HERE COMES THE MISSOURIAN

The year that I was 12 years old the crops turned out well; the hogs got fatter; the cows gave more milk; and the chickens laid more eggs. So, a family conference was held around the old kitchen table to determine what we would do with such wealth.

After much deliberation and discussion it was decided that a portion of the family would be dispatched to "the outside" to get new winter coats for the entire family. Now this wasn't going to be any puny, little trip to Elvins' or Flat River or Farmington, but we were going way out of the hills to the very edge of the flat country, Cape Girardeau, Missouri.

At that time I was the only member of the three-generation family that lived in the old farmhouse who had not seen the Mississippi River. So it was decided that I should be a member of this expedition.

It was the day of flat tires, alas, and though we started early in the morning it was midafternoon before we arrived. We made our purchases at a store called Penney's. It sounded like a good economical store -- Penney's. We looked at the river, marveling at its width and color, so unlike our own St. Francis, then started back home with our precious cargo.

Such a trip provided good conversational timber for months to come, and on our way back and forth to school, up and down the hollers, across the river and through the woods, I told my sister, Lou, all about it. And the thing that we discussed most wasn't the river nor the big store, nor the streetcar we thought was going to run over us, but a building we had passed on our way through the town.

"It was white," I told Lou, "like the inside of our storm cellar and had a funny wrinkled, red roof and flower boxes in the upstairs windows!"

"Upstairs?" she demanded.

"Yes sir, upstairs!"

"Gee, I'd hate to carry water upstairs to flower boxes," she said, and I agreed that it would be an awful chore.

"And," I added, "it had funny blue and white square plates glued on the outside."

"Oh, silly," she said, "people don't glue dishes on the outside of buildings."

"Well, they sure did it there," I told her. "Saw 'em with my own eyes. Pasted up 'bout this high."

We discussed the building on and off all winter. "Maybe it was a church," Lou suggested, and I said, "No, I don't think so."

"A library? Post office? Picture show?"

"No, I don't think it's any of those."

"Well, maybe some real rich people just live there."

"Maybe so."

The coats wore well. So well, that by the time I was through mine, Lou's and Lillian's I was ready to come down here to college. And, I thought, the first thing I was going to do was find out about that building with the blue dishes.

But it was late when I was through registration at the college that day and only had time to run down to the corner store about four o'clock for some supplies. It occurred to me as I started down to the store that I would be doing that very thing a good many times that winter and I might as well start in right then getting acquainted with the people in that block of North Henderson who would be my neighbors for a while. So, I put on my prettiest dress and started out, prepared to speak and wave or chat, whatever people did in a city like this.

I passed the first three houses and there were folks sitting in porch swings, standing on steps or at the end of the walk, reading papers. They never looked up! Not even to speak.

At the next house a little boy came running out. "It's come, Mama, It's come," he yelled, and grabbed the paper and tore back into the house. I looked around for something monstrously big and exciting, a parade or a blimp, but saw nothing.

Going back, I tried the other side of the street. By the time I got to the end of my block I was beginning to get alarmed. Something's happened, I thought. Another war, or we've been invaded. Everyone had their noses buried in a newspaper.

"What's happened?" I asked, breathlessly, when I got back to where I was staying.

"Why?" the landlady asked, looking up from the paper.

"Why? Why, everybody, up and down the street, they're frozen like statues, reading papers."

"Oh," she said, "The Missourian's come."

Well, I made a mental note, I'd better look into this Missourian thing. It must contain highly readable stuff.

The next day I went down to investigate that building I had so long wondered about and imagine my surprise when I saw the sign, "Southeast Missourian." So, that's what lives here, that newspaper that stops the wheels of the city around four o'clock every day! I must write and tell my sister, Lou, about it.

About a week later I got my social life started. The young gentleman took me to a picture show and a dinner afterwards. I discreetly inquired about his line of work before ordering, and he made the very broad statement that he was with the Missourian.

Oh, gee, goody, I thought. Maybe he owns the place, and turned my attention from the sandwiches to the full dinner.

No, he said, he didn't own the place, but he intimated it would only be a matter of a few months.

I imagine everyone for many miles around could tell his own personal story about how the local daily newspaper has affected his life.

And the stories would be as different and many-faceted as all the things the Missourian has gotten behind and put across since its inception. Probably someone living up in Vermont remembers a Ten Mile flower garden they passed through down in the Middle West. Maybe some man or woman, raised out in the county remembers the first picture show he/she saw, one brought out to the rural area by the Missourian. Another may recall seeing the Arabian Nights here, or hearing Billy Sunday. All these side issues, the Missourian has sponsored, besides the daily gathering and dissemination of the news.

Eventually I married that young man who said he "was with the Missourian." Later I began to write a column for the Southeast Missourian. Still later, the paper changed from evening delivery to morning delivery. And even later I can hardly wait to get my Missourian. A kind and thoughtful neighbor picks it up and wedges it in my storm door so that I don't even have to stoop over to pick it up. All up and down the street I see people picking up their paper to see what great things have happened and I remember that long ago little boy shouting, "It's come, Mama. It's come."

REJOICE