Homemade beauty

Boards conceal the windows on the corner house down the street. A white house hops to pulsating music directly across the Hanover Street blacktop. The thumping beat escapes through the wide-open front door to the two young men on the front porch.

Two young men in sunglasses sit on the top balcony of an apartment complex next door. In the background, cars and trucks pass along the busy, four-laned William Street.

To the southeast, more boards cover the windows of a sad, large red house that must have been grand in the days it was new. Behind the sad red house sits a lonely car that looks like it hasn't been moved in months.

But in the middle of this less-than-stellar south Cape Girardeau neighborhood sits a jewel of a place, a cozy, light brown house. The grass is thicker, softer and greener on this side of the 8-foot privacy fence. The bushes in the front of the house are perfectly square. The mailbox is painted in stars and stripes.

Potted flowers add color near the side door. In the back are more and more yard decorations, both natural and man-made.

While much local political and media attention has been given to the region's litter problem in the last few months, there are hundreds of homeowners who have been making Cape Girardeau beautiful for years.

Jerry Lewis of 218 Hanover St. is one of those people.

And, according to Cape Girardeau Area Chamber of Commerce president John Mehner, the city can never have enough people like Lewis.

A beautification and enhancement committee, formed by the chamber, aims at promoting such endeavors.

"We can get all the volunteers in the world to pick up trash today, but we'll have to clean it all up again two weeks from now. It takes every person keeping their property up," Mehner said. "And it takes educating our youth."

A little weekly care

When approached about his landscaping work, Lewis downplayed his lawn care, but was obviously flattered by the attention.

"I only work on it about an hour and a half per week," he said, wearing a shy grin, while looking down toward the ground. "I just like to see it like that. I just enjoy doing it."

Lewis knows nearly every detail of the neighborhood. He grew up in this house and, in October, will have lived in the place for 48 years.

Lewis does not complain about his neighborhood's conditions, except for the loud music.

"I've talked to them two or three times about the music," he said. "It gets so loud sometimes that I can hear it over the TV."

He says the neighbors from the apartment building don't give him any problems. Neither do his neighbors up and down the alley.

When the neighbors to the south started junking up their back yard, Lewis simply put up a privacy fence. When his home was robbed twice in a six-month period in the early '90s, Lewis just put better locks on his basement doors.

He says he has good neighbors all around his place, at least the ones who own their homes. The renters are the ones who tend to trash up the neighborhood, he said.

Lewis' back yard is his haven. The yard is in deep shade from tall trees and Lewis enjoys sitting on an old bench he found in Holcomb, Mo., about 10 years ago.

"They wanted about $150 more for a bench like that at places around here," he said, "So I brought it back in my truck."

Speaking of trucks, an old 1942 Dodge sits under Lewis' carport. The truck was handed down from his father, who bought it new. He occasionally takes it out for a drive, just to make sure he keeps it running.

Lewis' wife, Beverly, doesn't do much of the work outside, other than picking out the flowers. She is more into church activities and knitting.

Jerry Lewis worked 26 years for Paramount Liquor Co., which later became Glazier Midwest, before retiring. It wasn't until 15 years ago that he began paying so much attention to his lawn -- spraying for weeds, planting and trimming plants and fixing retaining walls. On Tuesday, he talked about having to get some bleach water out to kill the mildew that's growing on the north side of the house.

Jerry Lewis said he and his wife, who raised three children in the house, have thought about moving.

"But we've been here so long, we didn't want to build something new," he said.

bmiller@semissourian.com

243-6635