As I glide through the eighth decade of my life, looking back, I’ve had an enduring, if on again off again, connection to the Show Me State. I first came to reside in Missouri in 1951 in consequence of my parents’ divorce which resulted in my mother and her two sons crash landing with Mom’s sister and brother-in-law on the Westernmost, semi-rural edge of the suburbs of St. Louis, Mo. Six years later Mom had recovered financially and we lived in the house, with her business attached, where I remained until I left the State for an out of state university at age 18. Through college and my subsequent military service, I continued to claim Missouri as my domicile, not so much through pride as habit.
After that, as I undertook my work life, my career never brought me back to Missouri, excepting the occasional business trip. But when retirement came, I knew that we didn’t want to retire in Chicago, where we were working at the time, given the cost of living there. Thanks to Mrs. Left’s employer, we were entitled to one last corporate move, anywhere in the country we wanted, which confronted us with tough choices and varied opportunities. After considering locations from coast to coast, we decided to retire in Missouri even though moving from Illinois, governed by Democrats, to Missouri, very badly run by Republicans, concerned us.
But there are Democratic strongholds still left in Missouri, most conspicuously the small blue dots on either side of the state map, where the Missouri River transects the State from West to East, like two blueberries placed opposite from one another, on either side of plate of strawberries. We now live in the right hand blueberry, a/k/a St. Louis. For the geographically challenged, the left hand blueberry is Kansas City.
We didn’t come to St. Louis and Missouri because someone listed either place as the No. 1 place for retirees, or as best of anything. We’re old enough to appreciate the value of things that are good enough, and have mostly lost interest in chasing the elusively fleeting and always changing very best. Many would think St. Louis is a city in decline. Consider that, after competing in growth with America’s other cities in the 19th and 20th Centuries, St. Louis topped out at No. 10 largest city in 1950, with about 1 million people within the city’s limits. Now, two thirds of that population is gone, and I’ve lived in Texas suburbs with more people than today’s St. Louis, Missouri population. But bigger, larger, and more aren’t always better. For example, St. Louis provides parks, streets and other improvements originally designed and built for three times as many people as now live here. Even densely populated neighborhoods enjoy a degree of elbow room and this is a comfortable place to live.
None of that is to say that I don’t appreciate and recognize the value of competition, champions. and winners. So, I could not help but note, that, entirely thanks to Republican leadership, the State of Missouri, after epic struggle against other Republican controlled States, has cracked the viral ceiling, thrashing all other comers, so that, now, Missouri leads nation in COVID cases per 100,000 residents. Yea, we’re Number One. Way to go, GOP. I wasn’t sure you had it in you.
But wait. What’s that? Republican leaders in Missouri have realized that the State faces a terrible crisis and intends to convene a special legislative session. Oh, never mind. Alas, the Missouri GOP’s interest in Public Health ends with obstruction of reproductive rights. COVID illness and death hold no interest for them, but hoards of them are chomping at the bit to wipe out Planned Parenthood and deny women least able to afford it, access to reproductive medicine. Sigh.
One thing I know for sure, Republicans are not champions, not winners and not the best at anything. They’re not even good enough. Despite the example. of good and progressive leaders in places like St. Louis, rural Missouri Republicans fight hard to maintain Missouri’s status as an inconsequential backwater, a State that is very good at doing bad and very bad at doing good.
I guess I should be grateful that, at my age, I probably, won’t have to endure those jerks that much longer. Then again —
There. That’s better.