Day 12 - Wardell, MO - Conclusion

"I'm going to show you why all of the men in the family drank."

We were on our way to tour the key sites of my mom's childhood ending with Wardell, MO. What happened in Wardell?

We started in Bell City where she went to elementary school.

Next up, we drove to the site of the farm that she grew up on. The home she lived in is gone now. It had a tin roof (busted!) and the outhouse was in the back.

"Those trees right there were planted by my Daddy."

I step out the car to get some pictures of the area.

I don't relate to this at all.

Next to this property lives Jimmy W. My Mom went to see him yesterday while I was in Marceline. I missed out on meeting him. He is four or five years older than my Mom and he clearly meant something to her.

I can't tell you how many times on this trip I've heard, "If I hadn't of left Missouri, I would've been pregnant at 15 by that Jimmy W."

We move on to Wardell. We aren't using GPS to find these locations.

We are using my Mom's childhood memories.

Once we get to Wardell, I understand why the men all drank here.

The neighborhoods that we've been in so far have been nice, middle-class homes.

This wasn't.

The homes were beat up.

Tape on broken windows.

Cars parked inside bushes.

It looks like a town on the verge of being abandoned.

It makes me value what I have.

We drive around an area that my Mom calls "The Colony." Both her mother's family and her father's family lived here at the same time. She's not sure how the two of them met.

Next stop is Grandma Hatley's place. The original house is no longer there. It is where my Mom was born.

"You know I was born here on the kitchen table?" she asks me.

"Yep. Was there a doctor there?"

"A drunk one!" she responds.

We pause here for a moment before Jack breaks the silence.

"Torn down or burned down? Jack asks.

"More like fell down." is my Mom's response.

We head back to the main strip. I get out of the car to take pictures of a bar with a Confederate flag hanging and a sign that indicates that we are at "Beer Belly Blvd."

Jack and I then pop into the little store on the main strip to get my mom a soda.

Growing up on the farm it was a rare treat to go into town and have her father buy them a soda for a nickel.

"I want a REAL Coke. Bottled and made with cane sugar!"
Jack and I head to the soda section and have no luck finding a real Coke.

I do get a bottled soda but it is a brand that I've never heard of and it is a cherry flavored drink.

We head back to the car with the 3 sodas to go along with 3 Moon Pies and head back to Sikeston.

While on the drive back, we are treated to the sight of a small plane crop dusting an area just to the west of the highway. It is another one of those sights that I've always heard about but never really seen.

I watch the plane circle the area and dump poison on the crops below.

And I can't help me think about my mom's situation.

There is a correlation between some pesticide usage and ALS.

Am I watching the act that is going to kill my mother?