RIVER CITY JOURNAL: YOU MIGHT FOOL AN OLD GOLFER SOME OF THE TIME, BUT NOT FOREVER

The mayor's announcement about the half-a-bridge park and scenic byway tourist magnet hasn't gone anywhere. Was it just a plot? Well, watch out, folks!

This is February.

OK. It's pretty close to the end of February.

But it's still way too warm. It's still winter. We could still have a blizzard or two.

Or three.

To golfers, this February weather is why God created the heavens and the earth and said, "Let there be fairways."

I can't say exactly where that is in the Bible. But any golfer will take my word for it.

Some of you keep asking me about plans for the downtown golf course, or the Riverside Golf and Surf Club, as I like to call it these days.

You keep asking even though I've tried to steer you toward more productive pursuits. I told you months ago that I had to drop the downtown golf course project because the mayor wanted the town to focus on his plan to buy half of the old Mississippi River bridge as a tourist attraction. I'm one of those people who thinks mayors deserve and need a lot of support. If Hizzoner wants half a bridge, I want half a bridge.

Either half. That just goes to show how cooperative I am.

Then I told you a few weeks ago about the brilliant plan that would let the Downtown Yacht Neighborhood Historical Improvement Levee District Main Street Club annex the fancy new golf course planned out in the county west of town. I looked it up, and now that the DYNHILDMS Club has added "Main Street" to its official name, the annexation would be legal and everything.

But in spite of my efforts to divert your attention to the bri (that's half a bridge) project and the new Way Out West Golf and Paddleboat Club, you keep pressing the downtown golf course issue.

Like you really care.

I was starting to get a little exasperated with you. You just wouldn't stop pestering and nagging me about the downtown golf course. Then someone said something that made a light bulb go on.

This person said: Joe, there hasn't been any announcement about the city getting its piece of bridge, so it looks like the only thing the mayor's plan has done is stop you from promoting the downtown golf course.

Gee whiz! And I didn't even catch on.

But this person is 100 percent correct. The highway department is about to award a contract to finish the new bridge, and the old bridge is getting more rustic (a very appropriate word, in this case) with each passing day.

But where's the press conference with the MoDOT pooh-bah from Jefferson City and Hizzoner standing in the middle of Melvin Gateley's daffodils at the entrance to the old bridge?

Where's the big sign painted by the public works department announcing to the world that the west end of the old bridge has been placed on the city's Register of Historic Places and Nifty Keepsakes?

Where's the proclamation from the Missouri General Assembly lauding the City of Roses for its outstanding contribution to fostering worldwide understanding of old bridges?

Where's the announcement that SEMO plans to build its new School for Seafarers and Poly-oceanographic Studies on the city's half of the bridge?

See? Something about all this just doesn't smell right.

Well, I'm not going to be snookered. I am hereby formally announcing that the downtown golf course is back on the front burner. And I mean downtown too. Common pleas courthouse lawn and all.

Ah, it feels good.

A little taste of spring in February goes a long way. The juices are flowing. Watch out, Mayor. Your piece of bridge is history.

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