Saturday morning we all got up early. I do not think it was planned that way, but when someone starts shuffling around the sleeping area, most of the rest of us get the idea and gradually get out of bed. The room was just about empty by 7:00. From there is was a matter of grabbing some breakfast, packing up, and heading out. But those goodbyes can take a while.
Cindy dropped by to thank us for visiting the clinic. While she was there, I aimed her at this blog so she can read all about it. JD and Lorenzo came by as they always do. Over the years Lorenzo has gone from being JD’s relative who sometimes dropped by to help to an indispensable member of the team. Now many of us are trying to talk him into paying a visit to Chicago.
After a bit of packing and lots of hugs, we were on the road by a little after 8:00. Another trip comes to an end, another year’s work done, some friendships forged and strengthened, and plenty of work left to return to.
In some combination or another, we will be back next year.
As we were packing up Saturday morning, Dino received this email from Marie Nowak.
Hi Dino—
Jan and I hope the Habitat group has a good trip this year. We remember our trips and wish we could be with you again.
You may remember that my sister Carolyn from Arizona came on one of the trips, 2016 I think. She often said it was one of the best experiences she had – not only the work but the people she met from Sheil and the community. Sadly Carolyn passed away early this month. She had been in poor health for a while and is at peace. Here are a few pictures from the trip. She was part of the fit and finish crew with Kathy and especially found a good friend in Bernadette, a fellow nurse and also from Arizona. The picture of us with Elvis was taken in Memphis. Please share the pictures with anyone who might remember Carolyn from the trip. We will be with you in our hearts.
Marie
It was 2017 actually. Jan and Marie made many trips with us. Jan was a doctor at Evanston Hospital and got to know Dr. Brooks better than the rest of us. He was particularly picky about closets, trying to make them perfect in every detail. He used to stay in touch with her to try and supply things the clinic needed. Marie used to work at the Evanston library and would comb the books that were being discarded for ones that might be good for Tutwiler. She got me interested in the library, something she might have regretted when I inadvertently spent $50 of her money. (She was very nice about that.) Several of us have invited friends or relatives to join the trip. (I am still working on it,) and Marie invited her sister.
I did not get to know Carolyn well during the trip that year. I spent a lot of time in the library. That was the year I shipped down a pallet of books. (The librarian and the rest of the crew thought that was an impressive achievement, but suggested that I not try it again.)
Carolyn, Marie, and Bernadette bonding. Carolyn and Bernadette have passed away, and Marie and Jan have moved to Arizona, but they are remembered and their contributions remain.
I do recall that she came up with the idea for the plaque that year. We spent at least some time together that year, as there is a picture in the blog of my wood-stained hand.
Clearly the trip had an impact on Carolyn, as she wrote about it. Here are the pages from our blog that year.
After 21 years, many people have made the trip with our group, some once, some many times. We have all made our contributions and our mistakes (which hopefully the owners never discover.) Inevitably, some of those people are no longer with us, but their contributions remain.
At the preparation meeting for my first trip, several people talked about how they would travel down to Tutwiler, work hard all year in often oppressive heat, sleeping in some rustic facilities, and come home feeling like they had been on vacation. We have contributed a lot over the years. We have been blessed with a lot as well. Carolyn made her contribution and clearly felt the blessings.
After most of a week, the ground is finally draining. There are a few puddles, but mostly you can walk through the grass without feeling like you are about to sink into a swamp.
Progress continues on the houses. Charlotte contributed most of the pictures of the work today. She also contributed this lovely picture of the mural outside Ground Zero.
We have one house that we hope will be completed in a couple weeks.
Here is our team finishing up some of those final details.
The kitchen is looking pretty good.
The front railing has been completed.
Even little details make a difference.
Meanwhile next door, the crew has gotten down to mudding. Charlotte is doing the bathroom.
There are only a few more hours to get done whatever we can.
We finished a few more details before the end of the day.
Andy finishes a spot on the siding while Jon and Dino finish up the kitchen cabinets.
Those louvered doors are finished with little help from me, and this one is now covering a completed closet.
I am not certain, but I think this is the same closet where the team posed for our end of the week picture in 2022. Most of us are back this year.
I think it is also the house from where JD demonstrated how his nail gun worked by firing a nail out the window and into the side of the house next door.
Anyway, here is our picture for this year.
I could tell you why my eyes are closed in this picture, but I don’t want to.
A tour of the clinic
All the social progress down here began when Sr. Anne Brooks, SNJM graduated from medical school and needed a place to practice. Since the government had paid her tuition, she was obligated to spend several years in an underserved community. That is a challenge for a newly minted doctor, but less so for a nun. She wound up in Tutwiler, which just happened to have a (non-functioning) clinic. She used to say, “They didn’t tell me they had a clinic and I didn’t tell them I was a nun.”
She arrived in 1983 and stayed until someone else finally took over the clinic. Cindy has provided us with a fair number of tours over the years, as well as endless stories. Last year she told us how the clinic started as one room and was used for adult literacy classes at night. The building expanded bit by bit and one day the 60 Minutes news crew came to town. After the story of the clinic appeared on 60 Minutes, donations flowed in.
Several other sisters followed Sr. Anne to town. Sr. Maureen took charge of the community center and began the Habitat for Humanity program that we now take part in. She stayed until she was elected as the head of her order. Sr. Anne worked for years constantly looking for someone willing to take over the clinic. It took over thirty years. Finally Tallahatchie County Hospital bought it out, took it over, and set it up as a non-profit entity, so still provides medical care to those who cannot afford it. They immediately started making improvements, like up to date computer systems. “For a nun, if it’s free and it works, why replace it?,” Cindy said.
Sr. Anne stayed long enough for someone to replace her, retired to her order’s retirement home in upstate New York, and immediately fell into severe mental decline. It was as if she had finished her task and could now let everything go.
Recently the clinic opened a new purpose-built facility. It looks pretty much like a clinic. I have been to many similar facilities. But I do not live down here in the Delta.
Cindy seems to have endless energy, looks far younger than her years, and never runs out of stories.
Sister Anne is gone from Tutwiler, and the sisters who followed her down have all retired or , but the clinic is in a better place than it ever has been since she arrived.
Meanwhile the Tutwiler Community Education Center has seemingly fallen are harder times. There are only a few women making quilts. The building seemed to be closed the whole week we were here. There were no basketball games, no computer classes, no music lessons. Sister Maureen was difficult to replace of course, and the tenure of a couple of her successors was none too successful. But the building is still there, and so is the need for it.
Not far away, the town library remains closed. I have personally sent thousands of dollars of books and materials and many hours working there during our trips. But the books are still there, and it could reopen.
Today in his morning devotion, Mike quoted from Galatians 6: 9-10.
Let us not grow tired of doing good, for in due time we shall reap our harvest, if we do not give up. So then, while we have the opportunity, let us do good to all, but especially to those who belong to the family of the faith.
So we continue on. We come down and do what we do. We accomplish something. It often seems that not much changes, some progress is reversed. There are plenty of unmet needs. But there is a new clinic in Tutwiler, fifty houses either built or soon to be finished, many of them that bear evidence of our efforts (and hopefully where are mistakes ae well concealed.) And we keep coming back.
Friday Dinner
This event has evolved over the years. It used to be held at the community center with any homeowners invited to attend. It often drew a fairly big crowd. In more recent years, it has been a simpler affair. This year it took place at the dorm with most of the food provided by Sheri. The new homeowner and a few family members and supporters attended.
Thursday afternoon and evening were eventful. Most of us took a trip to Sumner to see the Emmett Till Interpretation Center and related sites. Seventy years after his brutal murder, Emmett Till’s name, story and legacy live on. That legacy is surely not one of undivided progress and enlightenment. Blatant racism is no longer apparent. Black people and White people interact naturally and with apparent good will and no obvious tension. Beneath the surface, tensions remain.
Were he alive today, Emmett would be 84 years old. His life would have taken its course, for better or worse, He likely would have left behind children, grandchildren and perhaps great grandchildren. In 1955, lots of black children traveled from Chicago, from where their families had settled after the Great Migration to visit relatives in Mississippi where they would congregate with family members, work the fields a bit, run around and engage in the kind of fun children of that age would. By all description, Emmett Till was just an ordinay kid, good natured, loved to laugh, saw no need to take life very seriously. He would likely be quite a lot like the 8th graders who I currently teach. It is hard to think that he would have imagined that his name would be remembered so many years hence, that his death would represent a turning point in the history of race relations in this country.
Reportedly before he left Chicago, Mamie Till warned her son about the racial climate in Mississippi and her replied, “Oh Mom, it’s not that bad.” But of course it was far worse than he could have imagined.
Until recently, the Tallahatchie County Courthouse where the trial of Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam took place had remained largely unchanged for years. It was recently declared a national historic landmark and is owned by the National Park Service. It still functions as a working courthouse and will continue to do so until its replacement is built. It is a small building, with only one courtroom on the second floor and a few administrative offices on the first.
The courtroom has a few pieces of modern furniture and the recently adopted Mississippi State Flag. Otherwise it is largely unchanged from 1955. The area before the bar where attorneys sit and conduct business is very small, but it otherwise does not look substantially different than many courtrooms in which I have appeared.
Justice may have been denied, but it surely was not delayed. I was astonished to find that the murder occured at the end of August, the defendants were arrested the first week of September, and the very brief trial took place two weeks later, leading to an acquittal in just over an hour. It is hard for me to imagine that any prosecutor would bring a case to trial in so short a time, or any defense attorney would allow it. Today such a case would take a year or years to come to trial, months of investigation would take place, the defense would demand months to prepare. Life was different seventy years ago in a case where the result was a foregone conclusion. Milam and Bryant later gave an interview to Life magazine in which they admitted to the murder, though it seems many of the details in the article are inaccurate, like the location where the boy was beaten before being killed. The hasty investigation and trial and the determination to cover the matter up for the next fifty years account for the uncertainty about many of the details.
Till’s body was embalmed in Tutwiler, in the “black” funeral home. A sign now stands on the sidewalk commemorating that site. Until a year or two ago, the sidewalk around it was cordoned off with construction tape to protect passers-by from the falling masonry. There was some talk of restoring what remained of the building. Now the tape is not necessary, as the building has collapsed entirely. For those familiar with the Tutwiler of today, it is hard to imagine that such a building ever existed, much less that a crowd this size would have ever gathered there. This crowd would far exceed the entire population of Tutwiler, and perhaps some of the surrounding towns.
The whole sad story extends through several towns and a few counties, but the area is not that large. It would fit comfortably within a relatively small part of the city of Chicago. Reportedly there was little sympathy for the killers immediately after the crime. J.W. “Big” Milam was not admired in the community. He was as his nickname suggested a large man with a mean temper. His half-brother Bryant ran a string of grocery stores serving or more likely exploiting the local black population. Neither were well-liked or admired. The district attorney chose to have the case tried in Sumner on the opposite side of Tallahatchie County from where the defendants lived, hoping to avoid the favorable sentiment of thier neighbors. That may have been a mistake. Those who knew Milam and Bryant did not like them. After the trial, no one, and particularly no one in the Black community would buy anything from Bryant’s stores. Ironically, Bryant complained afterward that Emmett Till had ruined his life, after he had brutally taken his. A comment following the Life magazine article noted that “no one was proud of what had to be done.” Local people did not like it, it was just the way things were.
This might be the location on the Sunflower River where Emmett Till’s body was discovered. Like many things in this case, the details are uncertain.
It was not until the matter became national news and the press descended on Mississippi that public opinion coalesced around Bryant and Milam, as people saw much of the country looking down on Mississippi. A remnant of that attitude still exists.
Rocks placed around the base of the sign. Most of them were taken from the adjacent macadamized road, though someone supplied a more personal message.
It was not until 2008 that an effort was made to commemorate the events of 1955. A sign was placed at the purported site of the murder and promptly shot up. It has been replaced and destroyed many times since, turning into a test of wills between those who would like to remember the event and those who would prefer to forget it. In the Emmett Till Interpretive Center, there is a picture of a group of teenagers holding guns and smiling in front of the shot-up sign. I got the impression that for them it was more or less a rite of passage, an ignorant and stupid thing young people do that they do not fully understand and will likely regret and try to forget when they get older.
Perhaps it is changing just a bit. In 2021, Mississippi got a new state flag replacing the old and embarrassing one that paid tribute to the Confederacy. On my first trip down here, I was surprised to see the old state flag flying, with the Southern Cross in the canton. When it was adopted the designer claimed that the thirteen stars stood for the original thirteen states. Even his mother did not believe that.
Clarksdale
Then it was on to Clarksdale.
Clarksdale illustrates the contrasting nature of the Mississippi Delta. It is a fascinating community. Clarksdale can legitimately make some claim to being the Home of the Blues. Surely the blues originated in the Delta and Clarksdale is right in the middle of it, probably the most prominent community. The music is amazing. The town practically drips in history. One of folks at Cathead once told me, “What this town needs is a place to get a meal and a drink without live music.”
The pathway to the Delta Blues Museum contains a plaque honoring local son Ike Turner, who can be justifiably credited with recording the first rock and roll record. When they arrived at Sun Studio in nearby Memphis, Turner and his bandmates discovered a torn speaker. This resulted in a unique sound on their recording of Rocket 88. The song rocketed to the top of the charts. The plaque makes no mention of Turner’s abuse of his wife Tina.
I stopped in the unique Cathead Records, bought a few souvenirs, and encountered Bubba O’Keefe, the executive director of Visit Clarksdale.
He was leading a tour of a group of travel writers from Germany and a religion reporter from the United Kingdom. We met up with the group later that night the world famous (really, no kidding.) Ground Zero Blues Club.
There are music festivals by dozens. It seems that everyone in town plays some instrument or another, many starting when they were children. It was open mic night and one of the performers was thrilled to be there. He had come all the way from California to live out his dream of playing Crossroads within sight of the actual Crossroads.
Then there is the part of Clarksdale that they would prefer you do not see.
Bubba could hardly have been more gracious. He thanked us for coming down, complimented our work, comisserated with the ups and downs we have witnessed over the years, and asked us to please come back. In his job of promoting Clarksdale, he has no illusions of the difficulties that presents and the drawbacks of the community.
That’s the thing about Clarksdale. There are a lot of weathered and worn buildings. You can never tell whether they are quaint and supposed to look that way or if they are just old and weathered and worn down.
We have met and talked to some of the people who rebuilt what is now Ground Zero. It had previously been, among other things, a cotton warehouse and a car dealership. When the current owners bought the building, they pretty much gutted it, built apartments upstairs and opened up the club. It really does look like a genuine Mississippi juke joint. During my trips down here, we have not visited one of the other famous clubs in town which really does look like it is falling down and where our team leader was once propositioned by one of the local working women.
Across the street from Ground Zero stands, or stood, the Blues Alley Blues Club. It is notable for the painted Cadillac parked in the front which serves as a sort of rolling billboard. But the club is not doing great. As a matter of fact, it burned down recently. It seems that Clarksdale has had some trouble lately with buildings burning down. Could be a combination of old buildings, limited fire protection resources, and bad luck. Could be something more sinister.
But on the other hand, there are all those warm and talented people. Dino is a veteran on this crew and has gotten to know plenty of people. We encountered a couple of the town regulars, Lee and Big A. They and Dino greeted each other like old friends, which in fact they are.
Turns out that they will be visiting our area as part of Morgan Freeman’s Symphonic Blues Experience August 1 at Ravinia Festival. A bunch of us will be showing up. They are going to be on a tour of the U.S. and Canada, playing with symphony orchestras, including the amazing Chicago Symphony Orchestra!
So things continue to go up and down in the delta. If you look around, you can see so much talent, so much potential for things to go right, so many people we have grown to know and love. And so much poverty, so many missed opportunities, so much of the dark side of our society. And we keep coming back.
Although Andy takes great pride in his culinary skills, he would like it known that he does not do all the cooking on his own. Last night Maryse put a great deal of effort into making eggplant Parmesan for dinner.
Signs
We usually take a half day off during the week and explore the local area or something, so that is what we are going to do today. We also put up a sign celebrating another year.
The dorm is covered with signs, t-shirts, and all sorts of assorted paraphernalia memorializing their visit. For groups who show up repeatedly, or annually as we do, they can start to take up a good amount of space. The largest one is probably about 3′ x 4′ and takes up a considerable amount of the ceiling. The group from Urbanna High School has also been showing up for years, and has added another two-foot letter to the ceiling every year.
We long ago took over the wall adjacent to the bathroom and had to move to another wall. This required us to move a sign or two, specifically the ones from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, but we were nice and reinstalled it on the ceiling around a number of their other signs.
In recent years, (well actually not all that recent, as it is about the past ten or so,) the multitalented Andy Thomas has designed and made our signs. Often they reflect what kind of work we have done during the week, so we have signs made of vinyl siding, dry wall, lumber, floor tile, and whatever else we might have used, or they reflect events of the week, like the one with a picture of Noah’s ark to commemorate the year it rained all week and we slogged through mud all week.
Last year, Andy came up with a special creation in honor of our 20th year down here, but he didn’t finish it before we left, so we all signed it before we left and he took it home to complete.
It has now been properly installed.
So now it is time to work on this year which will contain a blade from one of the ceiling fans.
Today in morning devotion, Charlotte made reference to both Moze Allison and the Muppetts. Not a bad way to start the day.
We will be working on mudding and taping today, as well as finishing the woodwork, which includes louvered doors. I hate louvered doors! I will try and stick to mudding and taping.
As of noon, there has not been a lot of mudding and taping, but quite a lot of progress in the woodwork, including the dreaded louvered doors.
As is often the case, we are working on a couple different houses, though in this case, most of the work is going on in one and the other is being used for storage and as a workspace. Here is the soon-to-be owner of the latest house, accompanied by her mother and grandmother.
Ariel will be moving in shortly. Her mother Yolanda on the left and grandmother Emma on the right live in other Habitat houses in the subdivision.
By this point, just about all the cabinets have been hung. Dino and Maryse are doing some touching up on the ones in the kitchen.
The staining crew has been busy. Jim and Charlotte have been working on closet doors.
Lorenzo and Kristin have been moving shelves and doors and whatever else all morning.
Meanwhile, Jon, Ed and Andy have been hooking up all the electrical connections.
Here is a ceiling fan installed by Jon without an H. I understand that it wil play an important part in the sign we post at the end of the week.
JD predicts that the house should be done soon, perhaps by next week. Appliances need to be delivered and installed, a gas line needs to be connected, and the city will have to approve everything, but Ariel should be able to move in soon.
Today will be a bit tricky. It is raining. It has been raining a lot around here lately. The problem is that the water table is high here, so when the rain falls, it tends to collect in puddles and take a long time to sink in. When we arrived Sunday night, I stepped out of Andy’s van and straight into a puddle. One of the neighbors stopped by while we were unloading to suggest finding a different place to park , or it might be tough to get out in the morning.
When it rains around here, you have to be careful walking from one place to another because you are likely to walk into a puddle. The city is moving all the culverts to try and improve drainage, but it will be a long process. It is supposed to rain more this afternoon, so we have moved just about everything inside.
These houses are not very big, so it can get a little crowded.
But we are managing to get stuff done.
Maryse is our rookie of the year. Lorenzo is offering some tips on the use of a sander before using it on one of the bedroom doors to get it to close properly.
Meanwhile, Andy is working on the fixture in the livingroom .
and we have gotten most of the cabinets finishedEd is getting the bathroom vanity togetherThis is Jon, informally known as “Jon without an H” adding ceiling fixtures
Jon without an H is a true Renaissance man. He served in the Peace Corps, organized and ran credit unions, and worked as an electrician. He has been drooling for an opportunity to start installing fixtures.
Now, time for lunch. We eat really well down here.
Alot got done during the afternoon, but I had a headache and fell asleep, so we will have to count on the rest of the crew to provide the details.
Dinner
Like I said, we eat really well down here. Andy Thomas is an accomplished chef and relishes the opportunity to demonstrate his culinary skills. So last night it was barbecued ribs and chicken, cowboy beans, greens appropriate for the locale, and a few things I do not remember. Tonight it is Thai curry with peanuts, Thai basil, sesame oil, and limes served over fluffy rice.
Then the chef typically sits down and weatches the rest of the crew admire his work while he rests after toiling over a hot stove.
We got just about all the cabinets stained today. Tomorrow we start working on the trim and the like.
Ed and Mike cutting trimJim, Dino and Charlotte staining cabinetsAndy and Jon man the saw
And here is a completed cabinet.
That cabinet represents most of my contribution for the day at the house. I was toiling over a hot computer most of the day, getting this blog up. More difficult than you think. Computers are animated by the souls of the damned.
The end of the day usually consists of people coming in, sipping a beverage of their choice, and deciding when they want to get in line for the shower. There is not much point in showering in the morning and then going out and getting hot and sweaty and covered with saw dust, wood stain, and assorted building detritus.
Time to get started. Everybody was up and moving early this morning. Breakfast was great. There is a certain comfort in waking up and and finding a familiar breakfast – Dino’s sausage and peppers, (Actually, I think Kristin made them, but they were Dino’s idea) Kristin making scrambled eggs to order, (I would add a picture of Kristin, but she would get mad at me,) Dino’s coffee cake, (Really his this time) and most importantly, the appearance of a couple longtime friends.
Lorenzo has been coming to join us every year since I have started coming along. I even gave him a call earlier this year to talk to a bunch of third-graders when I was telling them about our trip. He got here early enough for breakfast this morning.
JD has been the contractor for Habitat since I started showing up. He knows me well enough that the first thing he did was make fun of my hair. JD’s last words as we departed last year were “Y’all are family.”
Fair enough. I see more of the people down here than I do with some family members. It is good to come back to where the people there think you are family.
Sherri has been the Habitat coordinator for several years. She arrived later today after most of the crew had left for the worksite. After we finish House #49, it looks like we will have one more to work on in Tutwiler, a couple blocks away.
We are on our way. As always, we stopped at Niemerg’s in Effingham, IL. We always stop at Niemerg’s. Effingham is far enough from Chicago that we get down here just about lunch time. I am not going to shoot another picture of Niemerg’s. Every year I shoot a picture of Niemerg’s. Niemerg’s has pretty good food and a fantastic salad bar, so it is a good place to stop. It is also one of the more popular and accessible restaurants in the area, so it is not unusual to find yourself surrounded by a dozen youth baseball teams or this year, a Christian motorcycle club. These bikers did not look at all threatening, sporting large crosses and larger American flags on their leather vests. I am not one to equate faith and nationalism, but we just got a new American pope, so maybe they are celebrating that.
Effingham, both the city and county were named after Thomas Howard, 3rd Earl of Effingham, who resigned his commission in the British Army rather than take up arms against the North American colonists during the American Revolution. It seems the closest he ever got to Illinois was Jamaica, where he died while serving as the royal governor. Or else it was named for the guy who originally surveyed the area. Wikipedia splits the difference and says it was named after General Effingham, a local surveyor. Take your pick. This is definitely Southern Illinois. The town is probably best known for the Cross at the Crossroads, a 198 foot white steel structure. At 198 feet, it is just short of the height at which it would have to have a light on top for navigational purposes. A couple major highways intersect here, giving rise to the Crossroads name, (not to be confused with the more famous Crossroads in Clarksdale, MS, where Robert Johnson purportedly sold his soul to the devil in exchange for becoming the original blues legend.)
This is definitely Southern Illinois. Effingham was a Sundown Town until the 60’s, and reportedly black people were not welcome there for some years thereafter. The motorcycle club group was friendly enough, but I am left with the impression that my MANEA baseball cap would not be greeted warmly. Most of our journey down will be in the state of Illinois before we pass through Missouri, Arkansas, and Tennessee, but we are already effectively in the South.
Our good friend and sometime team member Tony Del Gallo generously paid for lunch. Geez, Tony! If you told me that, I would have ordered a steak!
BOOMLAND!!!
Ah, how to describe the wonder that is Boomland? It seems that every time we stop there, I have to add a piece about this amazing cultural/commercial/pyrotechnical establishment. I fear I run out of words after once describing it as the zenith of Southern kitch, but Boomland is remarkable that every visit merits its own account. Located off the interstate in Charleston, MO and stretching the length of a city block, it is a combination of a U.S. Army armory, an exotic grocery, and a Turkish bazaar. It seems as if all of the fireworks from which the establishment gets its name went of at once and scattered every piece of patriotic/religious and tacky merchandise one can imagine, with some actual quality items mixed in.
Want to buy a skull with an American flag on it?Free puppies! Will soon be big enough to ride.
Outside the store, a young couple were giving away puppies. They are cute! Of course they are. They are puppies. But at the age of eleven weeks, these offspring of a Grand Pyrenees and White German Shepard are already as big or bigger than most dog you might find strolling the streets of Chicago. When someone asked who big they would grow, I said, “Think ponies.” The lady giving them away replied, “That’s about right. About up to my hip.” Like the people giving them away, the puppies appear calm and gentle, but I would not want to be an intruder in whatever home they wind up in. The couple managed to find four of the six they brought there is a little over an hour. They are keeping two others. Kindhearted souls, no doubt, but no surprise that at Boomland, even the things you can get for free are big!
As you enter the store, you encounter what appears to be the world’s largest rocking chair, dedicated the late Mr. Land, for whom the store is presumably named. I always thought “Boomtown” sounded better, but if that was the guy’s name, I guess what they came up with is a better choice. And then before your eyes, wonders to behold! First baseball caps, most honoring the military, guns, or Jesus in no particular order. Then racks of clothing. Polynesian dresses, kids stuff, and of course t-shirts. Beyond that are row upon row of figurines – angels, devils, skulls, dragons, bears, and whatever else you might think someone might purchase.
The food section is big enough to fill a small grocery store with all kinds of tempting concoctions. Canned and pickled and preserved just about anything that grows from the ground. I ended up with three jars I found in the reduced-price-beyond-expiration-date section. I could load up on these. The last time we visited, I bought a few. They were good. They were cheap. And where else are you going to find pickled black-eyed pea relish?
As always, my favorite part is the hot sauce section. No idea what they taste like, but names to race the heart and numb the mind. I noticed that there remained only two bottles of Screw the Republicans, and apparently Screw the Democrats was sold out. Well, that is no surprise in our current political environment, and Missouri is not much of a swing state in recent years. The list of names promising violence and destruction is virtually endless. I understand that the really powerful stuff is kept behind the sales counter. I chose something gentler sounding: Hippy Dippy Green. Its label displays a turtle in an apparently altered state of consciousness, with a peace sign on his shell. Seems harmless enough. Of course, it was produced by the Angry Goat Pepper Company.
Then of course there are the fireworks. Behind a separate set of doors on the far end of the building, a good distance from the gas pumps, are the fireworks in a space about the size of your typical grocery store. Unless you are an expert on such things, it is difficult to tell exactly what it is they do, besides shooting high in the air and going boom, but again, my favorite part is the names.
The apocalyptic ones: A series entitled Atomic Bomb, Hydrogen Bomb, Neutron Bomb, and Cobalt Bomb, (Is there such a thing as a Cobalt Bomb? I don’t think I want to know.) Last Man Standing, Atomic Rain, Day Zero
The mysogynistic ones: One Bad Mother-in-Law, Trophy Wife, Alpha Male
The ones intended to appeal to a certain demographic: Baby Boomers! , Psychodelic
The ones that are just plain weird: Psycho Circus, Loyal to None, Western Green Mamba, Dirty Little Secret (It is not likely to remain secret for too long if it lights up the sky and goes boom!)
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