Downriver, I found a suitable gravel bar where I beached my canoe and set up camp deep in the Irish Wilderness. I sat alone by the campfire and thought about the strange evolution of this area: wilderness, then settled and … Read More
Pits of Hell
On our late-night journey home, the refrigerator moon had set. A heavy curtain of clouds rolled overhead. No rain. No wind. Just darkness on a desolate road. I could see only what Erifnus’s headlights allowed. A dozen miles ahead we’d … Read More
Apres Noel
‘Twas the day after Christmas and all through the land, businesses opened to make exchanges.
Nobody Believed I Was Santa
I was a beanpole, skinny as a chair leg. Fresh out of school, my first job was selling ads for the Rolla Daily News. The boss told me to find a Santa Claus for Hillcrest Shopping Center. Nobody wanted to … Read More
Wings Over Columbia
It was the largest crowd ever to invade Memorial Stadium. One autumn Saturday a dozen years ago, thousands of football fans packed together, and their colorful clothing attracted a million Monarch butterflies who rode the breeze across the stadium. From … Read More
But the greatest of these…
Painted olive green, Hartville’s water tower earns style points as it sticks out from the old red brick buildings like a garnish on the swizzle stick in a giant bloody Mary. I know that image isn’t the town’s intent. But, … Read More
Ava is a palindrome
It looks the same coming from any direction. The water tower sits atop a hill off the center of town, shouting “Ava Bears” from its steel sides. This garden spot in the middle of the Mark Twain Forest missed a … Read More
Grundy County Horsepower. Chicken Power, Too
Turds dot the roads like a giant linear checkers game. Up the road, a hundred buggies parked outside the local produce market. A giant four-horse draft team passed me, its wagoneer headed to plow a field. We waved at one … Read More
207 years ago today, the Earth shook New Madrid.
In the History of Southeast Missouri, eyewitness Godfrey LeSieur gives this account of the New Madrid Earthquake: “The first shock was about 2 o’clock a. m., on the night of December 16, 1811, and was very hard, shaking down log … Read More
