De-Beautifying Downtown
Are Homeless Fears Paving the Way?

A crosswalk at the intersection of Spanish and Independence now without pavers.

I guess the city of Cape must still think Larry Rice's homeless shelter is imminent, even though the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services denied his application on Monday.

It's the only reason I can think of to explain why the city of Cape is de-beautifying downtown.

In the last couple weeks, the city has removed the decorative paver crosswalks at two downtown intersections -- Main and Independence and Spanish and Independence. The pavers were replaced by large asphalt patches, which are not particularly attractive. In fact, they could give a visitor to our riverfront the impression that Cape is home to some world-class potholes.

Actually, we are home to some mighty big potholes. They're just not located uniformly at intersections where decorative crosswalk pavers used to be.

According to the newspaper's archives, Foeste Masonry originally laid these pavers in 1992. The Downtown Redevelopment Corporation -- whose primary purpose is to improve and beautify the riverfront business district -- used money collected from a special tax to fund the work.

But since it appears that Larry Rice and his Merry Band of Homeless are bound and determined to get a foothold in Cape Girardeau -- he claims he will now sue since he didn't get his way -- I guess some in the downtown community are already preparing for the worst. That includes putting away everything of value.

Starting with the crosswalk pavers.

I've bought pavers before and can assure you that they're not cheap. All those little blocks add up to a big chunk of change. I could believe that some crafty homeless person would see these crosswalk blocks as easy money, literally lying on the ground waiting to be pried up and sold for a quick buck.

I bet that once the homeless start arriving here in droves that those pavers will begin disappearing rapidly and being resold in the shade of the Happy Hobo Hotel. That's what my friend Reggie the Marketer now likes to refer to the old Federal Building.

Therefore, I applaud the city on its foresight. Good job at squirreling away our hard-earned assets before they can be defiled by the heinous homeless!

But if we're going to de-beautify Cape's riverfront business district, we've got more work to do. First of all, some crosswalks were overlooked. Those valuable pavers also need to be collected for safekeeping.

We should also plan to undo all of the fine work the DRC has done for downtown over the years, including the clock at the intersection of Main and Themis. I know we're all rather fond of it, but for its own protection it needs to go into storage.

We don't want the downtown to be too attractive for the homeless and we certainly don't want them to know what time it is.

After all if they're going to be homeless in Cape Girardeau, then they should know that there is no free lunch -- or free time. If they want to know what time it is, then they need to get a watch.

I would replace the clock with something practical like a Porta-Potty. That could be really useful. We don't want the homeless pestering our dedicated downtown business owners to use their bathrooms.

It's a safe bet that they're not going to trudge up the hill to the Happy Hobo Hotel every time nature calls.

And we really don't want them fouling our pristine river. The EPA would throw a hissy-fit if they found out the homeless were defecating into the Mississippi. Since they would be our homeless, it would be our fault and it would be our city that was fined.

While we're putting in a Porta-Potty where the clock used to be, we might as well put one or two of them in that alley that parallels the river between Main and Spanish. Some of the newspaper articles I've read about other homeless shelters run by Larry Rice indicate that Porta-Potties are sometimes used by couples as... well, for lack of better words, "cuddle stations."

My friend Reggie the Marketer thinks Hug-A-Hottie would be a good name to call them. I guess the definition of "hottie" is open to interpretation.

Whatever the case, we need to be prepared for the homeless to need private places to be amorous with one another and I don't think cuddling in the Porta-Pottie out in the middle of Main Street is appropriate.

However, if they choose to get frisky in a Hug-A-Hottie located in the alley, that's OK by me.

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