rotd: where freedom is concerned, do not wait for others to present it to you

 Revolutionary thought of the day:

Mrs Touchet was confused. "All I intended to say was that I feel confident that the arguments I heard today, on the Downs, although at the moment only concerned with the enfranchisement of working men, will surely, in time---"

"Time!" The noun itself appeared to disgust him. "Why should I wait for what is mine by sacred right? Who can give to me what was never theirs to possess?"

"I really can't think what you mean."

"Mrs Touchet, my freedom is as fully my inheritance as it is any man's. It has no time, I need not wait for it, it was mine from the moment of my birth. Does it surprise you to hear me say so?"

"Well, for one thing you speak as if my freedom is perfect."

"I know it is not. And where freedom is concerned, Mrs Touchet, I would advise you not to wait for others to present a false gift of it to you. You will be waiting a long time. Better to 'take up arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing, end them'."

 

From The Fraud, by Zadie Smith. Conversation between Bogle, a formerly enslaved Black man, and Mrs Touchet. England, 1869.

photos are posted

Photos from our recent trip to Tulsa, Kansas City, and St. Louis are now on Flickr. I'll also link each post to its album page.

My photos on Flickr are somewhat of a dump. I do delete blatant clunkers, but I don't crop or edit, and I don't spend a lot of time choosing which photos to post. It's not worth the time for my purposes. It's mainly a way to keep most of our travel photos in one place, link to wmtc, and use as a cloud backup. Meaning: the albums are large and repetitive. 

Some albums, like photos from the Bob Dylan Center, are a small fraction of what we have -- yet the album is still too large and repetitive! 

Photos of:

the woody guthrie center, tulsa, oklahoma

the bob dylan center, tulsa, oklahoma

art I loved at tulsa mayfest

tulsa art deco walking tour

tulsa murals

greenwood rising

red sox vs royals, kauffman stadium

kansas city central library

kansas city, random images

negro leagues baseball museum

gateway arch and other st. louis (includes busch stadium)

cahokia mounds state historic site (illinois)

jefferson city & tipton missouri (mennonite store)

coming up for air: two thoughts on aging from george orwell

I came upon these passages in George Orwell's 1939 novel, Coming Up for Air. They seem very appropriate to me today.

* * * *

The change in his appearance after twenty years had actually frightened me. I suppose you think I mean that he looked older. But he didn't! He looked younger. And it suddenly taught me something about the passage of time.

I suppose old Betterton would be about sixty-five now, so that when I last saw him he'd have been forty-five -- my age now. His hair was white now, and the day he buried Mother it was a kind of streaky grey, like a shaving-brush. And yet as soon as I saw him the first thing that struck me was that he looked younger. I'd thought of him as an old, old man, and after all he wasn't so very old. As a boy, it occurred to me, all people over forty ahd seemed to me just worn-out old wrecks, so old that there was hardly any difference between them. A man of forty-five had seemed to me older than this dodderer of sixty-five seemed now. And Christ! I was forty-five myself. It frightened me.

* * * *

If I'd had a mirror I'd have looked at the whole of myself, though, as a matter of fact, I knew what I looked like already. A fat man of forty-five, in a grey herring-bone suit a bit worse for wear and a bowler hat. Wife, two kids, and a house in the suburbs written all over me. Red face and boiled blue eyes. I know, you don't have to tell me. But the thing that struck me, as I gave my dental plate the once-over before slipping it back in my mouth, was that it doesn't matter. Even false teeth don't matter. I'm fat -- yes. I look like a bookie's unsuccessful brother -- yes. No woman will ever go to bed with me again unless she's paid to. I know all that. But I tell you I don't care. I don't want the women, I don't even want to be young again. I only want to be alive. And I was alive at that moment when I stood looking at the primroses and the red embers under the hedge. It's a feeling inside you, a kind of peaceful feeling, and yet it's like a flame.

happy birthday to me: retirement update edition

I have been alive on this planet for 64 years. Didn't I just write my last "happy birthday to me" post, like, a week ago??

I looked back at my last few HBTM posts, and I do have a few updates. 

Last year, in "happy birthday to me: retirement vs travel edition," I thought retirement was 10 to 12 years away. Plans have gelled since then, and I am planning to retire at age 70. I downloaded a countdown clock, now on my desktop. Today it clicked over from six years plus something to five-plus! 

I still love my job. In fact, I like it more than ever, now that I have set better limits on how much time I spend working, and feel so much a part of the community. I'm not counting down because I hate what I'm doing. 

The purpose of the countdown is to help me stay on track with our financial goals. This doesn't come naturally to me, it's something I need to be conscious of all the time. Seeing those very finite numbers helps.

Also last year, I was feeling like these important goals meant travel was no longer possible for us. I've had a mental shift about that, too. We had a great trip this year, and -- possibly for the first time ever? -- paid for the entire trip in advance. We paid for airfare and car rental with points, something we've never done before, and saved thousands of dollars on dog care by using TrustedHousitters. (More on that in a future post.) The rest I was able to save for, thanks to the privilege of our two decent incomes. And I was able to do this while sticking with The Plan. 

Upshot: we will still be able to travel, maybe taking (what I consider) a good trip every few years. For me, this feels monumental. A weight lifted. 

(Right now, instead of a trip, we're saving for a good digital sound system, something Allan is more excited about than any travel I could plan.)

For the rest, I'll do that thing where a writer quotes themself. In 2021, when I turned 60, I wrote:

There are tough things about aging, for sure. Unpleasant things. There's no denying it. But there were tough things at every stage of life. Being a child is not the proverbial picnic, nor being a teenager, nor a young adult. There are always issues, always heartache, and sometimes much worse. If we're lucky, there is also love and joy, wonder and excitement, adventure and meaning. 

Aging is a privilege. I feel incredibly lucky and grateful to have it.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Thank you for being part of my life.

what i'm reading: two by two favourite authors: part two: zadie smith's the fraud

In an earlier post, I mentioned that I recently read novels by two of my favourite authors, Roddy Doyle and Zadie Smith. I wrote about The Women Behind the Door here. Here's the second part: The Fraud.

A writer of vast and diverse talents

The Fraud is technically historical fiction, but this is Zadie Smith, so it's unlike any historical novel you've ever read. Whether or not you enjoy historical fiction, set aside your ideas about the genre before diving in to this gem.

I've read all but one of Smith's novels, and some of her nonfiction, and I plan to fill in what I've missed. She's an ambitious writer who has done a lot of different things. And like any artist who experiments with different forms, the outcomes can be uneven. (The exception to this is Colson Whitehead. How can he be so good at everything he tries??) I don't love everything Smith has written, but I love a lot of it, and for the rest, I want to come along for the ride. 

In this case, for me, Smith knocks it out of the park.

Who is the fraud? (Who isn't?)

The Fraud takes place in Victorian London, and focuses on three situations.

A sensational trial is underway: the Tichborne Claimant. After the heir to the Tichborne estate (presumably) died in a shipwreck, an Australian butcher came forward claiming to be Sir Tichborne. Despite all evidence that he was a charlatan and a fraud, a sizeable chunk of the British public loved and believed him. This is the most obvious reading of the book's title.

We also meet the life and times of a minor Victorian writer, a contemporary of Dickens and Thackery, now forgotten: William Harrison Ainsworth. We see most of the action from the point of view of Ainsworth's cousin and sometime lover, Eliza Touchet. Eliza, in Victorian parlance, is a widow, forever referred to as "Mrs. Touchet". She is also an intelligent woman, with a restless hunger for knowledge, dissatisfied with the tiny box that society allows her to live in. Mrs. Touchet has hidden identities that she cannot name even to herself, as they are well outside social norms of the time.

And there is Bogle: a formerly enslaved Jamaican man, who inexplicably champions the Tichborne Claimant, and who lends gravitas and credibility to the Claimant's cause. Through Bogle, we explore the lives of generations of enslaved Africans who came to be first Jamaican, then British.

Each of these people -- the Tichborne Claimaint, Ainsworth, Mrs. Touchet, and Bogle -- are all, in some sense, frauds. The Tichborne Claimaint is perpetrating a kind of giant magic trick on the public. Ainsworth is a fraud but doesn't realize it. Mrs. Touchet lives a fraudulent life, because she has to. Bogle's motives are more obscure. 

Keep reading, and you'll gain a sense that absolutely everyone is a fraud in some sense. The current Mrs. Ainsworth, who married "above her station". Charles Dickens, perhaps a fictional version of the great writer -- or perhaps a more authentic but hidden version. And on and on. Leading us to question what it would mean to live an authentic life.

The great fraud of our own times

The Fraud works on an entirely different level, too: it maps to the current political situation: the fraud who now lives in the White House.

The Tichborne case and the pro-Tichborne public echo the Orange Guy and the MAGA movement in ways that are both obvious and subtle -- and entirely clever and humorous. There are anti-vaxxers (who certainly existed back then), and outlandish conspiracy theories that contradict themselves. There is an extreme distrust of society's institutions, coupled with a blind loyalty to people of great power, incomprehensible to the intelligent and well-informed. And there is, above all, an inability to distinguish between fact and fiction. Everything about the Tichborne Claimant trial and the community -- the cult -- that formed around it can be read as current and topical.

And there's more

Many critics have written about The Fraud as a meta-novel: a novel about novelists, about Smith and her profession, and about us, the reading public. Here's a good example from The Atlantic.

It is certainly that. There are plenty of postmodern, self-referential moments that loop around themselves, where you're reading about yourself, what you are actually doing at the moment: reading a novel about a novel. 

But I think the critics who read this ambitious book primarily as a meta-novel are focusing on the wrong thing. There is just so much going on. 

I will include one caution: The Fraud might be a bit difficult to get into at first, as it's written in a Victorian style. Or is it a faux Victorian style? Is the style a fraud?

Give it a chance, it's worth it.

what i'm watching: a complete unknown: not very profound (or kind) thoughts about this movie

Bobby, Suze, the Village, the Jacket

Several people have asked me to share my thoughts about "A Complete Unknown," James Mangold's fictional biopic about Bob Dylan in the early 1960s.

Allan and I were in no rush to see it, because we love Bob Dylan, and we are well familiar with the public versions of his story.

Allan dislikes fictional biopics, and while we watched the movie last night, I remembered why I also seldom watch them. I'm actually going into my various watchlists and deleting every movie of this genre. There are at least a dozen movies like this waiting; now I've lost interest in them all.

To me, "A Complete Unknown" was like a checklist of 1961-1965 Bob Dylan. I imagined someone holding a clipboard, checking off each person and each item. Here's Alan Lomax. Here's Albert Grossman. Harold Leventhal. Tom Wilson. Woody Guthrie, Johnny Cash, Joan Baez, and Suze Rotolo (here called Sylvie). Check, check, check.  There's the cap. There's the jacket. The motorcyle. Check, check, check. Folk City, the Gaslight. Walter Cronkite, the Vietnam War, the civil rights movement, the Cuban Missile Crisis. Check, check, check.

Predictably, it all leads up to the most famous incident of early Dylandom, the most-told tale, the hotly debated and revised and rewritten Dylan Goes Electric at the 1965 Newport Festival. We wondered if Mangold would repeat the legend of the ax-wielding Pete Seeger. I won't spoil it for you.

It appears that most of the casting for this movie was based on looks, which seems to be how this type of movie is made. Woman with long black hair equals Joan Baez. Heavy man equals Albert Grossman. The actor playing Baez lacked any semblance of the singer and activist's beauty and charisma, and above all, her rich, melodious voice and incredible guitar playing. Maybe that's to be expected, but it still felt like a seventh-generation photocopy.

For those who don't know this story, the film is a history lesson. For those who do, it's a hackneyed re-creation, plus a few scenes that in all likelihood did not happen. I got nothing out of it. Had I been watching alone, I would have turned it off halfway through.

For those wishing to know something about Bob Dylan, I recommend Martin Scorsese's 2005 documentary "No Direction Home". Even Scorsese's "Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story" -- a fictional, somewhat surreal homage to the greatest rock tour of all time -- captured more Dylan than this movie that tried to adhere so closely to the real story.

I'm guessing this was a much better movie if you didn't know much about Dylan and don't value him as I do.

what i'm reading: two by two favourite authors: part one: roddy doyle's the women behind the door

I took a break from reading nonfiction to read novels by two of my favourite authors: The Women Behind the Door, by Roddy Doyle, and The Fraud, by Zadie Smith. I thoroughly enjoyed both of them. Here's the first.

Doyle and I go way back

Roddy Doyle is a living legend, and yet under-recognized, at least in Canada.

His debut novel, The Commitments, from 1987, was made into a popular movie, and eventually became the start of the hilarious and poignant Barrytown Trilogy. Like many non-Irish readers, I discovered Doyle when his fourth book, 1993's Paddy Clark Ha Ha Ha, won the Booker Prize. He's been on my must-read list ever since.

Somewhere along the way, the fact of another new Roddy Doyle novel became commonplace. Now when I see lists of the best contemporary Irish writers, I'm sad to see his name no longer included. 

In The Women Behind the Door, Doyle returns to one of his recurring characters, Paula Spencer. Paula is the title character in 1994's The Woman Who Walked Into Doors. She's in an abusive marriage, a fact that she and everyone around her ignores and rationalizes. It's a deeply moving story -- harrowing and triumphant -- and was groundbreaking in its day.

Twelve years and many books later, Doyle published Paula Spencer, which picks up the action exactly where Woman Who Walked leaves off. Paula is now 40, single, and a recovering alcoholic, trying to build a life from scratch. 

Almost 20 years later, Doyle gives us The Women Behind the Door. These books are now known as the Paula Spencer Series, which I find a bit odd, since they were published many years apart, and were not a planned trilogy. But whatever helps more people read more Roddy Doyle is great.

First he lulls you in, then... the emotional mic drop

The Women Behind the Door is vintage Roddy Doyle. It begins with what he is best known for: witty, bantering dialogue that is hilarious, authentic, and dead-on perfect. This banter often occurs between men at a pub. In this book, the banter is among women. It's fun, it's light, it's easy, and it always rings true.

I was immediately drawn in -- it's impossible not to be. But I thought, so this is where he is now, eh? Just writing the easy dialogue? Did he bring back Paula Spencer just to have her banter with a new friend, and some internal reminiscence of the bad old days? That doesn't seem worthy of--- and boom. You fall off an emotional cliff. 

And then I remember, oh yeah, this is Doyle does best. It's not just the banter. It's the banter that begins to reveal. And it reveals deeply, truly, painfully, joyously. One minute you're laughing, then you're struck dead, then you're weeping, from both joy and heartache. You can't put the book down -- not because of action, because of the emotional suspense.

This book is an absolute triumph. I do think to understand it, to mine the full emotional depth, you need to read the three books in order. However, I would recommend reading other books in between, rather than all three consecutively. 

Doyle appeared at the Vancouver Writers Fest, just last year. I was so pleased to see him recognized in this area, and so annoyed not to have been there. So close! And yet, impossible.

Long ago, we did see him read in a bookstore in New York, and I'm pretty sure I also saw him at the famous 92 Street Y writer series around the same time. He's a treasure, and so is Paula Spencer.

things we saw from the road, mostly lies

Billboards seen on the highways between St. Louis, Tulsa, and Kansas City. 

Lies about pregnancy

"Heartbeat heard 18 days after conception"

This is the most frequently-seen lie on all the highway signs. I googled it to see what would come up, and every link was for an anti-abortion websites, disguised as pregnancy information. That's the worst part. How on earth would anyone know the difference? They wouldn't. 

Eighteen days after conception, there is no heartbeat.

Eighteen days after conception, there is no fetus.

Eighteen days after conception, there is not even an embryo!

Eighteen days after conception, there is a blob of cells called a zygote. Some mansplainer might argue, "Well actually... that the blob of cells is called a blastocyst." Zygote, blastocyst, I'm good either way. It ain't a baby and it doesn't have a heartbeat.

Eighteen days after conception, a fertilized egg might be expelled with menstrual flow, and the person will never even know it.

We spent a good portion of our drive saying, "Heartbeat 18 day after conception???", "Heartbeat before one missed period???", and the like.

The 18-days-after lie is usually coupled with an image of someone cuddling a fair-haired, blue-eyed baby. An actual baby, that was carried to term, has been born, and now lives. A human life. As distinct from a fucking blob of cells.

Also: Brew a cup rescue a child. Freshly ground faithfully roasted. christ.coffee

And the usual: Adoption is love. Abortion is murder.

(83) FOR-TRUTH

There's lots of info online about the "83 For Truth" billboards, which are all over the United States, and not only in the South. Here are a few we noted.

When you die you will meet God. Hebrews 9:27

Discover why Jesus created you. 

(Jesus created you??? Does anyone even claim that??)

There IS evidence for GOD. 

(Why do they need evidence? Isn't faith enough?)

Where are you going? Heaven or HELL 

(Just going to Tulsa right now.)

Losing FAITH in GOD?

(Call the number to find out.)

Shackled by LUST? JESUS sets free

(Was there a word limit?)

In the beginning GOD CREATED
(Believe everything you read!)

Safety instructions?

Hitchhikers may be escaping inmates.

Do not drive into smoke.

No tolerance. 

(Seen on a speed limit sign, but perhaps it was referring to the entire country.)

How to stay healthy and earn millions

In a gas station restroom: 

A great adventure begins with healthy habits. So don't forget to wash those paws til they sparkle! Also, the health department requires it.

We passed dozens of billboards for personal-injury lawyers, including: 

"Jail is scary, why not call Larry" and "Trouble with him, you can call Kim." 

JUNGLE LAW showed a female attorney and included #metoo.

Seen in front yards and on the sides of building

Nobody elected musk

Trump is working for Putin

Fuck Trump

Trump Lies

One house with flags from our side along their entire front fence. We wanted to go back and get pictures, but Google Maps took us a different route. Big Data controlling the propaganda! One flag said: DESTROY WHAT DESTROYS YOU. I had to google it.

day 14: kc to st. louis: a drive, a store, and unexpected propaganda -- plus an unexpected margarita (part two)

I wrote the previous post in various airports, and am writing this post from home. I just proofread and corrected that post, so if sharp readers caught the typos, they should now be fixed. 

We are so happy to be home! We couldn't wait to see Cookie and Kai. We had three flights, a total travel time of 18.5 hours, and everything went smoothly. 

We are both off today, then back to work tomorrow. I did not check my work email once in the whole two weeks! Yay me! 

After this final post about the trip, I have a collection of random notes that we've been saving. I'm hoping we can post photos on the weekend, or at least the following weekend.

A cave, a bad tour guide, and unwelcome propaganda

We drove a long, winding way to the Meramec Caverns. We could tell from the roadside ads that the place was old and outdated (not the cave! the company running the tourist attraction). I expected the tour to be a little cheesy, not as interesting or complete as it would be at a national or state park site. But nothing could have prepared me for what waiting for us.

I knew we were in trouble from the start. 

The tour guide asked, "How are you folks doing today?"

I said we were great, and asked him how he was.

He said: "I'm just OK. I have this problem with my leg. I had an accident. It's somewhat better now, but not all the way. When it first happened, I couldn't feel anything. I couldn't move my leg! I said, oh no, what the hay. And then I had to have an operation. The doctor said. . . "

This went on for a long time. We were barely two steps from the ticket booth.

At first we were the only people on the tour. Tour Guide asked, "Where you folks from?" Then he lectured us on Canadian coins, their various dates of issue, which ones he's missing, the date the "one-cent coin" was discontinued in Canada, what a "five-cent coin" costs to manufacture, and probably ten things I blocked out.

We were standing in a huge cave with spectacular stalactites, stalagmites, and columns. TG would occasionally interrupt himself to share a fact about those.

Advertisements for this cave claim that the outlaws Frank and Jesse James used the cave as a hideout. Historians say there is little to no evidence of this, but whatever. But would you believe it? There were life-size cardboard cut-outs of the two men "hiding" in the cave. 

This cave was also featured in an episode of "Lassie," the TV show about the beautiful Collie dog that rescues everyone. And sure enough, there was a life-sized, laminated photo of Lassie, on top of a big stone feature. It was everything we could do to keep from laughing.

Then we learned all about the history of TG's dogs.

Shortly after this, another couple joined the tour. They were on a Route 66 drive, a popular road trip for many Americans, and this cave apparently figures into that. (Throughout our trip, we have seen "Old Route 66" signs. We have no particular interest in tracing a defunct route around shopping malls and abandoned buildings. Each to their own!)

TG seemed to feel more comfortable with them than with us, and directed most of his conversation to them. This gave me an opportunity to hang back, putting some space between myself and the lecture. Allan was busy taking photographs.

The cavern itself was amazing. It's part of a large cave system, a small portion of which is open to tourists. The stalactites, stalagmites, and columns are impressive and a little spooky. One space is full of very unusual features called botryoidals, which look like clusters of grapes growing on vines. 

Caves are an amazing natural phenomenon. They don't need fake outlaw legends or fictional heroic dogs. They don't need coloured lights, which the guide would turn on here and there. Nature is spectacular. Information about natural wonders helps you appreciate them more. Information about your TG, not so much.

In addition to TG's accident and his coin collection, we heard about: his parents (how tall they are, how old his mother lived to be, why his parents got married to each other three times, where his father is now and what he does for work, what his mother died of), school groups (how many kids come in, what he tells them, how he feels about them, what he does when they're not there), and several other fascinating and relevant topics.

Then came his science fiction novel. The plot, the subplots, the characters. Allan whispered to me, "Dude, there are only two writers on this tour and neither of them are you." That may sound snobby but imagine how we felt at that point! 

This just went on and on and on. All about him.

Sometimes I would ask a question about the caves, or one of the other people would. TG would take a break from talking about himself to answer it. Anytime he talked about the cave, he spoke really fast, spitting out facts he had memorized. The actual information about the caves was often impossible to understand.

When we were in Newfoundland in 2007, we had an experience with someone we called Unintentionally Hilarious Tour Guide. Wmtc readers who know Newfoundland guessed that the folks in the tourism office played a joke on us by assigning him as a guide. He was clearly developmentally or intellectually disabled. We were nothing but friendly and polite to him; the joke was clearly on us. (That post had 50 or 60 comments. Now lost.)

It's all fun and games until somebody gets hurt

The tour of Meramec Caverns would have topped that experience in Port Union, Newfoundland. Then it was no longer funny.

We found ourselves suddenly, inexplicably trapped in a "theatre", being subjected to American military and Christian propaganda.

In a part of the cave near the end of the tour, you climb some steps and find some seating. There are wooden pew-like seats installed in a room of the cave. After a brief preamble that involved a WWII-gift to the caves and singer Kate Smith, TG started a video. 

It began with a bible verse.

I said quietly, but loud enough for everyone to hear: "Oh, you have got to be kidding me. Nobody said anything about scripture on this tour."

After the bible passage came images of US military people in planes, tanks, and ships – and a recording of "God Bless America". Loud. And on repeat! 

After the military images came images of smiling, happy Americans, surfing, running on the beach, and laughing. All the Black people were laughing. Look how good America is to the Black people! We've included them in a video! Yay us!

We. Could. Not. Believe it.

Why was this happening? What does this have to do with caves?

The video ended concluded with another bible verse. 

Remember: we can't leave the room. Without TG switching on lights or using his flashlight, the cave is dark. We don't know which passageway leads back to the ticket booth, or how far away that is. We are literally a captive audience.

When it was over, Allan called out, “Why didn't we have the option of opting out of this, like we did for the slippery stairs?” (There were had been a section of the cave with 58 wet stairs, with an option to sit out if you couldn't or didn't want to walk them.)

TG talked over the end of Allan's sentence and continued the tour. I assume that is how the guides are trained to react to objections.

You might think I'm making too much of this, that it's a harmless few minutes, or perhaps a cultural difference, and why do I have to be so sensitive.

Imagine if a Muslim tour guide made visitors listen to passages from the Quran.

If a Jewish tour guide asked everyone to join them in reciting a Hebrew prayer.

How about socialists forcing you to listen to "The Internationale"? 

Does that seem appropriate? To us it's the same thing.

Only a Christian would assume that everyone else is Christian. I'm not saying all Christians make this assumption. But in North America, only a Christian has the privilege of not having to think about this.

Unless the company knows perfectly well that this is inappropriate and it is intended as propaganda. I don't know which. I know that it pissed us off royally. 

I plan to complain about this. Companies who engage in shit like this should hear from people they have offended. I fear my complaint may amuse them, since they clearly have so little respect for difference and inclusion. I won't let that stop me from speaking up.

And PS: Why must every mention of Kate Smith -- whose rendition of "God Bless America" is so famous -- contain a joke about her size? She is supposed to be revered, the song is a sacrosanct piece of Americana, but we can detour from that to ridicule a fat woman.

And PPS: In case you are not aware, Woody Guthrie wrote "This Land is Your Land" in response to the Kate Smith recording of "God Bless America". The original refrain was "God blessed America for me". Woody changed it to "this land was made for you and me" to remove religion from it entirely, and to include everyone who was listening. 

I'm going to suggest the Meramec Caverns use that song instead.

Alcohol and good food improves everything

We couldn't leave the caverns fast enough. 

By this time, it was after 7:00 pm, and we hadn't eaten anything but cookies and candy all day. I thought that near the airport hotel, we might only find fast-food, and I was hoping to avoid that. I googled a bit, and found several tacquerias in a neighbourhood near the airport. 

When we found a place we were looking for, it was almost 8:00 and they were about to close. Allan wanted us to try a Mexican restaurant next door, which appeared to be open. Good move.

Two gentleman greeted us. We asked if we could get food to go. One man, the owner, said, You do not wish to eat here with us? I said, the place looks lovely, but we've had a very long day, and we're very tired.

They brought us menus. Music was blasting and I couldn't focus. Allan, taking care of me, suggested we move further down the bar to get away from the music. The owner also turned the volume down.

We ordered, and started chatting with the owner. He asked if we wanted a drink while we waited. I heard the words "fresh squeezed". The next thing we knew, he was mixing up margaritas with fresh lime. He showed us fresh pineapple and strawberries, saying that most folks start with a classic margarita, then venture into his fruity specialities.

As a rule, I never drink tequila, but what good are rules on your last day of vacation? By the time the food came, we were ready to eat at the bar. We would have been happy to eat from the takeout containers, but they would have none of that, and quickly brought us warm chips and salsa, and soon after, our food.

This is a very new restaurant. Jorge, our host, told us that it opened last December, right before a blizzard, then flooding rains. No one was coming and he was losing money, fearful for his investment. Then business started to pick up. Yesterday, for Mothers' Day, it was packed.

When we finished, Jorge brought us a dessert, on the house -- a rich sponge cake roll, with fresh strawberry jam, rolled in chocolate. I could only manage a bite or two, but it was amazing. Allan was very appreciative that I was too full for dessert.

I told Jorge I would write reviews, and encouraged him to use social media to promote the restaurant. He said he believes that having quality food made of fresh ingredients, and great customer service, should be enough. But people have to hear about your restaurant in order to experience your great food and service! I hope he'll consider it. Meanwhile I will add the restaurant to TripAdvisor. 

By the time we left Casa Don Pedro, we were feeling much better, but also exhausted. The airport hotel was an easy check-in, we returned the rental car, also a snap, and the hotel (just across the highway) picked us up.

Then came the daunting prospect of re-packing in some semblance of order for plane travel. It wasn't so difficult. We were not looking forward to the long travel day -- St. Louis to Toronto to Vancouver to Comox, then a three-hour drive to Port Hardy -- but we were so excited to see Cookie and Kai!

One more post to come, odds and ends, including highway signs.

day 14: kc to st. louis: a drive, a store, and unexpected propaganda (part one)

the store of stores

I forgot a few things that I wanted to capture about our drive from Tulsa to KC. That's what I get for writing at night, rather than in the morning.

Joplin, mounds

To avoid a lane closure on the highway, we detoured through the small town of Joplin, Missouri, down its sweet little main street. Parts were old and well preserved, parts were clearly "revitalizing" with the beginnings of gentrification, and parts were boarded up and abandoned. I wonder which force will win, as the US economy gets even worse.

For some unknown reason, Joplin sports four different doggie day cares, pet spas, and pet grooming places. Does the entire state of Missouri take their pets to Joplin for care? Are the good people of Joplin more pet-friendly than folks in the average Southern town? We will never know.

We also drove past mounds -- the ancient kind. The landscape in this part of the country is completely flat. You can see as far as the horizon with not a rise and, if it's farmland, hardly a tree. The distinctive shapes of the mounds really stand out. We saw one that was tiered; you could clearly see three levels, like a ziggurat.

Leaving Joplin, we saw a small mound, on top of which there was a sculpture of two giant praying hands. The inscription: Hands In Prayer, World In Peace. I guess we're not praying enough. Pretty disgusting to do that to an ancient site.

Incomplete list

I remembered two more US states I haven't been in: West Virginia and Kentucky. I also missed a country (Wales) and recorded a city (Brussels) for a country (Belgium); thanks to wmtc readers mkk and Wally the 24 for catching those. 

I updated that post; I think I've got all the states now. And I think the list may now be permanent, but who knows. 

A free day leads us to many wonders

In the morning, in the cozy little Airbnb in KC, we looked for something to do on the way to St. Louis. We had a full day and didn't want to just hang around in a hotel room. But what was available? Let's see.

America's National Churchill Museum? Yep, it's a museum about Winston Churchill. Nope.

Harry S. Truman birthplace? Nope.

The Nicholas-Beazley Aviation Museum, "one of the preeminent museums in Marshall, MO"? Nope. And just how many museums are there in Marshall, Missouri? We will never know.

We found mentions of a scenic drive through Jefferson City, the state capital, and I wanted to tour Meramec Caverns, a commercial cave site outside St. Louis. Allan didn't think he wanted to go, but he was willing to drive there for me. He did end up going on the cave tour, and thank goddess he did. If he didn't experience it for himself, he might not have believed me. 

Jefferson City

Jefferson City also has a nice downtown, with upscale cafés and boutique stores. The capitol building resembles a smaller version of the US capitol, surrounded by gardens and various statues, near the large brick governor's mansion. There was a Little Free Library that looked like a miniature governor's mansion. We walked around a little, and read some historic markers. 

There is a marker about Missouri's role in the Civil War, which was complicated. The state didn't secede, but it made some concessions to the Confederacy to placate the slave powers. There is also a big stone Ten Commandments. Separation of church and state much?

We saw a sculpture group commemorating the Lewis and Clark expedition. It includes York, the only Black person on the expedition -- Clark's slave. I'm guessing the monument was controversial when it was installed (too honest) and I wonder if it will survive.

In the Museum of Western Expansion (under St. Louis' Gateway Arch), we learned that York begged Clark to allow him join his wife, who was enslaved on a plantation. Clark repeatedly refused. Here's how the National Park Service describes York.

A fronteirsman, hunter, and likely the first African American to cross the continent, York was an American explorer who made important contributions to the Lewis and Clark Expedition. He was enslaved by Captain William Clark and after the expedition's return was denied his payment and his freedom.

To my mind, that's an honest and concise description, that makes York's contributions visible, honouring him, and brings a bit of non-heroic truth to the legend of Lewis and Clark. 

By contrast: as I was writing this, I looked online to find a link, and found this on the "Visit Missouri" tourism site.

The plaza includes statues of Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, York (Clark’s man-servant), George Druillard (French-Canadian-Shawnee hunter and interpreter) and Seaman (Lewis’s Newfoundland dog), plus a journal, telescope, guns and hats. [emphasis added]

Clark's man-servant??? My head is exploding! This "man-servant" was owned by the famous explorer. Back in Tulsa, on the Greenwood Rising building, there is a quote from James Baldwin.

Not everything that can be faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.

Leave it to James Baldwin to nail it so concisely. 

I'm going to email Missouri Tourism to complain.

One store, two minds blown

Driving south from Jefferson City, I saw a store -- "Dutch Bakery" -- and asked Allan to turn in. Always happy when I suggest a bakery, Allan was glad to do so. Maybe we could get some freshly baked goodies.

We headed for the cookies, then started to look around. Oh. My. God. What is this place??

It is huge. It is enormous. It is humungous. It is the largest store I have ever seen.

Do you see the image in this post? That is of one side of one aisle, about one third of the length of the wall. All candy. I paced it out: 20 paces. Not heel to toe, actual paces which are about one meter (three feet) each. 

Every combination you can think of. Almonds in milk chocolate, almonds in dark chocolate, almonds in milk chocolate and caramel, almonds in dark chocolate and caramel, then the whole thing again with peanuts, then with raisins, then with coffee beans. Then with yogurt coating. With strawberry yogurt, blueberry yogurt, and on and on and on. Then a sugar-free section. And maybe 15-20 bags of each of these varieties -- and the bags are heavy and generous.

Opposite the candy, saltwater taffy. Saltwater taffy in 15 different flavours, alone and in combos. Jelly beans. 20, 30, 40 different kinds of jellybeans. And this is just one aisle.

I said, "Oh man, my mother would love this. If she were here, she'd never stop talking about it!"

To which Allan replied, "I'll never stop talking about it!"

I suspected that the "Dutch" in the title referred to Amish or Mennonites. I saw some young women working, and their dress and head-covering confirmed it. Allan saw a sign that said, "Modest dress is appreciated."

Allan retrieved my phone from the car and started taking pictures. (The camera would have been too much.) I think he took more pictures of the Dutch Bakery than of Cahokia. Aisles of grains, aisles of rice, aisles of dried fruit. It just went on and on.

No advertising. No brands. Every bag has a label: product, ingredients, unit price, weight, price. And the prices were ridiculously, insanely low.

The deli had 20 hams on display. A city block of cheese. There were picnic tables, and several seniors were having lunch, ordering from a menu of 15-20 different sandwiches.

All things considered, we were very restrained: a small bag of ginger molasses cookies, saltwater taffy (which, once started, I cannot stop, so must limit access!), and chocolate-covered espresso beans. At the checkout, I told the cashier (who was in traditional Amish dress) how much we loved the store. She was very pleased, so I continued, telling her we have never seen a store like this. 

"What? Never? You're not from here, then?"

"We're from Canada."

"Oh, Canada, that’s why. In the US, stores like this are everywhere. Anywhere there are -- "she paused a little, I tried to make her comfortable -- "anywhere there are Mennonites." 

"There are many Mennonites in Canada, especially in the province of Manitoba. Maybe they have stores like this there." She seemed not to know what I was talking about. That could be girls' education in the Mennonite community -- although I shouldn't make assumptions based on this extremely small sample size!

I enthused some more, and we thanked each other. 

I don't know, one day we might stop talking about this store. Anything is possible.