RIVER CITY JOURNAL: AND YOU THOUGHT YOU WOULDN'T LIVE TO SEE THE NEW LAKE

Ah. Just think about it. Pretty soon you be able to sit on the bank and see the wind kick up those pretty little dust eddies.

Remember all the fuss about the lake someone wanted to build somewhere on the county line between Cape Girardeau and Marble Hill?

Remember?

Well, I don't want to stir that up again.

Nosiree.

But ... .

It never ceases to amaze me how the movers and shakers hereabouts can get things done. One day we're at each other's throats over the multibillion-dollar tourism a lake would bring to our area. The next day we're quietly starting to dig our very own lake without so much as a toot on a bugle.

For example, remember how I went on and on about the old bridge across the Mississippi, what an eyesore it is and how I couldn't wait until the highway department lit the fuse to blow it up?

But that was before I knew the mover-shaker crowd wanted to keep some of the bridge. Naturally, I support keeping some of the bridge too. We ought to keep it for something. Who knows? We may need it sometime. So somehow we've got to keep some of that bridge.

Then there was all the screaming and hollering I did about building roundabouts in our fair city. But the instant I found out City Hall wants drivers to get dizzy, I told everyone I thought staggering motorists were a splendid idea.

That's just the kind of guy I am. I want to support all the good stuff for our city.

So you can imagine how thrilled I am to know we're finally going to get our lake.

Not just any lake, naturally.

For one thing, we don't have to worry about sharing our lake with Bollinger County. If they want a lake, they can do what we did: Ask the federal government for a lot of money.

Our new lake will hook up to the north end of the $40 million concrete ditch that runs through our fair city from the northern foothills to the mighty Mississippi.

As it turns out, we probably should have asked for a wee bit more money. After all, for $40 million you don't get a concrete ditch that will hold all the water from a flash flood. I can't find any solid estimates for what a flash flood-proof ditch would cost, but it makes you wonder if $41 million or $43 million or even $43 million and change wouldn't have been enough.

No use crying over spilt water. We have our splendid $40 million concrete ditch. And it's one of the finest concrete ditches I've ever seen anywhere. I think our concrete ditch is every bit as good as the one that runs across the middle of Kansas City through the Country Club Plaza, and that ditch cost a heckuva lot more than our ditch. And it doesn't hold all the water from flash floods either.

There's a lesson here, I think.

And we're not just getting any old lake. We're getting a lake with a classy name: Detention Reservoir.

Up north they've got Lake Huron. Out west is the Great Salt Lake. Down south there's Lake Okeechobee. Here in the good old middle breadbasket Bible belt west, we're happy with Detention Reservoir.

We've had a lot of discussion this week around the newsroom over whether the name really ought to be Retention Reservoir. Some of us think Detention Reservoir sounds like a storage shed for junior high students who have to stay after school for spitting paper wads.

But, our fancy dictionary says Detention Reservoir is correct. Here's why.

(This is really the best part about our new lake. I just love it.)

Detention Reservoir won't have any water.

Well, it won't unless it rains cats and dogs. Then it will hold all that flood-in-waiting water and let it dribble out in just the right amount so as not to overflow the $40 million concrete ditch. The way I've got it figured, there might be water in the lake for a day or so, and then it'll be dry again.

See. The water will be detained, not retained.

I can't wait until Detention Reservoir is built and filled up with ... well, with nothing.

Just think, I'll be able to go fishing without all the fuss and bother of a rod and reel and worms and stringer. This way I can spend the day fishing at Detention Reservoir with the same results I get at all the other favorite fishing holes, but without having to make any investment in fishing gear.

There's the genius of our movers and shakers. Sure, our concrete ditch cost $40 million, and that money had to come from somewhere. But you won't have to spend a dime on tackle.

Always looking out for our pocketbooks.

That's what makes Detention Reservoir the best thing to come along since the World Famous Downtown Golf Course.

~R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.