Backroads and Byways

Looking back over the past few months, I see I've been a horrible blogger. I don't really have an excuse, except being out of town a lot and general laziness. This weekend I had a training in southern Missouri in what's commonly known as the Boot Heel. We were south of Cape in an area where the Ozark foothills subside and the Delta begins. Being down there stirred all sorts of memories from my time at a Delta Service Corps volunteer and the year I ran all over Arkansas visiting little non-profits who were part of a big community development program with the Rockefeller foundation and the Cooperative Extension Service. I am always amazed at what some of these really isolated communities manage to achieve by leveraging grants and meager community resources. Sometimes these organizations seem to survive on sheer force of will of the staff that give so much of their time for free. Nevertheless, I can tell that the recession/depression is hitting these folks hard and they have the double whammy of increased population needing services and a decrease in funds. I hope they can keep on holding on, because I think (hope) that they will be benefiting from some of this stimulus money that's supposed to be coming, but in the meantime it's looking harsh for them and everyone else at the bottom.

My colleague and I stayed in Cape, and had a fabuous dinner at Molly's downtown. Amusingly, it was prom weekend, so we had to sign pieces of paper at the hotel that we wouldn't sneak anyone into our rooms overnight, there were electronic highway signs everywhere cautioning us that it was prom weekend and to drive carefully, and Molly's was serving a number of young couples dressed up in tuxes and ballgowns. While we were waiting for Molly's to open, I gave Sarah a little tour of Southern Illinois, since she, like many St. Louisians, never goes to east, despite living less than 3 miles from the stateline. Crossing the river at Cape is really not the what Illinois has when in mind when they make up their tourism brochures. I'm sure my father would disagree, but most people don't have Thebes in mind when they think of the great small towns of Illinois. Nevertheless, I was feeling nostogic for locations of my youth and I gave Sarah the grand tour of the courthouse, bridge, trailer park and cemetary. Due to the rain and hunger, we decided to forgoe a walking tour and side trip to see if Horseshoe Lake was spilling over the dam (Dad had requested that we take a look). She was suitably impressed by the river, which was way, way, way up (in fact the flood gates were closed in Cape) and we were momentarily worried that we would be flooded out of our training location the next morning, but Sarah assured me that someone would take us to dry land by boat if the rains came down too hard.

On the way down, Jason called me to let me know that the e-mail he got the night before that we thought was just a request for more information resulted in a surprise interview for a job further down south in the Delta. Despite it being completely unexpected (usually there's a call to set up a time for an interview) and happening while standing in line at the DMV (yes, we were late in getting our tags renewed as usual) he feels like it went really well. We're holding our breath and wishing good thoughts for this one to come through. It would be at a small university in northern Mississippi, just about an hour and 1/2 from Memphis. My trip to the top of the Delta made me remember all the things I love about area and while I know Mississippi would be a huge adjustment, it could also be really terrific. It fits a lot of our criteria for an ideal job for him (workable teaching load, days drive from St. Louis, in the south, sort of near a larger city) although he would not be working with majors, since Philosophy is only offered as a minor there. On the upside, he'd be in a humanities department with some opportunity for crossover type courses. So wish him (us) luck and send him lots of job getting vibes.

Nora is doing well, in the past couple of days she's breaking through another developmental milestone - drawing bodies and appendages on to heads. I know you are all saying, that's fine, but show us a damn photo! Nevertheless, we're all so impressed that she's doing this already, now if only she could manage to use the potty consistantly, we'd be over the moon.