We all have personal favorite newspaper names. The Canton Repository, the Plain Dealer, the Blade.
Now that I think about it, lots of the badass ones happen to be in Ohio.
No matter. Because I have in my hot little hands what happens to be hands-down the best newspaper name in the world. And it's right here in little old rural Mizzou-rah.
That's right. The Unterrified Democrat. Possibly the most badass newspaper name ever. Unterrified. Democratic. That's all you want.
Anyway, the name "Unterrified Democrat" isn't the only thing this newspaper has going for it. Notice:
It's something like two columns wider than my paper, and most normal papers. I didn't measure, so I don't know the exact specs. But I opened the sports pages just for another comparison:
Unfortunately, the UTD has no website. But a Google image search image search for "Unterrified Democrat" yields this photo, so I assume it gets around.
I don't exactly know what they define as an "incident" (A bust? An explosion? A single guy spotted tweaking out on the street?), but apparently, I'm not the only one in a meth state.
And for the ninth straight year, Missouri had the most, with 1,774 incidents, up 19 percent from 1,487 the previous year. An “incident” includes meth lab busts but also any documented evidence of meth-making, authorities said Wednesday.
Indiana had the second-most meth lab incidents with 1,096, followed by Kentucky with 583, Mississippi with 577 and Michigan with 511.
That's right, SadBears: Our states (and those of our associates) are apparently meth-riddled hellscapes. Only Virginia is spared the wrath of a meth explosion. See chart here- the Show-Me State still has 700 more than the Hoosier State, and nearly TWO TIMES more meth than third-place finisher Kentucky.
Never mind the fact that more than half of Missouri's meth "incidents" come from two counties— we'll just have to take our "meth capital of America" title with pride. At least we don't contain the nations "murder capital" or "highest rate of black homicide victims."
PS Is it weird that we already have a tag for "meth"?
Also, if you couldn't tell, I actually like Missouri... and I think a lot of the statistics they present don't tell the whole story. Like the fact that Frankin and Jefferson Counties have such a large proportion of meth busts that they bring the whole state down. Things like that.
I'm writing a "novel." Truthfully, I don't expect to finish it on time, but I started it under the impression that it would kickstart my creative juices and get me writing more fiction and creative stuff. For the most part, it has.
I've been rereading Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, and it's getting me more and more interested in the art of storytelling. Maybe more specifically, the art of telling local history and how it influences who someone is. There's a story in there called "Speaking of Courage," where a young soldier comes back to his Iowa town after Vietnam. Without retelling the whole plot, he's trying to come to terms with how he didn't win the Silver Star and drives around the lake in his town all day, having fake conversations with different people around the town (his dad, his ex girlfriend, his best friend) in his head.
My "novel"'s concept is still hazy, but I'd like to explore this a little bit— the idea of local legends or local history and where history and legend meld into one. Maybe I'm trying to hard to be Faulkner, I dunno. But I did a bit of research on Missouri history — I might set the novel here, plus I was doing a bit of research on local sports history anyway.
That's why this website got me into a brainstorming frenzy. It's an archive of Missouri place names and basically tells you, by county, everything you need to know about how a particular town, school, landmark or anything got its name.
For instance, the Roubixdoux Creek, in my county, is one of the tributaries of the Gasconade River. It got its name from French explorer/ settler Joseph Robidoux. (It did not say why the townsfolk dropped the first "u" but not any of the other vowels.) Wikipedia did not originally know about this. It now does, thanks to me.
This search for a little local flavor of my new home got even more of my internal engines whirring and led me to more gems that even the non-Missourian SadBear brethren would appreciate.
I sought out the Pulaski County Historical Society and looked at the last names of some of the original settlers. I now know just how many families around here have lived here for generations.
Notable for the fact that despite being so old and before the advent of the highway system, each state map is pretty well-detailed.
Looking at old-school eastern states like Virginia or Ohio or Michigan doesn't reveal much new about said states that we don't know already. But the maps for the more sparsely-populated Midwestern and Western states still have an air of mystery about them. For instance, Oklahoma is still considered Indian Territory here, and I'm pretty sure neither Oklahoma City nor Tulsa existed yet (or else they were nothing more than cowboy towns). Wayne Coyne and Oral Roberts were just a gleam in the worlds' eye...
I also found some even more interesting stuff on the St. Louis and San Francisco Railroad, which runs directly through my county (now called BNSF) and directly contributed to the high school sports league I cover, but that stuff's so good I think I'll save it for another post.
Waynesville and St. Robert (affectionately known, by me, as "the 'Ville" and "St. Bob") are technically different cities, but they're basically, along with the Army base Fort Leonard Wood, one community, as you can see here:
The 'Ville has a population of around 3,500 and St. Bob around 2,700.
But if you were to come here without knowing anything about the community other than the population figures, you'd be mighty confused. How many communities of 6,000 have rush-hour traffic jams?
They don't. The actual population of the entire community is somewhere closer to 40,000. The problem is, most of Ft. Wood's population is unincorporated, so it doesn't count towards the figures of either city. Fort Wood has about 35,000 people (tricky, since the Army is transient... so it might, in all truth be even more).
If you read the article above, though, you'll read that the Wayesville and St. Robert city councils and the Pulaski County commission are in talks to annex the population of Fort Leonard Wood, which will mean that they'll add 17,500 people to the numbers of each city.
If you're keeping track, that would put the 'Ville at 21,007 and 20,260 for St. Bob. And since they're basically one community that's upwards of 40,000 people.
This is significant, for a few reasons. First, now people will actually look at the city populations and not think "podunk, middle of nowhere town." They'll think "podunk, little CITY off I-44."
Second, and most importantly, businesses might give us a second look and give us the possibility for even more growth. Which means that maybe we'll finally get a Panera Bread and a standalone Starbucks.
If we couple it with Rolla, 20 miles up the road towards St. Louis— pop. 18,438, plus 6,000 college students— we've got ourselves a nice little corridor of small cities. Who knows, maybe we'll even get a Borders or Barnes & Noble bookstore (snicker).
When all is said and done, it looks like Tony and Chase still live in a larger metropolitan area— Augusta County, VA has a total population of 70,910 (not sure, at this point, if that includes Waynesboro and Staunton).
Pulaski County, MO, on the other hand, has a population of 44,546, including the 'Ville, the Fort and St. Bob. So we're still smaller.
"'We've had an ACCIDENT!' the children screamed in a frenzy of delight." -Flannery O'Connor, "A Good Man is Hard to Find"
Some sound advice: beware Glenstone Ave. in Springfield, Mo., especially between the hours of noon and 1 p.m. Central Daylight Time. You might have an ACCIDENT!
Well, shit. If only I'd known. It was totally his fault though (the guy behind me who pushed me into the car in front of me). Maybe I'll make a diagram later.
Really, though, all this does it pull the City of Springfield even further down a notch. It's been on my "On Notice" list ever since my Bob Barker fiasco.
I have to go back to that godforsaken place tomorrow (in my spiffy new rental Jetta) to get the crap out of my car at the barbed-wire lot on Commercial Drive. Yeah, it's as shady as it sounds ("Floyd's Wrecker Service"— the card the guy gave me had only a number and no address...no surprise why).
Maybe I can find the Springfield Cardinals there after my harrowing experience and they can single-handedly pull the city into my top five (top five cities in the Great State of Missouri, that is...later I'll compile that list, too).
Doubt it, though...they're still the freakin' Cardinals.
There's also this one that I didn't bring up before: reading a bit of the sports blog from Tony's paper, I found out that the teams from the 'boro regularly play a team from Rockbridge County School. Funny that a frequent opponent of the teams from the 'ville is Rock Bridge High School in Columbia.
Unfortunately, Rock Bridge is good at basketball but doesn't have as good of a nickname as its crosstown rival, Hickman: the Kewpies.
I was going to have a post about other funny nicknames and sporting things I've come across in Missouri, but it wasn't ready. You'll have to wait.
Until then, another strange similarity of the 'ville and the 'boro (kinda). Tony already talked about going "over the mountain" to go to work. Here's a view from my side of the world: the Ozarks on U.S. Highway 63. Unedited (no Photoshop on the laptop), probabaly a lot shittier, but I get a similar vibe. A preview of what Chase might see on his road trip, even:
Most American cities have a street named after Thomas Jefferson. But in Springfield, Mo., he's side by side with another great American hero:
I actually got pulled over by the cops for this. Turns out police HQ is right across the street and they were suspicious: Cop, at window: "Were you just taking pictures of headquarters?" Me, surprised: "Huh? No, I didn't even realize they were there...I was taking a picture of the sign. Bob Barker...thought it was funny. Here, I'll show you..." Cop, looking at pictures on camera: "Hmmm...you're not from around here, are you?" Me, explaining all the kids in spandex he's undoubtedly seeing: "No. I was at a wrestling tournament. I work for a newspaper in Waynesville. Sportswriter." Cop, bemused, handing camera back: "I see...well, you can go, we just wanted to make sure..."
Never mind the coincidence; the fact that Tony and I work at newspapers in towns with similar names and compete with newspapers with the same name. Oh, it's still there. Only this story just makes it a little freakier.
Listen: there's this wrestler, named Gordon Bierschenk. He graduated from Waynesville High School in 2003. In high school he was a mediocre wrestler at best but decided after graduation that he'd walk on at the University of Minnesota anyway, just for the hell of it.
So far, so good. He then went to Iraq after being a decent walk-on and came back with a new fire. Now he's the Big Ten Wrestler of the Week.
Now, this would admittedly be a lot freakier if Tony was still interning there. But still...who'd've thunk it? I've got national competition (*snicker*).
And you can read my version of the story here (no e-link yet, but I just posted the pdf on my blog, that'll have to do for now). My version is a bit more in-depth, plus I was able to talk to his mom and high school coach. Mine comes out Saturday, and the Strib piece was on Wednesday...the bastard.
Finding out about this historical scene is somewhat shocking, considering Springfield is the headquarters of both The Assembly of God and the Baptist Bible Fellowship International. But then I think about it and remember that punk rock is supposed to be all about disenfranchised youths from the suburbs. What's more dienfranshising than belonging to an AoG church?
What were the chances that two equally dapper and similarly attired Hillsdale freshman would meet through a common love of The Hives and four years later find themselves living in towns named after the same fiery Revolutionary War hero while competing against Gannett newspapers, also of the same name?
Suffice it to say, it happened. The details below will paint the picture, and clarify the Center of the Venn diagram too.
WAYNESVILLE
WAYNESBORO
Rookie reporter
Jack
Tony
Population
3,507 (˜ 20,000 when grouped with St. Robert and Ft. Leonard Wood "metro" area)
More about the namesake: Anthony Wayne (January 1, 1745–December 15, 1796) was a United States Army general and statesman. His military exploits and fiery personality quickly earned him a promotion and the sobriquet of "Mad Anthony".
We tigers we tigers whoop! I'm like this you're like this I'm like this you're like this We tigers we tigers woop!
For anyone interested, I've started a series of Picasa albums chronicling some sports (and non-sports related) photos of my first month-and-a-half of working on the paper. Any input on taking better pictures would be greatly appreciated.
The Waynesville Tigers album is here, hence the name. Also included are some shots from the other basketball teams I cover (one and two) and some non-sports shots of stuff around town (right here).
Kickass.
PS, We, as in Tony and I, are sort of working on a thing about our respective Waynes' Worlds. But we've been busy so it's not done yet. But it's a treat.
The Hives just need to lose all the pretensions and become a hip-hop and soul cover band. Also, they're a main player in a great PopMatters essay on Post-Ironic Swedish Rock.
Finally, I'm particularly proud of the picture that goes along with this article. Just don't pay any attention to the actual article, since there are about 10 typos in it. That was a bad night to be my own copy editor, I'll say that much...
Our press guy writes a weekly column. Some of them kind of remind me of one Mr. Perry Rowland Coralsby's misanthropic musings on life. Maybe if Perry were a little less harsh with his criticisms and maybe a bit less foul-mouthed (although one can't really fault him that, this is the world of mainstream print journalism, after all...) But still, I see some similarities. Like this one about cell phones. Or the one about new shoes. My favorite is the one on how columnists (aka shit shovelers) get to become shit shovelers in the first place. Maybe it's funnier if you know the guy. But still. I like it.
