LETTERS FROM HOME: NEW SOUNDS AND NEW VIEWS HEARD IN THE OLD NEIGHBORHOOD

Sept. 3, 1998

Dear Patty,

Part of the enjoyment of life in Cape Girardeau these days is the feeling that the city is on the threshold of becoming something it hasn't been before.

One sign is a new music festival struggling to take root. It brought wonderful sounds downtown last weekend: high-test rhythm and blues from Nashville, zydeco, folk and varieties of classical and rock 'n' roll.

There were The Ezells, four traditional folk musicians from western Missouri. Word got around about them and eyes popped from the sweetness of their harmonies and skill of their fingers. You know when the real thing blesses your ears.

But sometimes it's right before our eyes and we don't see.

Another signal comes from an organization -- the Downtown Neighborhood Association -- we've been in for some time without really belonging. Its acronym is appropriate to its goal of improving the quality of life down by the river.

While the city is growing and prospering on the west and the north, the south and east have long been neglected. That's changing. A new bridge going up across the Mississippi River runs to the neighborhood and stops beside a pre-Civil War seminary the university plans to transform into a performing arts campus.

A downtown businessman is building a condominium with a river view on a site where an industrial quonset hut now stands. Artists have begun living downtown in lofts and houses. People seem to be returning to the downtown after years of desertion.

To their credit, the merchants who prayed for a savior in the shape of a riverboat casino didn't go west when the gambling money floated on by.

The music festival is just one more reason for people to go downtown, but it's the people who want to live downtown who will keep it vital. A block from our house, Greg and Jenny are restoring a three-story brick house and have created a miniature Stonehenge in their yard. A block in the other direction, Roger and Judith Ann have undertaken their own lifelong domestic project.

Up and down the downtown blocks are others who have invested their futures in the character found in old houses.

I don't mean to sound like Pollyanna. Some people still raise an eyebrow when we tell them where we live. The syringe DC found in our back yard was no toy and some buildings in our neighborhood are slums.

But the DNA belongs to a coalition of like-minded community groups intent on changing the atmosphere of degeneration that has pervaded these streets for so long. And it seems as if business is meant.

Sunday, a group of DNA members picnicked beneath the old shade trees in front of the seminary. Plans were discussed to develop historic walking tours and to find funding sources and provide information for people who want to rehab houses downtown.

We want to share the discoveries and missteps made while renewing these old houses.

DC and I have far to go with our projects. We get stuck easily, forgetting that all movement occurs one step at a time. But often the words "I love my house" flutter from her lips as she's walking through and my doubts disappear.

From the seminary grounds we could see far up and down the Mississippi. These views and these old houses built by the city's pioneer families are our great treasure, awaiting a city that knows how to love them.

Love, Sam

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