry the unwelcome scent of manure from a barn containing thousands of hogs crammed together ham to ham. Folks in Arrow Rock—seventy-nine strong—are adamant that this tiny town, often called the “Williamsburg of the Midwest,” be spared the indignity of becoming known for stench.
      The Arrow Rock Cemetery is where George Bingham buried his first wife and then his mother. A little further down Route TT, just around the corner from the beautifully restored Prairie Park plantation house (call 660-837-3231 for a tour), the Sappington Cemetery is the eternal resting ground for several of Bingham’s contemporaries. Buried there is physician John Sappington, a rare “outside-the-box” thinker who popularized quinine as a treatment for malaria. Nearby are the graves of his daughters and two sons-in-law, who became governors: the rotund Meredith Miles Marmaduke, who married one Sappington daughter; and wily Claiborne Fox Jackson, who married the other three. After Jackson outlived the first two and married the third, Sappington advised Jackson, “I’m all out of daughters.” Bingham didn’t care much for the Sappingtons, Marmadukes, and Jacksons, all political nemeses. Their faces appear in some of his political paintings, usually in unflattering poses.
     Well then, like Bingham, I hit the road again. The route Bingham took to St. Louis—the Boonslick Road—loosely follows through Columbia and Fulton, angles up to Jonesburg, and sits under Routes M and N through Warren County to Cottleville and St. Charles. In 1850, a unique road-building phenomenon swept Missouri. With names like the Hannibal, Ralls County, Paris Plank Road Company, and the Columbia and Missouri River Plank Road Company, roadbeds made of hewn timbers and secured together like long, bumpy, cellulose carpets began to sprawl over the mud and brush of the trail. The Western Plank Road from St. Charles to Cottleville began to warp and rot soon after it was laid. Recently, St. Charles built a short replica of that plank road. The history of Boone County includes the clattering sound, heard miles away, of Union troops marching up the Providence Plank Road that connected Columbia to the Missouri River. All told, forty-nine companies combined to build seventeen wooden toll roads during the 1850s.
      As I neared St. Louis, the pavement was rough. I shrugged it off. Riding rubber tires on rough asphalt is a cakewalk compared to iron wheels on wood planks. Once at the Gateway City, I steered straight for the St. Louis Art Museum. You should too. Until March 9, you can see one of Bingham’s most vibrant paintings in an exhibit entitled George Caleb Bingham: The Making of The County Election. The exhibit features nearly thirty drawings, prints, engraving plates, and a centerpiece painting, which depicts a lively voting day scene believed to be on the courthouse steps at Boonville or Marshall.
      Unless you delve deeper into Bingham’s history, you wouldn’t suspect he had occasion to dip down into Doniphan, way down in Ripley County. Even today, it’s a day’s journey to get there from just about anywhere in the Boonslick. But in 1875, Bingham had been appointed Missouri’s Adjutant General by Governor Hardin. No idle general, Bingham ordered the Ripley County sheriff to quell Ku Klux Klan activities in the area. The sheriff balked, and Bingham swept down to Doniphan, staying several weeks until he oversaw the dispersal of the Klan. That’s not an easy task in rugged terrain where, with few exceptions, the back roads are the only roads.
      Residents love Ripley’s remoteness. Especially the deer. Traveling along Route M, my car missed a twelve-point buck by the hair on his bobtail when he jumped across the road. I hit the brakes and skidded. He dug as fast as he could go and polished my bumper. We both lived to remember the experience. Down the road, Route N thumbs its nose at wilderness with the loneliest four-way stop in Missouri. There, the highway bends sharply where two gravel roads intersect. Indeed, the road couldn’t have changed much since Bingham’s visit. It’s still in the middle of nowhere, but from four directions, cars must stop.
      Anyway, the Ripley County sheriff probably knew he could count on Bingham to eradicate the bad guys. Just the year before, General Bingham traveled to Stone County to take on the Sons of Honor, a bunch of unbridled vigilantes. He brought those bald-knob terrorists to justice, with the help of death and taxes. One key ringleader, Jasper McKinney, died suddenly. And Bingham threatened to restore order by bringing in the state militia at taxpayer expense. Scared by higher taxes, the group disbanded.
      Stone County’s history—and its roads—take travelers back in time. Route 413 undulates through ruggedness, along Railey Creek between Galena and Elsey. Ancient guardrails use wood from trees planted by Bingham, I suspect. A heavy wire threads through rounded wooden posts, squatty and silver. The guardrails guide the old roads through knobby beauty, cliffs, and precipices, punctuated by intriguing names like Secret Valley, Hooten Town, and my favorite school, Blue Eye High.
Following Bingham’s footsteps back through Jefferson City, I took the old Boonville Road, Bingham’s best route from the capitol back to his Boonslick home. It’s a delightful drive that sidles up to the Missouri River at Sandy Hook and Marion.
      On the day before he succumbed to pneumonia, Bingham traveled from Arrow Rock back to Kansas City, where he had lived much of his life. He took the old Santa Fe Trail. Today that route goes through Marshall, to Grand Pass and Lexington, through the thematic villages of Napoleon, Waterloo, and Wellington. He passed for the last time through the territory of nemesis George Graham Vest, the author of “man’s best friend.” Even though they both loved dogs, Bingham disliked Vest for political reasons.
      Dogs? Bingham put a dog in every genre painting but one, The Jolly Flatboatmen. Asked why there’s no dog in that painting, Bingham replied, “He’s in the hold.”
      Clever guy, that General Bingham. And whew, did he get around.

February 2008

The Lodges of the Meramec

Wed, 03 Oct 2007 18:38:28 GMT

Historic retreats still beckon today with food, fun, and floating

By John Robinson

I settled in my lawn chair for the show. Silhouetted by a spectacular sunset over a picture-postcard valley, five musicians launched into vocal harmonies punctuated by fine fiddlin’ and pickin’. Their stage was a concrete poolside tarmac. The crowd sat in lawn chairs and on blankets in this natural amphitheater, a gentle slope softened by thick bluegrass.

Traditional bluegrass fans have little tolerance for a band that strays so easily into Buddy Holly anthems. But the crowd loved the Stringtown String Band in this intimate venue where folks mingle with bands like The Amazing Rhythm Aces and Asleep at the Wheel. The lineup this fall is no less impressive with legends Poco, Arlo Guthrie, The Guess Who, and Ozark Mountain Daredevils.

Where is this place? It’s near nirvana. And like nirvana, you take a winding road to get there.

It was late Saturday afternoon. I’d just departed from a delightful walk through Dillard Mill, a relic fixed firmly against a hairpin turn in the Huzzah River, a vigorous Ozark stream often overlooked until it meanders nearer the Meramec. Taking the back roads, I crossed the Huzzah thrice more before descending into Steelville.

As the self-proclaimed Floating Capital of Missouri, the town caters to lovers of the great outdoors. Before there was a Luckytown, Steelville won the lottery. Well, to be precise, the town is the beneficiary of a lottery winner. In 1990, telephone regulators held a lottery to determine which phone companies would provide rural service to the burgeoning cellular phone demand. Among the winners was tiny Steelville Telephone Exchange. The company parlayed that windfall into great service, not only to telephone customers but to the community and its schools.

Just up the hill from Steelville, overlooking the Meramec River valley, sits Wildwood Springs Lodge. For eight decades, the lodge has clung to its lofty perch. And like many of the musical acts performing poolside or in the cozy lobby, the lodge is a survivor. Like most eighty-five-year-olds, the lodge has endured peaks and valleys.

Today the lodge thrives. Owner Robert Bell brings in the talent, including the bands, the hotel staff, and the cuisine. He’s revived a long history of great music and great times at the lodge.

Like a proud grandparent, the lodge displays its photos, visuals of pleasures and performances past. Here, a young St. Louis musician, Gordon Jenkins, honed his chops. Jenkins later became a famous producer for Decca Records. Listen to Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole, and you’ll witness Gordon Jenkins’s handiwork.

Bill Freeman can tell you about that. A retired state trooper, Bill is affable, polite, and knowledgeable. And he keeps the hotel’s systems running. Bill’s also a walking history book, readily telling stories about the river, the region, and the lodge.

The lobby’s charm overflows, especially when a crowd gathers around Michael Martin Murphy or America playing unplugged before a roaring fire in the fireplace during the Living Room Concerts.

The long dining hall could be a movie set. Its hardwood floors, linen tablecloths, and gorgeous floor-to-ceiling French windows serve up splendid scenery. The guest rooms’ comfortably Spartan appointments offer a subtle hint that rooms are for sleeping. Daytime calls for vigorous action in the great outdoors.

Like Wildwood Lodge, the story of recreation on the Meramec River has its own peaks and valleys. In the late 1890s, St. Louisans would hop the Frisco Railroad for a short ride to the Highlands resort and recreation complex, just west of Kirkwood. Anticipating the arrival of thousands of visitors to the 1904 Louisiana Exposition, the St. Louis World’s Fair, developers built the Highlands, offering enough activities to ensure fatigue: swimming, boating, dancing, and tennis. Alas, the Meramec Highlands suffered fatigue and disappeared before World War I. City folk then traveled further upriver to find Meramec hot spots around Valley Park and Fenton.

About the same time, St. Louisans discovered the lodges in the Steelville area, along the Meramec. They’d take the Frisco to Cuba, Missouri, where shuttles would deliver them a few more miles to the river resorts.

Most of those lodges have vanished, victims of time, the Great Depression, increased traveler mobility, and new levees. Along the river, concrete steps remain as memorials leading from the water, up the bank, and into the woods.

But a few resorts still stand with Wildwood against the ravages of time and the trend toward corporate conformity. Cobblestone Lodge is an octogenarian, too, and offers an all-inclusive vacation that includes sumptuous meals in a classic dining hall and floating the Meramec, to boot!

Float like I did from Ozark Outdoors Riverfront Lodge, which offers everything from cabins to the Grand Suite. It’s a great place to launch an expedition to check the health of the stream. Look closely into the water to examine some of nearly four dozen species of mussels, including the Washboard, the Pocketbook, the Pimpleback, and the Spectacle Case. Don’t be fooled by their seeming inactivity. Some of these living water filters are better bass fishers than anybody pictured on a cereal box cover. The mussel lures a bass to snap at a fleshy appendage that looks like a minnow. The bass gets injected with a mouthful of baby mussels, who attach to its gills and take a ride for a few days as the mussels grow stronger. Don’t worry, the bass survives to face more challenges.

More challenging is the search for an Eastern Hellbender, a salamander whose numbers are declining. That’s a concern to herpetologists, who wonder why this species is disappearing.

With a name that recalls another disappearance from the Meramec basin, Indian Springs Lodge offers individual cabins that honor great Native American leaders including Black Eagle, Red Cloud, and Crazy Horse.

Historic Bird’s Nest Lodge trumpets new log cabins with all the amenities. On the Huzzah, Eagle Hurst Ranch names its thirty or so cottages for permanent residents:
trees like the dogwood, redbud, and hickory. The Huzzah Valley Resort features the Huzzah Hilton, Big Bear Bunkhouse, and a pair of original farmhouses. Situated near the Huzzah and next to Courtois Creek, Bass River Resort offers a multitude of cozy cabins, log
cabins, A-frames, and hideaways.

The river and the resort business both endure ebbs and flows. But two events nearly changed the face of the region forever. Three decades ago, the specter of a dam loomed in the Meramec valley. Actually, the idea of damming the Meramec goes back to 1830 when the Iron Works at present day Maramec Spring Park near St. James promoted a dam to improve navigation for moving iron ore.

The most recent plan would have impounded forty-two miles of the Meramec River, nine miles of the Courtois, and twelve miles of the Huzzah. A group of concerned Missourians realized that many Meramec treasures, including Onondaga Cave, would be lost. Several groups, including the Meramec Basin Association, united to defeat the dam.

The second threat occurred almost twenty-five years ago in Times Beach, a resort community where Route 66 crosses the Meramec River. To control dust, a contractor sprayed oil contaminated with deadly dioxin through the streets. The federal government made history by forcing an evacuation and buying out the entire town. After many years and an expensive contamination cleanup, the state established Route 66 State Park on the property. The welcome center sits in a venerable old roadhouse called Steiny’s Inn, next to the historic Meramec River Bridge. Ask folks who’ve lived nearby for more than a generation, and everyone has a story about Steiny’s. It’s a survivor.

Yep, the Meramec has endured both natural and man-made disasters. But today, thanks to healthy stewardship, the river has a fighting chance at survival. And the historic lodges of the Meramec offer their silent approval.

October 2007

The Real Ozarks

Fri, 15 Jun 2007 20:04:47 GMT

*By John Robinson* Similarly crooked, the streams and the highways intersect in random fashion. These two conduits, one natural, the other paved, greet each other awkwardly, then meander off in separate directions. This scenic braid sets the table for a visit back in time. The roads reveal historic gathering spots that give us a peek at our past. Those gathering spots are the gristmills that flourish in the folds of Ozark County. The gristmills borrow liberally from nature. They perch upon the stream bank and transform the power of the streams by adapting the art of nature's most relentless hydraulic engineer, the beaver. The dams and the millraces focus the water's gravity upon that most impressive human invention, the wheel. The mill wheel turns the shaft that turns the belts that turn the gears that turn the millstone that grinds the grain to grist. But you know that. The mills reflect a social power, too, at once disconnected yet dependent upon the stream. Knowing the agony associated with mortars and pestles, generations of Ozark families gladly traveled miles over crooked roads to pay millers to grind their grain. And while they waited, they checked their mail, exchanged gossip, and commiserated about taxes. And they shopped for necessities and niceties and anything else that struck their fancy at these outposts of civilization. Even today, the mills that survive in Ozark County are still on the edges of civilization. So next time you tire of super-center sameness, hop in our time capsule and drive to what locals call The Real Ozarks. There is no easy access to the area, by superhighway standards. That's the charm. Visitors follow the ridges and ravines, much like local ancestors. From the north, many people enter Ozark County on State Route 5, and from the east and west, U.S. Highway 160. To sample the real Ozarks, set aside your state highway map, and scratch deeper into the county to find the Glade Top Trail. Built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s, this unpaved route is a National Forest Service Scenic Byway, one of three such delights in Missouri's Mark Twain National Forest. Unpaved? You shudder. Not to worry. The forest service describes the route along this watershed divide as a two-lane, all-weather gravel road. The twenty-three miles of spectacular views inspire Ava's Lions Club to host the annual Flaming Fall Review in October. Its seasonal counterpart, the Spring Flowering Tour, approaches the Glade Top Trail from Theodosia. If you prefer to stick to asphalt, remember that the first paved roads in Ozark County appeared long after city dwellers first strapped into American roller coasters. No matter. Ozark roads offer more thrills. So does the scenery, where few billboards blister the beauty of nature. Your payback for the trek into this remote region comes in the currency of four mills, no more than a two-song drive from one to the next. Chances are, you've already seen Hodgson Mill. You may not have visited the site where the mill traddles Hodgson Spring, sixteenth largest in the state. More likely, you've seen the mill's likeness on your grocery store's flour shelf, on packaging that bears the Hodgson name. The old mill doesn't produce flour anymore. In 1976, that duty migrated to a modern plant ten miles down the road in the county seat of Gainesville. Don't fret. Modern doesn't mean the flour has changed. It's still stone- ground, and they take away nothing, add nothing. The company proclaims "Alva Hodgson would be proud." Proud, indeed. For its 119th birthday, his namesake mill received a face lift - really, a foundation lift - completed in 2001 with the help of Amish carpenters from nearby Seymour, who bolstered the sagging structure with giant timbers cut from the hearts of Douglas firs. Now, Lord willin' and Bryant Creek don't rise, the mill will stand another 120 years. Alva Hodgson, Missouri's preeminent millwright of the nineteenth century, left his fingerprints all over the region. As the crow flies, his 1900 creation, Dawt Mill, sits about four miles from Hodgson. Your drive, thrice the distance, packs more fun than mere flight. Although Dawt is Hodgson Mill's younger sister, her weather-beaten countenance reflects a century of tempest. The unpainted look adds to her charm and offers an authentic glimpse into the past. Well, it's nearly authentic. An artificial mill wheel adorns one side of the mill, away from any water. It was added to pacify visitors who insist on seeing a wheel, even though this mill's power emanates from a turbine beneath the millrace. Despite this useless appendage, the stately old mill towers above the North Fork, one of the Ozarks' premier floating rivers. The mill dam that spans the river helps categorize two types of canoeists who attempt to paddle over it: fools and survivors. Even expert canoeists prefer to portage around the dam, knowing the structural limitations of a canoe. The mill still grinds flour using buhrstones, and the property offers creature comforts nearby, including a lodge and a deli. Unique accommodations await throughout the county, but there's one item you must bring. Search your father's closet for that old pair of Big Smith overalls. Your dad's duds might like to return to a likely source of its stitching, Hodgson or its neighbor, Zanoni Mill. For a time, the mills served in the Big Smith production family, using water power to generate electricity to operate sewing machines. Zanoni, about four miles downhill from Hodgson, sits on Pine Creek and features Ozark County's only example of the rare overshot water-wheel mill. It was built in 1940, on the site of a mill that operated as far back as the Civil War. When the mill was in service, a wooden flume captured water from the Zanoni Spring and channeled it down the hill, pouring it on top of the water wheel, hence the term overshot. Nowadays, the mill's services take the form of weddings and special occasions. Head north a dozen miles to the original Ozark County seat of Rockbridge. There, on the bank of Spring Creek, the Rockbridge Mill stands resplendent in its red coat of paint. The grounds now encompass a resort, featuring a general store that rose from the ashes of the original store on the site, at the time considered the finest general store in the region. Today, the general store features fine dining, and locals and visitors flock to the restaurant seven days a week. For the last fifty years, a private trout hatchery has spawned interest from a culinary angle. While you're there, help preserve an icon of American mill culture: Buy your stamps at the Rockbridge Post Office -- they're good throughout the USA. Unlikely as it seems, there are two flat spots in Ozark County. One is the water surface on Bull Shoals Lake. Well, it's not perfectly flat -- the water is often agitated by the great-great-granddaughters of the Missouri state record walleye, brown trout, yellow perch, striped bass, and largemouth bass. The latter record has stood since John F. Kennedy's first hundred days. The other flat spot? Norfork Lake, every bit as remote as Bull Shoals, and the fishing is just as good. Best I can tell from a review of the Ozark County map, local residents have named sixteen springs, a dozen ridges, twelve knobs, eight hollows, eight caves, five balds, five mountains, two bends, and one sink. There are more than that, of course. After all, a map can hold only so much information. But who's counting? The only thing you need to count on is a great time, on a roll in the Real Ozarks.

Thanks To Teachers

Tue, 29 May 2007 18:11:46 GMT

There are about sixty-three thousand public school teachers, kindergarten through twelfth grade, in our state, according to the Department of Education. Every one of them, plus private school teachers, teacher’s aides, and all of our schools’ staffs deserves a great big thank you. I’m thinking about school because I’m looking forward to it starting again soon. In spring, I eagerly anticipate summer vacation from school, and the more relaxed schedule of summer for the ones still in school. But about this time of year, I begin to look forward to that schedule that seemed so restrictive last spring. Maybe that’s because I have two teenagers at home, and their nocturnal hours — so natural to them — wear on me. This seems like a good time to give a round of applause for our educators, and especially the many, many fine teachers I’ve had. In my little four-room school, Shawnee R-3, I remember especially Mrs. Margaret Ragland and Mr. Grady Hibbs. Mrs. Ragland’s requirement for us to diagram sentences taught us the rules of grammar and the parts of speech, and maybe planted the first seed for an editing career. I loved diagramming sentences — weird, I know. Every time I asked Mr. Hibbs a question, he made me look up the answer; perhaps this was a precursor to a journalist’s love of digging deeper, finding answers. Then in high school, I had another teacher, Miss Adah Peckinpaugh, who likely contributed to my career choice. I have long forgotten whether it was Miss Peckinpaugh, who is now ninety-two, or my mom who encouraged me to enter a county Rural Electric Cooperative writing contest, but Miss Peckinpaugh attended a dinner for the finalists in that contest. We had to recite our papers from memory, as I recall, in front of a small panel of judges. When they announced the winner, I had to recite the paper again, but this time to a room full of strangers. Even though I had already won the contest, I was so nervous my knees were knocking! Miss Peckinpaugh told me that she was so nervous her knees were knocking, too. The prize was a fantastic ten-day trip, along with every other county winner, to Washington D.C. to visit monuments, legislators, Congress and the White House. The writing business seemed pretty attractive to this farm girl who hadn’t been out of Missouri, except to visit grandparents in Arkansas. Then in college, when I was dithering and anxious about making a career choice, my mother told me she’d read about a degree program called agricultural journalism. I investigated and made an appointment with Dr. Delmar Hatesohl. After that appointment, I knew I’d found a major, a career choice, and a college home. Delmar was part of a two-man team that infl uenced the lives of many students; his compatriot was Dr. Dick Lee, who was head of the degree program. Both men knew all their students by name, a rarity even back then. Both guided and advised, and Dick later became my boss, transforming from teacher to mentor. Both gentlemen taught me about being a professional as well as a journalist. know that one of them helped me get an internship that later led to a terrific magazine career at national magazines before Greg and I decided to return home and launch our Missouri Life! The last teacher that I need to thank is Dr. Don Ranly. I had many world-class teachers at Missouri’s world-famous School of Journalism, but Don had the most influence on my magazine career. Quite simply, he taught me how to edit. It sounds simple and easy, but that’s deceptive. I hope you see the difference in Missouri Life. I appreciate all of these teachers, and I hope you’ll thank those teachers you remember who made a difference. I wonder which of my children’s teachers may greatly influence their futures. Thank you to all teachers – past, present, and future.

A Rewarding Season

Sat, 28 Oct 2006 17:13:28 GMT

*By Danita Allen Wood* "To refuse awards is another way of accepting them with more noise than is normal,” said the late Peter Ustinov, though the quote also has been attributed to Mark Twain. With that in mind, we at MissouriLife never refuse an award, but we will give them some noise! We’re so honored to be recognized and feel a bit like Sally Field when she accepted her second Oscar with the enthusiastic line, “You like me!” We thank you for liking us! We are pleased and proud to have received the tourism industry’s 2005 Navigator Media Award. The Missouri Tourism Awards were presented at the Governor’s Conference on Tourism at Springfield in October. The thirty-seventh annual conference was coordinated by the Missouri Division of Tourism. Each year, the Navigator Media Award recognizes a print, broadcast, or electronic medium that has supported and promoted Missouri tourism with stories and images that inform and entice. Indeed, we’re almost surprised ourselves that nearly ten percent of our subscribers are from out of state. Who knows, a holiday gift subscription might lure one of your loved ones to Missouri! Everyone on our staff contributed to our receiving this award, so we all share the credit. In September, we received our second bronze award for Overall Art Direction from the International Regional Magazine Association at the group’s annual conference in San Antonio, Texas. Thanks go to our Art Director Drew Barton and Graphic Designer Barb King for making us look so good. Drew also received an impressive national honor from the editors of the biggest magazine about magazines. He was named to Folio: magazine’s Dream Team as an up-and-coming art director. The team of magazine professionals was selected from a group of two hundred nominees to reflect the staff industry leaders would want on board to launch a new magazine. I first hired Drew as a graphic designer for Weekend magazine in 1998 when he was a sophomore at the University of Missouri at Columbia and I was a faculty member at the School of Journalism. We worked together for three years before he graduated and moved to California. He began designing MissouriLife from the West Coast, before Missouri lured him back to St. Louis in 2003. I’d also like to introduce our newest team member Margaret Rose Tollerton. Margaret joins us as an advertising executive who helps our clients plan successful marketing programs. Margaret is one of the warmest, most cheerful, enthusiastic, and encouraging people I know, and I have every confidence she’ll be an award-winning member of our staff, as well. Simply, Margaret inspires. We wish you an inspiring 2006 filled with wonderful new discoveries. In keeping with MissouriLife’s motto “The Spirit of Discovery,” may you greet the New Year with the vigor of this quote — which we found attributed only to Mark Twain: "Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” December 2005

Groundhog Blues

Sat, 28 Oct 2006 15:37:12 GMT

*By Ron W. Marr* My neighbor shot a marauding groundhog the other day, thus consigning the entirety of America to another 365 days of winter. I’m not saying that this particular rodent didn’t deserve his fate, for last summer he’d played fast and loose with our gardens. By early fall he’d excavated more holes in our yards than a gravedigger. Still, to end his existence just prior to February 2nd, Groundhog Day, seemed a temptation of fate roughly akin to burning a flag at a Veterans of Foreign Wars meeting or claiming your seventeen dogs as dependents on next year’s 1040. Why this groundhog had awakened a couple weeks early from his slumber, I have no idea. Maybe he was hungry and maybe he was confused. Maybe he wanted to do a bit of shadow-boxing. Maybe he’d hoped to attend a Valentine’s Day protest against hydroponic gardening. Or maybe he was bored to tears, having contracted the groundhog version of the February blues. I can relate, for the spell between New Year’s Day and the Ides of March is too long, too cold, and too gray. Remaining inside one's humble abode over the long winter, be it cabin, castle, or hole in the dirt, can cause the mind wander and the nerves to fray. It's a common syndrome in those locales prone to the cold gales of the northland - the insidious onslaught of cabin fever. During my Montana days the locals knew, via hard-learned experience, that one should strive to be as polite as possible in February. This effort often failed with magnificent gusto. After six months of snow and more than a few solid weeks of thirty below, emotional fuses tended to burn hot. To no avail we hid the guns, unplugged the phones, and endeavored to stay away from smart alecks, firewater, and smart alecks with firewater. Come February, in Montana, tempers were shorter than a midget in a ditch. Come February, in Montana, even the earthworms were filing for divorce. After a decade of such in the highlands, I learned a few things about cabin fever and the perils of February malaise. Mostly, I learned to move back south to my Ozark homeland, where the mercury rarely drops below a comparatively balmy twenty degrees. To my mind winter is mild here, the people friendly all year long. Then again, I’m still so enamored with a return to the state of my birth that I don’t even mind the August chiggers, ticks, and water moccasins. However, I learned something else about cabin fever during my decade on the high peaks. During the frosty times you are well advised to keep your hands busy and your mind active. An overabundance of sedentary activity and negligent thought process leads to a bad attitude. To combat this tendency, some people read. Others sew quilts, spear fish with sharp sticks, cut wood, or join a bowling league. Me ... I got serious about guitar. Now I’ve played guitar for years, usually the same chord patterns over and over. My repertoire consisted mainly of repetitive strains of “Sweet Home Chicago” or “Margaritaville,” badly plucked tunes which gave affront to all who had functional ears. And I was just fine with that. For starters, I’ve a fickle attention span. For another, I’m easily amused. But this year, when the mercury dropped below freezing, I found myself strumming the old National blues-box a couple hours a day. It wasn’t a conscious decision, it just happened. One evening, in a literal bolt from the blue, the practice paid off. I was suddenly able to do things with those strings I’d never even imagined. I was bending notes, sliding all over the frets, hitting odd barre chords, and picking with both speed and accuracy. It was weird and noisy and great. Even Boris, my blind malamute seemed pleased. Somewhere in the midst of this process, I forgot all about winter. The fire was high and the cabin was warm and the music rang out over the Gasconade. At my age (that would be 46) I had resigned myself to the belief that I was too old to improve my heretofore nonexistent musical talents. That’s what I get for thinking. The truth of the matter is that you never really are too old to learn. All that’s required is a swig of desire and a shot of gumption. I know it’s a cliché, but sometimes the oldest clichés hold the most wisdom. I still believe that you can’t teach an old groundhog new tricks. All you can do is send the little devil to his reward and keep him out of the tomato patch. But it seems you can teach an old guitarist some new licks.

Whats on Your List

Thu, 05 Oct 2006 02:03:19 GMT

The project we’ve undertaken in this issue is a big one for our little staff. We started with MU journalism graduate student Ali Ryan. First she researched options and methods for identifying a list like this. Then she composed a survey thatmany of you kindly answered. We thank you readers who helped us pick items. Ali compiled those results and then wrote about half the package. Next, everyone on our staff here made lists and more lists that numbered way more than a hundred. We also asked Director of Tourism John Robinson for his thoughts, and he asked his staff for their thoughts. During this process, we learned that nobody knows the state like John, partly because of his position, but also because of his personal resolution to drive every mile of every state road. He knows everyone, everywhere. A special thanks to him for suggestions that we would have overlooked without his contributions — and also for getting so wrapped up with our project that he volunteered to write a few items. Then, we came back and began what was indeed a painful process of cutting the list down to a measly one hundred. We argued some, but we on staff eventually compiled the entire list. We would think the list was final, and then someone would think of something that we all agreed belonged. We even cheated. If you count the items in the Ultimate 100, you’ll actually find about 159. We excused ourselves from even more painful cutting by grouping some things together. For example, we grouped six world-class museums in St. Louis into one item. We listed three locations tied to Daniel Boone, but only counted him once. It hurt to cut the list. I kept trying to think of how to get MissouriLife’s headquarters at Fayette onto the list, but could never quite justify it, much to my dismay. Next, Rebecca Smith in Columbia jumped in where Ali left off, and finished researching, writing, and checking the remaining items, as well as gathering photos. She remained unflappable when I kept changing the list. I confess I still have about thirty on the list to visit myself and will use it to guide my summer jaunts around the state. If you’re one of the rare people who can claim to have done or seen all hundred items, please let us know! And I’m ready; also tell me what you would have put on the list! *NEW COLUMNS* We introduce a few new columns in this issue. Note our new column on page 8 giving you background on Missouri symbols. There are eighteen Missouri symbols, so look for this column to continue for a couple of years. We’re also pleased to bring you a new column on Missouri wines on page 62. I occasionally encounter people who snicker when Missouri wines are mentioned. I delight in mentioning a Missouri wine that was featured as one of the best of its kind in Time magazine a few years ago. We’ll show them! Email danita@missourilife.com *-Danita Allen Wood* February 2006

The Measure of a Man

Wed, 04 Oct 2006 22:49:16 GMT

*By Ron Marr* Almost twelve years ago to the day, I sat in a tattered chair, took a deep breath of crystal air, and gazed in awe at the moonlit outline of Ward’s Peak. I was living in a rented, tar-paper shack with an Irish Wolfhound puppy named Buffett, preparing to start a weekly newspaper with virtually no funds, and happy as a clam. I had never before lived in a place where the mountains hung right outside my window, never before neighbored against ragged spires of granite that seemed within arm’s reach, never before felt the invigorating, June chill of a Montana midnight at six thousand feet above sea level. The mammoth sky of Big Sky Country winked seductively with a billion twinkling eyes, and for the first time in quite a few years, I felt the tension slide away from my neck and shoulders. I should have been wound up like a cheap clock — both my bank account and experience in running a one-man newspaper being next to nonexistent. Instead, I was immersed in a warm tide of calm. Whether I would succeed or fail never even entered my mind; all I knew was that I’d measured the life I’d been living and found it more than a few feet out of plumb. In the here and now in Missouri, older and I hope a tiny bit wiser, it seems I’m still measuring things. These days though, the calibrations have taken on a different form. Mostly, I’ve been measuring the wood for that fence gate I’ve meant to build for the past two years. I’ve measured how much seed-corn the squirrels eat every week and how much bird chow disappears from the feeder. I’ve measured the length of my unruly beard, the water level on the Gasconade, and the time it takes to learn “St. James Infirmary” on the blues harp (the latter causing my dogs much auditory grief ). Of course, these measurements are more vague and anecdotal than precise. They’re all ballpark, based on informed supposition, which is why I have crooked gates. Still, I tend to believe the eyeball measurements are often more useful than the exact. At least, they seem more useful in the day to day, year to year process of living a life. We are all permitted to create and define our own form and style of estimates, guesstimates, appraisals, and reckonings, but some are better than others. Some are straight as a string, and some are formulated with a crooked yardstick. In truth though, the measurement itself is not as important as what we measure, and our interpretation of the findings. We live in a world that moves at breakneck speed. This is fine if you’re going for a record on the Utah Salt Flats, but a tad dangerous when traversing the long and winding roads far more common to normal existence. The problem with uncontrolled velocity is that one tends to miss the details. When the only measurement involves getting from point A to point B with alacrity, too many roadside delights are lost to the jet stream. True of driving. True of living. Sadly, many of our kind take measure of their life via how much they have or how much they can get. Often we measure by money, counting zeros as if they were of ultimate significance in terms of character, success, and self worth. Often we measure by status, adjudicating our accomplishments not from personal satisfaction but rather via the verdict of a collective and highly biased societal jury. We measure by fame, toys, and trinkets. We measure by how much work we can accomplish, by how many activities we can pack into a limited number of hours. The problem with these superficial assessments is not that they are inherently bad; as part and parcel of a whole they are just dandy. The problem is that far too frequently they overshadow everything else. We adopt the habit of concentrating on only one thing, with the result being a life in a tunnel allowing us to only see one of a million possible lights. Almost twelve years ago today, I traced the contours of Kidd Mountain and walked the banks of the Madison River for the first time. I started a little paper with several hopes, no money, and fewer expectations. If I’d ever stopped to measure the odds, I would have learned that the most likely outcome would have found me going bust in the first six weeks. Luckily, I only measured in retrospect. That paper just published its final issue, put to bed by the folks to whom I sold it in 1999. It was a bit sad for me, having served as its editor from birth to death, but the swan song was merely one gradient in both its and my history. When I started that publication, pretty well known in the western states as _The Trout Wrapper,_ I had taken measure of my life and found it wanting. I take the same measure today, and I smile. June 2006

The Great Maybe

Wed, 04 Oct 2006 21:45:42 GMT

*By Ron Marr* The expectations are a bit cloudy, the Magic 8 Ball offering its vague advice of “ask again later.” This is the spring that followed the winter that wasn’t, a season that left the entire populace of my little Gasconade River hideaway a tad confused. In January, when the mercury over-achieved its normal condition by forty degrees, I arose to a morning symphony of tittering songbirds. During February, a period usually reserved for the cold, gray, and silent, I watched squirrels drag out their beach towels and bask in the sun. Come March, I was eyeing the sprouting green and preparing to change the oil in the riding mower. This machine had not only spent the invisible winter in the great outdoors, it had apparently taken the Civil Service exam. With the exception of a couple of inclement days in December 2005, my big, green, lawn barber had almost wholly avoided the perils of rain, sleet, and snow. I do not attribute the balmy days and placid nights of this winter past to global warming. Frankly, I believe global warming is a bunch of hooey, tales and theories composed by agendadriven-pseudo-scientists, spooky stories designed to strike fear into the hearts of those who cannot envision life without air conditioning, central heat, cell phones, malls, and Dr. Phil. The Earth experiences periods of warming, followed by stints of cooling, interspersed with episodes of “hotter than a pistol,” and “colder than a gravedigger’s toes.” Climate is historically cyclical and utterly unpredictable; in the long term, there is little the transient tinkerings of man can do to affect planetary ecology. After all, we’re just renters on the big blue ball. The guy who runs the universal utility company is likely not terribly concerned with our weather-mania, meteorological computer constructs, doomsday predictions, and media-enhanced hysteria. Our expectations of what “should be” often supersede the reality of “what will, might, and could be.” This applies in equal measure to both the vagaries of climate and the vagaries of life. No matter how hard we want, wish, or desire, the only certain expectation is that our expectations may evolve in a surprising manner. All too often, we humans are inhabitants of the imagination rut, unable to shake off our preconceived notions and simply allow the future to unfold at its own pace. We enjoy pretending that we know it all, that our plans are iron-clad, that we control our own destiny. Perhaps we hold tightly to such addled convictions in order to avoid the frightening certitude that we are in charge of very little. Personally, my crystal ball appears to have a broken defroster, the cherished glimpse into the unknown masked by veils of sleepy fog. My expectations are but bubbles rising to the surface of a bottomless pool. I wish it wasn’t so, and on the other hand, I’m glad I’m blissfully ignorant. In regard to the former, some certainty of the future would go far toward eliminating mindless fear and worry. In contemplation of the latter, knowing without doubt what tomorrow has in store would make life terribly boring. I’m approaching major changes, and as with all large jumps, one worries about missing the mark and spiraling into the void. I’ve spent the last twelve months researching and writing a travel book, beginning with the first, terrifying, blank page and ending with a manuscript five hundred pages in length. I’ve never before attempted a tome of this sort or length, and now that I’ve reached the conclusion I find myself more perplexed than I did several hundred thousand words ago. My expectations are held at bay, for to allow them free rein could result in some nasty disappointments. I wonder if it will sell. I wonder if it will flop. I wonder what I will do next. A solid year of one’s life is a rather large investment, and looking back at my project and the literally thousands of hours of research, there are times I hope that it hasn’t been a wasted year. Which leads me back to the topic of expectations. The time and effort would only be a waste if I base the book’s success on potential profits or the lack thereof. The expectation should not be whether reviewers applaud, or readers purchase, or publishers beg me to take on more titles. The expectation should be nothing more than the satisfaction of creating something that stretched my abilities and the remembrance of the joy that came with putting the final period on the final page. Some days are hot, some are cold. Some days are new, some are old. But in the final analysis they are all just days. For best results they should not be viewed from the perspective of expectation. Rather, they should be judged by how we handle the unexpected.

Has Our Past Become a Foreign Country

Wed, 04 Oct 2006 20:54:51 GMT

*By Arthur Mehrhoff* How to Make Our Past and Our Places Meaningful Without Manipulation "You have to know where you are before you know who you are" --Wendell Barry At MissouriLife’s Weekend at the Lake this past October, I met a remarkable woman, Honey, from storm-ravaged Mississippi who was staying with some friends here in Missouri while recovering from her ordeal. She described her desperate attempt to “save some memories” of her late husband while Hurricane Katrina dismembered her beautiful household and threatened her life. In the face of imminent disaster, she had to quickly decide which pieces of her past to salvage from the wreckage caused by the storm. Her story made me keenly aware of the fact that we might all face Honey’s dilemma: What are the essential things we need to save when confronted by a whirlwind? Both of my parents passed away due to long-term illnesses while I was still young, so writing for me became a way of going home again. Growing up in the faded glory of T.S. Eliot’s old Saint Louis, where “the yellow smoke rubbed its muzzle against the window panes,” places became my imaginary ocean. While my father was alive, embarking on a voyage in our big-boat Plymouth (gas was thirty cents, not three dollars) was a major family event. My sister Nancy and I peered out the back window to watch the changing colors of the illuminated fountain in Forest Park. We admired the venerable bird cage at the Saint Louis Zoo from the 1904 World’s Fair (giggling at uncle Lyman’s story about the bird that pooped on his hat), marveled at the Central West End’s turn-of-the-century gates and mansions, or, if I was really lucky, attended an exciting baseball game at ancient Sportsman’s Park on Grand Avenue near my grandparents’ houses, hoping that Stan the Man would bang a homer off the North Side YMCA building. These placesbecame the reminder strings around my finger. It was not just the city, however, that fascinated me. I hazily recall boarding a diesel train at Union Station, destination unknown: mighty Bagnell Dam and the postcard-worthy Lake of the Ozarks; the Hannibal of Mark Twain; mysterious Meramec Caverns, St. Joseph and the Pony Express; W.C. Handy and the St. Louis blues; Count Basie and Kansas City jazz; the magnificent Capitol in Jefferson City; the mighty, majestic rivers coursing through our state. To me this state seemed to mean, as in Willa Cather’s lovely phrase, “the country, the conditions, the whole adventure of our childhood.” The biggest adventure of all was traveling to Columbia each autumn to attend football games with my father. But the games, although we usually won, are not what I remember. I noted the changing landscape along the route, the spectacular fall colors along with the growing number of vacant and abandoned farm buildings,the city reaching farther and farther into the countryside each year. I marveled at the Gothic towers of the Memorial Union at the University of Missouri, my first glimpse at a college campus, and the overwhelming power of the names of war casualties etched into stone. Nostalgia is history without the pain. I once tripped and slid down the white stone “M” at the north end of Memorial Stadium. It was a rather quick and painful descent that is also part of my past. My father’s death in 1963 ended the adventures. My mother’s death three years later closed the logbook. In one sense, Missouri Journal is my attempt to save some memories. However, my personal journal must connect with you to be truly meaningful. I think most of you also cherish similar feelings toward those special places that distinguish Missouri life. Such places make our culture memorable and meaningful; their destruction diminishes us as a people, just like Alzheimer’s disease diminishes an individual. And therein lies the problem. The past, writes cultural geographer David Lowenthal, has become a foreign country. We find ourselves surrounded by monuments, memorials, and places whose origins and symbolism mystify us even while the hurricane force of globalization knocks us around. We need these place-markers, both to anchor us in the storm and to safely navigate a successful course for the future. There is a wonderful cartoon called “The Self-Made Man” that looks like a Picasso drawing, with everything in the wrong place. We need the past to create the future; to get things in the right places. Heritage tourism and ecotourism have become major growth sectors in the global economy as people search for authentic places in a sea of sameness. Economists and futurists both note this growing trend toward an “experience economy;” companies and communities now must make meaning as well as products. The key question becomes how to make these places and experiences meaningful rather than manipulated. Missouri Journal will consider some of these critical issues for our communities and offer some navigational aids of its own, in future columns. As St. Louis-born T.S. Eliot marvelously wrote, “We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploration will be to arrive where we started, and to know that place for the first time.” The sight of the Gothic towers of the Memorial Union helps me remember and connects me once again to the past, which helps me navigate through an uncertain future. There is an old tradition of tipping your cap as you pass through the archway of the Memorial Union. I hope you will join me in looking at old, familiar places once again for the first time. Let’s all tip our caps. April 2006

The Cave State

Wed, 04 Oct 2006 14:29:52 GMT

*By Danita Allen Wood* In addition to “The Show-Me State,” Missouri has also earned the moniker, “The Cave State,” because of the more than six thousand caves on record here. Missouri became known as “The Cave State,” even though Tennessee has more caves recorded than we do. Most of our caves are formed in dolomite or limestone, but some are in sandstone or other non-soluble rocks. Scott House, the cave database manager for the Missouri Speleological Survey, reports that 6,110 caves have been recorded in 83 counties, with about 145 of those caves having been recorded since January 2005. Counties with the most caves are Perry, with 657; Shannon, with 548; Greene with 366; Pulaski, with 356; Stone, with 297; Christian, with 220; Crawford, with 210; and Texas, with 182, also according to the Missouri Speleological Survey. There’s something reassuring about these solid rock walls, the primeval shelters for humans and animals. As a child, I toured Marvel Cave at Silver Dollar City on school trips, and I still like to take the tour when I’m in Branson, in spite of Tall Man’s Headache. That’s actually the name of a low-hanging roof at a turn. The guide warns you about it, but once, when the children were young and a little afraid because it was their first cave tour, Greg was distracted and ran head-on into it. He fell flat on his back and learned the origin of the name. We were all worried about him, but he was fine. I’ve also been through Fantastic Caverns, Bridal, Mark Twain, and other caves. There was also a little-known cave, shut part of the year to protect an endangered bat, which became one of our regular trail-ride destinations in Pulaski County along the Big Piney River, when the cave was open. Perhaps the most exciting cave tour I’ve ever gone on, though, was in Kentucky at Mammoth Cave, years ago. During a six-hour wild cave tour, which involved crawling through mud and narrow tunnels, I was behind a large guy who got stuck in a tight passage. The tour guide had actually measured the guy to make sure he didn’t exceed the size limit before we left, but maybe he had twinkies in his pockets. He was close to panic, and so were the two of us behind him. The tour guide kept telling him to relax, that tension made the problem worse. Finally he squeezed through, and I rushed through right behind him. Even that tight spot didn’t cure me. I’d like to go on the wild cave tour in Missouri, at Devil’s Icebox in Rock Bridge Memorial State Park near Columbia. Perhaps it’s the adventure, the mystery —what’s around the next corner? — and the beauty of caves. We will begin sharing Missouri’s caves with you in every issue. Read about the amazing Onondaga Cave on page 12. I hope you’ll be as fascinated as I am. April 2006

A Pallid Sturgeon and a Petroglyph

Wed, 04 Oct 2006 03:48:12 GMT

*By Danita Allen Wood* Leave it to my husband, Greg, to wade into the Missouri River, bend down, stick his hand into the water, and pull out a rare endangered species. He does things like that. Our encounter with the pallid sturgeon happened during a delightful six-and-a-half mile float on the Missouri River from Rocheport to a landing at Huntsdale last summer. The tour was organized and guided by Brett Dufur, the owner and operator of Mighty Mo Canoe Rentals. Brett is also the author of several Missouri guide books and owns Pebble Publishing, a firm that specializes in Missouri books. When I was in my twenties, I floated a lot of Missouri’s Ozark rivers and streams, and it was one of my favorite pastimes. But I hadn’t been in a canoe for many years. I was a little nervous about canoeing, and I was very nervous about canoeing on the Missouri, a river with a storied reputation as a dangerous river, dating back to steamboat days. Brett told us that we could hug the shore, and that sounded good to me. He also guaranteed us we’d soon be crossing the river to explore sandbars on the opposite shore, and he was right. To start the float, Brett and his helpers carried the canoes down a steep bank to the water and then helped us into the canoes. After my initial nervousness, my river legs and paddle arms came right back, and I felt at home with the rhythm on the river. The Missouri River didn’t intimidate at all. It seemed a slow, relaxing float compared to some Ozark rivers, where you must constantly dodge rocks and trees or navigate swift water at sharp bends. Soon we joined other floaters in crossing the river to sandbars on the opposite shore, anticipating looking for arrowheads and colorful rocks. That’s when Greg hopped out of the canoe and pulled the prehistoric-looking pallid sturgeon from the river. He had noticed a fish floating and wondered what it was. It had become entangled with a hook and some nylon fishing line. Greg and some helpers removed the hook and line and, after showing the endangered species with the bony, dinosaur-like scales to other floaters, set it free. Removing the hook and line seemed to revive it, and it swam away strongly. We hope it survived. We continued our float, exploring and swimming off sandbars and enjoying the Manitou Bluffs scenery. Later in the afternoon, our guides treated us to a watermelon break. We climbed the bank up to the Katy Trail and were rewarded with another treasure in addition to watermelon. Even though I’ve biked right by them on the Katy Trail many times, I had never been able to make out the petroglyphs on the bluffs, in spite of a marker describing them. Not until one of Brett’s guides pointed them out could I see them; I’d always looked too high on the bluff face. Seeing the red marks made by American Indian hands before Lewis and Clark’s time was the second thrill of the day. Brett wants people to get to know our mighty Missouri River in a different manner than driving up to a lookout, popping out of our air-conditioned cars, snapping a picture, and then moving on. His float trips are a tremendous introduction. _Brett or guides lead a float every Saturday during the summer and on other days for at least four canoes. Visit www.mighty-mo.com or call 573-698-3903. The trip costs $30 per person, including canoe rental._ June 2006