CAPE GIRARDEAU RINGS IN NEW YEAR

The new millennium came in with a yawn, a sigh and a bang, depending on where you were at midnight.

Firecrackers exploding where they shouldn't was the only matter emergency personnel had to handle, said Terry Fulk, emergency operations director for Cape Girardeau.

Fulk, police chief Rick Hetzel and fire chief Dan White greeted the new year together at the Cape Girardeau Fire Department. They washed down bowls of chips and pretzels with fruit punch and sodas while watching New Year's events on television.

It never got more exciting than that, Fulk said.

The city's mobile emergency operations center stood outside the fire department, circled by plastic orange pylons. If power had gone out, operations would have been conducted there. Instead, Fulk and the chiefs worked from White's office.

Eric Brown spent the better part of Friday evening cutting hair at The Men's Room barber shop on Good Hope Street. He said he had bigger concerns than potential Y2K inconveniences.

"It has really been a product of media hype and the technological age that we live in," Brown said.

Since people have been aware of the potential for computer-related troubles for so long, a disaster was not about to happen.

Brown had been following the progress of the new year around the world via a television near his barber chair since 8 a.m. on Friday. When Australia made it past midnight without a problem, he said he knew the United States would be safe.

At 9 p.m. Brown finished with his last customer, Eric Ware, who was on his way to a "watch night" service at the House of Prayer on Sprigg Street.

Going to church on New Year's Eve is Ware's way of reminding himself of who is responsible for him waking up to see a new millennium.

"It's not my wife that rolls over and does it," he said. "It's God that gives me the breath every day."

Russell Anderson took a deep breath before he started work on New Year's Eve, he said. He has been working as a dispatcher for Yellow Cab Company for 17 years, and he knew Friday evening would be one of his busiest.

From 7 to 8:30 p.m., more than 60 people called for cab rides, he said.

"Usually we only get about 10," Anderson said.

Although New Year's Eve 1998 was dead, Anderson anticipated this year by calling in 12 drivers and making a pair of 15-passenger vans operable. He even called in his wife, Edna, to work as a dispatcher.

When he said there wouldn't be time to celebrate the new year, Edna pointed out a bottle on top of a bookshelf between them. It was Welch's Sparkling Grape Juice.

The Andersons were fortunate. Even though Schnucks grocery store had plenty of bottled water and champagne on hand, it was down to 12 bottles of sparkling juice by closing on New Year's Eve.

It was a busier day for the grocery store than Christmas Eve, said Steve Meadows, Schnucks manager on duty.

"People were getting a little bit of everything," Meadows said. "People always got to eat."

Papa John's pizza on Kingshighway might have been heading toward a record night of sales if its owner hadn't decided to close the store at 10 p.m., said manager Scott Wright.

"He didn't want the drivers out on the road with the drunks, which is kind of nice that he'd think of that," Wright said.

Retired electrician Johnny Hill would have nothing to do with work on New Year's. He was one of almost 800 people at the Show Me Center's $100-per-person party. Hill, wearing a curly black wig, ankle-length frock coat and electrically powered earrings, swayed to soul music by the bar as he held drinks in each hand. He recalled some memorable electrical contracting jobs from years past. Wiring up his earrings did not compare, he said.

"That was work, but this is fun," Hill said.

Rick and Mary Woods of Delta were among the last to make a grocery run to Schnucks before it closed at 10 p.m. They bought decaffeinated coffee.

"We couldn't find it anywhere else," Rick Woods said.

They were taking the coffee home for a sober, non-alcoholic New Year's Eve, he said, which had nothing to do with Y2K fears.

Ten-year-old Dimesha Cotton was afraid of Y2K. As she and her mother, Wilma, shopped for videos to watch at home, she said they'd need to hurry before the electricity went out.

But even if the lights went out on New Year's Eve, it wouldn't be so bad, she said. Dimesha had seen the movie "Good Burger" once before.