LETTERS FROM HOME: MAKING ROOM FOR OURSELVES

Dear Pat,

DC and I arrived in Cape Girardeau just in time to celebrate our one-year wedding anniversary. Except after six days, on the road, one day of unpacking our belongings from the moving van and packing them into a storage space, and two of looking at houses and apartments, we weren't much in the mood for hearts and flowers. So we got a room at the Holiday Inn, ordered room service, toasted "a helluva year," and slept until check-out time. We woke up agreeing to go for two.

Cape Girardeau seems much as it was when I left nearly a year ago. A new Sonic Burger Drive-In here, a Woolworth's closed there. Garberville had exactly one fast-food restaurant and no department or dry goods stores, unless you count Brown's Sporting Goods, which like a cut-rate Noah's Ark, carried one of just about everything necessary to survive.

We're not a bit befuddled to be back here in civilization, where every grocery store is a video outlet and the video stores sell soft drinks, candy and popcorn. That's just the way they do things back in G'ville, but primarily because everybody needs two sources of income to make one living.

There are at least 10 of most everything here and way too many cars for recent country folks. Drivers seem impatient, as if there was someplace to go we don't know about.

The weather has been cool and rainy. The leaves are just thinking about turning. Is it the same there in Virginia, falling temperatures and rain in September that give way to clear skies and rainbows in the trees in October? I imagine your countryside that way, though I suppose the Atlantic calls the shots about the seasons.

We're temporarily staying with my mom and dad, who seem pleased to have us. Mom probably would be fixing my favorite meal every day, except she doesn't quite know what that could ever be since I quit eating meat. Dad lets me watch my favorite TV programs, tape-recording his if there's a conflict.

They're unhappy because the land behind their house is about to become a big parking lot for a nearby hospital. The hospital bought a whole block of houses on the town's main street and has torn all but one of them down (your health care dollars at work). My parents are building a fence to help shield the landscape of lights and Buicks from their view. This is how we are. Each of us putting up flimsy barricades against the institutions -- government, schools, hospitals and on and on -- that threaten to trivialize and then usurp our power to control our own lives.

I wonder if the grand old trees standing in the middle of the land are destined to come down and immediately know the answer. I know a hospital administrator who loves irises. I wonder if there's another who cares about trees and especially the effect they have on people. They help us heal, sir. Where we used to live, people came from all over the world to be near our trees.

DC's down at her father's office, trying to make room for herself. More than sweat is involved. As the new kid in town, I expect she'll be working double overtime to establish her practice anyway. She's been away for 25 years, so Cape Girardeau seems almost new to her. Except for the river, where she wanted to walk last night. The river is old and new, kind of like us.

A few days ago, we went to a potluck supper at the church where we were married. Talked to people who're a bit older than we are and much wiser about marriage. The minister thought we looked pretty good for a husband and wife who'd just moved together.

Love, Sam

~Sam Blackwell is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.