Suttons Bay, Michigan, in Spring Snow

 

I adjusted the color on this one to brighten it up, because the effect "in person" is of more vivid color than my phone captured on a snowy morning. Next time I'll try the real camera. 

Pictures for You, My Love

Historical Louisiana, Missouri

My dearest David, 

 

Do you remember that time we crossed the Mississippi river from the town of Louisiana, Missouri, over an old iron bridge to Illinois? I was driving (unusual in itself back then), and when that old bridge loomed ahead, so very frighteningly narrow it looked! that I could not glance right or left but could only think about getting over safely, as quickly as possible. You would have liked to explore the town but said we would do it another time. Time, however, ran out for us. And so on my first solo drive across the country, 2,000 miles from Arizona to Michigan with a lively, challenging puppy as my companion, I decided to see the town of Louisiana, Missouri, for both of us, for you and for me.

 

Oh, my goodness! There was much more than I had anticipated! Remember when we explored Hannibal? Louisiana has only maybe one-sixth the population of Hannibal and of course lacks the Mark Twain connection, but it was obviously once a very wealthy, important, and thriving community. The civic and commercial buildings, as well as the many elaborate houses, attest to that history. I thought several times of your love of symmetry, whenever I saw examples of it in beautiful buildings, especially the most simply elegant.

 

But it wasn’t only the grand that I took note of for the two of us, because we always had an eye, each of us, for small, simple, even hidden-away treasures in the places we explored. 

Wandering around, then, willy-nilly, growing giddier all the time, I stumbled on the old high school and the old hospital...

...and also found many modestly small houses that spoke to an early history. 

 

Now, looking back, I find an online slide show of the town’s history. It focuses mostly on downtown commercial buildings, rather than on homes (I have photographed both for you), but the musical background and the visual comparisons over the decades are poignant, are they not? “Reflections of time,” indeed! These days -- more than ever, now that you are gone -- I reflect continually on the passage of time and the passing of individuals and eras. You will also see the old iron bridge among the images in the slide show. The past, after all, persists in the present, in community as well as individual memories and in material culture.

 

Well, my darling, I kept turning corners and going around blocks and driving farther and farther from U.S. 54 as scenes beckoned me onward, because once I had the idea of seeing the town for you, as well as for myself, I couldn’t stop looking and trying to record what I saw. “I’m a very visual person,” you would often remind me, and so there I was, caught up in an impossible quest, trying to be the “visual person” for the two of us. But what can I say? You are in my heart every minute and every mile….

I did have one brief, strange encounter. Standing back to get an entire downtown building in my camera’s viewfinder, I stopped to express amazement at what I was seeing to a young man getting out of his car. “You live here?” I asked. He responded, “Louisiana? Yeah. And I’d trade all this” – he waved his hand to encompass everything in sight – “for one McDonald’s.”

 

Can you believe it? My immediate thought was that there was no need whatsoever for him to wish for that impossible “trade,” when all he had to do was move to some other town, anywhere in the country! What kept him there, if he despised the town so? And could he have been serious? He would “trade” the unique and irreplaceable for the utterly mundane and ubiquitous? And then I thought, of course, of the conversation you and I would have had as we drove on from that encounter and how we would have remembered our time in France and the way Europeans treasure their history rather than wishing it away or actually tearing it down. We would also have hatched various schemes for bringing livelier times back to Louisiana, filling the beautiful buildings with attractions to invite visitors to come, explore, and hang around a while, because that was a frequent theme in our cross-country conversations – the potential in neglected and overlooked corners of America.

So much potential!

I’m not sure how long I wandered excitedly around Louisiana, but eventually it was time to move on, time to cross the Mississippi to Illinois again -- and there I was in for a shock. The old bridge was gone! In its place was a new, sleek, easy concrete span, not frightening in any way -- not frightening, but it made me burst into tears. I wanted the old, scary bridge! I wanted it to be the way it was! And I realized that what I wanted was -- of course! -- I wanted back that day with you! How many times in the course of my drive from Arizona to Illinois (Illinois to Michigan yet ahead) have I remembered the way you complimented my driving on our way from your cousin Jim’s place back to Dos Cabezas after that surgery in Phoenix? And I think now that if you could see me on the road, you would be confident of my ability to handle the trip, and you would also be glad that I have that little obstreperous puppy, Sunny Juliet, to make me smile and even laugh once in a while. 

We are doing our best, sweetheart. I am doing as well as I can, missing you so much. The puppy, never having met you, doesn’t know what she’s missing, so it’s easier for her. But we are doing our best. And I will keep looking at the beautiful world for both of us as long as I live. 

 

A couple buildings in Tucumcari, New Mexico

 

"The Tucumcari landmark Rock Island-Southern Pacific depot opened in 1927, when Tucumcari was enjoying the rise of auto traffic on old Route 66. Built in the Spanish Mission-style, this depot is massively long, encompassing both a large passenger area and a significant freight area under one roof."

(https://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WMM9TE_Rock_Island_Southern_Pacific_RR_Depot_Tucumcari_NM)

The second building highlighted here today (of many, many noteworthy architectural/historic buildings in Tucumcari) is the home of the Bowen Electric Corporation, with not simply one mural wall but all walls of the complicated building decorated with brightly colored, stylized Southwestern images. 

Did Time Forget This Prairie Town? Will Anyone Remember?

Once again, not far from our day's destination, we left the big road to  visit briefly a small town, and once again we found a place that had clearly known past glories (if only in a small, rural way) and had since fallen on hard times. We enjoyed a walking tour of the central square. The search for a cafe was a failure, but the dogwoods in bloom were cheery, and I felt the statue of Stephen Douglas and the story of Douglas and Lincoln made our detour worthwhile. What first excited me, I must admit, was that I recognized Stephen Douglas from my first sight of him, face and name hidden from my view!

Do you know this prairie town? Hint: Stephen Douglas taught school and began his legal career here.

What you see in the photo above is not the original county courthouse. The original used to stand in the middle of the square (I can't tell you what happened to it) but the ornate replacement pictured here is on a corner diagonal to the square. Other buildings facing the square and off on streets branching away in different directions show the past glory of the little town and the contrast with its present sad state.

The famous Lincoln-Douglas debates were not held in this little town but in Chicago, Springfield, and seven other Congressional districts in the state of Illinois. Douglas, however, from this town is largely responsible for Lincoln's return to politics after he had run for senator twice, on two different tickets, and been defeated. Lincoln's famous "house divided" speech came out of his debates with Douglas and catapulted him to national fame and his successful run for the presidency. 

We looked around the empty streets and closely inspected architectural details of some well-preserved and other decaying buildings and thought about how vibrant the town must have been in the mid-nineteenth century. 

All across the United States, towns like this can be found -- towns with beautiful old buildings, towns bypassed by interstate highways, even locals having deserted the small shops to buy online. What is the future of these little old American communities? So many of them, to my eye, have the potential to be much more charming, friendly, and comfortable places to live than crowded cities and acres of cookie-cutter suburbs. Will they be rediscovered and revitalized, or will they fall into ruin?