Backstory. Alex loves Captain America. She has the T-shirt, watches the movies. Knows the shield pose from the movie poster. Favorite superhero status. Still exuberant from the morning's beautiful high point, we are headed for Tullahoma, Tennessee and a Bible conference at Pleroma Bible Church. Friends and Bible - it doesn't get any better than that! Speeding along Missouri Highway 72, I glance over at a street sign. Cap America Drive. Hmmph. Wait, what?!? "Alex, that was Cap America drive back there! Let's take pictures! We do. Alex strikes the shield pose and click! We laugh and beam for a mile or two from that one. How could that blessing be random chance? No way.
A few miles later, same highway. Siri, our iPhone navigator says turn left. We turn left. We laugh nervously because the road is narrow and weedy, and honestly does look much more than sketchy. A quarter mile later the weeds are waist high, and then we notice driftwood has washed across the road from a not so recent flood. The road is blocked. Beyond the driftwood a rusted iron bridge lies fallen into the Castor River or Cape Creek, I can't tell which. We expect the Walking Dead to, well, walk at us from all directions. What a creepy spot. And the creepiness is not finished yet.
A hundred yards up the road there was a small cemetery. Alex and I have to check this out.
Five or six rows of graves; ten or so graves across. Some ancient stones. Barely legible and not legible. One short row of just rocks as markers. A sad one from 1906, a child born and died on the same day. Annalee Whitworth, "Our Precious Darling". Another grace has a chiseled hand with the index finger pointing up. What does it mean? Look up? Will someone smush a pie in my face if I do? Or does the finger forbid? Warn? Are there evil spirits about? Am I glad I am not here after dark? But, we laughed, conversed, discussed, analyzed, and concluded: this was great!
On to Cape Girardeau, Vienna, Paducah, Nashville, and at last Tullahoma and friends.
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