RIVER CITY JOURNAL: IF WE CAN'T GET FELDMAN, WHAT KIND OF GOOFS ARE WE?

After I read Sam Blackwell's column Thursday morning, I said to Heidi Hall, managing editor and also a columnist in her own right:

"This is it. This is the crusade we've been looking for."

In short, Sam launched the first grenade in a full-scale war to lure Michael Feldman's "Whad'Ya Know?" radio show to Cape Girardeau.

Now I'm asking each and every one of you to enlist in the WYK Army, whose objective is to free Feldman and his cronies at Wisconsin Public Radio from any misgivings they might have about putting on a show right here in the River City of Roses.

If you've never listened to Feldman during his two-hour romp every Saturday morning on KRCU or some other public radio station, you have no clue what I'm talking about.

Do you?

But true-blue fans of "Whad'Ya Know?" are, right this minute, spiffing up their battle fatigues and polishing off some of those big guns they have stashed away under those well-thumbed Garrison Keillor novels and that box of broken spark plugs you keep intending to mail off to Click and Clack. Not to mention all those mugs you've collected every time you pony up during pledge week.

Welcome to the cause!

Sure, I know other newspapers have taken on strenuous, in-depth reporting projects that have uncovered backstage politics at beauty pageants and the high incidence of food poisoning among bums who fetch their meals from Dumpsters.

Heck, some newspapers have even taken on Really Big Topics like government waste and tax fraud, but no paper has ever fathomed the bottom of either of those pits, mainly for two reasons:

1. Newspaper reporters and editors are scared to death of anything that requires math.

2. Newspaper reporters and editors are scared to death of winding up at the funny farm, which is what happens if newspaper reporters and editors ever actually buy a calculator.

Doggonit, getting Michael Feldman to come to Cape Girardeau is worth the risk.

So ...

Uncle Joe wants YOU!

What's in it for you?

A little effort, for one thing. You need to share anything that can be put on a 90-second audio tape plus any supporting materials that will knock the socks off Feldman's hired help, who will get the first crack at entries into his "Let's Put on a Show!" contest.

You might be saying to yourself: What's so interesting about Cape Girardeau that Michael Feldman, big-time radio star with a doctorate in funny-bone manipulation, would want to visit?

If you really said that to yourself, I'm disappointed.

Cape Girardeau has more interesting stuff per square inch than any American town I can think of, including Topeka, Kan., where they serve french fries smothered in cream gravy.

Sam Blackwell has already started a fine list of eye-popping facts about our favorite city, including the unquestionable truth that Cape Girardeau's cape is missing or perhaps never existed. Which quickly puts a lot of intrigue on the line.

Those of you who enjoy Feldman's show know he likes just about anything that comes under the heading of "oddball."

Good grief! Cape Girardeau is the Queen City of Things You Would Have Known if You Had Any Imagination Whatsoever or Had Been Reading This Column Very Long.

Example 1: This is the only place in the world where youngsters start learning the alphabet by memorizing A-Y-C-E. They don't learn to spell "buffet" until they're in the seventh or eighth grade.

Example 2: Where else do you get that special crunch in your barbecue sandwich that comes from shredded cabbage?

Example 3: Cape Girardeau is in the Central Time Zone. So is a big chunk of the nation. But does anyone else bother to brag about it?

Example 4: Lewis and Clark spent a night here. They would have stayed longer, but they had to go find an Indian girl to pose for the new dollar coin.

Example 5: The ocean scenes of the movie "Titanic" were actually filmed just off our Mississippi River waterfront. Thanks to computer-generated special effects, not a single movie goer complained about the floodwall.

OK. I stretched a little on that last one. I heard lots of complaints.

I could, of course, go on and on. But that's exactly what I want you to do.

Pretty soon you will be seeing complete details right here in the Southeast Missourian of the "Let's Put on a Show!" contest.

This crusade is even better than exposing the fake voyage down the Mighty Mississippi last year of the Time magazine staff posing as the crew of the U.S.S. Gimmick.

Don't let your town down. Volunteer today.