I was born in the Host City of the Show Me State.
Coincidentally, I now reside in the Hostess City of the South! I have always wanted to visit Jefferson City, my birthplace and the capital of Missouri. Growing up, I knew that my Mom and Dad came from other places besides where we lived (Augusta, GA). So Missouri existed in my mind as a kind of Ur or Garden of Eden. I had no memories of the place powerful enough to point to.
I wish I could say that I planned this trip a long time. But I didn’t. I took off in a frenzied impulse in August 2023 (8/09-8/11 to be exact) headed like a salmon swimming upstream. I didn’t know what I would find when I got there, or exactly what I was looking for. All I knew was that I wanted to do it before turning 30.
I came with a few pieces of information: the address of the house where I lived as an infant, the hospital where my mom delivered, our family’s zoo, and the building where my dad worked. No real contacts to speak of. Visions swarmed my brain of potentially knocking on some old lady’s door to look around. But I thought better of it. I might have done something like that before Covid-19, but not in today’s world. My mom did find a listing on Zillow, though, so I could see what the house is like inside.
As I went, I took notes so I could make this project. I also psychoanalyzed myself along the way. I wondered whether maybe I was grieving something, and going to this place was a way I could reach closure. Recently I’ve been interested in different states due to seeing how extremely different their strategies were for handling the pandemic. But that’s not what started it. I have always had an emotional attachment to the topic of regional differences. Growing up in the Southeast, it always seemed to me that my environment was largely influenced by the US Civil War and its aftermath. But this history was presented in a way that made me uncomfortable and want to escape it. As I drove, I thought about the nature of choices and consequences. What would my life have been if I grew up in Missouri, instead of Georgia?
It seemed obvious that I was enacting in real life a major theme in my novel: trying to get back to an abandoned place and recover the history left behind there.
I entered through Illinois and drove up the Missouri east border. I was filled with excitement as I crossed the river. What did I find? Well, the grass really is greener there. I heard ads on the radio talking about family values, and I passed political billboards. There was a lot more Skol tobacco than I was used to. I went to the St. Louis Zoo, and caught a little nostalgia by the monkey house, the bird cage, and the polar bear. I called my Dad. “I would have retired in Jefferson City…” he said. “Had things gone differently.” Walking around the zoo and seeing all the families with annoying little children, I was reminded of how much my parents love me. How patient they must have been!
When I got to my street, there were a lot of tractors and Bible decorations. There is now a rooster a few doors down from the house, and many dogs. It felt rougher than what I was used to. I wouldn’t want to live there now. I met a guy on the corner of my street, and told him a little of my story. I asked what the neighborhood was like.
“I’ve been living here for 16 years. It’s a nice, quiet town. The street we’re on is maybe the busiest in the whole town.”
That was an exaggeration. But I got his point.
I asked a few other people what they liked about Jeff City. “It’s quiet,” was a recurring theme.
“It’s on the river and you can go fishing or camping,” said the woman at the front desk of my motel. When I asked her for a bottle of water, she gave it to me free because I only had a credit card.
The flies in the city were especially friendly toward me. I passed a place called “Misery Blvd,” which I thought was funny because it rhymes with Missouri. There was also a friendly cop who beeped his horn at me to say I accidentally had my lights off instead of pulling me over. Someone in the next lane was chugging a bag of chips into his mouth like it was a water bottle. Exhausted from the drive, I went to a Mexican restaurant that could have been from anywhere. Its only unique feature was that it was closest to our old house. I went to a Walmart around 9:00pm. The workers there were singing and ready to be off work. Two girlfriends passed by holding hands.
I’m no expert. But the whole vibe of the place was that nobody cares. It is the most Mid of Mid Towns, in the Middle of the United States. It is like they took an ordinary town, full of ordinary men, and slapped a Capital on it because it was in the middle of all the farmland.
As the sun came up and before I left for good, I drove around for about an hour. When I set up to take a picture of the Baptist Convention Center, I was struck by how it is now right across from an Episcopalian church. That’s the church I attend now. Another coincidence, I suppose…or what Jung called “Synchronicity.” I looked at the Capital building, the railroad, and the monuments, the golf course, and the rolling hills. A little less than 24 hours after arriving, I watched the St. Louis Arch literally disappear in my rearview mirror.
Going back to Savannah juked up on caffeine, I contemplated how this whole experience made me feel. It wasn’t until I got back that I realized how much it felt like attending a funeral. But maybe that’s not something to run from. Those people who lived there 30 years ago, and the events that affected my family, are gone. They’re long buried, with the specifics forgotten. They are dead memories that cannot be excavated.
I said, “Now’s the time for me to live my own story, and decide what I want for my life.” And I resolved that since I cannot live everywhere, I would go where I had the power to do the most good.
