STRANGER THAN FICTION: COMING HOME AND ENJOYING A MISSOURI FALL

They say you can't come home again, but here I am, rapidly losing what I considered a tan and loving the beginnings of a cool Missouri fall.

After nearly four years in Florida, most of those spent waging an ugly war on palmetto bugs, I've returned to the Southeast Missourian as managing editor. To explain the position in layman's terms, under the poop-rolls-downhill theory of business, I'm about half-way down the hill. Or, as more demure people may put it, I'm in middle management.

It's my job to coordinate the various newsroom professionals so we can produce the best newspaper possible. We have writers, editors, photographers, page designers and one hard-working researcher. I'm constantly amazed at all the good work they produce with so much to do, so few people to do it and while facing daily deadlines.

But we can be better. And I invite constructive criticism from the community so we can improve.

Now that I'm back, it's high time I came out of the closet on a couple of things. (Calm down, Grammy. It's nothing serious.)

First, my real name has been Heidi Nieland Hall since I wed The Other Half in April 1995. I kept it Heidi Nieland in the Southeast Missourian because I felt that was the right thing for a liberated woman to do.

I changed my mind after spelling N-i-e-l-a-n-d for the fifth time one afternoon. I could have a German vowel nightmare of a last name, or I could have an English word that everyone knows. So I decided to forgo liberation in favor of saving time.

While in Florida, I started writing under Hall, although a few people still manage to mess that up. The last fax I received in Florida was to Heidi Hoffman. My only guess is that I reminded the sender of the movie "Rainman" and the rest was a subconscious act.

Second, The Other Half is Jamie Hall -- son of James and Brenda of the greater Blodgett metropolitan region, Charleston High grad and now design editor of the Southeast Missourian.

Wow. Confession IS good for the soul.

We met in Sikeston, wed in the park next to the Cape County Courthouse downtown (only a few precious yards away from a courthouse weddin') and spent most of our married life in Pensacola and Fort Lauderdale, Fla. We thought long and hard and came back for a few good reasons:

1. We want to affect news coverage for people we know and love. Every journalist is affecting lives, whether he's writing a story about the district fair or exposing government corruption. But reporters at smaller newspapers truly know their readers -- who they are and what they want. And if we don't know, we hear about it.

2. We like the friendliness of Cape Girardeau. Sure, the city has changed over the years -- a 14-screen cinema! Hot dang! -- but we've not been flipped the bird even once since we moved here more than a week ago. And while my one-woman crusade to improve manners was an important effort in South Florida, it's pretty much moot here.

3. Our families are here. (Initially, this one went on both the pro AND con lists. Now both our mothers-in-law live within 20 minutes of our home.)

4. Mr. Half was miserable in the big city, although he's loathe to admit it. Even the close proximity to several professional sports teams wasn't enough.

Of course, I had mixed feelings about coming home. South Florida is a very open place where you can see males and females in thongs just about every day. There's no ice to scrape off your windshield. The wind rustling the palm leaves is a completely relaxing sound.

There's also a certain amount of pride in telling your Midwestern acquaintances that you live in Florida, especially when they've got a few inches of snow on the ground.

So you can imagine my excitement when I stopped at Dairy Queen a few days ago and an employee asked me if I was from Florida.

"Oh!" I exclaimed. "You can tell from my tan?"

She looked confused. "Uh, no. I saw your license plates."

You know, coming home has a certain way of bringing you back to Earth.

Heidi Hall is managing editor of the Southeast Missourian.