Madeline (Giles) DeJournett is the Advance writer for the North Stoddard Countian. A retired high school English/history teacher, she spent 32 years teaching in 5 schools in Missouri and Alaska. These days, she lives quietly with a menagerie of wild and domestic animals on 52 secluded acres in the remote Tillman hills south of Advance. She graduated from Dexter High School in 1960 and Southeast Missouri State in 1964. She can be contacted at advancensc@sbcglobal.net.

Heat rage!

Posted Wednesday, August 8, 2007, at 5:02 PM

Okay, it is HOT! And I don't mean "cool" hot. Just hot! Today was so hot that the thermometer on the Bank of Advance sign wouldn't even work. I went by the bank to get one of those "How hot is it" photos for the newspaper, and there it was --- just blank. A trip inside the building revealed that the sign had been taken out by lightning. Right now, it's hard to imagine lightning...rain...clouds...or anything but that blazing sun.

Heat does things to the human mind. Suddenly a short little wait in the McDonald drive-through to get a cool iced coffee (vanilla, please) is just darn near intolerable.. Especially if you get behind the car with the people who order three or four of the Big Breakfasts off the menu. Why is it that these people don't just go inside, I think, as I try to back out and go somewhere else. (Who am I kidding? In Advance, there IS no "else" to get iced coffee!)

How do those Drury workers stand it on top of the elementary school roof in this weather? I'll bet they wish they'd started on that new roof when they were originally supposed to! Tut, tut! Oh, well, I take a picture of them, anyway, just for the local color.

Has anyone ever tried to fry an egg on the sidewalk? Seems to me that I've seen that done....but I can't remember how it turned out.. Waste of a good egg, I know that...

The weather forecast just makes it worse, when we see that row of 99's and 100's.... My sister-in-law in Cape said she heard that the heat index in Dexter was 106 today. ACK!!!

I'm making a trip to Memphis this weekend......Do you think it'll be any cooler down there?? Somehow I think I know the answer to that one...

Tell me again why we live in Southeast Missouri......

It's payback time for all that gorgeous weather we had in....what month was that? My brain is a bit addled...

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Why do you live in MO.cause you love it there and it is hot in Mi. and hotter in Iraq can you imagine those poor Americans trying to save a country and their own goverment goes on vacation, there is something wrong with this picture, what do you think.

-- Posted by rusty nail on Wed, Aug 8, 2007, at 8:36 PM
I know it's hot,but when I'm driving down Hwy. 60, everything seems such beautiful shades of green, from the trees, rice,cotton,milo and corn!

Memphis really redefines miserable heat, it is the asphalt jungle, as St.Louis is the original brick oven!

Interesting fact about Memphis,it is often called the"armpit of the South",with their myriad of delapidated malls,boring zoo,pay-per-view old dead kings and their crap at the Pyramid ,and so-so food.

Memphis has a fabulous "Memphis in May",when the weather is monsoon-tornado-muggy with fantastic food and they have one street(Beale Street) that is more interesting if you drink and my favorite place I've never been,Graceland!I just can't fathom paying that much to see what has been shown on tv in it's entirety,unless it smells better than I think 35 year old shag carpet smells.

I wish you well,for nothing I can say will make you appreciate the Hills of Tillmon as much as an August weekend in Memphis.We, your faithful readers,hope a full blogful of your weekend walking on the face of the sun!

-- Posted by Yellow Rose of Essex on Thu, Aug 9, 2007, at 10:49 AM

Madeline Dejournett's response:
Oh, no, Yellow Rose!!! Don't tell me that!! I've never been to Memphis in the summertime!! My daughter called from there about an hour ago, and said, "Uh, Mom, I just wanted to tell you that it's HOT down here, so be sure to bring lightweight clothes..." I said, "Well, it's hot here, too, so how much worse can it be down there??" but, from what you say, maybe it is.... Ah, she and her sweet boyfriend are expecting us!! I can't cop out now!

Oh, well, maybe, if I live through this experience, I can do like you said....and at least have an interesting blog topic! Now, if only that stupid driver's side window on my Jeep won't stick in the down position!

I don't believe we'll be going to Graceland.... Smelly shag carpet would just top it off...
It's just too darned hot! I've got a snow picture on my computer wallpaper and it isn't helping. We used to live through this without air-conditioning!!! How did we ever do it? We must have been tougher back then.

Yellow Rose - the carpet at Graceland smells exactly like you would expect it to.

-- Posted by Ducky on Thu, Aug 9, 2007, at 12:20 PM
I remember all those hot nights trying to find a cool place on the floor, this happened when we visited the in-laws and the kids were small ,it was great fish fries and home made ice cream ,my that was over 50 years ago but still a good memory.

-- Posted by rusty nail on Thu, Aug 9, 2007, at 3:14 PM
You could pull a Dorothy and close your eyes and click your heels and say over and over: "I want to be in Fairbanks. I want to be in Fairbanks."

According to the Fairbanks News-Miner's website (Is it OK to mention another newspaper?) it is supposed to be a comfortable 70 degrees every day for the next week in Fairbanks. In August! Why again is it that you left?

I noticed they have a live webcam on the roof of the News-Miner building. For anyone who wants to see what the downtown of Madeline's old Fairbanks stomping ground looks like, go to, http://arcticcam.com:16080/cam

-- Posted by FJGuy on Thu, Aug 9, 2007, at 3:23 PM

Madeline Dejournett's response:
FJGuy, thank you for the memories of Fairbanks and that webcam link! Do you realize that the Cushman Street Bridge was the only reference I recognized?? Where did those big buildings come from???! I can't believe my little old backwards Fairbanks has multi-story structures like that now!! I had to click on the diagram which labeled each building.

I remember how cool the August sun was up there. By the middle of next month, they'll have snow, and they won't see the bare ground until....mmm..April or May. Probably May.

You can mention the News-Miner anytime you want!

I feel cooler, just thinking about it!
Thanks Ducky-although Elvis was my first crush of someone who lived before me,I had a sinking feeling the only thing you can live without would be the smell.

My grandma's house was spotless and petless,but that old shag carpet always was funky!

Poor Madeline-may I recommend drinking Hurricanes the minute you get to your designated drivers in Memphis? Since they are the poor man's mini- New Orleans(if you can imagine that),it stands to reason they would copy N.O.'s signature drink!

We should stand at the MO stateline,with a welcome home party for you-after all we really are the greenest state in the land of the free!

-- Posted by Yellow Rose of Essex on Thu, Aug 9, 2007, at 6:43 PM

Madeline Dejournett's response:
I have a feeling I'll need that Welcome Home party, Yellow Rose! In fact, I feel as if I need it right now! You'll never believe what interrupted me, as I was reading your entry.....My dogs were raising a ruckus in the yard, and I could tell that they had a snake cornered, so I took out my 4.10 shotgun and used about A DOZEN shells to blast a two-foot rattlesnake to smitherines!! (I must learn to take better aim!)

I think I've finally quit shaking!

So, get the Welcome Home part ready, guys and gals!

Now, where is that Hurricane?? Sounds really good right now!
I was a little disoriented until I realized that the picture is looking South into downtown. You can't tell it from the picture, but just beyond the trees at the end of the parking lot is the Chena River.

Also, for readers with extra brain space to store fascinating bits of trivia, Fairbanks' first pizza parlor was in the two story building just across the street from the webcam on the right hand side of the picture.

Another trivia tidbit is that Fairbanks used to have more adult drinking establishments (OK ... bars/restaurants!) per capita than any other city in the United States, which gave it what some people thought was a lot of good ole' fashioned frontier "character." I wonder how many of those downtown establishments were destroyed to make way for that big ugly hotel that has absolutely no "character." Hum... Madeline would have been of a certain age when she moved to Fairbanks, so she may have memories of dining in some of those "establishments."

-- Posted by FJGuy on Thu, Aug 9, 2007, at 7:04 PM

Madeline Dejournett's response:
No, no! Those places on ... was it Second Avenue?...were too rough for us! I remember going out to the ...What was that place called...sawdust on the floor...we sat on nail kegs...they recited "The Cremation of Sam McGee"...Red Dog Saloon?? No, that's not it... How could I have forgotten it? It's quite famous.... Help me out here, FJGuy!

My mind is like a rusty door....It actually creaks when I try to use it!!
Back in the fifties, nobody had air conditioning except for the "drug stores" (which didn't mean what it sounds like it means nowadays). They had those signs with a picture of a chunk of ice, and it was SO MAGICALLY COOL when you walked through the door!

But the drug stores just weren't as much fun as the DRIVE IN MOVIES, where it got pretty darn HOT in those cars.

-- Posted by goat lady on Fri, Aug 10, 2007, at 7:25 AM
There was a place with sawdust on the floor that served moose burgers. And for the uninitiated that wasn't just the burger's name. It was made from 'honest to god' moose meat. Is that the place you're thinking of? I don't remember the name of the place.

You're right about how wonderful drug stores used to be. They had those long diner counters with stools, and they served genuine ice cream milkshakes and ice cream cones. Think about that as your baking in the heat! James Garner's character in the movie Murphy's Romance was the proprietor of an old fashioned drug store.

-- Posted by FJGuy on Fri, Aug 10, 2007, at 3:25 PM

Madeline Dejournett's response:
No, no, FJGuy, this place didn't serve mooseburgers -- It was a saloon, located somewhere in the countryside outside Fairbanks. The name may HAVE been the Red Dog Saloon.

Everyone I can ask about it is dead!
I figured why not check Google? Sure enough, you're right! There is a Red Dog Saloon and it is outside of Fairbanks. However, you must have had quite a night of revelry that resulted in a bit of memory loss. The Red Dog Saloon is on Fairbanks Street in Juneau ... 800 miles from Fairbanks!!

It is good to know that your Red Dog adventure didn't affect your "eye." After your rattlesnake sharpshooting, do we now call you 'deadeye Madeline'?

-- Posted by FJGuy on Sun, Aug 12, 2007, at 8:07 PM
You know, it's hotter in Iraq and their air conditioning probably doesn't work as well as ours, so remind me, why is my government on vacation while we have troops engaged in war? Politicians make me hot.

-- Posted by I.B. Le Truth on Tue, Aug 14, 2007, at 11:39 PM
Mmm...I would have thought sure that FJGuy would take you up on that Iraqi challenge, I.B., or I would have responded sooner.

No political comments from a goatherder, though! We're not properly equipped for politics. We deal with hoof trimmers and buckets, fly spray and wormers.... No room for politics in the goat herd.

But we all agree that it's HOT!!!

-- Posted by goat lady on Mon, Aug 20, 2007, at 9:58 PM
Well it was true wasn't it. We are degrading the Iraqi government for going on their summer break and our politician are doing the same thing while we have troops dieing. That does make me hot.

Hey, do you have a lead goat? Is there an Alpha male or female?

-- Posted by I.B. Le Truth on Mon, Aug 20, 2007, at 10:41 PM
Oh, yes, the alpha female, for some unexplainable reason is June Bug, a beautiful, dark red goat with a white band around her middle. However, she doesn't really "lead" - more like bully - the rest of the goats. She was Billy's favorite, too, when he was still on the farm.

-- Posted by goat lady on Tue, Aug 21, 2007, at 9:24 PM
Did you feed Billy the Goat some of cakelady's "special" cakes , did he expire from the heat or did he go to that local town that sells goat burgers? Inquiring minds want to know.

-- Posted by Ducky on Wed, Aug 22, 2007, at 2:47 PM
If I remember right, Billy had served his useful purpose, but I can't remember what happened to him. What did you do with him GL?

-- Posted by I.B. Le Truth on Wed, Aug 22, 2007, at 9:17 PM
Billy went off to the Great Goat Auction in the Sky, rest his soul.

I was tired of his trying to beat down my fences to get to the girls at the wrong time of the year. One day the batteries in the cattle prod would fail me at a crucial moment, and Billy would stomp me into oblivion!

-- Posted by goat lady on Thu, Aug 23, 2007, at 5:56 PM
I knew it. Poor Billy.

-- Posted by I.B. Le Truth on Thu, Aug 23, 2007, at 9:03 PM
Poor Billy?!! He terrorized the entire farm for months! If he had been a good boy, I'd have probably kept him around until he died of old age!

You just try dealing with a 200-pound hunk of horned menace!!

-- Posted by goat lady on Sun, Aug 26, 2007, at 7:25 AM
Sounds a little like my last boyfriend. Ick. I'm glad you sent Billy to the Great Goat Auction in the Sky, bless his heart.

-- Posted by Ducky on Tue, Aug 28, 2007, at 3:08 PM
Yes, sometimes it's best. Whether goat or human, if 200-pound creatures cannot co-exist peacefully with the rest of God's creatures, they need to be incarcerated, or - barring that possibility - terminally readjusted.

-- Posted by goat lady on Thu, Aug 30, 2007, at 7:00 AM

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