one of those cinderella days

Theresa Disney was waiting patiently for us all day in St. Louis, before we finally worked our way to her and the fabulous art she makes.   But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The day started with gray skies and rainy streets in Jefferson City, though we did manage to snag some Starbucks without a lightning strike.  That was a positive development.  And finding Chris Akers at his barbershop in Madison, MO near Moberly was another.  Chris cuts hair, like any small town barber.  But he also plays music, repairs instruments and gives guitar lessons onsite as well.  He's a motormouth with a hearty laugh and an uncanny knack for giving farm folk what they need in the way of grooming.  Make that for giving TV Weasels what they need. For  just ten bucks I'm sporting an Akers do myself, and pretty darned happy about it.  I forgot to get a receipt, so I guess this one's on me!

Along the way toward St. Lou, we sought out (and found with sketchy instructions) a yard full of metal dinosaurs northeast of Centralia.  However, the combination of wet grass, no shoulder whatsoever and gnawing hunger made this one a very short stop.  We may regret it later.

The rain kept ebbing and flowing, and even looked for a moment like it might wash us out completely in Wright City.  But the gods were with us, allowing a good look at what's recently happened to Elvis.  You may recall that the Graceland-defying Elvis Is Alive Museum has stood alongside I-70 there for many years. Not any more.  Now the big figure of the King is carrying a cross, and the sign says something about Baptist missions!  His momma might have been proud, but the rest of us are pretty shook up.

The traffic migraine that is St. Louis wasn't as brutal as usual, so we were only half an hour late to Ms. Disney's house on the Hill.  Well, not so much a house as an old dry cleaners that's filled to the gills with art.  Angels and devils play a big part in Theresa's work (she's built them into an amazing chess set among other things) but the main message seems to be "just create." It gives her a reason to get up everyday, find raw materials in neighborhood dumpsters, and figure out ways to make something that often calls for new adventuresin problem-solving.

The chance to wander about in Theresa's "private" spaces, the ones that no one usually sees was really quite an honor.  And time-consuming too, since almost everything in them was photo worthy!   If it was, as she put it,  a "Cinderella Day" for her, we too had a truly fine time pretending to be Three Princes Charming.