Ghosts in Columbia

Jan. 4, 2007

Dear Julie,

DC and I went to Columbia, Mo., last weekend. Columbia is filled with ghosts for me.

Thirty years ago I was finishing school there, had just parted with a girlfriend of five years and was wondering where life might lead. I felt sad and unsure and kind of desperate.

As usual, having friends helped. Tim and Matt upstairs had run for student body president and vice president as Scooter and Skate. Those were not nicknames but the means of transportation they used to get around campus.

Tim was fond of testing the fire extinguisher in the hallway and one day parachuted off our apartment building. Matt was a blond god who broke many women's hearts. He wasn't a cad, just gay.

My friend Chips provided my first look at California during spring break the previous year. We drove his pickup nonstop across the plains, the Americana tour, stopping at Mount Rushmore and Little Big Horn, turning left at Seattle, pausing in Carmel to see his father and ending up in San Diego. We went to Black's Beach but were too shy or Midwestern to remove our jeans.

My last summer in Columbia, Chips invited me to stay with him at the old farmhouse he rented outside town. Most evenings we barbecued, drank beer, listened to Willie Nelson's "Red Headed Stranger" and watched the sun sink into the fields. Crickets lullabied us to sleep.

Sometimes we exercised the farmer's horses. I had never ridden before, and these horses had no saddles, only bridles. Chips showed me how to hold on with the insides of my legs and move with the horse's rhythm.

The hard part came when we turned the horses around. Their easy lope turned into a gallop, so anxious were they to return to the barn. I just had to hold on and trust that we were going to end up somewhere.

The questions buzzing around my mind flew away. All I knew at that moment was the power of the horse beneath me and the wind in my face.

DC and I went to Columbia last weekend to visit her brother, Paul. We wanted to experience Columbia's First Night celebration, wondering if it could be reproduced in Cape Girardeau. The New Year's Eve ritual here is basically drinking at a bar.

At certain places in Columbia, it's as if I can change the channel in my head and be right back there 30 years ago. We had breakfast at Ernie's, a hippie/boho restaurant that still has the Dick Tracy cartoon and the Haight street sign on the wall. Ernie's believes in communal dining and that biscuits and gravy constitute a food group.

Thirty years ago, all my friends went to Ernie's on Saturday and Sunday mornings. My friends will forever be people who go to Ernie's on Saturday and Sunday mornings.

University students and townies alike still hang out at Shakespeare's Pizza for the tasty food, the bustling atmosphere and the free Shakespeare cups. Mizzou wouldn't be Mizzou without Shakespeare's.

But we bought a frozen Shakespeare's Pizza at a grocery store instead of joining the crowd, a sure sign that we ain't who we used to be.

That's OK. Anyone can be sad, unsure and a little desperate. Just hold on and trust. You'll wind up somewhere.

Love, Sam

Sam Blackwell is managing editor of the Southeast Missourian.