Paducah by Tel

Paducah? I saw that word and I was immediately transported to the old bridge over the river. I can see the downtown buildings in all their distant 1960’s shabbiness, and smell the coal barges heading for the Mississippi River junction. Paducah – it’s just such fun to say it.

I used to be terrified every time I had to drive over that very narrow bridge, worried that a semi would shove me into the morass below.

Now there’s a new multi-lane bridge and the Ramadas and Day’s Inns have sprung up alongside fast foods and fast gas. It’s strategically removed from the old view of downtown. and the once-rich flavor of entry into the Delta of Southern Illinois has faded to the blandness of every other interstate.

I miss the very decrepit-ness of Paducah, gateway to my hometown 40 miles northwest.

Paducah was such a sad place – and perhaps is still. My all white high school teams used to play their nearly all black teams – and there were always rumors of “trouble” after the game – big talk of teepeeing buses (or actually peeing on buses), when they came to our school – and talk of racially motivated “danger” when we went to theirs. But back then it was all talk. And of course, secretly, many white students hoped for such dangers just for excitement.