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Show RIVER the horizon and grew in size until it looked like a big packing crate gone adrift. The raft was boxy and looked as awkward as an amphibious aardvark, but what it lacked in beauty it made up in charm. As it beat across the channel from the Iowa shore, I felt a surge of pride. I left my Latter-day Saint heritage behind when we departed Nauvoo the next morning, but more than once on my rowboat trip I stopped to ponder how I'd gotten myself to such a strange place and situation. I had to ask, "How did a Mormon boy from Utah wind up here?" Over the next few days we passed Keokuk and its grounded sternwheeler, the George M. Verity; La Grange with ancient population and crumbling brick buildings; and Quincy with its spider-web bridge. As we drifted down into Missouri the country became a degree more wild and several degrees less prosperous. We stopped in Hannibal and took in the Mark Twain sites-the fence that Tom Sawyer painted, the Becky Thatcher Book Store, the Huckleberry Finn Cinema, the Becky Thatcher Candy Store, and the Tom Sawyer Real Estate Office. Only the real estate office had the ring of authentic history: Tom Sawyer was born to sell real estate. Hannibal was a depressing place. Development had had completely ravaged the riverfront. Cardiff Hill was now dwarfed by a junk yard and a huge white grain elevator. Just below the mouth of the small craft harbor, a drain pipe dumped raw sewage into the river that gave Hannibal life. I walked into town to buy some motor oil during the afternoon when I passed two old men sitting on a park bench. They were those fixtures of southern society, the town drunks. One was old and surprisingly healthy looking and not that drunk, while the other was lean and very drunk. "C'mere," said the lean man. "Are you a hippie?" he asked. -77- |