RIVER CITY JOURNAL: A FEW WORDS OF SOME IMPORTANCE TO 30TH CENTURY DIGGERS

A thousand years from now, archeologists will be digging in the vicinity of the fabled walled River City of Roses, and some grime-covered digger will shout "Eureka!"

Then there will be articles published in highly scientific journals about the mysterious circle of bricks that surely, at the dawn of this millennium, was of some religious significance.

Perhaps, the scientists of the future will say, the brick circle was considered sacred because of some encounter with extra-terrestrials.

Or maybe it was a place of sacrifice. Possibly even a sacred community image representing the importance of barbecue to that ancient culture.

These writers of a thousand years hence will be wrong, of course.

So I am doing them a big favor today.

I hope those busybody dirt movers will dig a little deeper until they find the microfilm from the Southeast Missourian, particularly the roll with this column on it.

This column is for the truth seekers of the future. Bear with me, those of you who are reading it in the here and now. You'll understand how important this is in just a minute.

Dear archeologists of the future:

When you get to the big brick circle a couple of miles west of the big river in the middle of the continent known as North America, do not jump to conclusions. For once, get the straight poop from someone who knows how to dish it out.

First off, the brick circle you found has nothing to do with religion. In fact, over the years that it was actively used, the circle caused more than a few folks to lose their religion. I could go on and on about that.

But all you need to know is that the brick circle was built with tax dollars. See, in this day and age, you can't spend tax dollars on religion unless, of course, you are doing benevolent works for the government. Take my word when I say this brick circle was no benefit to society.

You also need to know, archeologists of the 30th century, that it was once popular to think up wild ideas that would never succeed if they depended on private funding. So these ideas generally got turned over to the government, which rarely had any new ideas of its own. As a result, almost any lame-brained scheme could be sold to the government if you had the right connections. You folks of the future probably know what I'm talking about.

Here's what happened.

Someone got the notion that vehicular traffic at intersections could best be controlled by something called roundabouts. Sometimes they were called traffic circles. Frequently, they were called a lot worse than that, but some of your future diggers may be of a tender age.

These roundabouts, you see, were supposed to move traffic coming from four or more directions through intersections. The plain fact is roundabouts never worked, but once a public employee sinks his teeth into something, he won't let go until taxpayers have spent at least a couple of billion dollars. I'll bet you still have those people around in the future, but the cost will have risen to the gazillions by then.

Too bad.

Here's something that might give you folks of the future a good chuckle.

A high-ranking official of our era, known as the city manager, which is not to be confused with the mayor, and it's certainly lower than a king, although I'd put it a bit higher than an ordinary civil servant, once said roundabouts were perfectly suited for motorists in our walled city by the river. He said motorists in the River City of Roses rarely stop at stop signs, so a roundabout would basically legalize their slow-down-and-go driving style.

The city manager (in case some of your future historians want to know, we call him Big Mike) was partially correct. It is a fact that motorists in this century rarely stop at stop signs.

But guess what?

The puzzling brick circle has them coming to a dead halt, no matter which direction they came from or which direction they want to go.

Now there's a technological achievement.

So, you can see how important roundabouts are to our way of life. Quite frankly, we ought to have a brick circle at every intersection. And a spy camera too.

There you have it, archeologists of tomorrow.

By the way, if you dig up any video cameras near any of the brick circles, you'll have to figure that one out for yourself. Digging up old stuff should always be shrouded in a little mystery. Don't you think.

Kindest regards.

-- Scrivener Joe