Life

“You have brought more freshness, charm, and vitality to illustration than any other living illustrator.” Norman Rockwell wrote these words in a letter to graphic illustrator Al Parker in 1948.

It took me three years to get here. Mostly my fault. Procrastination. Missed signals. Still, in the interest of full disclosure, dinner at the Dancing Bear requires a commitment, and therein lies the charm.

Since the height of their popularity, drive-ins have endured rising land prices, daylight savings time, and most recently, the end of 35mm projection— all of which have contributed to their decline.

Tour a simple life at six Amish Communities

This is the tale of a still-working stagecoach—now fondly named The Journey—that has operated in three different centuries—probably the only stagecoach in this country to do that—and how it is coming home to Missouri.

Protection. Deterrence. Mitigation. That’s what Daisy, an elementary school teacher, and ten fellow Missouri public school employees studied in West Plains on June 9-13 at Shield Solutions’ School Employee Firearm Training Program, or SEFTP. The course teaches educators to be “gunfighters”—as Shield instructors call them—who will carry and employ concealed handguns to counter a lethal threat at their schools.

Dan, who builds Tangley calliopes today, is a quiet, religious man who methodically crafts “better, stronger” replicas of Norman’s ingenious, mechanical music contraptions in the shop behind his rural northeast Missouri home.

A widower since 2011, Martin still surrounds himself with the stock in the trade of saddle making. His workspace is as much a museum of leather crafting as it is a saddle shop.

Missouri’s general stores of yore offered shoppers everything they needed—and a lot of what they wanted—along with a generous side serving of local news, gossip, and a few tall tales.