Child loves monkey business

Nature Girl likes to shout like a monkey.

She does this regularly with the passenger window down as I drive along city streets.

It can be embarrassing. I worry that someone might hear her and actually wonder if I have a real zoo monkey in the car.

Of course, it has its advantages. It's better than the music on the radio.

Bailey loves shouting like a monkey as we pass through our neighborhood.

But then what do you expect from Nature Girl?

She would love to be in Tarzan's world, although I think she'd get tired of all that jungle life without the benefit of refrigerated apple juice.

Becca and Joni were gone for a few days this week on a middle school choir trip to Hannibal.

It was far quieter with only one daughter in the house.

Sibling rivalry took a holiday. I didn't have to feel like a boxing referee.

One on one, it was easier to manage.

Of course, I did the dad thing. I ordered out for pizza.

Bailey actually saw it as a treat. I saw it as a practical way to avoid having to burn a meal of chicken nuggets.

Naturally, Bailey views cheese pizza with the same reverence that New Hampshire residents viewed their stern granite symbol of independence and stubbornness.

New Hampshire residents awoke earlier this month to find the Old Man of the Mountain had collapsed into rubble.

Residents in that state loved their rocky ledges on Cannon Mountain. The fall concluded nearly a century of efforts to protect the 40-foot-tall landmark from erosion and the natural freeze-and-thaw cycle that created it in the first place.

In New Hampshire, the rock was a tourist attraction. Statesman Daniel Webster once wrote, "In the mountains of New Hampshire, God Almighty has hung out a sign to show that there He makes men." The outcropping was the state's most recognizable symbol, appearing on the state quarter, state road signs and souvenirs.

But in the end, Mother Nature took it down, leaving the state with the severe problem of finding something else to hang its hat on.

The state's governor wants the face resurrected. Anything's possible, I suppose.

Seven-year-old Bailey certainly would understand the governor's love of that rock.

Bailey, as alert readers know, is a rock hound. She recently picked up a rock along the downtown railroad tracks. Actually, it was a chunk of yellow-painted concrete that had been discarded among the rocks. But Bailey saw it as another great find. She would love some of New Hampshire's rubble too, but for now she has to settle for Missouri stone.

Thankfully, Missouri has the Gateway Arch and the Mississippi and Missouri rivers to brag about. They seem solid enough.

Of course, Missourians had the good fortunate and sound judgment to avoid marketing the state on the basis of an outcropping.

As for Bailey, she hasn't collected enough rocks for an outcropping yet. But she's not interested in a tourist attraction.

To her, the joy is in finding the rocks and relocating them to our home. So far, we've managed to keep many of them in the garage, corralled by a Hula Hoop that has turned them into a mini Stonehenge.

It's a design that New Hampshire residents are welcome to copy.

Mark Bliss is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.