LETTERS FROM HOME: A MISSOURI THING

That Missouri thing

Oct. 7, 1993

Dear Dixie,

I came to Larrupin' last Friday with my new bride and Julie F. We were so disappointed to discover you were gone. We've come to enjoy watching our friends' faces as we tell the story of how we met 30 years ago and decided last July to get married.

The restaurant is as good as ever. I told my wife, DC, about how you started out by cooking scrumptious food at your home and serving it to patrons at the Jambalaya (still my all-time favorite bar) on Friday evenings. And how when you found out I was from Missouri too, you asked if there was any food from home I missed.

The next week you brought pork chops and wilted lettuce and a sign that read: "Sam's Missouri Dinner."

You might be a plainswoman from Sedalia and I might be a mosquito-swatter from Cape Girardean (DC was born here too), but there's something Missourian in us that no amount of California sunshine and mooniness can dissolve.

I still marvel at this work of hospitality you have created in Larrupin' -- even though only the Missouri transplants seem to get the restaurant's name. Above all I admire the gumption required to take the scary steps up the wall that at one time must have hidden the sights you now see.

How much easier to choose the illusion of safety that comes with denying the possibilities our own lives and talents hold.

For not the first time, I kidded Julie about being the consummate politician with the constipated personal life. I liked the sound of that Jim guy, who carved treasures for her from bones he'd found in the woods and never wore a watch. But she couldn't imagine such a man living in the eye of her hurricane.

I told Julie about the night DC started to cry while we were in bed. It was because at the movie earlier that evening she'd been able to hold my hand. DC said she was realizing how precious something so simple could be. At that point, she wasn't crying alone.

From reading the local papers, it seems things haven't changed that much on the North Coast. Loggers versus environmentalists. Unusually whimsical bumpersticker on Highway 101: "Hug a logger. You'll never go back to trees."

I liked the police chief's response after some women in the parade at this year's North Country Fair removed their shirts. He said he didn't see anything lewd or lascivious about their breasts.

DC and I got to spend three days at her home in Garberville. It was as close to a typical married life as we'll have for awhile. She's back at work at the world's loosest medical clinic, where the halls are decked with paintings of jazz musicians, the new Bob Dylan 30th anniversary concert tape plays on the stereo and the sign on DC's door reads "Dentist from Heaven."

I'm back in Missouri, and I don't even eat pork chops anymore. But it's the place where a larrupin' good time was born.

DC called today to discuss plans to visit Missouri at Thanksgiving or Christmas. I mentioned that I returned from California to an empty cupboard and was lunching on cheese-flavored crackers from the company vending machine. No sympathy was forthcoming, of course, but a few hours later my new father-in-law appeared beside my desk with a smile, a handshake and a pizza.

Is that a Missouri woman?