It was Friday the 13th of March, and I was supposed to be at a pen show in Little Rock, Arkansas. I'd been planning that vacation since August of last year. My very first pen show! Instead...
...a month before I was supposed to go, my car interfered. I took it to a local shop I trust for a routine oil change, only for the techs to find that the previous shop (that the dealership I'm buying it from wants you to use) had stolen parts from my engine that were easy to miss, and would have caused damage to my Hyundai over time had this gone unnoticed for much longer. My routine oil change came to $100.00. "Well," I said, "If I'm careful with travel expenses, I can still go on my trip, despite my tight budget." My Hyundai replied, "Oh yeah? Hold my beer..."
Exactly one week later, it's alternator died. It left me stranded on the side of a dangerously busy interstate, tempting fate near the top of a hill, just begging to be hit by a passing maniac going 90 mph as I poked around under the hood of my disabled car. Oh, and did you know that Hyundai feels the need to bury their alternators deep beneath the bowels of your engine, so replacing the accursed thing costs additional, merrily-expensive labor? Well, now you know! Thank goodness for cell phones; I called my trusty brother-in-law who came out with some jumper cables and got me & my busted John-Mobile out of the jaws of death (i.e. Ozarks drivers) and back home, and ultimately to a repair shop the next day.
A few days later, the shop called with the soul-crushing news of what the repairs were going to cost, which was more than I had left in my vacation fund by a significant amount. Game over...my vacation was ruined. I could no longer afford to go. And then, adding insult to injury, just thirty minutes after that phone call, I got an email from work saying, "Congratulations! Your vacation request has been approved!"
Sigh... Yeah, that would be the request I made back in August, that you waited until just this special moment to approve. "Thanks". Sometimes, I swear, you can actually hear the devil laughing at you.
My brother, who is responsible for many of the following photographs (all the better ones, to be sure) had taken a day of vacation himself that same week, and was going to go to Little Rock with me. He, too, had his weekend trounced thanks to my rotten luck, but he had a fun suggestion: so that the Big Day when we were supposed to be shopping for antique fountain pens wouldn't completely go to waste, we went on a sight-seeing trip down one of Springfield, Missouri's more historical spots: Commercial Street.
We stopped & parked near this old metal footbridge that allows pedestrians to cross directly over the nearby railroad tracks. It's actually on the national registry of historic sites.
This part of town once had a certain seedy reputation, but has had a bit of a face lift in recent years and is something of an historical "Renaissance" for the area. For instance, Springfield's oldest tavern to still be in operation in it's original spot is located there, and he bought me a cold glass of a locally-brewed beer called Old Town Porter. It was excellent. We walked in, had a seat, and had a nice chat with the ladies tending bar before finishing our beer and continuing our walk.
Campbell Street, by the way, is named after one of the founding pioneer families who were the first to settle here & found the City of Springfield a long, long time ago. I looked them up at my local library the other day (while it was still open...) just for fun; more on that in a later blog post.
You can click on these pictures to see a nice, bigger photo.
I'm told that's the original bar from when the place was first built shortly after the Civil War. They also have the original, 100+ year old arrest warrant for the tavern's original owner, one Belle Wilson, hanging on the wall in a frame. It was issued by a judge who accused the proprietor back then of "keeping an illegal "bawdy house".
Commercial Street is also home to Springfield's oldest pizzeria still in operation.
There were plenty of cool restaurants besides that one. The Artisian's Oven smelled just lovely, until one's mouth was watering...
Another tavern, called "Moon City Pub". We didn't go in, but I did wonder if this one was nearly as old as Lindberg's.
"Big Momma's Coffee and Tea House"... We didn't go inside this one. I was already afraid of Big Momma; the place made me feel like I'd get my skull cracked by a rolling pin used as a cudgel or something. I know that sounds irrational, and all.
There was a Peruvian restaurant, a Lebanese restaurant, and a WONDERFULLY-smelling Italian place. Also, the Chabom Spice and Tea Market was a wonderful diversion.
The fantastic spice-smells and tea-aromas coming from here all but forced you, in a hypnotic trance, to pull out your wallet and buy stuff. Which I did. The nice lady here was very, very knowledgeable about every tea you can imagine.
This three-story building is home of the only bicycle museum I've ever heard of. Unfortunately, we found out that it was only open by appointment. Oh, and speaking of bicycling...
This is a cyclist's shop specifically for the ladies. Their clothing & cycling items were said to be environmentally friendly. The next spot, presumably less so...
Mr. Bones here, and his equally morbid friend on the other side of the shop's door, was the only occupant in this nameless store front. I have no idea why we were treated to a display of a dead man on a bicycle seat in an otherwise empty shop, and I thought it best not to ask. :-)
I believe this was once a boarding house. Can you identify the fellow in this window?
Ever seen one of those old Hollywood "cowboy" Western movies, where the hero and villain settle a score in the small town's dusty main street via a "showdown", where the two enemies try to out-draw one another? The only known incident where that actually happened in real life was right there in Springfield, near Commercial Street, and involved no less a personage than "Wild" Bill Hickock himself. A man named Davis Tutt had beaten him at cards, winning his money, his prized watch, and, as some stories tell it, he'd also, ah, wooed away Bill's lady-friend of the time...and then went about town bragging about it. Tutt swaggered and preened all over Springfield flaunting Hickock's watch and bragging about how he'd got the best of ol' Bill...clearly forgetting that playing cards was not what Wild Bill Hickock was famous for. Tutt had the poor judgement of publicly humiliating and infuriating one of the deadliest pistol marksmen in the world, and it didn't end well for him... You can read more about it by clicking here. And somewhere near Commercial Street, there is said to be a historical marker about the event, but my brother & I couldn't find it. Anyway, it's now a re-purposed appliance shop. "Wild Bill's" window is in the upper far-left of the photo.
Shortly after we got home, we started hearing on the news about the true scope, and horror, of the coronavirus epidemic here in the USA. My heart goes out to all those who have been affected by it.
And just yesterday, I was told "thanks for all your hard work, you're furloughed now"... and I lost my job. My brother, too. "Thanks", coronavirus, thanks a lot. In two weeks' time, I've had a ruined vacation, lost my job, seen a Friday the 13th, a full moon, and am now in a mandatory 30 day city-wide "shelter in place" quarantine thanks to an honest to goodness plague. As crappy weeks go, I think I've got a trophy coming for this one.
Gratitude to my brother for taking me out of my bad mood for a few hours that day, and for contributing lots of great photographs. Stay safe, and I hope your luck stays better than mine.
Fun read. And yes, that was a good day. I believe we finished that evening off with a poker game of our own: you, me and one brother-in-law - minus the shoot-out.