Santa's Throne

Eureka--I found it--in Eureka, in the old community center next to the ballparks: Santa's throne room. I have always hoped to find it, beginning back when my family--like every family on our block--had a silver artificial Christmas tree with a motorized lamp turning it four different colors, the outer limit of awesome in 1966.

I'll return daily until I find Santa Claus on duty, and if he allows it and there's room between those armrests I will sit on his lap and tell him I've been sickeningly good and nice this year, and for Christmas I want--

--everything to stay the way it is, except I want a bit more energy and bone mass. Other than that I can't imagine a better life or home than mine.

The Last Day of Save-A-Lot

Farewell to the Save-A-Lot grocery at 225 Thresher Drive, Eureka. The store started up in the late 1960s and the sign probably is 1970s. I began shopping there in 1998, when it wasn't as nice as it is now; on my first visit people were smoking in the store. Then they spiffed it up and it was fine for canned goods and whatever I had to buy quickly and cheaply. Not very well trafficked -- there's a Schnucks grocery store half a mile away and a Wal-Mart superstore within 4 miles -- Save-A-Lot shopping peaked during the hard times in '08 when gasoline came near $4/gallon and the people of Eureka went for groceries and back on foot.

This is probably the last photo ever to be taken of the sign; I was the lone mourner in the parking lot, going in there to get day-old bananas, two cans of Great Northern beans, and a box of cornflakes. (It MUST be Kellogg's with the rooster. I am fond of that rooster and will never give it up.) But change has come. Already there's a new spiffy "Eureka Market" sign, and they've changed the house brand to "Always Save." Although that is objectively very good advice, I don't want to be seen eating out of those cans. P.S. It closes TWO HOURS EARLIER now, too, 7 p.m. instead of 9 p.m.

Eating Well is the Best

If you lived here, or if you came over, I would take you to town and buy you some Lions Club fundraiser barbecue, a must-have during the spring weekends around here, Fri and Sat. 10 a.m. to dusk, sold from a yellow trailer that backs onto rows of men, volunteers for the cause, sweatin' it over the grills. What would you like? I favor the pork steaks -- hard to do well -- but will never turn down a bratwurst ($6 buys you two). Nor will I ignore a half a barbecued chicken on my styrofoam plate. Midwestern men are the best barbecuers in the world.

Thresher Memorial, Eureka, MO

One of the few memorials to the nuclear submarine Thresher, which sank and imploded 200 miles off Cape Cod in 1963, killing all 129 men aboard. This tragedy has haunted me ever since it was featured in the June 1964 National Geographic. So confident was the Navy in this new kind of boat that it had neglected to establish rescue procedures. Stone is at the base of the flagpole in the Eureka, MO post office parking lot, on Thresher Drive. What this memorial is doing so far from any oceangoing activity isn’t clear – probably the street was created and named when the tragedy was news. YouTube has footage of Thresher in the water and at its christening ceremony.

Times of the Signs, Part 3

Nothing heartens me like the sign "Live Bait," and the Eureka Feed Station has that sign up all year. Another sign too, seasonal, mentions Christmas; the only one like it in town! Divine purchases there include birdseed by the sack, bales of straw, cases of suet, deerskin leather work gloves (8 years and grubby-lookin but still good!), mousetraps and poison, salt blocks, tools & fishing license. Run by a father and son. Used to be closed on Sunday and Monday also. One time Demetrius left his wallet on the counter on a Saturday and it was in the same place when he returned on Tuesday. The Feed Station now, somewhat reluctantly, has Sunday hours. Posted on the door:

Sunday:
8:30-10 Church
Open 11 a.m. - 3 p.m.

The Plain Truth

This sign stands outside a business called Assured Automotive in Eureka, MO. The other side of the sign says, "I Survive on the Trust and Support of My Customers."

Armadillos This Far North

Armadillos are tropical mammals (that's right, mammals!), but they've been in southern Missouri for several years, working their way up Interstate 44. Three years ago I saw an armadillo on Highway FF. Told the feed-store owner's son, and he said he'd seen one in the area also, but nobody had believed him. Finally, today, one turns up as road kill right where Highway FF meets F. I apologize for such a sad photo. It's just proof that armadillos do come right up to the northern edge of their range when they want something. (This is latitude 38 degrees 25 minutes North.) This one might well have been drinking from the creek. They need a lot of water. My 1946 Webster's unabridged dictionary states flatly, "Their flesh is good food."

To protect themselves, armadillos will roll up into an ball. But when startled by oncoming cars, they jump -- vertically -- which is almost always fatal. This one had a laceration along its back and down the side. Close-up, it's an almost Martian creature: blend of pig, tank and turtle, with an opossum's face and a rat's tail. But unfortunately, it's very slow.