Elephant Rocks

Geological tourism is subtle. Merry and I love it. Often the sights require special attention because they are not apparent to the casual passer-by. Over the years we have bagged much of the really big game of the geologically motivated: the Grand Canyon, of course; the Utah marvels of Bryce, Zion and Arches along with the lesser known but truly amazing Capital Reef; the stratovolcanos of the Northwest, Crater Lake, Mt. Hood, Mt. Baker and Mt. St. Helens; the magnitude one springs of Florida and Missouri ... I could go on. Many of the most memorable places, however, are of more subtle form. Last Saturday we toured two of the marvels of the St. Francois [pronounced Francis] Mountains.

The St. Francois Mountains are the tallest and only true mountains in Missouri. They run through part of southeastern Missouri beginning about 50 miles south of St. Louis. They are between the eastern edge of the Ozarks and the Mississippi. Any geologist worth his or her salt will tell you the Ozark “mountains” are not proper mountains at all, but a plateau deeply dissected by valleys. The St. Francois range contains the highest point in the state, Taum Sauk, at a modest height of 1772 feet (540 meters). These rounded hills are actually among the oldest mountains on earth having been formed by volcanic activity about 1.5 billion years ago. By comparison the Appalachian range started to lift about 460 million years ago, the Rockies about 70 million years ago and our beloved Adirondacks only 5 million years ago. The St. Francois are so modest today because they've sustained a lot of wear over the eons. They are probably the only area of of the midwest not to have been submerged during the Paleozoic era. Ancient corals along their base indicate they probably were a solitary island chain at the time. They were also never scraped clean by glaciers during the ice ages.

The St. Francois Mountains are the center of Missouri commercial mining. Mineral deposits in and near the mountains yield lead, iron, baryte, zinc, silver, manganese, cobalt, and nickel ores. The area today accounts for over 90% of primary lead production in the United States. I wrote about that in last weekend's post on the Bonne Terre mine. Granite has also been commercially quarried in the area since 1869. The area around Elephant Rocks State Park produces a deep red tone granite that was used for the towers of the first bridge across the Mississippi at St. Louis as well as for the thousands of shoebox sized paving blocks on the St. Louis waterfront. Granite mining continues in the area today producing primarily Missouri Red monument stone.

People generally don't come upon Elephant Rocks by accident. It's miles off any Interstate tucked back the Acadia valley near the small towns of Pilot Knob, Ironton, and Graniteville. Technically Elephant Rocks is a “tor” or weathered outcropping of rock along a ridge line. A mile or so of the north ridge here has a line of pink, lichen encrusted granite outcroppings topped with giant rounded boulders. Granite erodes very slowly, so these boulders were a long time in the making. Because many of the boulders are in a line, nearly touching, they remind people of circus elephants.

On the fine warm day we visited people were everywhere but it was not really crowded. There are a lot of rocks to scramble around on, a human jungle gym. Back in the 19^th century small entrepreneurs decided this was an excellent and easy place to mine building stone. Two abandoned granite quarries are on the park property and a few more small quarries, one still in operation, are nearby. There are piles and piles of large blocks of granite everywhere. The woods are full of stone, cut but never used. Down one side trail is an old railroad engine repair shop, its roof long gone but its double thick walls of pink granite as solid as the day they were laid by skilled masons more than 100 years ago. It's a minor miracle that the stone cutters didn't finish the job of taking this formation apart block by block.

Joli, the dog ambassador, greeted everyone on the trail, especially the kids. Once she was surrounded by about 10 pre-teen boys who were finally ordered to stop petting her by their grumpy adult group leader. On top of the ridge among the Elephants Rocks are a series of depressions filled with rain water that she found made great drinking dishes and also worked as a serviceable cooling bath.

Back when this area was the exclusive realm of the stonecutter, the quarry workers must have taken their lunch breaks up with the Elephants. They used their quarry tools to carefully carve their names in the granite underfoot all along the ridge. The letters are still clear and sharp. The lettering is familiar, exactly what you would see on a grave stone. It's an unusual form of graffiti, slowly turning into a landmark. We even found a handsome “Edward” carved by a long forgotten stonecutter. I'm sure his view of these mountains in the late fall was nearly the same as ours.

Bonne Terre

Bonne Terre, MO, population 4,939, is about 60 miles directly south of St. Louis. From 1864 until 1960 it was home to what became the largest lead mine in the world. Lead was extracted in this area as early as 1720 by the French. Surface mining of lead quickly spread throughout the eastern Ozarks becoming one of the engines for European settlement. Prior to the Civil War the primary uses of lead was for water pipes, containers, white pigment [remember lead paint?], manufacture of crystal and roofing. The Civil War caused a significant increase in the demand for lead as bullets and shot.

On March 25, 1864, six New York businessmen incorporated the St. Joseph Lead Company. Few of the incorporators knew or cared much about the mining business. They bought the 950 acres known as Bonne Terre for $25,000 cash and $50,000 in unsecured bonds. They hoped that the mere possibility of a profitable lead mine might bring investors and they would get rich. One hopeful stockholder who attended the 1865 annual meeting in New York City was J. Wyman Jones, a young lawyer from Utica, NY. In a turn of events common in those robber baron times he was promptly named president of the company. http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~mostfran/mine_history/stjoe_history.htm Jones turned out to be a terrific manager. The mine prospered.

On a tree-lined street with a few modest Victorian homes in the middle of town is a block surrounded by a high board fence. In the center of the gravel parking lot inside sits a square green building with a sign over double doors reading “Mule Entrance.” Old, rusting mining gear, small gauge mining cars and power shovels are scattered around. Along the back is a row of tired storefronts with a board sidewalk. There's a general store, but the rest are labeled: Showers, Changing Rooms, Diver's Lounge. The store is locked with a sign that the next tour starts in fifteen minutes. The price for a one hour walking tour is $18 a person, $23 if you add the boat tour. We decide to pass. It is getting late.

Just as we were about to leave two men emerged from nowhere. The older guy with a handlebar mustache dressed in what looked like a painter's outfit introduced himself as Chuck. He wanted to know if we were interested a tour. We hesitated. He unlocked the store and showed us a live video feed from the dock on the underground lake.

It is a scene from another world. Beyond the dock a flood-lit blue green lake stretches in all directions. The roof is supported by huge stone pillars that disappear into darkness. We are hooked.

Back in 1960 the lead ore was running out. A new source of better quality ore was located further into the Ozarks. Bonne Terre Mine closed and the pumps that kept spring water out were turned off. Crystal clear water quickly filled the mine nearly to the top. The town tried using the water for a municipal supply but it had too many dissolved minerals. That's when the owners of a St. Louis Dive shop, Doug and Cathy Georgens, bought the place. They pumped the top two levels of the mine dry and set up “Billion Gallon Lake Resort.” Thanks in no small part to numerous cable TV shows that have featured it, people come from all over the world to scuba dive. http://www.2dive.com/btm.htm

Chuck shows us a fist size chunk of nearly pure galena, the state mineral of Missouri. Galena, or lead sulfide, is silver gray, and has a metallic gleam. He shows us old mining tools and explains their use. We enter the mine and walk down 60 steps or so to the upper level. We are in a series of dimly lit massive rooms each a cube about the size of a city block. Every 40 feet or so a hand-hewn stone column rises to the roof. We look down a shaft where ore was dumped and we can see the lake far below. We work our way down room after room. Some have calcite coated walls, cream colored if iron is mixed in, black if manganese, green if copper, pink if cobalt, stark white if pure.

When the mine was opened in the 19^th Century all the work was done by hand using simple tools. Men dug with shovels. They drilled holes by pounding a drill bit with a sledgehammer. They filled the holes with black powder and blew up the rock, hoping not to blow themselves up in the process. They loaded one ton cars by hand. A shift lasted as long as it took to load 22 cars. The cars were hauled along narrow gauge rails by mules. The mules lived their entire working life underground. Day after day for a hundred years the miners broke rock and hauled it out leaving behind this huge void of about 1,500 giant rooms on increasingly deep levels. When the rooms became too tall, they built tottering wooden scaffolds and hung trapezes from the ceilings 50 feet in the darkness where they continued to hammer rock. The work was dangerous and serious injuries frequent. Chuck told us if an injured miner managed to live long enough to be carried out of the mine, the authorities didn't record his death as a mine accident.

We reach the dock and board a pontoon party barge with a silent electric engine. A group of eight divers swim just ahead of us then disappear. We glide from eerie room to room. Lights make the clear water glow green. We can dimly see mining equipment in the deep. I keenly sense the ghosts of long gone miners watching as we trudge back to daylight.

The Current River

We could not leave Missouri until we canoed the Current River. It's an amazing river, so amazing that a national park, the Ozark National Scenic Riverways, protects it. http://www.nps.gov/ozar/index.htm

It's about a three hour drive from St. Louis to the central Ozarks of southern Missouri. We broke up the drive by detouring for a couple of hours to Maramec Spring Park http://www.maramecspringpark.com/maramec/index.html where the 5^th largest spring in Missouri pumps out about 100 million gallons of water a day. On a clear, mild fall day we fell in love with this beautiful privately owned park. You can see one of Merry's photos at: http://meredithleonard.blogspot.com/2009/10/maramec-spring-park.html.

After hamburgers at the snack bar, we drove on twisty roads to the small town of Salem through glittering oak forests in every shade of brown and tan. Past Salem we took an even smaller side road that winds down through the “hollers” to Akers. Here the road literally runs right into the water at an antique car ferry; a two car, hand operated job on a cable spanning the Current River.

Akers may appear to be a town on maps but in reality it consists of a single rustic store selling assorted camping and river gear. The store is operated by a canoe rental and campground family empire with several locations along the river. The same folks operate the car ferry. Across the road the National Park Service has built a large parking lot, a river access point on a gravel bar and bathroom facilities. Canoes are stacked everywhere. Dozens of canoe trailers each with 10 or 12 boats are behind the store. Dozens more are in the lot across the road, more in a field. Canoes are piled along the gravel bar. The canoes are old and very battered. ABS plastic boats of assorted brands are the the rule, most patched multiple times. A few scarred aluminum boats are mixed in, too. The impression of abandonment on this beautiful fall day is downright eerie.

We rent a “cabin” from the outfitter and arrange for them to shuttle our car downriver to Pulltite the next day. About two miles from the river the vintage A-frame we rented sits at the edge of a large deserted campground surrounded by dozens of retired yellow school buses, now in service as canoe shuttle vehicles. Inside the floor is littered with dozens of dead nine spot ladybugs and the occasional wasp. The living room is sparsely furnished in Flintstone-inspired furniture made of halved logs with the stub of a branch still attached, heavy enough to resist hard use. We decide we can survive the utter lack of amenities for one night.

We head back to Akers Ferry early the next morning after a restless night. The river is high. Green water sweeps along at a fast pace. We unload our tandem kevlar canoe on the gravel bar. Two young guys are loading a canoe trailer attached to one of the smaller school buses. One guy is skinny and needs a shave. The other is a baby-faced mountain of a man in baggy shorts and an old tee shirt from a bluegrass festival. They both heft 80 pound plastic canoes over their heads without appreciable effort. Merry and I each later confess that when we saw these guys we could hear strains of “Dueling Banjoes” in our heads.

I grow a bit apprehensive as we prepare to launch. Merry and I have canoed together for nearly twenty years but never on water moving this fast. Right below the gravel bar the river curves out of sight but I can hear rapids. We load Joli the canoe dog into the canoe and push off, then think better of it and quickly land to pull on our life vests. We're off. We sweep around the bend into our first small drop. We know there are no big rapids in the 10 mile stretch we have chosen, but all morning we have to constantly dodge trees that have fallen from the banks, avoid being swept into the high cliffs on the outside of every turn and carefully negotiate countless small stretches of Class 1 riffles.

It takes us time to get a feel for the river. The current is so strong in the narrow portions that it threatens to turn us sideways. Slowly we obtain a good paddling rhythm. We chase dozens of chattering belted kingfishers downstream. Several times big pileated woodpeckers swoop over. Merry spots a sleek dark river otter on the bank, then two more pop their heads up right in the middle of the next rapid to watch us speed by. A bald eagle glides downstream then circles back to give us a better look. After an hour we spy a little grave bar and pull out to take a breather. We are already tired but exhilarated. Back on the water it's hard to relax amidst all the rushing water, but we are gaining confidence. About a mile further on we wave to four guys who have camped on a gravel bar the night before and are just getting ready to get back on the river. We feel less alone.

Halfway into our trip I spy a side channel from which a stream of cloudy olive oil green water pours. I realize this must be Cave Spring. With some difficulty we wheel around and paddle upstream along the bank into the cloudy water. Once out of the main current we can relax a bit. The channel rounds the edge of the bluff. In front of us the cliff wall contains an opening about 10 feet wide and equally tall. We paddle in past a curtain of big water drops from the cave entrance. Inside we hold our position as our eyes adjust to the dim interior. It's a classic limestone cave, the bottom filed with water, stretching back into the darkness. After a few minutes of wonder, we return to the light.

We reach Pulltite after about two more hours of stunningly beautiful river. As we drive out of the Current River valley a hard rain begins. With deep satisfaction, we pull into the Subway in downtown Salem for lunch.

Sand Hills

We crossed central Nebraska on Rt. 2, the Sand Hills Scenic Byway. The Sand Hills start just outside Grand Island and run for the next 272 miles. http://www.sandhillsjourney.com/ We're not going to traverse the whole distance. At 19,000 square miles this is the largest dune field in the western hemisphere. Trees only exist around ranch buildings, towns and river bottoms. High hills roll to the horizon in every direction. Stabilized by prairie grass, it's open range cattle country. We're headed to Valentine on the northern edge of the Sand Hills. Half way across we turn north, then drive most of the way to South Dakota. As we near our destination a big sign announces: “Cherry County, God's Own Cow Country.”

Valentine is the county seat of Cherry County, a town of about 2800. Its main street is mostly lined with small businesses catering to the ranching community. There's a big cattle auction every Thursday. A giant western wear store featuring clothing, boots, a full service tack shop, and boot rebuilding holds down the west side of Main Street. The First National Bank has a stunning carved brick mural of a longhorn cattle drive running the length of the building. http://www.fnbvalentine.com/ They have a mounted longhorn head in the lobby. There are a handful of motels and some river outfitters on the edge of town but no big box stores of any kind. We pull up to the BunkHouse Restaurant and Lounge at the corner of Rt. 20 and Main St. for lunch. Cowboy hats are the norm for men. As we check out, “Uncle Joe” at the cash register does a few truly amazing card tricks for us with a deck from the nearby Rosebud Indian casino.

We drive along the north side of the river 18 miles to Sparks, population 3, where we are staying at the Heartland Elk Guest Ranch. They raise a herd of elk to stock their private hunting operation. Next to the main house is a pasture with five big bull elk. A larger pasture nearby holds about 100 cow elk and calves. Our cabin is across the road in a open Ponderosa pine grove at the edge of a steep canyon. We're high on the north side of the Niobrara valley. Through the trees a panorama of the sand hills glows in the south.

We were originally drawn to this place by the striking descriptions in the book Old Jules by Mari Sandoz. This book vividly describes her father and the pioneering life in the Sand Hills in the later nineteenth century. Merry stopped to see this area on her return from a trip to Utah a few years ago and was captured by the landscape and the beauty of the Niobrara River. We've planed a return trip here ever since.

In front of our cabin the land drops off steeply into rough country cut by small streams that lead eventually to the Niobrara. This land is fenced for pasture but seems little used. As a result it is a haven for wildlife and birds. Only minutes into her first walk Joli scares up three mule deer that bound away as if on springs, all four feet off the ground. We see small herds of both mule deer and whitetails every day. This is the furthest west for many eastern species and the furthest east for many western species.

Toward dusk our first day Merry gestures me to the cabin door to show me a Great Horned Owl sitting on the ground only a few feet away. Because of its ears and coloring it looks a bit like a large cat.

Just as it's getting light, Joli insists she needs to go out for a third time and will not take no for an answer. As we step off the porch I look up to see we are surrounded by horses. We step back onto the porch. Joli is awestruck as one of the horses comes right up to the porch and sniffs her. They are calm and curious. I wake Merry so she can see. The horses graze slowly away. Merry goes to the ranch house and is told the horses have been turned out to cut the grass around the cabins.

The spring fed Niobrara is managed by the National Park Service as a National Scenic River. http://www.nps.gov/niob/index.htm During the weekends of the summer season hundreds of canoes and tubes float the section of the river from Valentine to Rocky Ford each day. Brenda, who manages the cabins, cooks for the elk hunters and drives the canoe shuttle van, meets us at 10 am. We are on the river by 10:30. No one else is at the launch at Berry Bridge; we see no one else on the river. The day warms into the low 60s. Clear green water rushes us along. We get into a paddling rhythm that allows us to avoid the rocks and sandbars and gives Merry time to take photographs. High bluffs of cream colored stone rise alternatively on our right and left. Sunshine lights multi-colored grasses and the remaining leaves of a few deciduous trees. We stop at Smith Falls, about half way along our trip, to see the highest waterfall in Nebraska. Too soon we're at the takeout at Brewer Bridge, feet damp, a bit tired but elated.

On Saturday we wake to about half an inch of snow on the ground. We pack the car and bid adieu to our eight horse friends. Then it's off on the two day trip across most of Nebraska, the western edge of Iowa and all of Missouri back to St. Louis.

Family Reunion

“So, how long has it been?”

“I can't remember, probably 40 years...”

“I think the last time was your brother Rick's wedding.”

“Yeah, that sounds right, that would have been 1972, I think.”

We're sitting in my cousin Bill's loft in the beautiful Western Auto building in downtown Kansas City. Merry and Joli and I are on our way to a week in the Sand Hills of northern Nebraska. We stopped for the night in Kansas City specifically so I could catch up with my cousin Bill Pitts who has lived out here for the last 30 years or so. Our trips to our shared hometown never corresponded over the years. My mom would occasionally mention that he had dropped by when I spoke with her on our weekly telephone calls. Before her death she suggested I try to see him, since we now lived in the same state, never mind it was opposite sides of that state. So here we were.

Bill, who is two years older than me, looks a lot like my younger brother Rick: same black hair, same bald spot (smaller than my brother's), same build, same basic complexion. When we met him in the lobby of his building Merry recognized him at once even though she had never met him before.

It would be an understatement to say the Pitts family has not been really close. Bill and I remembered some family gatherings at our summer place from the early 60s, but none since. The few family members of my generation all moved away from our home town, Hanover, PA, after high school and started lives elsewhere. There was not enough of whatever it takes to pull us back together.

After taking some time to tell each other the short version of the stories of our lives since high school, we headed out to eat at Lidia's, a signature Italian restaurant of Lidia Bastianich, host of Lidia's Italy on PBS. It's housed in an old railroad freight house that has been converted to a big, stylish, bright and busy place. The food is very good. I dug into a plate of three fresh pastas: a sweet potato ravioli, a spicy linguini and a bolognese rigatoni. We relaxed and expanded on our stories. I told them the catfish story [see: http://edpitts.blogspot.com/search/label/catfish] and in return they explained the old Ozark tradition of the “sportsman.” It seems that when a southern Missouri good ole boy is out of work and somebody asks him what he does, he says he's a sportsman; you know, fishes some days, hunts or trains his hunting dogs on other days. His wife works.

After our leisurely dinner Bill gingerly eased his car through the packed streets of the Crossroads Arts District. A glam rock band was on a stage set up in a parking lot complete with smoke and sequins. “First Friday” was in full swing. http://www.kccrossroads.org/ The art galleries are open late. Restaurants and bars are hopping. A film flickers on the side of a warehouse. We saw a whole troupe of what appeared to be circus performers of some sort waiting to cross the street in full costume, complete with two costumed miniature horses. KC, the most midwestern city of the mid-midwest is hip. I see this as a sign that our country is finally starting to grow up and learn to enjoy itself.

Finally, we had to go. We rescued Joli and let her run around for a few minutes to meet my rediscovered family members. Then it was off into the windy midwestern night.

Devil's Back

This weekend we finally got to put our canoe in the water in Missouri. The weather was predicted to be hot Saturday, heading toward 100° with no thunderstorms. I left work an hour early on Friday, we loaded our camping gear and the tandem canoe and set out for the banks of the Bourbeuse River. Its name is French for “muddy” but in true Missouri style it's pronounced “burr-bus.” It's an interesting stream on the north-eastern edge of the Ozarks. The Bourbeuse River is one of two major tributaries of the Meramec River. Even though it's only an hour's drive from St. Louis it has a nice remote feel. The section we paddled, or to use the local term “floated,” was from Peter's Ford to just before Noser Mill. These points are less than two miles apart by dirt road, but 7.5 miles apart by river. Throughout its entire length it twists back on itself over and over. The total length of the river is 147 miles but the airline distance between source and mouth is only 53 miles.

We decided to camp near the river to get an early start on Saturday before it got too hot. We also needed to find a way to shuttle our car or canoe. The best way to do both these things turned out to be Devil's Back Floats.

We turned off I-44 at Union where US 50, the old national road, heads west. Outside Beaufort we left 50, crossed the river for the third time then turned down a little side road. Where the side road dead ends at the old bridge, closed but not torn down, we turned down a farm road. A little way back is a sturdy farm house with an old Coleman plastic cooler canoe planted as a flower bed in the yard and about a dozen outbuildings. We were greeted at the roadside by Dolores Swoboda. We paid $20 cash for two nights camping ($5 each per night, dogs free) and $10 for the canoe shuttle the next morning. The dirt road continued down a very steep bank to a soybean field in the bottomland. The Bourbeuse makes a giant hairpin loop here creating a plain that floods every spring. The campground consists of a few picnic tables along the stream bed under a canopy of mature silver maples. The amenities consisted of a concrete boat ramp and a single hole latrine. Only two other parties were camping there. Perfect.

After we set up camp we heard Lester Swoboda coming by on his camo four-wheeler delivering firewood. We waived him down to find out where to get water.

“There's a spigot on that concrete building up at the house. It's straight out our deep well. Won't get better water anywhere.”

We snacked and watched the river flow as the evening came on. A red pick-up backed a boat trailer down the ramp and dropped off a john boat, tricked out for fishing. When they tried to exit the ramp they were stuck. They had backed down too far. Their back wheels had dropped off the end of the concrete into the silty river bottom. After a few minutes futilely spinning their tires only to dig in even deeper, they jumped into their car and left. A little while later they were followed back down the hill by Lester with his big tractor. We wondered if he sat on his porch waiting until he heard fools spinning their wheels off the boat ramp.

When Merry took the attached picture, the woman with this bunch warned her not to post it on the internet. Later that evening another red pick-up did the same thing when trying to pull their boat out of the river. Instead of getting the tractor, this group of geniuses all piled on the tailgate and burned rubber until they finally exited in a thick cloud of blue smoke.

At about 8 am the next morning we were picked up by the daughter of the family in a big white four-wheel drive truck. We loaded the canoe and headed down two miles of gravel road to Peter's Ford. I asked why their farm is called Devil's Back. Well, it seems that in olden days the road through the farm was the main road to a ford of the river that would take you to the town of Leslie where there was a railroad depot. The road runs a mile or so along a ridge with steep drops on both sides before descending to the river. Farmers would drive their teams of horses along the ridge but as they descended there was a place where the road was exposed on both sides. Supposedly horses would spook at this point and sometimes tip the load over the side of the bluffs. Farmers came to call the place the “devil's back.” The name stuck.

We had a great day of canoeing. The first half of our trip consisted of some paddling, but mostly navigating rock gardens around gravel bars. Limestone cliffs run along the left side of the stream and sometimes the stream undercuts the bluffs making for beautiful moss and fern gardens, as well as some tricky paddling. About halfway along the bluffs cross to the right side and the river deepens. Now there are fewer gravel bars. The current slows, and slows, and slows, until we could detect none at all. We were hot and tired. Our backs were getting sore. The campground had to be just around the next bend, then it was. We pulled out, then fell back and let the warm stream soothe our muscles.

Ah! Canoeing.

Lewis & Clark Trail #1

The weather last Sunday (July 26) was perfect for exploring. Merry, Joli and I headed out of St. Louis on I-44 with no fixed destination. After driving southwest for about an hour we turned west on Route 100, passed the strip malls of Washington, MO and entered Missouri's “Rhineland.”

This stretch of the Missouri River from Washington to Hermann on the south bank and Augusta on the north bank was settled in the early 19^th century by Germans from the Rhine river valley. Here the mighty, muddy Missouri River winds through a wide bottomland. A little further back steep forested hills give the area an enclosed, comfortable feeling.

In the little town of New Haven I spotted a sign for the town's historic river front. We wound through the modest town, then down a very steep street to the lower town. The historic town consists of one long block of brick storefronts and a few houses. The area is protected by a levee. We parked in front of the little town museum.

Across the street the levee has been made into a little park with a paved walk on top with benches and historical signs. The signs informed us that New Haven was founded in 1836 as a riverboat stop called "Miller's Landing." Founder Phillip Miller operated a wood yard on the river to fuel the steamboat trade. The arrival of the Union Pacific railroad in the 1850s brought more commerce and activity to the area. In 1856 the town changed its name to New Haven. As with the other little towns of Missouri's rhineland, New Haven was settled by Germans, many of them from Borgholzhausen.

The levee park also has a small log cabin style pavilion dedicated the the memory of John Colter (c.1774 – May 7, 1812 or November 22, 1813). We learned that Colter served as a private in the Corps of Discovery. On the return trip in 1806 the expedition reached the Mandan villages in present-day North Dakota. There they encountered Forest Hancock and Joseph Dickson, two frontiersmen who were headed into the upper Missouri River country in search of furs. On August 13, 1806, Lewis and Clark permitted Colter to be honorably discharged almost two months early so that he could lead the two trappers back to the wilderness. During the winter of 1807–1808 Colter became the first known person of European descent to enter the region now known as Yellowstone National Park. He explored the Jackson Hole area and the Grand Tetons Mountain Range.

In the next few years Colter had many adventures, some of mythic proportions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Colter Around 1810 he returned to St. Louis to recount his further explorations to William Clark who was serving as principal Indian agent of the vast area they had explored. Clark drew a map from Colter's descriptions that remained in use for the next 75 years. Colter married and returned to what is now called the New Haven area to settle at nearby Boeuf Creek only to die a few years later.

We drove the old Water Street looking for a place for lunch. Most of the storefronts are restored but abandoned. No lunch here. We continued to Hermann, the next town. We stopped at the downtown deli and custard stand for cheeseburgers. Hermann has successfully capitalized on its German heritage and on its location at one of the few highway bridges across the Missouri. We ate our lunch on sidewalk benches outside the deli feeding tasty scraps to Joli and watching the bikers who gather here in significant numbers wander the streets before roaring out of town.

We crossed the river and continued west. Here we followed the Katy Trail www.bikekatytrail.com for a bit. The Katy Trail is a very successful “rails to trails” conversion that runs along the Missouri River. After passing the little town of Rhineland we came to an area where 300 foot bluffs line the road. At Bluffton, no more than a couple of houses, we turned down a dirt road to the parking area of Grand Bluffs Conservation Area. A mile hike up, the steep trail ends at a platform on top of one of the bluffs. The view of the Missouri River valley is spectacular. Check out Merry's post from last Sunday for a look at the view. http://meredithleonard.blogspot.com/2009/07/grand-bluffs-conservation-area.html

At the viewing platform is a historic marker that shows Lewis & Clark standing at a similar spot to survey the same scene in 1804.

By the time we returned to the car it was getting late. We were hot and tired. Using the internet I had located what I thought would be a nice restaurant in St. Albans, a town we would pass on our return. As we left the secondary road, we entered a space warp. A few seconds earlier we were driving past small farms and dense woods. Suddenly we were surrounded by acre on acre of lawn and McMansions. Side streets were labeled “The Meadows,” “The Heathers,” “The Grove,” etc. Real estate signs informed us the houses were priced from “the low 700s” or in another area in “the 900s.” We passed what might have been a downtown at one time and what might have been a train station in another life. A man-made lake had a few swimmers, but the golf course was busy. We wandered around and finally found the restaurant. It was closed.

We fled back to the messy comfort of our neighborhood in St. Louis where we headed for Vin de Set, a good rooftop restaurant. As we ate we saw a guy approach our car, look at our Obama '12 bumper sticker and stop. Then he slipped something under our windshield wiper and drove away.

We were worried. The midwest is not always Obama friendly.

After dinner I pulled a business card from under the wiper blade. The mystery man is the founder of Oklahoma for Obama.

Stone School Inn

I have a lot of dusty philosophy books in my personal library. I acquired most of them during my years in graduate school when I still imagined myself capable of plumbing the depths. I read the classics of antiquity as well as modern giants: Descartes, Hegel, Marx, Kant and Heidegger. Along the way I acquired an interest in how European thinking made its way to America. I especially like nineteenth century American philosophical writings because they contain a wealth of new ways to think about old problems. This rich philosophical vein almost completely dried up after about 1920. I soon gave up reading anything by living American philosophy professors because it had so little to do with anything that matters. At the time I cared enough about this phenomenon to make it the subject of my doctoral dissertation, The Profession of Philosophy in America (1979).

I turned my back on the academic life in 1984 when I started law school. Still I find myself drawn to the philosophy section of bookstores. Thus it is that I encountered On Bullshit by Harry G. Frankfort (Princeton Univ Press, 2005) http://press.princeton.edu/titles/7929.html.

In a nutshell, Frankfort points out that the essence of bullshit is not that it is false but that it is phony. By this he means that the bullshitter seeks to convey a certain impression of themselves without being concerned at all about whether what they say is true. The central purpose of bullshit is to create a favorable impression of the speaker rather than to say anything meaningful about the subject of the conversation. Frankfurt concludes that although bullshit can take many innocent forms, excessive indulgence in bullshit can undermine the capacity to tell the truth in a way that lying does not. Liars implicitly acknowledge that truth matters.

I recommend this elegant and amusing little piece of philosophical writing. I have applied Frankfort's insights in my work as a judge with great success. I keep a copy of the book on my desk right next to the BULLSHIT stamp Merry bought for my birthday.

Once you are alert to bullshit you see it everywhere. It is so rampant in advertising and in most political discussion that it's hard to miss. I take it so much for granted that I don't expect anything more in certain types of discourse. Still, it often takes me by surprise.

This past week I was hearing cases in Hannibal, MO. Merry, Joli & I wanted to find a new place to stay. We generally like B&Bs but we needed to find one that takes dogs. That's how we settled on the Stone School Inn. http://www.stoneschoolinn.net/ The place is situated in the country up a long steep drive. For $5.00 extra per day they provide an outside kennel for a dog. It worked out very well. The two resident dogs, Daisy, a basset/beagle mix, & Coco, a chocolate lab, were nice to Joli and hung around with us. The room was private and comfortable. We had our own screen porch that looked out on the yard and a number of active bird feeders.

I was surprised that the stone schoolhouse had been almost entirely enclosed in a modern structure. Since the original structure was too small to serve as a modern house, and probably poorly insulated, it made sense but altered the historic building significantly. Like most B&Bs this one is for sale. The owners, Richard & Di Ann Hammon, told us they want to get out of the B&B business and move nearer to their adult children.

Thursday morning Richard fulfilled his promise to tell us his well-rehearsed story of the history of the inn. I was quite surprised when he started the story by reminding us of the great New Madrid earthquake of 1811

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/regional/states/events/1811-1812.php. He segued to survivors of the quake moving far up river to the Hannibal area to settle on land acquired by the government. These survivors wanted a school, so about 1830 they build one of locally quarried stone. Richard noted the school was expanded later to add the chimney and served as a church for years. He made a big deal about a small trapdoor in the floor and claimed it led to a small space where runaway slaves were hidden. He showed us the trapdoor, now sealed. He claimed that slaves must have participated in the building because the stones and chestnut beams are so heavy. The locations of the local slave cemeteries were referenced. He regaled us with stories of visitors who returned to see the old schoolhouse where their great-great-great grandfather once served as superintendent.

My bullshit detector went off almost at once. The dates seemed totally wrong. If there was a surviving school building from before the civil war in good shape it surely would be a registered historic landmark. Terrell Dempsey, a lawyer who appears in my court, recently wrote a well regarded history of slavery in the Hannibal area (http://www.literarytraveler.com/literary_articles/terrell_dempsey_searching_for.aspx). I asked Richard if Mr. Dempsey knew of the trap door and slave history of the building. Richard claimed he did.

An hour later I saw Mr. Dempsey in court. I asked him about the Stone School. He had never heard of it. He further was amazed that any “purpose built” schoolhouse existed in the county from pre-Civil War time. He was familiar with the other educational institutions from the time, and was pretty sure the story I heard from Richard was not true. I've done some quick internet research and believe that Richard was pretty much making it all up.

Bullshit.

Black Fly Derby

We spent the past week at one of my favorite places, the Rap-Shaw Club in the Adirondacks of New York. The Club is one of a handful of surviving old-fashioned Adirondack sportsmen's camps. We became members of Rap-Shaw three years ago joining about 60 other families. The Club occupies two small islands on Stillwater Reservoir in the southwest corner of the Adirondack Park. The reservoir is almost entirely surrounded by the state-owned Forest Preserve. Except for the small settlement of Stillwater at the end of the road, there are no other buildings on the water. The 117 miles of shoreline and 45 small to tiny islands are lined with trees, trees, rocks, trees and a few beaches.

Rap-Shaw is one of the earliest private Adirondack clubs still in operation. Founded in 1896 and incorporated in 1901 the club moved to its current island home in 1942 after an earlier incarnation located further down the reservoir burned to the ground from a presumed lightening strike. The club's original stated purpose was to “afford recreation, legitimate fishing, hunting and camping, to promote the protection of fish and game, the preservation of the forests of and within the State of New York, and to assist in the observation and enforcement of the laws, rules and regulations relating thereto.” [from Otis H. Gardner, The Rapshaw Fishing and Hunting Club, 1901-1961. Syracuse, NY private printing, Jan. 1962] From its beginnings the club was composed of members from all walks of life. “At the Rapshaw Club a railroad brakeman was apt to find himself sharing a bunk with the president of his company.” [from an unidentified clipping in the collection of the Adirondack Museum, quoted in Barbara McMartin, The Privately Owned Adirondacks (2004), p. 49]

To get to Rap-Shaw you need to carefully navigate miles of backwoods dirt road, coming eventually to a parking lot with boat trailers, a ranger station, a general store and a bar/restaurant. Unless you've brought your own boat, now you have to call Jerry, the Rap-Shaw steward, to come over from the island with the club pontoon boat. Jerry built that boat from the pontoons up, funky and functional with wood benches in front and mismatched salvaged seats in the back.

Jerry pulls up to the state dock and loads your stuff. As you approach the island the Rap-Shaw boathouse comes into view with it's beautiful backlit loon logo. Jerry has pulled the club's John Deere Gator onto the dock with at least an inch to spare on each side. Gear goes in the Gator and Jerry roars off to deliver it to the porch of your cabin: Owl, Loon, Gull, Eagle, Chicken or Main Camp. Each cabin is a duplex with a shared bath, except for Main with its three bedrooms. Full occupancy is 28 people. The cabins date from the 1930s and 1940s. They are simple, clean and freshly painted. Comfortable single beds are the rule. Three times a day an old locomotive bell calls all campers to meals in the dining hall. Mike, the cook, turns out tasty meals that are served family style with campers bussing the tables.

As soon as I board the Club boat, I feel my daily cares and chores evaporate. My new daily schedule is up with the sun to walk Joli and listen to the loons, breakfast, boating, lunch, nap, swim, boating, communal cocktail hour on the porch of Main camp, dinner, boating and bed. One of the best features of the Club in my opinion is that each member can bring one dog. Our dog, Joli, knows Rap-Shaw well. She gets to run free, swim at any hour, chase sticks to her heart's delight and feed on table scraps. She also knows where Marie, the housekeeper, keeps her stash of dog biscuits.

Over the past decade the Club has worked hard to maintain its conservationist ethic with an emphasis on fishing and at the same time attract family members and people like us who love the woods and water from a seat in a quietly drifting canoe. Considerable funds were spent to upgrade the camp and make it accessible. The favorable result is measured by a pretty full reservation book and a balanced budget the past three years. The Club elected its first woman president this past year.

On Friday the hard core fishermen, women and kids arrived for the annual black fly derby. Old Adirondack hands know that it's generally a mistake to visit during June because of the clouds of biting black flies. At Rap-Shaw, as a challenge to the bugs, the Club conducts a fishing derby. Everyone hopes that the prevailing winds on the island and on the water will blow the bugs off target. Fishing all day Saturday from breakfast to dinner will give the person who catches the heaviest fish bragging rights for the next year. Small boats bob around the island jockeying for the best fishing hole. Driving rain showers Saturday morning only spurs the competitors on.

In the evening the setting sun glances off the waves and back lights the balsam that grow behind Loon camp. I drift into a peaceful sleep.

Merry has just begun a photo blog where she posts a picture a day. To see more pictures from our time at Rap-Shaw, and for other terrific photographs, check out meredithleonard.blogspot.com.

Prairie

A week ago last Wednesday we started to cross the American prairie from Limon, CO. We drove out of the Colorado mountains the evening before. Limon is just a bit too far from Pike's Peak to see the mountain. We had crossed about 75 miles of the treeless great plains before stopping at dark.

From Limon it is almost 100 miles on I-70 to the Kansas border. We pulled into the Kansas welcome center about 9:00 am. The wind off the mountains was so strong it nearly swept us off our feet. Little sand grains got in my eyes and my cap blew off. A genuine tumbleweed got stuck under the driver's door. The rolling land is farmed as far as the eye can see. We collected a bag of brochures about the wonders of Kansas and our free Kansas sunflower seeds and set off again. The wind blew hard all day.

We were resigned to crossing most of Kansas on I-70. The distances are just too great to use the back roads. Three hours of non-stop driving brought us to Hays. This little city of about 20,000 appears to be the business center of northwestern Kansas. Off I-70 strip malls stretch toward the town center for a mile or so. We headed for the downtown in hopes of finding some regional cuisine. I couldn't help but notice the German heritage of the place: street names, brick architecture and a big sign announcing “the German Capital of Kansas.” Main Street downtown was mostly deserted. We pulled up to a department store that has been converted into a number of small shops. Inside the old-fashioned Soda Shop offered a daily special soup, green bean with dumplings. The special sandwich was blue cheese sliders. Just what we needed.

An hour more on I-70 and we were getting pretty tired of the interstate driving. Merry was leafing through the literature we got at the welcome station looking for an alternative. At Wilson we got off and started to follow the “Post Rock” Scenic By-way.

When white settlers arrived on the prairies in the mid-nineteenth century they wanted to put fences around their farms, something that never occurred to indigenous people. The problem with this plan was that there's a lot of space to fence and virtually no trees for fence posts. All of Kansas, however has vast deposits of limestone just under the surface. Some of this stone was found to be quite soft and workable when quarried, but then hardens when exposed to the air. Thus there are now large areas of farmland encircled by wire fences with stone fence posts that have been there for a long time.

Traveling north from Wilson we not only saw thousands of stone fence posts but signs for “The Garden of Eden.” When we turned toward Lucas, we had no idea of what we would find. On a back street of the little town that calls itself the “Grassroots Arts Capital” we found the amazing homestead of civil war veteran, S.P. Dinsmoor. This concrete jungle gym completed in 1907 can't be described in a few words, but take a look at Merry's picture for an idea. www.lucaskansas.com

We decided to head for Manhattan, KS on a back road. KS 18 is an arrow leading from one set of grain elevators to the next, each eight to ten miles off. For many miles out of Lucas we were surprised by occasional large metal creatures along the roadside sculpted from scrap. When these ran out I was ready for some new amusement. Shortly after a county line I noticed that every crossing road was named with single syllable four letter word. “Barn” was the first one I saw. A little later I glimpsed “Deer'” then “Gate.” I mentioned this to Merry and we started to pay attention. “Hail” road was followed by “Iris.” We now surmised that the county had named each road in alphabetical order. We made a game of trying to guess the next road name, then at the letter Y we reached the county line.

We finally pulled into Manhattan bone tired. The wind was still blowing.

Fairly early the next morning we drove to the 3500 acre Konza Prairie Biological Station on the outskirts of Manhattan. http://kpbs.konza.ksu.edu/ This area of Kansas is called the Flint Hills because the limestone contains outcroppings of harder stone that made the area very difficult to plow and which eroded into unique bluff-like hills. The Flint Hills stretch from Nebraska to Oklahoma and contain the largest expanse of unplowed tallgrass prairie. We walked a six mile trail at Konza and saw many unique wildflowers, bison, school kids, a short horned lizard, and prairie birds including a strikingly red summer tanager. We met a woman who helped do a controlled burn of the grass just a few weeks earlier. “That all went up in a whirlwind of fire in four minutes,” she said gesturing at about 200 acres. Already the grass and flowers were six inches high where the prairie had been burned. Standing on a ridge here, surrounded by open prairie, it's easy to imagine what this country looked like 200 or 2000 years ago. Only 4% of the estimated 140 million acres of original prairie survive.

To get a better feel for the Flint Hills and to get some lunch we drove south on a back road to Council Grove. The Santa Fe Trail passed through this archetypal midwestern small town. We had a good lunch at the Hays House on Main Street. Build in 1857 the Hays House doesn't exactly line up with the modern street. When built it was oriented to the Santa Fe Trail.

Twenty miles on south through grasslands, and more grasslands, with virtually no other traffic, we came to the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve. This is the heart of Chase County, the center of the center of the country, all prairie except for two small towns, immortalized by William Least Heat-Moon's PrairyErth.

There is little wind today. Standing on the prairie the sun and sky totally surrounds us. As dusk approaches small birds appear. The air smells of grass and dust.

Taos Pueblo

I first visited Taos Pueblo in 1971. I was captivated by the feeling of the place and by the people who have roots there. When Merry and I visited last Sunday I expected the passage of 38 years to have effected major changes in the place. I was wrong. There is a new road to serve the modest new casino and a new community office at the entrance to the village. The ancient pueblo buildings are in slightly better condition than I remembered. Otherwise the place seems unchanged.

To reach Taos Pueblo you drive a few miles north of the artsy village of Taos then a few miles back the road that leads to Taos Mountain. Last weekend this road through dusty sage brush was partly lined by blooming sand plum and choke cherry trees nearer the creek banks. A few miles after passing the casino the road comes to the traditional village where all cars are directed to a small dirt parking lot. All visitors pay a $10 fee to enter and an additional $5 fee for a camera. http://www.taospueblo.com/

The entire village is made of adobe, surrounded by an adobe wall. Red Willow Creek cuts through the middle of the village which is arranged around a large packed earth plaza the same color as the buildings. Multiple story ancient buildings lie on both the north and south sides of the creek. These older buildings have been continuously occupied for more than 1000 years. Every year the adobe has been renewed. Numerous small adobe houses are scattered about. Some seem occupied, some not. The west side of the plaza is dominated by a beautiful church. Tours are offered, but we decided to explore on our own. Tourists are pretty much restricted to the immediate area of the plaza, and no climbing to the upper levels of the pueblo is allowed. The doors to about a dozen houses with items to sell are open to visitors, some in the main structures, some in small outlying buildings.

We were attracted to a one room house with a covered porch. This is the house of Kalbatu White Wolff, a jeweler. He has two tables of nicely made necklaces composed of hishi and silver beads. Hishi are small beads of stone, shell or coral. As soon as we approached he began a fast patter of stories about the pueblo and his family history. He invited us into the 10' x 10' house. He told us his grandfather had owned the house, but that it was much older. His grandfather put in the door and a very small window. Before those modern renovations the house could only be entered by ladder through a hole in the roof. A small cone shaped adobe fireplace was fit into the east corner, made by molding adobe around a tree trunk then removing the tree. He told us he inherited the house, but because the deed was lost he had to petition the tribe for a new one. His case was unusual since he claimed ownership not only to the house but the open porch area that normally would be tribal land, as was all unenclosed land. He was lucky. We purchased one of his necklaces. A few new people approached. He started his patter over at the beginning. We walked on.

The day was clear and just starting to heat up. We walked the length of the north building then crossed the spring full creek on a log bridge. There seem to be more detached houses on the south side, arranged around narrow alleys. At the back of one of these alleys a door was open. I glanced in but saw no one. I called out “hello.” A voice behind a curtained door invited us in. This two room house is the shop and studio of Meko Concha, a potter. A few shelves held some bowls and a half dozen small bear sculptures. I was immediately attracted to the bears. He explained his process of finely screening the micaceous clay he works with. I picked up one of the bears. “Is that one speaking to you?” An 8x10 black and white photo on the wall that looked exactly like Mr. Concha turned out to be his grandfather. The three of us talked for a long time about the politics of native culture. Events from the past two hundred years seem totally present to him. He explained that some of the proceeds from the casino were being used to repurchase the 5 miles in every direction, centered on the Pueblo church, that the Spanish granted to his people. They now own about 100,000 acres including Taos Mountain and the entire Red Willow Creek watershed. “Land and water are politics in New Mexico.”

Outside again the day was heating up. We walked past a line of traditional beehive shaped bread ovens called “hornos.” Dogs slowly shifted from one shadowy spot to a cooler one. We crossed the creek again and entered the 1850 churchyard of San Geronomo. Small bouquets of fresh flowers graced each windowsill inside the cool dark church. The altar is crowded with very old wooden statuary called “santos,” the largest of which represents the Virgin Mary. On this day the santos were each carefully wrapped in pink organza, except for the statue of Jesus. On one side of the altar sits an empty casket, also draped in pink. Native american Catholic churches contain these caskets as a reminder of how the Spanish converted them to christian funeral practices. By the altar rail commemorative candles flickered. We sat in a front pew of the empty church to take it all in. Without saying anything to me Merry got up, went to the rail, lit a candle then came back and took my hand with tears in her eyes. I was overcome with grief. The night before I learned that my mother had died. Here on Mother's Day in a church of a religion that I do not follow the reality of the situation crashed on me and I cried.

We sat there in memory a little while. A man from the village came in to replenish the supply of candles. The spell was broken. Outside again the clear light was blinding. We smiled at a tour guide gathering her charges. Taos is timeless in a way you can only know by standing in its plaza. I smiled. I was glad I had returned. The bear now standing on our mantle in St. Louis reminds us of the day.

Hannibal

We've just spent the last three days in Hannibal, MO. Hannibal is about 100 miles northwest of St. Louis along the Mississippi River. To get there in the most expeditious manner you actually take Interstate 70 due west about 40 miles through the sprawling suburbs and strip malls that surround St. Louis, then turn north on Route 61 toward Iowa. The country is open rolling plains, nearly empty save for a few small towns. The Mississippi is out of sight to the east, but since it tends west as you go north when you approach Hannibal you drop off the prairie through a series of rocky outcrops into the river valley.

Hannibal is the county seat of Marion county with a population of about 17,000. Route 61 slows as it enters the ubiquitous strip mall zone. Turn toward downtown on Broadway and you pass through modest neighborhoods. The houses are small and run down, more than a few vacant. The town is quite hilly. Some of the hills have fine older homes, but they too seem in need of more attention than their owners can afford. Here and there you can see a fully restored Victorian or even civil war vintage home, but they are the exception. As Broadway approaches the river a row of brick storefronts line both sides of the street. The classical Country Court House is here as well as a nondescript brick federal office building that houses the post office, courtrooms for the federal court, the Social Security district office, and my destination, the ODAR hearing point.

If you continue on Broadway you can see the Mississippi River at the far end of the street. The heart of downtown consists of Broadway and two cross streets, Third and Main. Both have storefronts for about four blocks to the north, none to the south, where a small stream enters the river. All east bound streets end at a tall levee except Broadway, which dead-ends into the river at a small, nearly empty marina. The storefronts in this area are mostly occupied. There are a few small restaurants, some antique stores, two good coffee joints, and of course a booming trade in Mark Twain. See for yourself: http://www.hannibalcam.com/

Now, I'm not a big fan of Mark Twain, but I've read most of his books over the years. A few years back our book club read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and enjoyed the heck out of it. Sam Clemens was not born in Hannibal, that honor goes to Florida, MO about 15 miles west, but he did grow up here and he based Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn on his memories of Hannibal. So it has come to pass that Hannibal's main industry is Mark Twain tourism. The river boat “Mark Twain” is tied up at the end of Center Street. The Mark Twain Hotel and Mark Twain Dinette are downtown along with the Mark Twain Museum. Tour buses head directly for the Mark Twain boyhood home, and you can eat at the Becky Thacher Restaurant right down the street. The Mark Twain Cave is two miles south. About every third business in town uses “Mark Twain” as part of its name. We had lunch Friday at a very good coffeehouse called Mark Twain Ice n' Coal.

I don't object at all to towns using tourism as a means of survival. I'm a pretty discriminating tourist myself. We checked out the museum http://www.MarkTwainMuseum.org/ and found much to admire there. It's a curious mix of the real and the imagined. The first floor is devoted to dioramas from the most popular novels and the upper floors concern Clemens' life, especially his time as a steamboat pilot. Much of the top floor is devoted to display of the original Norman Rockwell paintings used as illustrations for Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer.

The problem with using tourism as a town's economic base is that it doesn't produce nearly as much capital for the town as one might imagine. Hundreds of thousands of tourists visit Hannibal every year, look around for a short time then leave. The service jobs are seasonal and often part-time. Some small businesses prosper on tourist dollars, but not to the extent that the whole town prospers. Thus the overwhelming image I'm left with of Hannibal is of a struggle to survive, with many inhabitants just barely getting by.

On Thursday I heard six cases, all of whom were represented by the same lawyer, Terrell Dempsey. He and his wife, Vicki, have done a lot over the years to make Hannibal a better place to live. They helped found the free health clinic, the woman's shelter and to restore the Molly Brown (as in Unsinkable) home. I was surprised when he asked one of his African-American clients during testimony whether she liked a particular place because it was owned and operated by black folk. After the hearing he told me that he meant no offense but it's just that the entire area is still called “Little Dixie” and that segregation is far from over. He referred me to his book, Searching for Jim: Slavery in Sam Clemens' World, if I wanted deeper understanding of Hannibal's history. Take a look at this interview with Dempsey for a different view of Mark Twain's background: http://www.literarytraveler.com/authors/terrell_dempsey_searching_for.aspx.

In all I enjoyed my introduction to Hannibal. I'll be back for a week in July when the tourist season is in full swing. You can expect a another dispatch from Little Dixie then.

Billy

As I emerged from the Imperial Theatre I saw my friend Chris Whyland standing by the Stage Door on 46^th Street flanked by a gaggle of pre-teen girls clutching Billy Elliott Playbills hoping for autographs. It was a wind-whipped, fiercely cold January afternoon. I pulled on my purple SEIU 1199 stocking cap and zipped my coat.

We had failed to agree in advance where to meet Chris and his family after the show. Merry and I had been searching in the lobby when it occurred to me to check the stage door. There he was, casually chatting with a fellow who also looked like he was also associated with the show. He told me that his wife, Melissa, had already taken the girls across the street to get a table at the Edison diner. The three of us hurried to meet them.

The Edison Hotel is a art deco gem with gorgeous terrazzo floors, murals and glittering lighting. Melissa, Erin and Casey were in the lobby. We got a table in the far corner of the diner and settled in to discuss the show. The Edison diner, it turns out, is a hidden NYC gem. It caters primarily to hotel guests and theatre people. It serves breakfast all day, has a cash only policy and a NYC gruff wait staff. I got a big bowl of good borscht with sour cream crammed into a plastic cup. Erin had a belgium waffle and Casey a pizza burger. Merry, Melissa and Chris ordered a medley of diverse breakfast, lunch and dinner foods.

We peppered the girls and their parents with questions about the show. Was the show substantially different when the role of Billy was played by a different actor (there are 3 rotating Billys)? The girls agreed that it was not, except for Billy's solo dances. Did they get tired performing eight times a week for three hours at a shot? They did not. Well, at first they did, especially on days with two shows, but now they were in better shape. Chris told us that Hillary & Chelsea Clinton had recently seen the show. What was it like if they knew a famous person was in the audience? The girls seemed unimpressed. Who would they like to see the show? They agreed they hoped the Obama family would come. Casey confided that she didn't actually care if they came to the show, but would love it if the Obama girls would hang out backstage with them. That would be “so cool.”

We discussed Casey's ankle injury and how the understudy system works. There are three understudies for the ten “ballet girls,” small, medium and large. Since Erin has a speaking part she has her own understudy. Melissa told us when Casey got hurt, she was assisted in her parenting duties by a theatre “guardian.” The show hires several guardians to manage the child actors at all times they are at work. The parents are not allowed backstage. Parents drop their kids off at the theatre and take them home but must rely on the guardians for supervision at the theatre. Since there are two Whyland children in the show, nursing one at home and having to shuttle one to work was going to take some juggling. Not to worry, a guardian did all the transporting door to door, on his free time and at his own expense.

Right then a small seven-year old boy rushed up to say “hi” followed by a tall young man. This was Michael Michaliszyn, one of the two boys who share the role of “The Small Boy” in the show. We chatted with his guardian while he goofed around for a second with the girls. Chris pointed out several other cast members and theatre staff were eating in the diner at the time. I remember seeing Carol Shelly who plays Billy's Grandma across the room. Two other guardians came over to say hello. One was introduced as the “head” Broadway guardian. I asked him how he keeps tabs on so many active kids at the same time.

“Can't really do it. Just last week I caught one driving a Zamboni down 45^th Street.”

Our meal came to an end. The girls had to go back to work to get ready for the evening show.

We grabbed a cab. As we rode uptown we reflected on the life of child actors and their parents. Chris and Melissa seem to be handling the role of stage parents very well and actually enjoying the process most the the time, even with Chris having to make the weekly trek from Syracuse. The girls are clearly having a ball. Casey is a theatre veteran at age 13, having toured the country in Annie two years ago. Erin is full of energy and loves being in the spotlight.

How was the show, you ask? We loved it, but we're biased. A musical about a failed strike that ruined the coal industry in England? From my perspective they did as good a job of putting working class life on stage as can be done in a Broadway musical. The dancing is terrific by any standard, often elevated to divine. The production is inspired and the stark sets work well. The songs by Sir Elton John are hummable, but not forever. I recommend it.

Ice

Merry, Joli & I just returned from a few icy days in Cape Girardeau, MO where I was scheduled to hold court from Monday afternoon until this morning. On Monday we held court as planned. Monday night it started to rain, then it froze. By Tuesday morning there was a thick coating of ice everywhere. Southern Missouri does not have a very large fleet of plows and salt trucks. Even the major roads and Interstates were iffy; everything else was pretty well impassable. Fortunately Bill Kumpe, the other ALJ on the trip, had his four wheel drive and plenty of confidence. We arrived at court on time Tuesday morning. We waited. No one showed up. The weather deteriorated as the day drew on. Overnight it got worse in the area to the south, referred to as the “bootheel.” Now power lines and tree limbs littered the rural roads. Towns were without power and sometimes without phone service. We tried to cancel Wednesday's court. We were unable to reach everyone so we trekked back to court Wednesday morning and waited. As soon as we got there the sun came out. Crews were using anything that could plow snow to clear the main roads and parking lots. By noon we had reached everyone by phone except for one client who had failed to show up or call by her 11:30 hearing. Of course, as soon as we headed out for lunch she showed up. Back to court we went. We finally got lunch about 2:00. Two days gone and only one hearing held between the two of us. We had 24 scheduled but now adjourned.

Today it warmed up and the roads north of Cape Girardeau are clear. Massive convoys of utility trucks are finally heading south to the bootheel. We held court as usual in the morning and headed back to St. Louis.

Tomorrow Merry & I head to NYC to see Billy Elliott on Broadway. You can expect my review when we get back. We know two of the young cast members, so my review will not pretend to be objective. What review ever is objective anyway?

Prospect.1

Happy New Year

One of the reasons I wanted to go to New Orleans for our Christmas break was to visit “Prospect.1,” a city-wide exhibition of contemporary art featuring work by 81 artists from 39 countries at more than 23 locations. This show takes some space in every art museum in the city as well as parts of many other venues such as the Old Mint, the African American Museum, many art galleries, and some abandoned buildings; see, www.prospectneworleans.org/. There was no way to see it all. We decided to spend one day at the Contemporary Art Center where the show is headquartered, one day at the New Orleans Art Museum and one day on the free shuttle bus visiting the venues scattered across the Lower Ninth Ward, the area most devastated by Hurricane Katrina.

For those of you who want an overview of the show as a whole I recommend the reviews from the New Yorker (http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/artworld/2008/11/24/081124craw_artworld_schjeldahl) and the NY Times (www.nytimes.com/2008/11/04/arts/design/04pros.html?fta=y ) I want to share my own views on just a few pieces I like, with an emphasis on the pieces in the Lower Ninth.

We spent the first day exploring the Contemporary Art Center (CAC). This is a relatively new museum built in an old warehouse downtown within walking distance of where we were staying. Prospect.1 (a/k/a P.1) has taken over all four floors of the museum. There are numerous video pieces, some sculpture, some two dimensional pieces, one “virtual” piece and a few installations. When it comes to contemporary art, I prefer sculpture. Sculpture demands personal interaction. At a minimum you walk around it; at best you get to play with it. On the top floor in a room by itself we found a piece I like a lot by Pedro Reyes called Leverage (photo below). Essentially it is a giant orange see-saw made from tube steel with ten small wooden seats on one side and only one on the other. When we got to the room two adults and a child were sitting on the seats on one side but their combined weight had absolutely no effect. Gradually more folks climbed on, but it still didn't tip. When I tried to climb on I gently pushed down and the whole thing started to move slightly. The child climbed off and moved to the single seat on the other side. Merry took his place. Now that there were ten adults on one side and one kid on the other the thing worked like a charm. We rocked up and down each time a little faster, the kid shot toward the ceiling his arms outstretched. That's art.

Also in the CAC tucked in a corner is a shiny seven foot tall black plastic lump looking a bit like a giant deformed Darth Vader helmet. This turns out to be Bunker-M. Bakhtin by Lee Bul. The whole thing sits on a floor of mirror tiles. On the far side is an opening. Inside hangs a set of headphones. Put the headphones on. Every sound is amplified and reverberated. The tiles underfoot are connected too so every shuffle or step is an explosion. Dancing is essential, as are silly sounds. Anyone watching can't hear what you hear, only the silly sounds with no echos. People entering this piece are tentative at first, then get wilder and sillier until someone comes along and they stop in embarrassment. I went back four times. It's very hard to embarrass a trial lawyer.

The next day we went back to the CAC and looked at a few pieces a second time while waiting for the shuttle bus to the Lower Ninth Ward. As we crossed the bridge over the Industrial Canal the entire cityscape abruptly changed. On one side, most of the buildings had been rehabbed or at least boarded up. On the other, most of the buildings were just gone, replaced by tall grass. A little further from the canal we pulled up to a house that is now the L9 Center for the Arts where we switched to a small van for a tour. Across the street sits a bare foundation with a rough outline of a house made by strings of lights. The owner paid her savings to a contractor who stole the money; now her home is an art project with hope. Another partly destroyed home in the immediate neighborhood has been completely covered in flame orange – art as a warning. We drove to a mostly destroyed furniture store. Now it's called Lower 9^th Ward Village. It contains two small galleries of paintings by people from the neighborhood, a police substation and three installations for P.1. The largest of these is a full size metal boat hull. When you climb the scaffold you see the top of the boat is a shallow tank of water. The hull slowly tips and a small wall of water slides back and forth. We walked down the street to the Tekrema Center, a former hardware store. The walk was more sobering than almost anything else we saw that day. A few houses are occupied. Many are boarded up, some too far gone to save. The weather was balmy, but few people were around other than the P.1 visitors. Upstairs at Tekrema the walls of the rooms were completely covered by a realistic mural of the bayou country. The message was clear: nature is returning to claim the waterlogged land the humans appropriated.

We drove closer to the canal where almost everything was totally annihilated. A former public restroom standing by itself in a weedy field has been turned into a quiet meditation spot with bubbling fountain, but the water marks from Katrina are clearly visible high on the walls. In an abandoned church we visited Diamond Gym, the piece described in the New Yorker article. All around we saw the various rebuilding projects but the effect on me was one of despair. The scale of destruction is too large, the effort to rebuild too small. The art was particularly moving because it was intended to be seen in this context. It brings a lot of people to the Lower Ninth and shows them what happened there complete with emotional content. I don't know if this will ultimately help the people of the Lower Ninth, but taken as a whole it is a successful art experience like none I've experienced before.

On our last day, we visited the New Orleans Art Museum, the city's most formal gallery and home of a terrific contemporary sculpture garden. It sits in City Park, another area completely inundated and largely destroyed by Katrina. Much of the park and surrounding area has been cleaned up, but reminders are everywhere. The last P.1 piece we saw before leaving for home was Paul Villinski's Emergency Response Studio. This rebuilt travel trailer, superficially like the infamous FEMA trailers, sits on the lawn in front of the museum. (www.emergencyresponsestudio.org/) For me the piece raises the question of whether artists need to rush to respond to natural disasters. At first glance it seems to be all about rushing to the scene of future disasters in ecological comfort, but is it? When Merry looked at it she laughed out loud since the concept of the piece seems so totally off base it has to be an elaborate joke. The artist statement makes it clear that he is not joking, just nuts. To me the piece points to the irony of trying to make art out of people's suffering. Transforming and commemorating suffering is one of the central roles of art. The problem presented is how to make art from suffering without at the same time exploiting the victims. To my mind P.1 succeeds in this effort by never letting the visitor forget the context of the art.

Go see it if you can.