My childhood memories of Cairo remind me of “Mayfield” - that fictional town where “the Beaver” and Wally Cleaver lived. I remember as a little kid going to see Santa Claus downtown, near the Hewer, and the many parades and 4th of July fireworks on the river.

After high school, Cairo seemed more like that movie “American Graffiti” to me because I spent most evenings cruising in my car from the Pit to downtown and back, and hanging out with friends. You see I became car crazy at age 13 when my Dad took me with him to Riverside Chevrolet to get some work done on our car. It was there that I was stricken with the “car crazy” bug when I saw two brand new 1963 Corvette split-window coupes (one was red and the other white). I tried desperately all that day to convince my Dad to replace our family car with one of them (didn’t work). I wanted one sooooo bad. In later years, I did buy my first car at Riverside Chevrolet.

I remember the neat cars from high school, like Donnie Verble’s black convertible (it was either a Dodge Coronet or a Desoto), Mike Sams’ gorgeous red ’61 Impala, Mike Ice’s Black Plymouth Fury, Mr. Frohock’s ’58 Vette and Eddie Doss’s grey ’66 GTO, just to name a few (there were lots).

My older sister (Genevieve) lives in Arkansas and she occasionally sends me articles and photo clippings out of the Cairo Citizen of reunions, etc. I do recall seeing a clipping of a few folks who attended what I believe may have been the ’05 reunion. I immediately recognized Mary Susan Meadows-Worthington (’68). Mary Susan and I always sat next to each other at assemblies, etc. (when they seated us alphabetically). I last saw her at graduation in 1968, when we were seated next to each other for the last time.

I doubt that many will remember me from school. I was very shy and frightened to death of girls. My family lived at 745 35th Street. I walked across St. Mary’s Park every day to school. I can still smell the magnolia blossoms.

After graduation, I went to work at Burkhart MFG. for a short time and then moved on to ServiceMaster (on Commercial Avenue), as a bottling machine operator. That was a fun job. My draft status was 1A and I was getting close on the list, so I went ahead and joined the Air Force in May, 1970 (something I intended to do anyway), and left Cairo.

In 1972, my family moved to a new home in Arkansas. Their moving was difficult for me to accept. I loved living in Cairo. My military career never took me out of the country and eventually I ended up at Whiteman AFB, MO, as a Nuclear Weapons Specialist (I am a Veteran of the “Cold War”). It was there that I fell head over heals in love with Jeannie Young (she had me from hello). We were married in May, 1973.

My Mother had a heart attack and died on Christmas Eve, 1978. That hit our family hard. She always wanted me to go to college and I was considering civilian life anyway, so in 1979 I left the military and enrolled at State Fair Community College in Sedalia, MO, where Jean worked. I earned an AS degree in Accounting. While attending school, I worked part-time as a staff cartoonist in a media production house that was owned by the college (I always had the ability to draw). That job eventually evolved into 35mm slide photography and finally into video production. I wrote, shot and edited training videos for manufacturing companies who were relocating or starting up in Missouri. I almost earned another AS degree in Communications during that period, but all the time traveling around the State and working on location made it impossible to get the credits to complete it.

My Dad passed away in November, 1991, just after we relocated to Columbia, MO, where we now live. We both work at The University of Missouri. Jean works at the University Hospital’s Child Health Department as a Grants & Contracts Specialist and I work at the Academic Support Center, where I manage the Classroom Technology Services Department. My department consists of the Media Library with holdings in excess of 12,000 educational films, videotapes and DVDs, which are used by our Faculty and other learning institutions nationwide. The Media Library also has a large pool of portable AV equipment that is loaned daily to the Faculty. We maintain all permanently attached AV equipment in the University’s classrooms, too. We also have 3 interactive television classrooms that are used for distance learning. I LOVE my job, but I’m hoping to retire in 6 more years (knock on wood).

We have a home in the country, about 6 miles east of town. We were never blessed with children, but Jean’s younger brother, Tim (52 yrs. old) has lived with us since their Mother passed away a few years back. Tim has epilepsy and is mentally challenged. In addition to Tim, we also have 3 horses, 3 dogs, and 7 cats (people know that we have a soft place in our hearts for strays).

I have been back to Cairo a couple of times over the years, but I never saw anyone that I recognized. I did eat at Shemwell’s (It should be mandatory to have BBQ when in Cairo and I’m sure Darrell Shemwell would agree.). I couldn’t believe how the town has changed. It was nothing like what I remembered as a kid. I had a hard time finding my way around. Oh, does anyone out there know that our old high school building is MISSING?? On my first trip back to Cairo, the “Point” was run down and vandalized, but a few years later we went back and noticed it had been reclaimed and cleaned up (yea!!).

A couple of years ago I was on the internet “window shopping” in ebay, when I stumbled across an old post card with a picture of Cairo High School on it. I almost fainted!! I would have paid $1,000 for it, but I got it for $7 (I think). There are probably millions of those out there, because I think I was the only person who bid on it. It is one of my most cherished mementos from the past (I never thought I would be so fond of a building). I can still remember the echoing noise in the hallways between classes and the rattling of locker doors.