Something from Nothing

When I was a child, I read and reread many times the board book Joseph Had a Little Overcoat.  Despite my frequent readings, the book frustrated me.  I simply could not fathom the possibility of a man creating "something" from "nothing."  A trip down the Mississippi River twenty years later finally solved this mystery for me.

Recently, I  rather impulsively hopped on my bicycle and rode it from my home in Minnesota south along the Mississippi through several states.  As the trip progressed, I fell into a rhythm including a mid-morning break during which I refueled with a second breakfast.  One day, in Missouri, I found myself breaking only ten miles into my daily ride.  I'd gotten a late start that morning due to storms, and as I climbed and descended the river bluffs into the town of Clarksville, MO, I spotted lightning flashing once again across the sky.  After a requisite stop at the town's Chamber of Commerce and declination of any form of map, I headed further into town to pursue a cafe for refuge from the storm and to silence the low-battery beeping of my cell phone.  Cool Beans Coffee Shop offered such a refuge for the afternoon.

Sandbags lined the sidewalks in Clarksville, MO

While wiling away my afternoon here, I struck up conversation with two women: a mother and daughter who were intrigued by my bike with panniers leaning against the front window, my spandex outfit and the bike helmet resting on the table in front of me. They asked about me and my trip, I asked about their lives and that of their town.  Reading Wendell Berry's essay "The Long-Legged House" some days later as I passed through the country again, the second time unfortunately by car, offered insight into the origination and increasing frequency of human-induced floods caused by improper farming techniques which deplete the land and leave it barren.  Clarksville seemed resilient among a string of sadly deteriorating towns along the River - many of which I detoured around due to this year's flood waters.  An obituary posted on the window of the storefront next to the coffee shop offered another clue to Clarksville's apparent avoidance of such a fate which the kind ladies whom I met that day confirmed.  The eulogized man, an artist, had been born in Clarksville and left as a young man to study art in New York City, I believe.  When he returned years later, he noticed a different town than the home he once knew.  Like many towns in rural America, it was dying.  The population, while including some young people, consisted mostly of the older residents, whose numbers were decreasing.  This man, saddened over the fate of his beloved hometown nestled beautifully between the grandeur of the River bluffs and the River bank itself, invited several of his artist friends to relocate to this secluded midwestern location and rebirthe the town.  It worked!

Clarksville, still a small town with a population hovering around 300 citizens, now thrives with restaurants, artists' studios shops, an organic farm and several bed and breakfasts.  Most remarkable, however, is the vivacity of the town's citizens: how easily and openly they invited me to participate in their daily life and their willingness to share time and stories with me.  From a town with nothing, with no hope, artists drew inspiration and gave their gifts to create a place in which hope, optimism and beauty flooded storefront studios and the people who inhabit them, affecting even the simple passers-through.