Welcome Back to Kirksville Baby

a thanksgiving writeup

Imagine it: fall 2008, small Missouri liberal arts college, me. Now: 2021, I still live in Missouri but in an almost-city, I am in a life-partner relationship with someone who grew up in Kirksville, Mo. My not-quite-in-laws live there part of the year (now that they are retired they spend summers in Colorado) and it is where we go to visit them (to be totally clear, we also sometimes visit them in Colorado) and to be with the extended family for holidays. Somehow, it wasn’t until everyone I knew from college had left that I realized none of them were ever coming back.

They will have a last memory of this place. I guess I might too, but I can’t see it coming and don’t know I’ll know it. Anyways here is an update, fresh from my Thanksgiving week visit…

La Pachanga has moved. Their new sign is fancy. I wonder if it is trying to be upscale? I remember dollar margs here. I remember “Dance (A$$)” playing while drinking “waiting margs” and looking around and seeing all the families out for dinner intermingled with the college kids. That is good Kirksville stuff.

Geno’s is only open for private events.

There is no coffee shop on the square. The christian coffee shop that took over the Java Co. space is closed and now that place has a wine bar sign, but it wasn’t open.

They are doing construction on the courthouse. I haven’t followed up with what is going on.

They are repaving Baltimore. It is much better.

The sesquicentennial plaza outside the SUB looks good I think.

I assume all the buildings on campus were locked (we didn’t try all of them).

They put planet sculptures in that pit by the library, and it is open. I think they used to have it roped off as closed.

There is still a bike co-op on campus.

The last Aquadome building I remember is a dispensary now.

There is an axe throwing place downtown.

I stayed home when everyone went shopping so I don’t know what Hyvee is like now.

We looked at baby books with the youngest generation and the oldest generation, and ate pecan and apple and peach pie and lasagna, had a family eggnog and went to the Downtown Cinema 8 to see The Eternals (which I can’t recommend as a movie per se).

We played two different kinds of rummy.

We played bocci ball outside the Kirksville airport, because Jahni’s brother’s flight was delayed, then it got canceled and he and his partner had to be driven to St. Louis with a handful of other displeased passengers. The driver pulled up in a minivan. They squeezed everyone in and drove off.

Then we drove off too, and listened to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy all the way home.