It occurs to me that since I'm not posting this live, I have no idea how it will actually appear on the site, with all the photos. There's a good chance it will be quite screwed up. Oh well...
I've now driven through Cairo twice -- once last year, on the way back from the Outer Banks, and once this year on the way back from Kentucky Lake. This last time, I finally remembered to take pictures, though they were a bit rushed (I never left the car).
I was drawn of course partly because of Mark Twain's Huck Finn, filled with nostalgia for the place that fictional Huck fictionally missed in the night, thus sentencing Jim to return to the land of slavery. But I was mainly drawn to Cairo because I heard it was a ghost town.
Now that I have a decent camera, I'm going to try to get back there and really document it. It's a hearbreaking place. Clearly a city that time, economy, industry forgot. Once an important hub at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, it's now a desolate shell of its former self. There's definitely *some* money still there -- there was one strip of nice homes with an maintained arch marking the entrance to the street, but the main streets are desolate, businesses empty and run down. It's sad. What's a place like that to do? How do you even begin to ponder trying to get some momentum back? And if you love where you're from and can't bear to leave ...?
The motel, with its one patron (or manager?)
Been to the Speakeasy lately...?
...or the Elks?
The Washeteria: Every town needs one (but this one has been closed for who knows how long...)
As you may have noticed, the site has changed. Sampa, the free-site host, did a version 2 of some sort.
Despite an FAQ that made it sound like allowing one's site to go through v.2 surgery would be okay, there were several flexibilities that surprisingly disappeared with the click of a button. (e.g. I cannot believe sidebars like this one are even narrower than before.)
And I'm told -- miraculously! -- that the conversion cannot be undone. Truth be told, I'm actually quite pissed. But free is free. Sampa has otherwise been good to me.
So I need to sort through site "features" to see how I can make do. Except that I don't have the time at the moment, in the middle of graduate classes and Lighthousehockey.com. (btw, I've removed that Lighthouse RSS feed so that you're not clogged with random Islanders hockey gibberish).
But I promise to touch up the accessories when I get a chance, and return to irregularly scheduled blogging.
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February, 2008