Day 67, Thursday May 9, 2024: Fayetteville, Arkansas to Moberly, Missouri
- Mark Carl Rom
- May 11
- 3 min read
Carnegie libraries visited: Springfield, Sedalia, Fulton, Mexico, Fayette, and Moberly, Missouri
After five full days in Fayetteville, I’m eager to get back on the road. May 8th was my scheduled departure. One thing led to another, with that another being awaiting a largish lithium battery so I can power my car fridge. The battery finally arrived on Wednesday; yea! I don’t have the proper cable to plug it into my refrigerator; boo. So until I reach my next mail drop in Minneapolis, I’ll rely on ice in my Igloo.
I’m anticipating an easy, routine, day. My itinerary shows 470 miles, and if I leave by 9 a.m. after spending some time with Ace, I should be in Moberly in about ten hours. I don’t anticipate any trouble on this leg of my trip. Goldfinger has been buffed up inside and out, and all its systems are “Go.” The forecast called for sunshine from start to finish. My route avoids the interstates, and I won’t be passing through any cities, so I’m unlikely to encounter much traffic.
I couldn’t have asked for a more pleasant day for the drive. The tornado warning of last night had expired and the coast (the midwest, actually) was clear. The sky was azul and the fields and meadows verdes. The road was lined with daisies. Perfectly pleasant. I didn’t really need to wear them, as the sun was already high in the sky, yet I slipped my sunglasses on. (“These sunglasses are not just good; they’re Goodr®”)
WOW. Now we’re talking. The sky goes from blue to a vibrant lapis lazuli. The meadows’ green turns into sprightly shamrock, and the daisies explode through the grass like shooting stars. What was pleasant is now glorious. Enjoyable becomes sensational. The reality of my view remains the same, of course, yet my perception of it changed dramatically when I slid the Goodr® lenses over my eyes.
This is what alcohol usually did for me. It took the ordinary and enhanced it, at least for the first few drinks. Jokes were funnier; dramas were more dramatic. I danced more freely, thought more deeply, acted more boldly. I didn’t drink to fit in, or to deaden trauma, as so many other alcoholics give as their reasons for drinking. I drank because it made everything better, until it didn’t.
I don’t understand why women were not influential, it seems, in bringing libraries, Carnegie or otherwise, to Missouri. The Carnegie archives of the six libraries I visited today mention no women’s clubs, and I found only a single letter written by a woman in the files, and the author noted that she wrote only on her own behalf. The State Historical Society of Missouri states that “Women’s clubs and societies have a long history in Missouri…In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, numerous women’s organizations were formed for social, educational, civic, professional, or philanthropic purposes.” Missourian Edna Fischel Gellhorn helped found the National League of Women Voters. Emily Newell Blair, who launched her career with the essay “Letters of a Contented Wife” which appeared in Cosmopolitan, became the first editor of the suffragist magazine Missouri Women in 1914. While associate editor of Good Housekeeping, she wrote the book A Woman of Courage, a novel about a student who engages in the struggle for women’s suffrage. Neither were involved in library work, nor was I able to find evidence of others prominent in library affairs. It’s a puzzle.
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