The shortest route from Kansas City to Memphis is via Springfield, MO and rural Arkansas where highway is controlled by the roaming gangs of deer who stand around the road contemplating if they will let you live. I wouldn’t recommend driving there in the dark.

I didn’t want to go to Memphis. Even though I learned English trying to sing along with Elvis (and that’s why people often ask me if I am from Tupelo),  I didn’t feel the need to visit his house and other Memphis attractions didn’t really seem worthy of a fairly boring 8-hour drive. Usually we try to see things along the way, but there wasn’t much to see and the only memorable item was a town called Cabool, mostly because of how out-of-place the name seemed somewhere in rural Missouri.

Memphis turned out to be a fun place for a weekend trip, with enough things to keep you busy for a few days.

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Previously: Thomas Hart Benton Paints the Persephone.

In 1935 the Missouri legislature commissioned Thomas Hart Benton to paint a mural history of the State on the walls of the lounge in the State House in Jefferson City. It chose Tom Benton because he is Missouri’s ablest painter and comes from one of Missouri’s most distinguished families. The legislature, however, never expected to get anything like the Benton History of Missouri which was completed just before this year’s session began in January. No pretty glorification, the murals turned out to be a raw and animated review of Missouri’s past and present. They gave full space to Missouri’s first settlers, its first railroad, its agriculture and industry, its great Champ Clark. But they also gave space to a slave auction, a lynching, Jesse James of Clay County, Frankie and Johnny of St.Louis. Loud were complaints that Benton was vulgar, that he had distorted Missouri into a “houn’ dog State”. But Benton Supporters pointed out that Missouri was, after all , a “houn’ dog State” whose natives did call each other “pukes.” As the fuss subsided, Missourians began to look at the murals more calmly. Though they admitted that the pictures were interesting, they still felt that it wasn’t a fitting way for a son of Missouri to tell the story of his native State.

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Continuing with the alcohol theme, here are some photos depicting a sobriety test experiment performed in Kansas City in 1941. The cops slowly liquor up a test subject and then perform sobriety tests on him using a precision “drunkometer”.

The rest of the sobriety test photo shoot.

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If you read this blog on a regular basis, you know that it mainly consists of retro items. Whether it’s my memories of living Behind the Iron Curtain or numerous collections of the Old Photos, there is no shortage of nostalgia on these pages. Strangely, American retro is equally interesting to me, even though, for the obvious reasons, I can’t be nostalgic about the American past.

When I was researching my post about Bert Berkley I was frequently distracted by the ads in Kansas City magazines from the 1970’s. Ads about new real estate, long-gone stores and restaurants, services that became obsolete years ago, banks that are now forgotten, new cars that are now rotting in the junk yards. Some of you may remember these things, old restaurants, banks, hotels and car dealerships; others may recall being excited about the new modern services such as ATM machines and pagers. For many who weren’t alive at that time, the ads may seem naive, prices shockingly low, services overly personal and generous. For me it’s a trip to the past, not my past, but nevertheless exciting, and an ability to see it from the vantage point of 2010 – what survived and what didn’t, what made it to the future and what is now erased from the memory and the city map. I went back to the Library, checked out some magazines from 1974-77 and copied a few ads that I liked. The quality of the images is not that great but old magazines are not easy to photograph in the dim light.

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Over my years here I discovered that some Americans shy away from tasty foods because they may seem exotic and unknown. I am not advocating eating anything weird here and I have my limits too . Snakes, turtles, coffee crapped out by monkeys, and other strange things are not normally found in my menu. However, as a public service, I always try to introduce my co-workers and anyone who would listen (I don’t have any friends) to some foods that are truly good but may not be well-known for one reason or another.
Today I would like to talk about persimmons. Persimmons are apparently very popular in Asia but I’ve known and loved them since I was a child. There are two kinds of persimmon – astringent (which means it will pucker up your mouth so bad, you will curse me when you can start talking again) and non-astringent which you can eat like a crunchy apple. The astringent kind seems to taste more sophisticated while the other kind is sweet,juicy and tasty. If you purchase astringent kind which is actually called hachiya make sure you let it ripen until soft before eating it. You can also freeze it overnight and the let it thaw to get rid of mouth-puckering tannins. Hachiya persimmons have pointy shape and are easy to spot.
The other kind of persimmons is called fuyu.They are flattened on the top and bottom. These are bright orange when ripe and I eat them with skin just like an apple.

Locally you can buy persimmons at Chinese and Vietnamese stores around City Market, any other Asian store and for little more money at your grocery store and Costco.
They are currently in season and about 99 cents for a pound. Try to get some without blemishes and visible soft spots.
Read more about persimmons and enjoy.

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