Читать книгу Coastal Missouri: Driving On the Edge of Wild - John Drake Robinson - Страница 2

Coastal Missouri

Driving on the Edge of Wild

John Drake Robinson

© 2013 John Drake Robinson

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical or by any information or storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the author.

Published in eBook format by Compass Flower Press

Converted by http://www.eBookIt.com

ISBN-13: 978-1-9366-8873-9

Trade Paperback ISBN 978-1-936688-72-2

Compass Flower Press

an imprint of AKA-Publishing

To Cheryl

Acknowledgments

Tony Hawks won a bar bet. His drinking buddies said he’d never be able to hitchhike around the perimeter of Ireland with a refrigerator. In Round Ireland with a Fridge, Tony inspired me to think outside the ice box.

Here’s a toast to Pete McCarthy, who died too soon, with a hundred great stories still sequestered inside his brain. That’s natural. We’ll all die with unused food in our refrigerators.

Pete wrote a lively tale about an Englishman touring Ireland. It’s the most engaging travel odyssey since Homer. In McCarthy’s Bar, the Catholic brothers at Pete’s grade school described him as “an unpleasant and frivolous boy who talks too much and will never make anything of himself, but he does take a punch well.” I found a role model.

Working with most editors, trading punches is part of the process. My rambling style and damaged attention span offer plenty of opportunities for button-down editors to smack me around. For this story, my thanks to Sarah Alban, who drew the short straw to wrestle with a meandering manuscript and a wandering mind.

The State Historical Society of Missouri allowed me to see the impressive E.B. Trail Collection of Steamboating. And thanks to the Missouri Press Association, whose members keep history alive. I continually consulted Tom Beveridge’s Geologic Curiosities and Wonders of Missouri.

It was an exhaustive process to develop a cover that captures the spirit of this book. When I saw On the Beach by Rolla artist Ellen Pearce, I knew I’d found the art to accompany the title. See more of Ellen’s delightful work at http://ellenpearce.com.

Thanks to the Missourians, good and bad, who gave character to these stories.

For the 374 people who drowned in Missouri waters during the time I drove these roads and floated these rivers and wrote this book, may your families be at peace. And in the name of the canoeist who died from a bullet to his face, may we all seek a deeper level of tolerance.