The mystey of the Lagoon

Doing some digging for my "lorimer" novel, I ran across a couple of conundrums to solve: mainly that the Shawnees did not originally settle near Shawneetown, MO:

View Larger Map
Instead, they set up shop at the site of the district fair. Of Course, I immediately thought of Arena Park in Cape.
But my source was written in 1904. So more digging. in 1904 the fair was held at Capaha Park:

View Larger Map(Arena Park is about a mile to the west, near Kingshighway and Broadway)
The only problem was that I had already written them build semi-permanent(i.e log Cabin), which now it looks they probably built Bark huts until they found good land. Re write city here I come! here is a link with a with locations for this post.
But was the lagoon always there? Hmm.. I've been doing some searching, and have not found much luck. My guess: yes, based on the fact that sits in a depression, And did drain, and if so to where? One again, I'm not sure, but it looks there may have been an old creek bed paralleling West End Blvd 215 years ago.
And then I want to have a still as in Moonshine, you know, White Lighting

I need to have it be somewhat hidden, as I wanted my character to get in trouble for consuming a little too much. I kept on thinking that having on top of Cape Rock would work, but now I'm think it's a little close to the site of the post. Maybe I'll move the still down the river a bit. Having a bad guy fall to his death off the bluff after getting drunk on Sorghum wishkey is just too good to pass up.

One case of Pistachos, to go

...Or the Seagull and the Eagle try an find Lucky Lindy at the Ghost airport.
Monday, my trip back , started out gray and gloomy. I borrowed the Mom-mobile and went down to Jackson City Park
This used to be the old swimming pool:

and then there's the rock garden:


and Hubble Creek:

I visited the city lake before dropping by Maple Dr


I filled it up with gas and we headed out to Cape. We had lunch at Logan's and the proceed over to Cape Rock Park. This is a Rock that juts out into The Mississippi(until the Railroad demolished part of it), It's where the "Cape" in Cape Girardeau comes from(the other part from Jean Girardot, the first European settler):


This ,allegedly, is Mr. Louis Lorimer. No ankle length ponytail, and no half Shawnee - half European mode of dress. He also doesn't look Half Native American:

We then went to the mall and looked at luggage. My old Olympia carry-on was falling apart, and we looked at some replacements before beading for the Airport.
Once we got to CGI, it was raining cats and dogs. The Plane that was to perform the 2:00 Flight was sitting at the terminal(CGI only has one gate.) It was grounded due to low visibility.
Mom was concerned that she would have to take me to Saint Louis. She started having me call her friends, one of whom called the shuttle service. I talked to the Gate Agent ,who was busying rebook several other folk with tighter connections than mine. He nodded that would be flying, and I understood he had other things to do. I bid the shuttle driver adieu
Finally, at 4, it was clear enough to get started. My flight was supposed to leave at 4:50, and since I was there, Cape Air gave me a boarding pass for the 2:00 flight. With the weather, I decided to leave my camera in the stowed position. We were in Saint Louis in about 40 minutes, safe and sound.
Arriving in Saint Louis can be like visiting a movie set. The airport has two Terminals, Main and East (or 1 and 2). Terminal 1 has four concourses: A,B,C, and D.
In the old days Southwest had the east Terminal, TWA had Concourses B, C, and D, and everyone else was crammed into A. Today Southwest still has the East Terminal all to itself, American, AirTran, Frontier, and Cape air have about half of C, and everyone else is in A. B and D sit vacant, waiting for tenants. I was reminded of this as we pulled in and rounded the end of C. Several air bridges there were meant to service TWA's "Heavy Metal" (747's and L-1011's), but now aren't being used.
Once I got inside, I started to take a tour. I remembered to turn on my cell phone. There was a message from our unit secretary. The billing company had screwed up my timesheet. Was I where I could get on the net and have a look?
I sat down about C19, and got out my netbook. I didn't have any luck with the Wifi, so I wondered back down to the Cape Air Gates and got the timesheet un-mangled. Hooray!
So , I set off on my tour again. I doesn't look too bad here:

at the end is another story:


A sad sight , and I'm not sure what to say. Part of it has been the consolidation of the US Airline industry into 5 Majors (United/Continental, Delta, Southwest/AirTran, American, and US Airways) have left several other Airports with similar gate excess (Pittsburgh and Cincinnati come to mind) The Saint Louis airport has tried to get Both the "New" United and Delta and the other tenants in A to move to C and D (this would get everyone behind a common security perimeter , as A has its own portal) as they have started to increase their flights in response to TWA's demise and American's de-hubbing.
I passed my time by having some Tamales from the Jose Curevo Tequileria and reading some local history books. No Tequila, as I have been accused of getting drunk on root beer.
The flight back was good. We pulled back about 9:00 PM CST. My seatmate and I chatted away most of the night. She promised to send me a case of pistachios from her ranch in Terra Bella, CA.
It was a clear night, so the approach to LAX was breathtakingly stunning. Let's go with a Musical Interlude

LAX was still The busy International airport. I had made another reservation at the Hacienda. It was 11:45 when I got to bed
Tuesday Morning: Yes this is los Angeles:

Went down to the desks, checked out, picked up my car, and headed out to await the Crisis of the day.
Thanks for coming along

Visting The Dead

I woke up Friday morning and mom asked me what I wanted to do. I was at a loss, but then In saw the brochure for the National Cemetery In Mound City, IL. since it was only 40 miles, we made it a day trip

Mound City was the site of a major hospital in the civil war. It was established to bury the dead from that war and has open for free burials for all honorably discharged veterans ever since. Their signature is a tower erected by the State of Illinois to honor their dead.

I wandered about and found a burial guide Since one of my ancestors was a Confederate Veteran who disappeared near here, I took a look, no such luck.
We then went over to Mound City Itself. It. like Cairo,it is but a shell of its former glory. I did bid adieu to the Beautiful River(Ohio) at the fisherman's memorial.

We then headed back to Cape Girardeau and made the mandatory stop at Hutson's Furniture for their Christmas window

I then walked around downtown while mom browsed through the second hand stores
“Old Man river”

Looking up at The Common Pleas Courthouse:

and yes, at my advanced age, I can make it up the stairs:

it had been a while since I had checked on one of my inspirations for writing, so on to our next stop
Yep, Major Lorimer is still there.

I wish I could have spent more time, but my mom was still in the car.
Saturday, I returned the Rental car. We went over to visit dad's Grave in Jackson.

I then asked my mom if she would like to go to Old Appleton and Shawneetown. As you can Guess from the name, Shawneetown is where most of my fictional characters would have settled. I did get some photo of the old bridge over Apple Creek, but my mom was getting grouchy, so we settled for a driving tour of both of Shawneetown's blocks.



Doing research and spending time with my family reminds me of Jesus' parable about the slave with two masters. I think next time, I will probably let/insist on my Mom doing her own thing, While I wander to and fro about the earth in search of knowledge.
Sunday is our Christmas. So the next installment will be the trip back to LA.

Time trip

These are still from last week
The other town of my Childhood is Cape Girardeau, MO is river two, of course some times the river get a little close,like at the themis st. flood wall

The flood wall has murals on it:

let's walk up to Main:

and then to Spanish and the common pleas courthouse:

can I make it up the steps?

actually , I think that was the first time I ever walked up the steps
On the backside/Lormier st are the the two Civil War monuments. The Granite one is the Confederate, and the fountain is Union(Missouri was represented in both governments and had troops on both sides

Since I had flat Lion along, I walked another block:

I came back by the original murals, Those on the Southeast Missourian building:


and another Cape Landmark, the N'orleans. Rush Limbaugh III (aka "Radio Rush") once recommend this to some who wanted an "affordable" place to eat (I was forced to listen to his show). which is ok, if your idea of affordable is $20 a person. It's now out of business. The KFVS building (12 stories - "Tallest Building between Saint Louis and Memphis") is in the background

I finally walked down Broadway. This gate was open, I'm standing next to the Old Bucker- Ragsdale Store - where we went to get fancy duds.!

this old bailing was the headquarter of another of my Heroes, Louis Houck:


Google insisted on putting this last even thought it isn't. an omen?