Huck and Jim Wanted to go HERE?

Here's a bit of trivia for you: What are the only two states in the U.S. that border each other, but are not connected by any sort of road? Answer: Missouri and Kentucky, where the Old Man River who runs between them remains unbridged.

So, how does an intrepid explorer get to Paducah from Sikeston? Well, thanks to an ill-advised exit from the Interstate (looking for a place that serves espresso. Not necessarily a Starbucks, but some generic Java Hut kind of place or even some local malt shop that has an espresso machine. Anything! But was there anything? NO! Anyone in Southeastern Missouri reading this, a business opportunity awaits you), and questionable directions from a GPS unit, we traversed U.S. Highway 60 across the mighty Mississippi to Cairo, Illinois.

Yes, it sounded familiar to me, too. I was convinced that here we would find a place that would whip us up a mocha. So, instead of hopping on the other bridge (that crosses the Ohio River and goes into Kentucky), we drove into town.

Perhaps you know Cairo from its unique geographical position at the very southern tip of Illinois, at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. Perhaps you remember it from your 11th grade American Lit reading of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Perhaps you've had a chance to visit.

Well, I'll put it bluntly. Cairo, Illinois was, hands down, the most depressing place I've ever been. There were no Starbucks there, in fact, there wasn't much of anything there. The gas station and minimart? Abandoned. Boarded up. The Ace Hardware store? Closed, but still a few random black letters clinging with tenacity to the white marquee message board on the sign. The thriving commercial district downtown? I have never seen a more unsafe looking part of any town, anywhere. And when I say "unsafe," I don't mean because there were thugs congregating on the street corner, flashing their switchblades and staring you down with a crazy grin. In fact, there wasn't a soul around. I felt "unsafe" because I feared that, at any moment, one of the once-proud businesses that lined Commercial Avenue would come crumbling down upon our rental car. Vines, trees, and shrubs grow easily in Cairo. They have covered some buildings almost entirely, like they were devouring them, feasting on the heart within. Some buildings had trees growing inside of them, with branches poking out the windows, stretching their limbs towards sunlight.

The only two businesses that I even noticed were open were the Hong Kong restaurant and Shemwell's BBQ. We drove through the town twice, and I saw a grand total of four people outside, and they were four kids playing basketball on an unkempt court with no nets on the baskets and foot-tall grass bursting through the cracks in the asphalt. You could tell that at one point Cairo was a completely different town. A lovely customs house stands in the middle of town, a well-preserved oasis in a desert of decay. A tour of "historic homes" beckons the tourist, but my wife and I passed on that opportunity.

After we had left, and found relative paradise in Kentucky, land of well-trimmed shrubbery, I couldn't shake the images of Cairo that haunted me. I wished that I had thought to whip out the camera while we were there. Instead, I researched as much as I could on the web -- what had happened to this town? I won't bore you with a history of Cairo, but suffice it to say that there was once a thriving town of 15,000 people there (now it is barely 3,000). There was a lot of racial tension during the civil rights era that tore the town apart, and pretty much set the course for where the city lies today.

I was surprised to learn of the racial tension. I mean, this was Illinois, a Northern State if there ever was one, and National Guardsmen had to be called upon to quell the civil unrest there once. But then I learned that Cairo is practically equidistant from Chicago and Jackson, Mississippi, and it began to make a little more sense.

So, I satisfied my curiosity about Cairo, but it still nags at me. Is it well-fed middle-class guilt that gnaws at me because I know that people live in a place like Cairo? I don't really know, but I wish that I had stopped at that barbecue joint while I was there. Not only did I read a rave review of it online, but I have a feeling that my tourist's dollars would have been greatly appreciated.

For a fascinating video about Cairo, check out this link: If Rubble Could Kill

You don't really need to listen to the audio (the narrator is trying to be funny, but more often than not, fails dismally), but the images mirror what I saw that July day.