Category Archives: Jefferson City

One Man’s Vision—8   

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We’ve shared with you in the last four weeks one man’s vision for a greater Jefferson City (well, actually two men, as we wrote about Mayor C. W. Thomas—who inspired this series—in our first entry).  Our list is far from inclusive of all good ideas nor is having a vision my exclusive domain. You have been invited to share your visions and I hope you will do that now that we are wrapping up this series.

All of this ambitious talk about places to meet, places to visit, and places to live has overlooked a lot of our people who have few or none of the opportunities to participate.  If we are to be a great city, we cannot overlook them.

At the library, we sometimes hear about our “homeless problem” and there are those who tell us they won’t visit the library or bring their children there because of “them.”  Those patrons and other critics demand we “do something” about them.  “They” make people uncomfortable.

The library does not have a homeless problem. The CITY has a homeless problem and the public library is an uncomfortable participant in it—because we have to be.

We are a public institution and whether a person owns a mansion or sleeps in a box, that person is part of “the public.”  There is no place for them to go during the day after their overnight accommodations shut down.  We are their warm place on frigid days. We are their cool place on oppressively hot days.  We are their bathrooms.

I’m sorry that some people are offended because “they” don’t dress as well as most of us…or smell as good as most of us and they hang around our building.

We do not often have any problems with these folks although there have been times when we have called police and some have been banished from our premises.  We have signs throughout our building reminding our homeless visitors not to sleep there. Our staff can’t be a dozer police, though, because of their regular duties.

But most of them are okay. We do not judge them on various criteria any more than we judge any of you. You are the public, constituents using a public place in a personal way, too.

I have not had a chance to ask our critics what their solution is.  But ignoring the issue or saying it is someone else’s problem to solve is something for the Old Jefferson City—-at a time when a BOLD Jefferson City should be our goal.

Celebrations of things such as bicentennials of becoming the state capital can work in more ways than one. We should make sure our bicentennial observance doesn’t leave “them” out.  They are people, the public, fellow citizens.  And they deserve—by their presence among us—respect.

Great cities do not become great by only catering to people who smell good.

To do any of the things I have discussed in this series to move a good city toward greatness without facing the problems of those to whom greatness is just a word is irresponsible.  As citizens of this community we are responsible to and for one another. That’s what the word “community” implies.

I can’t tell you how to make these things discussed in these entries happen. Many of you have the expertise I lack.

Leonardo daVinci made drawings of flying machines. The Wright Brothers made the machine that flew.  Humphry Davy, Warren de la Rue, and Joseph Swan made electric lights but Thomas Edison created the incandescent bulb. Carl Benz created a gasoline-powered automobile but Henry Ford showed how to manufacture them.  John Fleming invented the vacuum tube but Guglielmo Marconi created radio.

Some have ideas. Others have the expertise to realize them.

So I’m going to leave you with three statements that have motivated me most of my life and I hope they encourage you to become active in this quest.

The English playwright George Bernard Shaw wrote a lengthy play called Back to Methuselah, retelling some of the earliest stories of the Bible. He creates a conversation in which the snake convinces Eve she should want to learn, that she should eat from the tree of knowledge instead of just living mindlessly in the Garden of Eden.  The snake appeals to her curiosity by saying, “You see things, and you say ‘Why?’   I dream dreams that never were, and I say, ‘Why not?’”

I am asking today, “Why not?”

The German philosopher Johan Wolfgang von Goethe continued that thought when he advised, “Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men.”

I am asking you to dream bigger dreams than we have dreamed, bigger even than a new convention center.

Goethe’s  tragic masterwork, Faust, includes this observation:

Lose this day loitering—’twill be the same story
To-morrow–and the next more dilatory;
Then indecision brings its own delays,
And days are lost lamenting o’er lost days.
Are you in earnest? seize this very minute–
What you can do, or dream you can, begin it,
Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it,
Only engage, and then the mind grows heated—
Begin it, and the work will be completed!

I am asking our city to be bold.

A bicentennial’s greatest value lies not in dwelling on the past, but in building a foundation for the TRIcentennial. It still will not be good enough to be the Capital City.  What more can we be….if we lay the foundation for it now?

I want our bicentennial to be characterized by a sense of boldness that turns a “good enough” city into a great one, that discovers the genius, power, and magic in boldness.

A century ago, a mayor who had seen this city become a modern city that in his lifetime fought off two efforts to take the seat of government elsewhere—Sedalia’s 1896 statewide vote on capital removal and efforts after the 1911 fire to build a new capitol somewhere else—and who modernized our town died dreaming of a convention center.

His spirit of progress is worth recalling and becoming a motivator for becoming a greater city.

You’ve read one man’s vision for accomplishing that.  What is yours?

How can we do it?

One Man’s Vision—7 

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We recognize that not everyone wants change.  The status quo is comfortable, predictable, and requires little effort or participation. Life is good as-is.

And it’s cheaper than trying to be better.  Better equals more taxes. More taxes advocated by those who want their city to BE more are a burden to those who think they cannot afford to live in a greater city.

It’s hard for some to see the benefits that come with a desire to be better.  But the business world shows us that people want better things, will buy them, and the commerce generated with those purchases lifts both ends of economic boats.

But still, there are those who will say “no.”

Decades ago, while working at The Arcola Record-Herald, a small-town Illinois newspaper that provided my first journalism paycheck, I came across “The Knocker’s Prayer,” published in 1918.  Some of the language is dated but the sentiment is contemporary for some people.

Lord, please don’t let this town grow.  I’ve been here for thirty years, and during that time I’ve fought every public improvement.  I’ve knocked everything and everybody, no firm or individual has established a business here without my doing all I can to put them out of business.  I’ve lied about them, and would have stolen from them I had the courage.

I have done all I could to keep the town from growing and never have spoken a good word for it. I’ve knocked hard and often. I have put ashes on the children’s slide and I’ve made the Marshall stop the boys from playing ball on my vacant lot.  Whenever I saw anyone prospering or enjoying themselves, I’ve started a reform to kill the business or spoil the fun.

I don’t wany the young folks to stay in this town and I will do all I can by law, rule and ordinance to drive them away. It pains me, O Lord, to see that in spite of my knocking, it is beginning to grow, Someday, I fear I will be called upon to put down sidewalks in front of my property and who knows but what I may have to help keep up the streets that run by my premises.  This, Lord, would be more than I could bear. It would cost me money, though all I have was made right here in this town. 

Then, too, more people might come if the town begins to grow, which would cause me to lose some of my pull.  I ask, therefore, to keep this town at a standstill, that I may continue be the chief calamity howler. Amen.

But great, or even good, futures are not made by those who choose to stand pat, who argue against daring to be better.

The American Revolution was led by a bunch of rabble-rousers who found British subservience intolerable.  The frontier was expanded by those who dared to cross the Alleghenies. The Civil War was fought because the status quo that allowed one people to own other people was no longer acceptable. The Santa Fe, Oregon, and California Trails were populated by the minority who left comfort behind for greater opportunities (and, we have to admit, destroyed the status quo of the Native Americans in their way) west of Missouri.  Everything of modern society comes from those who saw beyond what-is to what can-be.

The status quo and its costs are not static. The expenses of maintaining the status quo, usable streets for example for example, increases.

The future IS expensive but so is maintaining the present. For a little more, we can reach for a little greatness. And history shows leaders always drag the “knockers” along with them.  And the “knockers” enjoy the benefits of progress, too.

There are always going to be “knockers,” the people who say, “We can’t do this” or “Why do this?”

The pioneers, the leaders, the people who still embody the American spirit of making life better for themselves and those they know and will never know, are the ones who ask, “How can we do this?” and then find the answer to their own question.

The first gubernatorial inauguration I covered as a reporter was that of Warren Hearnes, who was sworn in, in 1969 for his historic second term, and said in his inaugural speech:

To do and be better is a goal few achieve. To do it, we are required to make sacrifices—not in the sense of shedding our blood or giving of our lives or the lives of those we love, but sacrifice in the sense of giving of a part of those material things which we enjoy in abundance. A great people will sacrifice part of that with which they have been blessed in order that their children will be better educated; their less fortunate more fortunate; their health better health; their state a better state.

We must never fear as a city to ask better of ourselves, for ourselves, and for those we drag along with us.

There’s another group that risks staying behind when others reach for something better.

In our concluding post in this series, we’ll talk about those we should not overlook in our search for greatness.

One Man’s Vision—6 

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The day that the announcement of the downtown convention center was made might have been the day that Mayor Fitzwater got a letter from me congratulating him for abandoning the old prison.  MY suggestion, written in that letter, was that the city buy the Capitol Plaza Hotel, eliminating a competitor for convention business, and to overhaul the hotel as a convention center, working with the state on building a big exhibition hall and a big parking garage on the vacant state land behind the hotel.

(In truth, I have no idea whether the present owners would sell the hotel or sell it at a reasonable price.  But some time ago, I checked the owners’ webpage and it seemed to be one of the smaller and least attractive hotels in the portfolio. I also am told it needs a good freshening-up.)

I am comfortable with the city exploring the site it is exploring and I am likewise comfortable with the questions that have been asked about the long-term adequacy of the current plan. I am confident they will be answered during the long process ahead. And we should not be surprised if the final design is substantially different from the preliminary drawings we have seen. The process of completing a project this ambitious involves a lof of adjustments and evaluations.

I was the president of the State Historical Society of Missouri when we built our $37-million Center for Missouri Studies in Columbia and I know that what we built is far different from what we first thought we would build—-and it’s not on the site we originally hoped to use. But we kept asking, “How can we do this?” We were unafraid to adjust and to evolve and our finished product is still breathtaking to me five years after I helped cut the ribbon at the front door.

I imagine the city officials behind the convention center understand the finished product might be different from the early drawings we have seen.  The important thing is that the city has started moving on this project and I am confident the final result will not be hastily-drawn or carelessly-built.

As mentioned earlier—from my various viewpoints, I see this as the beginning of a series of bold moves that can make us a greater city today and be an example to the people of the next hundred years that being “good enough” is a mindset of the past.

But what happens if the planned convention center location doesn’t work out?

It’s ways good to have a Plan B. In this case, my Plan B focuses on the Capitol and Madison site.  I will leave a new convention center location to others if one is deemed more practical and advisable. The ultimate decision will be up to the mayor, the city council, and the citizens who will be asked to finance it.

But how will the city recover its Capital Avenue investment if that site ultimately proves to be less feasible than originally thought?

Here’s one man’s vision:

Downtown condominiums for middle-to-upper-middle income residents that will contribute to a broader renewal of downtown beyond improving the bar and restaurant trade.

Why middle-to-upper middle class condos?  Think of how many thousand state workers come into downtown every day to work who would like to live within walking distance of their jobs.

Those condos coupled with the Simonsen redevelopment, Capitol Avenue restoration and additional re-development of upstairs areas of downtown stores would revitalize the city core and lead to more close-in redevelopment spirit that could spread to the south side.

Of course, if people are to return to our central core, they will need services.  If I were one of the bigger grocery stores, I would be thinking of opening a satellite store downtown; there’s plenty of available spaces, and anything not available from the downtown store can be easily delivered from one of the main stores on our periphery.  And that might be just a start.

I will leave it to your thoughts about how this could revitalize a wide area of our city’s heart in several different ways.

Understand I am not hoping for the failure of the Madison and Capitol convention center concept. Right now, the proper question is being asked: “How can we do this?”

But it’s always good to think about a Plan B.

One Man’s Vision—5 

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The shift of the focus on a convention center and hotel reopens the penitentiary for more redevelopment ideas than museums.

We need a new library.

Last August, the local library board asked voters for a 15-cent levy increase to renovate, expand, and modernize our 50-year old building.  The $28-million effort was killed by a secret group of people, none of whom had ever attended a single library board meeting during which these plans were developed (and who have never attended a board meeting since), who circulated a huge lie throughout Cole County that the library board was going to increase property taxes by 75%.  We were asking for nothing of the sort and I am still waiting for someone from this group to explain to the library board why they circulated this lie and who created it.  I want to see its homework but it appears no one from this group has the courtesy or the courage to prove its case.

—Because it can’t.

What is true is that the need for 21st century library service has not changed.  We know that we will have to go to the voters again but we worry that this group so poisoned public confidence in the library system and the library board that our task of winning support for the library this city, county, and region must have for most of the rest of this century is much harder.

Nonetheless, we cannot stay in a building that no longer meets the needs of our constituents. Our efforts to maintain the services we offer has led to the rental of office space across High Street for our administrators who have been crowded out by the space we needs to meet our responsibilities. We are facing a choice of moving some of our staff back into the building and reducing some services now occupying the space they would reclaim, or leaving things as they are.

We have never had the parking we need.  When the present building was constructed, the plan was to tear down the original Carnegie building to create parking for our patrons. After the building was completed, however, those interested in historic preservation preserved the old building.

We thought in our planning for last year’s renovation election that the county would be picking up some of the Buescher vacant lots and leasing some of the space to us, but the city decided after we had set the August election date that it would be keeping all of them—although it has told us it will lease space to us once it has completed its acquisition program.

But that still does not resolve the inadequacies that have developed through fifty years since the building was new.  The county has indicated an interest in acquiring the building if we decide to sell and move, and further negotiations are warranted because we will, eventually, move.

We have no choice but to do so if we are to responsibly serve our patrons.

About twenty years ago or so, we planned to put up a new building across Lafayette Street from the original prison entrance. But the federal government decided to build the Christopher S. Bond Federal Courthouse there, leaving us in our present situation.

Moving the convention center discussion to Madison and Capital re-opens the prison as a potential site for a new library. It’s in the minds of our library board members but not yet an active discussion.

We are starting to think about asking ourselves, however, “How can we do this?”

One Man’s Vision—4 

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A state-of- the-art comprehensive Jefferson City/Cole County History Museum, at the old prison—discussed in the previous entry in this series—should be only a start.

Let’s shoot for the moon.

What really would be a giant step toward greatness would be he acquisition of another museum, one destined for a Smithsonian-quality reputation.

Six years ago we had a shot at getting the Steamboat Arabia museum to move here from Kansas City. But our planning group never got beyond talking, talking, talking and the expertise I hoped would develop when the group was formed never did develop. In effect, we decided we are good enough, as is. And one important business leader straight-out told me it wouldn’t work here.

None of the people I thought would take the practical lead did. But another smaller, more ambitious town went beyond talking and what it discovered for itself speaks volumes of what Jefferson City would have discovered had there been some initiative generated by all of that talking and should be a challenge to Jefferson City to show it wants to be more than the state capitol, more than a convention center can give us, more than we are.

City leaders in Marshall reportedly raised $150,000 for a feasibility study of a steamboat museum at I-70 and Highway 65. The initial investment would be high. The payoff will be large and long-lasting

The findings show that the payoff of this major commitment will be multiples of what was forecast for the Marshall/Sedalia/Lexington area.

I took a lot of notes at the meeting where the findings by the consulting firm of Peckham, Guyton, Albers & Viets (PGAV) were revealed three years ago.

PGAV called the museum proposal “a chance to put something iconic in Central Missouri.’  It described a state of the art museum with a national and regional strategy. It addressed continued investment that renewed the museum’s life cycle, the development of supporting amenities, the financial sustainability for generations, and the leadership the project would provide for future development.

The company looked at tourism strategies—attracting people to the area, creating support for the project, and connecting the museum to other parts of the country by defining a larger region to draw from.

They saw the museum as being a local draw and, more important, a destination attraction. PGAV calculated the trade area for the museum south of Marshall at more than 7.5 million people within a three-hour travel time.  The study forecast the operating costs would be about $2.4 million a year, based on an $18 adult admission fee, retail sales, and food and beverage income, among other things. It could be operated with 18 fulltime employees.

The first phase would be a 77,000 square foot museum (about double the present footprint, that would hold the Arabia and a second boat (we’ll discuss that later) and provide support and storage space on 3.7 acres, including parking. Estimated cost: $37 million.  That’s what we built the Center for Missouri Studies for in Columbia—a three-story, 77-thousand square feet building.  By the time the third phase of the steamboat museum would be completed, the complex would cover 8 acres, including parking

PGAV’s site analysis pointed to the great visibility of the museum from I-70 and to the great amount of open land at Marshall Junction.

The company found that museums are “economic engines” for an area—that non-profit art and culture attractions have an economic impact of more than one-billion dollars in Missouri (that’s a 2015 study).  They calculated that $1 generated by such a museum would generate $3.20 for the economy.

The study identifies several financial tools created by state law—Community Development Block Grants, Neighborhood Assistance tax credits, Community Improvement Districts, and ta exempt bonds issued by the Missouri Development Finance Board.

Additionally, PGAV calculated the national 250th anniversary celebration in 2026 will create federal funding capabilities for projects with about two-billion dollars allocated for state signature projects—and the museum, they said, would be a prime choice that a signature project (Jefferson City benefitted from the Bicentennial in 1976 by getting funding for restoration of Lohman’s Landing when it was declared a statewide bicentennial project).

In Summary, PGAV concluded that the Marshall-centered market would be enough to support a destination museum that would be an anchor for other tourism assets in the region (Arrow Rock, Sedalia and the State Fair, Santa Fe Trail sites, etc.  It would develop tourism synergies for local tourism in a three-county region (or broader), it would trigger multiple development opportunities near the Marshall Junction interchange and would create an economic development opportunity when combined with other attractions.  The study indicated the museum would draw 3.7 million visitors when phase one opens in 2026.

If that is true for Marshall, consider what it would mean for Jefferson City.

The population of Columbia, Jefferson City, and Fulton tops 182,000.  The combined populations of Marshall, Sedalia, Lexington, Boonville, and Moberly is about one-third that.

Seven state or private institutions of higher education within thirty miles of Jefferson City have more than 44,000 students. Another thirty miles, north and south, are Moberly Area Community College and the Missouri University of Science and Technology that add another 12,000 students. Sporting events and parental visits bring tens of thousands more people to those schools.

Add tto that, that Jefferson City is on the way to the Lake of the Ozarks. Lake Expo recently estimated 2.5-million people visit the Lake every year, 75% of them between May and September.

Increased tourism is only part of the benefit. The steamboat museum here could offer academic opportunities in technology, archaeology, textile preservation, museum management, American Western history, and other programs at or through those higher education institutions. The museum could benefit them and could gain benefits from them.

And think what a museum dedicated to grow in coming years or decades to capture the history of  the golden decades of Missouri River commerce and frontier development (1820-1880) could do.  The goal of the museum is to have artifacts—and maybe complete steamboats—excavated from past river channels, now farm fields from each of those decades.  Arabia museum President Dave Hawley has one of those boats located and test borings indicate the Malta might be complete enough to bring up as whole as possible. He would love to open a new museum with an 1841 steamboat in it.

Think about that.

Six years ago, we had the chance to raise about five million dollars to pay the costs of excavating the Malta and having it here, keeping the museum project highly visible while he rest of the project developed. Only one person was asking, “How do we do that?”  Nobody answered.

At the time, major fund-raising was focused on the Bicentennial Bridge or on the Missouri River Port.

I wrote at the time that I didn’t see hundreds of school buses with thousands of school children and their adult chaperones visiting a river port or taking in the view from Adrian’s Island as they would visit a steamboat museum.  To be clear, I think Adrian’s Island will be appreciated more in ten years than it was then or might be appreciated now. I can’t recall the last time I heard anything about the riverport but it’s not likely something I will take visiting relatives to see.

The Arabia museum is running out of time before it closes and the collection possibly moves to Pennsylvania, significantly, in November, 2026. Making the acquisition of that museum for our city as the official Capital City Bicentennial Project would be about a $50 million initial commitment. But it would transform our city and it would be an incredible driver to prison redevelopment as well as an incredible complement to the convention center/capitol avenue restoration and redevelopment effort.

Based on my conversations with Joe and Josephine Jeffcity, the steamboat museum would enhance chances for approval of a bond issue for the convention center, the library, and the historical museum, together or separately.

How can we make this step toward greatness happen?

Why should we do it?

Some of us are old enough to remember President Kennedy’s September 12, 1962 speech at Rice University when he set the goal of a manned moon landing within the decade:

“But why, some say, the Moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask, why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic?…We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win.”

The steamboat museum can be, should be, Jefferson City’s moonshot.

At the risk of sinking into hyperbole, bringing this museum to Jefferson City could be the greatest reach for greatness in city history since civic leaders organized the construction of our first Missouri River bridge that helped blunt Sedalia’s effort to steal the capital in 1896.

How can we organize and measure the best of our energies and skills to make it happen?

How can we do it?

 

One Man’s Vision—3 

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I am writing this series of entries—six of them in all at this point—not entirely comfortably because they are intimately personal thoughts, and suspecting that they might be perceived as self-aggrandizing and presumptuous, two characteristics I have not much appreciated in the people I covered in my long life as a political reporter.

Why am I indulging in this exercise that involves unflattering questions about whether our city is so self-satisfied as the capital city that it is reluctant or even resistant to striving to be not just good but great?

And who am I to do it?

Asking the second question is a partial answer to the first question.  Why sholdn’t we expect more from ourselves, FOR ourselves, and for those who come after us?

This city is where I have had a successful career, where I have raised my family, where I have participated in its activities, and where I long to return to regardless of what part of the world I have been in.

I have never sought or wanted to seek public office—-although I have been asked a few times if I was interested. I’m just one of forty-thousand or so citizens living on a quiet street, retired from daily job responsibilities but involved in a few church and civic activities.

I care passionately about my town and what it can be.

—-because I know what it has been and what it is.

That’s right. MY town.  I have a proprietary interest in it, as do you, or as should you. And I want it to be better.  I look around and I see ways that it could be and I wonder if it has the courage to reach for greatness.

I came to Jefferson City fifty-seven years ago to report news for a radio station that no longer has its studios here.  Fifty years ago this November, I joined with one of my best friends, Clyde Lear, to create The Missourinet.  At the time, I was the Secretary of the Jefferson City American Revolution Bicentennial Commission—-I count the successful 18-month effort to bring the American Freedom Train to the town named for the principal author of the Declaration of Independence as one of the best things I’ve ever done for my city.

I am now the president of the regional library board, a member of the Cole County America 250 Committee—a group formed to commemorate, in just two years, the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence—a life member of the Cole County Historical Society, and Past-President of the State Historical Society of Missouri.

My sixth book, all of which deal with some part of Missouri and/or Jefferson City history, is under consideration for publication with the University of Kansas Press.

It is a mistake to think that historians live in the past.  We don’t. We use the past as lessons to consider the future, and I have been thinking a lot recently about the future of my town, and yours.

A coincident combination of recent events and circumstances has triggered all of this:

—The decision to give up on the penitentiary as the site for a hotel and convention center.

—A “for sale” sign in the window of our former family pharmacy

—The defeat last August of the library’s proposed levy increase to bring our 1970s library system into the third decade of the 21st century, thanks to a secret committee that spread a giant lie to voters throughout the county.

—An ongoing effort to keep an irreplaceable historical resource from leaving the state

—A legislative refusal to fund a major restoration project filled with the lessons of history, and

—-And a citywide social problem

All of this has come together as we look the bicentennial of the City of Jefferson becoming the seat of state government on October 1, 1826, and the bicentennial of the first legislative session held here, beginning that November 20th.

So far I have heard of no plans to celebrate the city’s bicentennial as the state capital.  And I think that says something about the cultural character of my town.

I believe the celebration of the 200th anniversary of Jefferson City becoming the capital city of Missouri could change the way we see ourselves and the way others see us going forward.

Inspired by the story of Mayor Cecil Thomas, recounted in the first episode, I am offering this one man’s vision requires us to be better—no, to be GREATER—than we are.  I hope you have, or will have, your own vision.

I have formed the opinion through many years of observing my town that we have a split personality.

First, we seem to think that being the state capital is good enough.

That has never been true.

Being “good enough” is not good enough.  Great cities do not become great by being “good enough.”

I do not want to hear anyone tell me, “We can’t do this.”  Cities don’t become great because they think they cannot accomplish great things.  They become great by asking, “How can we get this done?”

Another impression I have is that we waste too much time comparing Jefferson City to Columbia.  If that is, indeed, the case, we need to get over it. And this is a good time to focus on what we can be, not what we are in comparison, or what they have that we don’t.

And third, I wonder if we are in some respects a cubicle city in which many of us go to work each day, spend the day in our own little cubicle—seldom standing to look around or to communicate with people in other cubicles—and then go to a larger cubicle that is our home. It is hard to think outside the box if you spend your life in a cubicle.

Our family drug store closed last fall. The historic soda fountain that was a landmark part of our city culture remains.  When the “for sale’ sign went into the window late last year, I began to worry about what would happen to that soda fountain under new ownership of the building—and how it needs to be saved and preserved somewhere if it is to be removed.

But Jefferson City has no place to put it, or to preserve other important artifacts from our county’s past that tell the story of how we have become what we are..

While all of this was happening, I was asked to speak at a fund-raising Tea sponsored by the ladies of the Cole County Historical Society. They wanted me to talk about the history of the society, which this year celebrates the 80th anniversary.

And the Cole County America 250 Commission was being formed about then to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

After I saw the “for sale” sign in the Whaley’s window, I sent an email to the Historic City of Jefferson and to the Cole County Historical Society suggesting it is time for the two groups to get together and start planning a meaningful county history museum.

We do not have a museum that preserves the history of our other communities in Cole County.  There are no exhibits about Wardsville or Taos or Russellville or Osage City, Elston, or others including the little communities that winked out; no exhibits about The Foot or Munichberg.  Where can we go to learn about what an international city we are?  Where will we find the stories of Steve the Tailor, Arris the Pizza-maker, Helmut the Restauanteur, Yannis the Coffee Merchant, the pioneers of Temple Beth-el, the stories of those who serve us food from Thailand, China, Japan, Vietnam, India, Mexico—and Ireland.

Where can we learn of the migration of African-Americans, northern Missouri slaves, who crossed the river to come here to escape guerilla warfare, knowing they were safe in the first state capital to be occupied by the U. S. Army in wartime?  We need to show how Lincoln University came to be and how it has transformed through many decades into an institution of higher learning that has served this community far better than we seem to acknowledge. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people of all races in our area are walking around with degrees and advanced degrees from Lincoln.

And sports—where can we learn about Pete and Ray (Adkins and Hentges), and who WAS Dwight T. Reed?  Or where can we learn about our five (at least) major league baseball players and the five, so far, Jefferson Citians with careers in professional football? Or even the story of tennis star Althea Gibson.

We have two historical organizations, neither of which tells the story of our city and county as well as many local museums I have visited—in much smaller towns—have told about their cities and counties.

We need a city/county history museum built inside the old prison that meets modern museum standards for story-telling and is a true value to the people here and to visitors—a museum within a museum. I mentioned this at the most recent meeting of the America 250 Committee as a project that would be our legacy and committee members seemed attracted to the idea.

Developing such a museum would mean a new location for the Cole County Historical Society museum, which now occupies a 150-year old building with severe limits on space with costly upkeep costs that impede expansion.  The building would be desirable to associations or entities such as those that already occupy large amounts of building space close to the Capitol. Instead of the building being a financial drain, the sale of it would provide part of the financial foundation for a truly representative center of Cole County history.

That’s not the only important public institution that needs a new home that would fit well within the renovation of the old penitentiary and be a legacy from this generation to tomorrow’s  greater city.  We’ll explore that possibility next.

(We are sharing our vision for a greater city.  We are interested in what others hope for a better city for our grandchildren’s grandchildren.  Take some time and let us know in the response box below)

One Man’s Vision—2

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Jefferson City’s hopes of turning the old penitentiary into a major redevelopment project are in danger. City officials have for many years pinned many of their hopes for a mid-city rennaiscance to the state’s preservation, restoration, and redevelopment of the prison and dozens of acres of land controlled by he city inside the old walls.

Jefferson City leaders must aggressively overturn an effort by the House of Representatives Budget  Committee to eliminate $52.3 million from the state budget that Governor Parson recommended in January and another $40 million he wants set aside for later preservation and restoration work.

It is essential if a downtown convention center is to be more than a stand-alone project that misses the chance to bring about greater transformational change for our city from Madison and Capitol for the next seven blocks to the east.

The plan has been promoted as putting the old place in shape for expanded tourism attraction.  But the issue is far more important than that.  It is only one part of a much greater future for a major part of the Capital City and, it can be argued, is part of a package of developments that is highlighted by the expansion of the Capitol itself.

The Capitol and the penitentiary are bookends of our city’s historic, cultural, economic, and ethnic past, present, and future.  In fact, the penitentiary is a major reason this city continued to exist for the first eighty-five years as the seat of state government, a development that curtailed the efforts to end the City of Jefferson’s political history before it had hardly begun.

Jefferson City was a tiny, dirty/muddy, little frontier village, the worst of the three possible locations for a permanent capital, when Governor John Miller told the legislature in 1832 it had to do something to create an economy for the city or take the government elsewhere:

If t is not to be the permanent seat of government, that fact cannot be too soon made known, while on the other hand if it is to remain as such, it is advisable that those measures which would advance its prosperity, should be taken with the least possible delay. Some of the principle streets are from the nature of tne ground impassable. It is therefore respectfully recommended that an appropriation be made for grading and otherwise improving,them. The erection of a penitentiary here, the necessity and utility which cannot be doubted, would contribute in a great degree to calm the public mind in relation to th« permanent location of the seat of government.

 The penitentiary, for many years well outside the city limits, today is the link between the water company overlooking the river on the hill west of Bolivar Street to Ellis Porter/Riverside Park and its recently-restored amphitheatre on the east. It’s an area that swells to include Dunklin Street that runs through the heart of Munichberg and continues to and past the entrance to Lincoln University before turning back toward the river at Clark Avenue.

For many years, the tall standpipe at the water company,  the capitol dome, and the smokestacks of prison industries were parts of our skyline.

That area has been, is, and will be the heart of our city.

One Budget Committee member called the restoration “the stupidest idea I’ve heard all day,” and another said it was not a place she would take her grandchildren. Another opposes the idea of making a tourist attraction out of the suffering of thousands of inmates.

It’s time for these folks to hear, loudly, from city leaders that they are flat wrong on several counts.

There’s plenty of time and ways to get that money put back into the budget but Jefferson City needs to become very aggressive in making the case that these committee members are just flat wrong. Thirty thousand people a year don’t think the prison is stupid. A lot of grandchildren have gone through it. And the suffering of inmates is an important part of the reason our national history of corrections has undergone massive change. The prison is a great example of showing how our past can guide us to the future.

Alcatraz is not too gruesome to draw 1.5-million people a year. Nor is the old Eastern State Prison in Philadelphia, which draws 350-thousand. Nor are at least a dozen restored prisons and jails throughout the nation.

Jefferson City cannot allow the short-sightedness of these representatives to prevail.

In a city where you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a lobbyist, it wouldn’t hurt if they had enough interest in their town to speak up for it voluntarily and help get that money back. And asking the governor to step in would not be improper.

Jefferson City must fight for the restoration of this funding not just because the old prison is a tourism draw but because of its potential for significant other developments that will take advantage of a large plot of available land in the heart of the city. What prison restoration can mean to Jefferson City’s core redevelopment is part of the vision of making a good city a great one.

The prison is more than an old, miserable lockup.  It is one of the most important historical structures still standing in Missouri, a massive learning experience for all who visit it, even grandchildren. Going through it is a matter of going through several eras in the history of crime, punishment, and justice in Missouri.

You want to know how bad things were?  Take a tour. You want to know how things changed?  Take a tour. The stories you hear from guides are intensely human. Calling the prison a tourist attraction, in fact, cheapens the prison as a teaching and learning experience.

We can concede that there are those who don’t think the public should see this institution that focuses on the worst of our society.  But ignoring the worst does not make us better.  Crime is here.  Prisons are here.  Refusing to acknowledge their presence, their purposes, or the changing standards that they represent in our history is unrealistic.

Thousands of men and women went into that “bloodiest 47 acres in America” and came out to live peaceful lives. Understanding the world where they were sent and from which they emerged is important.  Making a tourist attraction out of the suffering of thousands of inmates?  It’s much more than that.

The decision by our city leaders to abandon the old penitentiary as the potential site for a convention center and hotel is a welcome, solid, decision. The plan to put the hotel/center in the prison seemed to be a good idea about a decade ago but nothing developed other than a few lines on paper. It was correct for the previous city administration to bring this long-ignored opportunity back to the public mind and to keep it there. But it is not unusual for first concepts to fall by the wayside as time shows their weaknesses.

I was the President of the State Historical Society of Missouri when we opened our $37-million Center for Missouri Studies about five years ago. It is far beyond what we imagined it would be in the first stages of our planning and it is not on our first choice of location.  But the leaders of our society never once conceded that we could not do what we wanted to do. Our only question was, “How do we do this?”

That characteristic, when applied to cities, is what elevates good cities to great cities.  Do not tell me we can’t do something; explain to me how we can.

What happens with the penitentiary now that it is available for new development is a major factor in Jefferson City’s move from a good city to a great city.  As we explore one man’s vision in this series, details will emerge.

We’ll talk about our vision for the penitentiary later. But for now, the priority must be action that will preserve the penitentiary for its own value to the public while creating an improved opportunity for the city to take steps toward greatness within it.

(photo credit: Missouri American Water Company)

 

One Man’s Vision

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I was reading a newspaper the other day and I came across this comment from the mayor:

“Jefferson City cannot obtain conventions of any size because of our lack of a suitable hall. Conventions and public gatherings are the finest sort of advertising for the city, and would naturally gravitate to Jefferson City, as the capital of the state if we had a hall. Then, too, we should have a community center such as all the progressive cities of the time are establishing which could house public charities, civic organizations and the like and at the same time furnish an auditorium space for local gatherings and celebrations. I think the time has come when the people of the city should take the lead in this behalf, and build the hall themselves. It will pay for itself in the volume of business and the expenditure of money by visitors brought here as a convention city.

“I would not advocate for these improvements, nor advocate for a bond issue if I did not believe the town could not afford it.  We are in excellent condition financially and our taxes are not high. Our credit is perfect and now is the time to extend ourselves to the point of providing these things which the prosperity and growth of the city demand.”

You probably missed seeing that article, because—

The Mayor was Cecil Thomas who had been elected by a large majority to his fifth two-year term and was speaking to the DAILY CAPITAL NEWS 99 years ago, on April 9, 1925.

Now, in 2024, an important step is being taken to finally realize the dream of Cecil Thomas. The abandonment of the prison as the site for a hotel and convention center is the first major step. The agreement with a developer is the continuation of a bold step finally being taken to materialize Mayor Thomas’s dream.

His announcement came just six months after a huge event was held to dedicate our new state capitol.  It came about eighteen months before the centennial of Jefferson City becoming the state capital city.

Today, we are about seven months away from the centennial of the Capitol dedication and we are about 18 months away from the BIcentennial of Jefferson City becoming the capital city.

A century has passed during which we have talked and talked and talked about a convention center.  Two centuries have passed since we became the capital city—-and it is time to examine the character of our city and the foundation you and I are laying for the people who will live here for the capitol’s bicentennial and the capital city’s TRIcentennial.

Will we just talk and talk and talk or will we start a spirit of boldness that will lift a city that sometimes seems too satisfied with the things as they are, with the image of being the Capital City being enough?

I propose we begin to confront that issue and that we opt for boldness and Mayor Thomas is an inspiring example.

Why use this long-forgotten mayor as our guide?

Cecil Thomas’s vision of a convention/community center died with him on October 3, 1928 when he suffered an apparent stroke or cerebral hemorrhage (the phrase at the time was “apoplexy) while on a business trip to Chicago.  He was just 56 years old and was nearing the end of his sixth term. Congressman William Nelson, who turned aside Thomas’s bid for Congress in 1924, said, “This city of beauty, progress, and achievement is a fitting monument to him who was so long its mayor.” Nelson represented Central Missouri for nine terms in Washington.

First National Bank President A. A. Speer, a former House Speaker and Vice-Chairman of the commission that built the capitol, called him, “Jefferson City’s foremost citizen” and suggested, “Jefferson City should build a monument and on that monument I would inscribe, ‘He lived for Jefferson City.’”

The DAILY CAPITAL News commented, “A history of his activities would read like an account of the growth and improvement of Jefferson City.”  Among the civic enterprises in which he had a hand:

—Construction of the street railway system.

—Construction of the High Street Viaduct

—Development of several additions including Forest Hills

—Promotion of the plan whereby the Missouri River bridge was taken over by a local company and is to be made a toll-free bridge.

—Promotion of the place which led to the construction of the new Missouri Hotel here.

—Active in building up the sewer system and all major projects for improvement of the city, including fire and police departments, and street improvements.

He was one of the founders and early presidents of the Jefferson City Commercial Club, now the Chamber of Comerce, a member of the Rotary Club and an active member of the Presbyterian Church.

One last project Mayor Thomas backed never materialized—a concrete tunnel on West McCarty Street “to improve and open up tht section of Mccarty in order tht Vista Place might be connected with a main artery of the community.”   At the time, the street was unimproved and was considered impassable.

The newspaper reported news of Thomas’ s death came “like a thunderbolt out of a clear sky” and “cast a pall and shadow of gloom and regred over the Capital City…He was so much a part of the integral life of the community, so closely connected with every activity looking toward a bigger and better city, and such a familiar figure pon the local streets that the full realization that he was no more dawned but slowly.

“The uptown business district streets were lined with flags, all at half-mast out of respects to the departed mayor—one of the best friends Jefferson City ever had or ever will have.”

The city was reported to be “at a standstill” during his funeral. “All businesses were closed, street cars were stationary, and the middle span of the bridge over the Missouri River…swung open for a brief period.”

The POST-TRIBUNE of August 21, 1929—about ten months after Thomas’s death—reported that returning visitors to Jefferson City were ‘surprised” by the city improvements.  “The automobile and the determination of the late Mayor Cecil W. Thomas, backed by a citizenry that favored street building were definite factors favoring this progress,” said the article. “Gone are the miles of muddy, dusty streets, which even with oiling, brought despair to women who attempted to rid their homes of the dust.”  It also cited the lighting of High Street and later other parts of town and the development of new subdivisions such as Wagner Place, Vista Place, Forest Hill, the Jordan Addition, the increased building-up of the Houchin Tract, and to the south the Morris subdivision, and of Washington Park as major improvements in the city.

The newspaper forecast the improvements had paved the way, literally and figuratively, for “still greaer growth in the next ten years.”

But it didn’t happen.  Mayor Thomas was dead.  Two months later, the stock market collapsed and the Great Depression set in.  World War II and post-war developments wiped out Thomas’s thoughts of continued growth toward greatness for his city.

Thomas’s widow, Celeste, was the granddaughter of Jefferson City’s first mayor, Thomas Lawson Price.  Their marriage in 1902 in the Price Mansion was the last social function in the historic house that stood where the Missouri Supreme Court building is today. It drew 500 friends and relatives.

When they returned from their honeymoon, they moved in with Celeste’s widowed mother at 428 East Main Street (now Capitol Avenue). Celeste outlived Cecil by 25 years. Their home, advertised for sale in the JEFFERSON CITY NEWS TRIBUNE after her death, is now the site of the Missouri Chamber of Commerce  and Industry state headquarters

Only John G. Christy, for whom the present city hall is named, served longer than Cecil W. Thomas, who died six months short of twelve years in the office.  Christy served three full four-year terms.

A city hall is named for Christy.  But there is nothing—yet—-that honors Cecil Thomas, who suggested a century ago that Jefferson City have the convention center it is now more seriously than ever finally considering building.

Cecil Thomas was a man who saw Jefferson City as a good city and who had a vision to make it a greater city.

The convention center was then and remains now a step toward that greater city and at last, Jefferson City leaders are re-kindling that dream from a century ago.

We offer a gentle hint about the convention center, however, whenever, and wherever it becomes real, at last, for our city.  Should A. A. Speer’s 1928comment about a monument to this forgotten mayor and his vision for our city be considered when naming the center?

Jefferson City doesn’t even have a street named for him.

What else can be done? We are going to explore those possibilities in subsequent entries.

What is YOUR vision for the City of Jefferson?   Let us know.

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(“One Man’s Vision” is the title of a speech I gave to the Noon Rotary Club a few days ago that began with the story of Cecil Thomas’s wish for a convention center and covers several other possibilities in addition to the proposed center.  If you have a group that would like to hear them, stick around for later articles here, or invite the author in for a talk.  Meals served at such meetings are not required but are always appreciated).

Notes From a Quiet Street (Spring break edition)

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It’s been a quiet week in our modest abode on this increasingly quiet street.

Two houses across the street are unoccupied; their owners are in assisted living facilities. Some people are using the house next door that is owned by the family of a couple that both died in recent years.  A house on the corner two blocks away was vacant for several weeks before somebody bought it last week.

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It’s been especially quiet at the house where we get our mail.  Our twenty-year old plasma TV, the latest thing in technology when we bought it, conked out; it refused to come on the next morning after another woeful Missouri Tiger basketball loss. Perhaps it committed plasmacide.

I bought a new set but the crew to install it and haul off the old set couldn’t bring it to the manse for ten days.

It was kind of nice.  Nancy, who anguishes terribly as she figures out our taxes so our accountant can fill in some blanks, had no distracting things to take her away from her ongoing struggle with all of the papers, receipts, and retirement fund reports and other financial flotsam and jetsam that washing up on our financial beach.

I caught up on some research and did some writing in the quiet of the evening and worked on a speech about using our city’s bicentennial as the state capital to transform itself.  We even took some time out to READ.

The new set is a 65-incher, ten inches more than what we had but a full foot smaller than the biggest one I could have bought. But watching a 77-inch set in a living room the size of ours would be the equivalent of sitting in the second row at a real theater.

We were recalling what an adjustment it had been when we went from our 36-inch square-screen set to the 55-inch rectangular one and how it dominated the room.

Many of you who consume these words might recall your first TV set when TV itself was new.  Ours was a 13-inch Admiral on which we watched two stations and a few years later a third, but we needed an antenna rotor to move the antenna around to pick up each one.  And the national anthem was played with various military films in the background at 10:30, when the station signed off after the 10 o’clock news.

And the next morning we’d look at a test pattern before the Natioal Anthem was played with another military film in the background and the broadcast day would start again.

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This is spring break week for the legislature. It’s a chance for lawmakers to lick their wounds from the first half of the session that has been especially fractious in the Senate and pretty productive in the House despite the nagging ethical investigation into some actions or proposed actions by the Speaker.

Next week they come back for an intense sprint to the finish in mid-May except for a Monday-off after easter Sunday.

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The legislature spends the first four months getting bills lined up for passage in a frantic last week, although that system hasn’t worked because the Senate has gotten into annual mudfights between the casinos who want a state-harmful sweetheart tax deal on sports wagering and the people who want to legalize all of the thousands of questionably-legal video poker machines that have turned our convenience stores into quasi casinos, state law limiting casino locations to the contrary notwithstanding.

Jim Mathewson, the Sedalia Senator who led the Senate for eight years once explained that the legislature waits for the last minute to pass most of its bills for the same reason that many people wait until the last day before they file their income tax.

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An important anniversary comes up in Jefferson City in October.  It will be 100 years since formal dedication ceremonies were held for the then-new Capitol.  Five former governors delivered remarks.

There are now seven living former governors: Bond, Ashcroft, Wilson, Holden, Blunt, Nixon, and Greitens.  That might tie a record.  If these seven hold out for another ten months or so they will be joined by an eighth.

Speaking of the potential eighth:  I’ve ordered his book. He was interviewed at length by the Missourinet’s Alisa Nelson. It’s interesting and it’s on the Missourinet webpage. You just have to do a search.

I need to catch him when he’s gotten loose in the wild one of these days and have him sign it after it arrives in the mail.

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On October 1, 2026, Jefferson City will observe the bicentennial of the move of state government from its temporary home in St. Charles.  November 20 will mark the 200th anniversary of the first legislative session held in the new capital city.

We haven’t heard of any plans being made to celebrate those events but one idea we’ve had is a concert of Missouri music.  If you have some suggestions for songs about Missouri or by Missouri composers, let us know.  St. Louis Blues and Goin’ to Kansas City and the Maple Leaf Rag spring easily to mind.

One that I know must be included is Neal E. Boyd’s “Missouri Anthem.”

Neal E. Boyd and Brandon K. Guttenfelder – MISSOURI ANTHEM – YouTubea

Or a beautiful orchestral version:

Neal E. Boyd – MISSOURI ANTHEM Orchestral 2013 – YouTube

Neal E. Boyd died more than five years ago and it’s a great shame that The Missouri Anthem that he performed so magnificently is not more widely honored.  He rose from a background of poverty in southeast Missouri to achieve brief national fame as the winner of the third year of the America’s Got Talent TV show.  He died at the age of 42 from various ailments.

The song should replace the dirge adopted in 1949 by the legislature as our state song. The bicentennial of Missouri’s permanent state capital city would be an appropriate time to do that.

 

The Shrinking Book of Numbers

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Two things of note happened in our household during Thanksgiving week.  On the day itself, Nancy and I celebrated our wedding anniversary.

Only 56 of them.

The national record for longest marriage is that of Herbert Fisher Sr. and Zelmyra George Fisher, who made it to 86 years, 290 days before Herbert died on February 27, 2011.  Here’s the happy couple on their wedding day:

We are within 30 years and change of setting a new United States record.

The all-time record is held by Karam and Kartari Chand, who were married in India but lived in England when Karam ended 90 years, 291 days of married life by dying on September 30, 2016.  He was 110.

So we’re 34 years and change from setting a new world’s record.

We haven’t discussed it but I’m in if she is.

Incidentally, the longest current marriage is between Evert Stolpe and Annni Lepisto Stolpe, who are still hitched in Narpes, Ostrobothnia, Finland after (as of Thanksgiving Day in the USA) 82 years, 244 days.

Studies show (What The Average Marriage Length In US Says About Your Divorce Risk (fatherly.com) that the highest risk of divorce happens within the first two years of marriage, before there are children to complicate things. The possibilities flare up between years 5-8, the infamous “Seven Year Itch” period. But years 15-20 are average but growing because in this time of late marriages, people reach their 50s, the kids are gone, and who wants to stick around with this person through their declining years when there’s fun to be had?  “Gray Divorce” is increasing.

Apparently, we missed our chances.  Now, we’re stuck with each other, which is fortunately very good for both of us.

When I sent my parents a letter informing them of the upcoming nuptials in 1967, my father wrote back to note of congratulations and hope that we would be as happy as my parents had been.  “We never thought about divorce,” he wrote.  “Murder, sometimes, but never divorce.”

Or something like that.

Bowling Green University’s National Center for Family and Marriage Research published a study that only seven percent of American marriages make it to 50 years or more.

Hooray for Us!!!

The second thing that happened during Thanksgiving week was the arrival of the telephone book.

The 1967 phone book was the first one in Jefferson City to have my name in it.  Right there, Priddy, Bob  1519 E. Miller Street.  It was a third floor attic turned into an apartment reached by a laong narrow flight of stairs. The kitchen was the biggest room in the place.  I lived there for about three months before we moved in together after returning from our Thanksgiving Holiday honeymoon in St. Louis (how old-fashioned that must seem in today’s relationships).

The house number later was changed when the city decided to renumber houses so that there was some logic to addresses (so first responders had a better idea where the fire was or the heart attack or the overexuberant family disagreement).

We later moved to an apartment closer to my work, which was a radio station in a building that no longer exists on Capitol Avenue (the radio station doesn’t exist in Jefferson City, either—it’s one of several radio formats crammed into a single building in Columbia).  Then to a rented house where our Ericofon sat on the floor between the bedroom and the living room.

(Have you seen the video of two 17-year olds trying to figure out how a dial phone works?  Check it out at (107) Hilarious video show 17 year old teenagers baffled by rotary phone – YouTube or another example at (107) Rotary Phone Challenge for Students in 2022 – YouTube).   I’d hate to see them figure out an Ericofon, which was the first phone Nancy and I had as a married couple.

For any younger readers: the dial was on the bottom and there was a button that was pressed when the phone was put down that disconnected the call.

Look back at that 1967 phone book’s cover showing Capital City Telephone Company serving Jefferson City. But there also was Midstate New Bloomfield, Midstate Centertown, Mistate Taos, Midstate Brazito, Midstate Eugene and dial St. Thommas. It had 77 pages of residential numbers with “favored businesses”—meaning they paid more—set in bolfface and 128 Yellow Pages advertising businesses by category.

(United Telephone moved in in the early 70s.  One day I spied a company pickup truck with the first name of the company misspelled, “Untied,” on one of its doors.  I quickly called the newspaper, which ran an embarrassing picture on the front page the next day.)

The phone book for 2020-2021 was 234 Yellow Pages and 70 White Pages. It was small and obviously a lot thinner than that historic 1967 book.  But it was about half the size, top to bottom and side to side—about the dimensions of what is known in the book biz as a “trade paperback” edition—about the size of my Across Our Wide Missouri books. But way thinner.

The new pre-Thanksgiving book had 16 pages of “featured businesses.”  It has 118 Yellow Pages.  And it has only twelve white pages—people who still have land lines.

Nancy found the names of a couple of friends on those pages. I have learned of a couple of other wons.  I felt a strong urge to call them, land line to land line, to celebrate our distinctions.  But I was interrupted by dinner.

Here’s the cover of the new one.

Look at the list of towns. It takes 21 of them to generate just twelve white pages.  I’m not sure how important it is for somebody from Tipoton, 36 miles to the west on Highway 50, to have my home number in Jefferson City but what few people there have phones that don’t fit in their pockets have it now.  Same goes for people in Syracuse, 41 miles away from our house, or Otterville (where the James gang pulled one of its last train robberies), 49 miles away, or Smithton, named for railroad promoter George R. Smith who was so disappointed the town didn’t want a railroad that he moved a few miles farther west and founded another town that would be more welcoming—naming it for his daughter Sarah whose nickname was “Sed” and therefore the town became Sedalia.

Well, we got a little carried away there. But the phone book lets a person with a landline 54 miles west of my landline to call me.  The number is small enough we might invite everyone to a picnic at the Memorial Park Pavilion. We will provide a small Waldorf Salad, without marshmallows because I can’t eat them anymore.

Phone books are one of many commonplace things that remind us of the changes in our world over time.

Fifty-six years of marriage and phone books.  And phones.  We now have three numbers, two of which reside in our pockets unless we’ve forgotten where we put them.

Has anybody ever kept track of how many hours in a year we spend looking for our cell phones?

Anyway—

56 years of family and phones.  And we’re in no mood to hang up.

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