JOY ALONG THE WAY: ROBINSON'S RENDEZVOUS AT THE ROLLING RIVER

It has been my privilege to have a sneak preview of a plan to enlarge and enhance a site for an unobstructed view of our treasure, the River. When the flood wall went up our intimate, romantic relationship with the River seemed to have been cast into the waters and floated off downstream.

Ever since, we have tried to make amends by way of murals, town-side landscaping and a riverside concrete park.

The proposal, as I perceive it, has more substance than the saving of a piece of the old bridge or the 18th hole of a downtown golf course which as proposed by our leading tongue-in-cheeker, could be on an ever moving barge in mid river.

There is a very limited view of the River from Trail of Tears Park save for the campgrounds. Being a campground, there are limitations on your welcome there. The view from our nearer Cape Rock Circle is limited too, especially to the south. The enhanced view of the River is the stuff of a dream waiting to be manifested. Since I'm prone to giving things titles, I call the plan Robinson's Rendezvous at the Rolling River, RRRR for short (another obnoxious acronym for Joe).

Standing or sitting on the viewing circle at Cape Rock one can see up and down the River fairly well, but the down-river view is limited by a stand of trees, 14.8 acres of them to be exact, all of which are already in Cape Rock Park. Maybe this has been unknown to most of our citizens. A hidden asset come to life! Eureka! Bring on the feasible-ers.

It is not ugly from the Cape Rock lookout to have this green leafy frame (at least in summer) around the south view of the River. Trouble is, one feels uneasy parking for any length of time in the Circle. Other cars come up and stop behind and one gets the uncomfortable feeling folks are wishing you'd move so they, too, could enjoy the scenery. How accommodating and satisfactory it would be if you could move on down amongst these framing trees to the River's level for an even better look. Such a roadway to this site is already there, behind the Water Plant.

Large trees in this acreage would be left, only thinned, and with lower limbs removed to that one could see through them, a la St. Francis Hospital Park. Thick, wild underbrush would be cleared away. Some picnic tables and chairs would make inviting places to have a closer rendezvous with our old friend that just keeps, forgivingly, rollin' along. Why hasn't someone proposed this before? In my ignorance, maybe they have. I'm open to enlightenment.

Here, in this newly developed area one could sit to his heart's content watching the River traffic big boats, little boats, barges, canoes, kayaks, flat boats, house boats, etc. An occasional whistling train passing before one would even underline the romance of earlier modes of transportation. One could loosen his imagination and visualize the train making its way from Lake Itaska where the Mississippi starts and keeping the River company though all the twists and turns from the north lands all the way down to New Orleans. Can't you just hear the whistlings, the calliopes? There's the Cottonblossom. Listen, someone is singing "Old Man River." Is it you?

Nothing like peaceful watery sounds to woo the spirit. And so few places along our stretch of this watershed to hear it.

Lots of people come to Cape just to see the River. We have to usher them through a gate in the concrete wall to the concrete park, very hot in the summer, and ask them to take a concrete seat. One could go half way across the bridge and park to get a splendid, unobstructed view. Couldn't one?? From the proposed development, on a clear day and most of them are, one could see all the way to the bridge and beyond. Imagine how it would be to see the masterful new bridge all lit up at night like a filigreed bracelet across the arm of the River, with a new, full or gibbous moon riding the sky, with city noises on "Hush."

REJOICE!

Jean Bell Mosley is an author and longtime resident of Cape Girardeau.