Written by: Dominick A. Miserandino Photography by: Margherita Miserandino
In 1812 earthquakes hit New Madrid and made for a rather bad day for most of the residents. The town's not been the same since.
Today we arrived in New Madrid, a city stuck in 1812, and happy to be there. In 1812 one of the largest earthquakes in North America hit the area. It happened to hit exactly near New Madrid and everybody thoughtthe world was turning upside down. The Mississippi river was reported to have run backwards,while animals and birds went insane, and Mrs. Johnson’s pie didn’t bake to perfection. Since 1812, the town of New Madrid has not forgotten that they're earthquake prone, and seem to be a bit jealous of the reputation that California has earned. Has any California river ever flowed backwards?
Living in the New York area, I think it’s necessary to come to towns like New Madrid on a regular basis, simply to re-adjust your perspective on life. The pace is slow, the people are nice and the museums' entrance fees are only $1.50. A bit of a bargain compared to most major metropolitan areas.
When we entered the town we succumbed to the most brilliant marketing plan I could imagine. Since it was St Patrick’s Day, every store in town drew a lucky number and if that number matched your room number, you won a prize. Inevitably, it caused you to run from store to store in hopes of winning. We didn’t win any prize, but we did see every store.
Naturally everybody from the boat would run in and check to see if their number has won. Therefore, the end result was that the town were the really lucky one’s who got to convince every tourist to see a little bit of everything in the town.
Our first stop was the New Madrid Historical Museum. There we met up with a local resident who volunteered at the museum, and seemed a bit eager to tell us all that New Madrid was known for. I mean, they had a Civil War battle and an earthquake... did I mention the earthquake? They had models of the earthquake, graphs, signs, etc... It was only when we explored on our own, we also saw that they had one of the first sewing machines ever made, and other antiques like that.
From there, we walked around from store to store in hopes of having the lucky number.
Higgerson School Historic Site
Margherita wanted to visit the schoolhouse museum, Higgerson School Historic Site, a one-room schoolhouse that had tours, which were actually run by one of the original students who also taught there for a good thirty years or so. I sat in my school chair and was a bad student while Margherita asked very good questions. Considering it was just the two of us in this one room classroom it was probably a bad idea to try passing notes in class, as the teacher caught me pretty quickly.
The teacher threatened to paddle me, which I learned was quite common at that time. Now if they only did that today, maybe we wouldn’t have so many problems in our schools!
We went back to Main Street, ran in and out of some more shops, and walked the half a mile or so to the Hunter-Dawson historic site which is a beautiful ante-bellum mansion right there in Missouri. I’m not going to lie to you, at this point in my life, I’m "old housed out". I mean, every city we’ve been to have the mandated tallest view and oldest house to see. I’ve seen them all, or so it feels.
For me, this was a good excuse to go for a walk through the outskirts of town and see how the people lived around here. For Margherita it was a good excuse to get decorating ideas. She was very interested in the furniture in the home, which was all original to the period. I was very interested in expressing my desire to explore some more.
I didn’t win the argument and after forty-five minutes, we were able to explore some more, ending up at River Ridge’s winery. What? Wine? Missouri? How could you not try it? I mean, who would have expected it. Plus, I was a pro at this point.
River Ridge set up a store here just to greet the riverboat guests and for $3.00 I went in for the tasting.
"The Merlot tastes a bit oaky" I said like a pro. Brian, our Dining Captain would have been proud.
After drinking all ten-miniature glasses, I learned the real reason for a wine tasting. By the tenth glass whether you like it or hate it, you’re buying a bottle of wine simply from the dulled senses. We did like it ,as it wasn’t too oaky and brought some home.
Then it was back to the ship.
There were two more big events that happened on the boat, which I’ll summarize next.
After lunch, we went to the top of the boat to sail kites. Margherita was very interested in flying the kite and I attempted to be romantic and help her get the kite in the air, except I was suffering from an altitude problem. Out kite seemed a bit tired and it took a small committee meeting to get the thing up in the air.
From there, we couldn’t be stopped and kept tying more lines of cord to it. After six lines of cord (1,800 feet) we decided it was enough and headed downstairs to take a break.
Music and Margaritas Party
But wait, event two happened, which was the Music and Margaritas party. Margherita is always distracted by a Margarita party, although the spelling is different. We sat on the back of the deck watching our kite, and listening to Paul play the guitar singing some Jimmy Buffet songs. It was a regular Florida Keys beach party, on the back of the boat, in the middle of the Mississippi after drinking Missouri wine. I reveled in the fact that it made absolutely no sense.
The other big event was our social director, Eric James Hadley who did his show. I’m not much of a "show" man either. Okay, I don’t really sound easy to please at this point having said I’m not an "Old house" man or a "show" man, but that’s just who I felt like at the time. Eric however said I would enjoy the show, and I believed him. He didn’t lie. He did showtunes, (which I normally don’t like), but really got into it. Jumping up and down and enacting each one, I averted Margherita’s glare (because I told her I wouldn’t like it) and I sat there enjoying the show.
