Missouri loves company

Nov. 11 – Columbia, MO

Autumn is the only time to hang out in a college town. Brick, ivy and neo-classical masonry have a way of harmonizing with the color of the leaves and sky, and if it's Veteran's Day and the temperature gets into the 70s for no discernible reason, you have a bonus.

"College town" is a misnomer; we'd been to college towns: those that have no apparent function other than as the seat of their institutions (see Cleveland, Mississippi). Columbia, of course, is a university town: the University of Missouri. And just as Mizzou's various disciplines and departments amass into an amalgam of learning, the admixture of students, teachers, professionals and entrepreneurs makes the University Town a community of living.

I knew this about Columbia on Election Day in 2004. I knew I would be driving that day, home from Colorado, and wanted a stop-over point that I knew would be friendly to my side, where I could sit among peers and watch the results roll in. I chose Columbia, but for some reason I didn't find my peers that night. I ended up watching the debacle from the lounge of my truck-stop motel next to Interstate 70—suffice to say, it was the wrong crowd.

Three years and a week later, redemption came. This time I knew where I was going for food, drink and conversation, because William Least Heat-Moon, in River-Horse, writes that the Flat Branch brew pub "is a place of excellent ales and pilseners, with a dictionary and world almanac behind the bar to settle wagers." Be that endorsement as it may, for me it was also a comfortable place with a patio, open until midnight on a Sunday. And as "Will" (with whom our waiter plays softball) also writes, it was probably also "a direct contributor…to my social health" since the dozen-and-a-half people I dragged with me had the majority of a good time, saving me from the ignominy of a poor suggestion.

We closed the city down that night, with no sign of the college crowd (the University Town stays open, crowd or no), but the Eastside Tavern's owner was happy to see us anyway. With his well-reasoned yet liberally disseminated views on how Things Ought To Be Around Here, it was no surprise to read later (in MU's student rag The Maneater) that he's running for city council [proof]. That's one election night outcome I might be happy about.

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