Missouri to Illinois

September 17

We had come back to Columbia the night before rather than stay in the Marceline area because it was important to us to be consistent about attending services every Saturday morning during this trip, whenever it was possible. Columbia has only one synagogue and it was practically around the corner from Marvin and Jan's home. Services begin there at 10:00 AM, so we had time to leisurely get our baggage arranged a little better, and still go out for breakfast before services began. However, the smell of pancakes coming from the kitchen disabused us of that idea. Marvin prepared a delicious stack of these and set some real maple syrup on the table to go with them. A relative of theirs makes this syrup. We were concerned about accepting the bottle he offered us as a gift because we didn't think we'd have an opportunity to make pancakes during the rest of our journey. We knew it would be confiscated at the airport if we tried to take it to Israel in our carry-on luggage, and we didn't want to have it get damaged in our heavy bags. Marvin was happy when we decided it would make a nice gift from him and Jan to Monte and Mindy when we ultimately reached Long Island at the end of our travels with the van. That date loomed closer now. When we thought about it, we realized we had fewer than 4 weeks left with this vehicle.

The time to go had come. We didn't want to be late for services. We waved our goodbyes to Jan and Marvin from within the van and, dressed in our Shabbat clothes, we set a course for the synagogue less than a mile away.

We parked our van in the parking lot behind Congregation Beth Shalom in Columbia, MO at 10:00 AM. It looked like no one else was there; either that or they'd all come on foot (not likely). Soon, another car pulled up; a recent transplant to Columbia from Nevada stepped out and we chatted in the parking lot. A third car pulled up and we already had half a minion guaranteed (if women are counted). This synagogue is associated with the reform movement, but because it is the only synagogue in Columbia, it alternates prayer books from week to week. This week's services were done using Orthodox prayer books. The rabbi was away this Shabbat; we were told he came from Israel, and that it was a shame our timing was off and we hadn't gotten to meet him; he sounded like someone special. People continued to steadily arrive until most of the chairs were filled. We were impressed by the wonderful mix of congregants that assembled there this morning: the man from Las Vegas, a woman from Kansas City (in fact there were more women then men, just like we often have back home), a new bar-mitzvah boy returning after his bar-mitzvah the week before with both his parents. The Torah was read very competently by a young man (college age, perhaps). The sermon was very nice, with questions that congregation members answered from their seats. In answer to one of the points in the sermon I referred to the world-wide community of Jews we'd visited during our travels. This was an ice breaker for us and welcoming smiles turned our way. No one had been assigned to read the Haftarah this morning, so Razelle volunteered me and they enthusiastically agreed. Oy Vey. I did it cold with only a quick look at it during the Torah reading. I did a decent job, though (surprised myself), even without the usual preparation. At this synagogue the congregants speak the names of the sick softly to themselves from their seats during the prayer for the sick. I whispered my mother and my sister's names, as always.

During the announcements after the service we thanked the congregants warmly for creating such an intimate and welcoming atmosphere for us this Shabbat. This small congregation was very special to us. They reminded us of the intimately small congregation we had prayed with in Honolulu, months ago. The Kiddush was a very modest one for the first time yet in our "tour" of American synagogues. I was intrigued to find a package of "Fig Newmans" on the table. They looked just like the "Fig Newtons" I used to eat too many of when I lived in the US years ago. I will want to look these up on the Internet some day. They didn't have the same addictive appeal, or else my taste for these has changed as I've matured.

After services we stopped for something Razelle wanted to buy at a novelty store; then we headed out of town with Cairo, IL our next intended destination. This involved doubling back from Columbia to St. Louis on the same roads we'd travelled before, but in the reverse order (I-70 to I-64). We detoured around St. Louis this time and didn't see anything more of it than the increased congestion that is typical of large cities. Keeping track of all the two- and three-digit interstate numbers around large cities can be challenging because so many bypass roads have numbers that look alike at a glance, which is sometimes all I could afford when traffic was heavy and moving fast. In places such as these, my GPS proved itself indispensible over and over again.

Interstate 55 followed the course of the Mississippi River from the Missouri side but never was close enough for us to actually sense this. Place names at the highway exits were familiar to me from having read Mark Twain's writings, but they passed without the places themselves coming into view. By the time we crossed the Mississippi River at Cape Girardeau, MO and into Illinois again, the sun was low, although with an overcast sky we could only sense this by the dimming level of sunlight. We saw the sun peak out from the cloud cover as it touched the horizon briefly before it disappeared for the day. We followed Illinois state route 3 much closer to the Mississippi River here, past a town call Thebes, on our way to Cairo (someone must have been enamored of things Egyptian when these places were named). The smell of river mud struck my nostrils and reminded me of the smell of the floodplains in the parks near my home in Toledo, OH, during the spring. This is a smell that has nostalgic associations for me, reminding me of the first green shoots that come up through the ooze to signal the end of winter there.

We arrived in Cairo, IL after dark, passing Mound City, Urbandale and Future City in the process. At one junction we passed a National Cemetery with great numbers of tombstones arrayed in perfect lines gleaming white in the dark. They were the tidiest thing we saw in these environs. The appearance of Cairo in the dark was very depressing. Everything looked so utterly run down, neglected or abandoned. We searched our GPS for a place to sleep. The first motel we came to, the Belvedere, seemed so run down and uninviting, with a car parked in its lot with a sheet of cardboard replacing a missing window, that we left Cairo entirely and went back to the interstate. The motel at the interstate was a Days Inn. We were the only guests there. Our clerk was from India and his English was hard to understand. We paid for our room and went inside. Cairo was one of those places on my bucket list I just had to see. Razelle kept asking me as we drove up and down its depressing streets why I had such a need to include this location on our itinerary. Seeing what it looked like tonight, I was forced to ask myself the same question.