MARK MY WORD: FORGET GRACELAND, CAPE NEEDS A BARREL MUSEUM

Let's face it, Cape Girardeau needs a tourist attraction.

The town has plenty of those orange, construction barrels that have turned many of the streets into mini Berlin Walls.

Clearly, Cape Girardeau has progressed as a city. But orange barrels alone aren't enough to attract tourists, unless we put them all in some tacky, roadside museum.

There's nothing like a tacky museum to bring in the tourists. Americans love these things.

A number of Missouri towns have this claim to fame.

Take Independence, for example. Forget the Truman Library. The real attraction is the Hair Museum.

The museum is in the office of a cosmetology school owner who enjoys collecting objects made from the hair of dead people, presumably not her students.

Her walls are covered with hair art. She also owns a hairy diary that belonged to a female convict who had all her visitors bring her hair.

Some stories are just too hair raising too tell.

Branson has its own claim to fame -- a six-ton twine ball that is featured in Ripley's Believe It Or Not museum.

There's nothing like a giant ball of twine to get people talking. Of course, it's downright dangerous for pets, who have been known to be crushed by such objects.

The federal government has warned that tons of twine can be dangerous to your health and leave you tied up in knots.

The Missouri town of Marionville touts itself as the "Home of the White Squirrels."

City fathers say the squirrels arrived in town just after the Civil War after escaping from a traveling circus.

Common gray squirrels are banned from the town in a blatant disregard of their civil rights. Even Al Gore has been unable to protect them.

Marionville is at war with Olney, Ill., which bills itself as the real home of the white squirrels.

In Olney, squirrels have the right of way on city streets and have been known to run City Hall.

Local police wear patches on their uniforms sporting an outline of a bushy tailed albino. I'm sure most Olney residents feel warm and fuzzy about all this.

In Missouri, the town of Marshall had "Jim, the Wonder Dog."

Never mind that the dog died in 1937, this town still celebrates this canine's feats.

The dog predicted World Series winners, presidential elections and horse races.

Marshall folks have been trying to get the ultimate recognition for the dog: his likeness on a postage stamp. So far, the Postal Service has refused. I'm sure that's because of heavy lobbying from Lassie's lads.

Wright City has the Elvis is Alive Museum, which features the largest plywood Elvis in Missouri.

It's been open since 1992. It's operated by a 71-year-old real estate developer, who dresses up like Elvis.

Even Rolla has an attraction. It's a stubby Stonehenge that was built by the high-pressure water lab at the University of Missouri-Rolla.

Rolla boasts that its Stonehenge is the only one that can be accurately used as a clock, although rewinding it could take a few centuries.

Cape Girardeau needs to get busy and come up with something that can rival dead hair, tons of twine, white squirrels, Stonehenge and Elvis.

It's a tall order. But I'm sure the city's Convention and Visitors Bureau is up to the challenge.

Come to think of it, the bureau might want to corner the market on those construction barrels. They'd be perfect for a museum or an obstacle course.

~Mark Bliss is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.