I spent a few minutes with an old friend at another old friend’s funeral a few days ago and we wound up talking about his car that he affectionately calls Erifnus Caitnop.  John Drake Robinson has written some books about the adventures he and Erifnus have shared through the years.  Erifnus has 313 miles on the odometer and John told me his mechanic thinks the car can hit the half-million mile mark.

John doesn’t think he can last that long, though, but he agreed with me that Erifnus is a historical automobile that deserves to be in a museum.

John is a Jefferson City native.  He and his parents attended the same church we go to. His father, B. F. (“Buford,” John fondly calls him) Robinson was a fixture in the state education department for many years and was a beloved and friendly doorkeeper for the Senate for many ears in his retirement. So I have known the Robinsons, father and son, for more than fifty years.

I always feel strange saying something like that—knowing someone for fifty years.

Erifnus is historic because it is the only car that has traveled every mile of every highway in Missouri. 

At least, we think so.  We can’t imagine anyone else being that interested in doing something such as this.  Or maybe as crazy.

But we all have goals in our lives, some more expansive than others.  Driving on every mile of every highway in Missouri became John’s goal, especially while he was the State Tourism Director and had a reason to do all of that traveling.  I suppose he could have used a car from the state motor pool, but he chose Erifnus and, I have been told by one of those who worked with him, he did not always take the most direct route.

John is one of the most personable people you could ever hope to meet. And a lot of people had a chance to meet him in his odyssey.  His biography on Amazon notes:

He penetrated beyond the edges of civilization, peeked into the real American heartland, and lived to tell about it.

His books are “on the road” adventures blending local characters and mom-and-pop food into an archipelago of tasty stories. He dives deep into the wilderness, where the nearest neighbors are coyotes, and the bullfrogs sound like banjo strings.

When an interviewer asked if he ever “heard banjo music,” John replied, “Sure, all the time. And when I do, I grab a big bass fiddle and join in.”

Through all his travels, John shows a deep respect for history, and for the environment. As a former state director of tourism, he heard the question a lot: How can we balance tourism and the environment? His answer: “If we don’t preserve our natural heritage, and put back what we take out, these attractions won’t be worth visiting.”

Called the “King of the Road” by Missouri Life Magazine, John Robinson lives in Columbia, Missouri when he isn’t sleeping in his car. His articles and columns are regularly featured in a half dozen magazines.

This is Erifnus:

It’s a Pontiac Sunfire.  Spell it backwards.

I have been thinking a museum in Jefferson City would be a great place for Erifnus to continue telling its story, and John’s.  Unfortunately, there is no such museum.  We have two historical organizations in Jefferson City but neither has a museum that can accommodate Erifnus—or other historical city and county artifacts for that matter.  I think it’s time we have such a mseum, but that’s a separate discussion.

I’ve contacted a friend at the National Museum of Transportation in Kirkwood to see if Erifnus might find a place in its collection of automobiles, trains, and airplanes.  Jefferson City’s loss could be Kirkwood’s gain.

There’s another historic vehicle in central Missouri that HAS been saved although it’s not on display.  That’s William Least Heat Moon’s Ghost Dancing, the 1975 Ford Econoline van he used in compiling the stories in his famous Blue Highways. It’s in the storage area of the Museum of Anthropology at the University of Missouri’s Academic Support Center.

Both vehicles need to be displayed where people can appreciate them, the men who drove them, and the stories they have told that enrich us all.

John lives in Columbia so maybe Erifnus could find a home there, too.  But as a Jefferson City resident, I wish we had a place for it here because this is where John grew up and where his service as Director of the Division of Tourism did so much to create the tales of Erifnus and the stories its driver has written.