QUESTION: How did the state boundary of Missouri come to include the "Bootheel?"

ANSWER: This is due primarily to a man named John Hardeman Walker.

There is a fellow named Bill Bryson who wrote a book about his travels across America. When he got to Cairo, Illinois he asked a filling station attendant if the people in town ever thought about pronouncing the town's name Cairo, as they do in Egypt. "Not here in KAYro we don't," answered the attendant.

You have to wonder what Bryson thought when he arrived in New MADrid, or HayTIE, Missouri.

When Bryson first saw the Bootheel he said, "You can stand on two phone books and see four states." He said he knew when he had reached a different time zone, when a waitress approached him with, "Kin ah hep you?"

The Bootheel is flat, and it is unambiguously southern in culture. But there was a time when Bill Bryson would have had to stand on a raft to see the four states. And there was a time when the area could have been geographically identified as southern, rather than a part of the Midwestern state of Missouri.

The people in Alabama like to identify the Florida Pan Handle as "Upper Alabama." The Bootheel could easily have been "Upper Arkansas," and that might have been fine with some folks, but it wasn't for a man named John Hardeman Walker.

The New Madrid earthquakes of 1811 & 1812 drove a lot of people out of this part of the world, but not John Walker. He stayed on and soon became the "Czar of the Valley." His extensive holdings were located around Little Prairie, which is now Caruthersville, Mo.

John Hardeman Walker wanted his holdings to be under the protection of Missouri State Laws. He lobbied in Missouri and Washington and won the inclusion of the Bootheel within the boundaries of the state of Missouri.

We all know the rest of the story:

The Little River Drainage District started the largest drainage facility in the history of the United States. They built a series of ditches that were to drain off what was formerly "Swampeast Missouri," and take advantage of the rich alluvial soil. This monumental project moved over a million cubic yards of earth -- more than was moved in the building of the Panama Canal.

The Bootheel is not blessed with tourist attractions, such as can be found in the Ozark region, or other parts of the state. But there is an adage that says "You must take the bitter with the sweet, to make the sweet, sweet."

We will never have a downhill ski champion, but we will have unsurpassable sunrises and sunsets, unhindered by mountain foliage. Parking brakes are a useless appendage in the Bootheel.

We don't have a beautiful coastline. But we don't have hurricanes or mud slides either. A forest fire in the Bootheel is when someone is burning off the leaves.

Our fishermen don't have to travel far to catch about any fish they want, and don't have to worry about sharks, or tsunamis. Our golfers always have a flat lie, and our joggers never have to trudge uphill.

Although closer in culture and geography to the grits and gravy states, we give our allegiance to the St. Louis Cardinals and the University of Missouri.

We are uniquely Bootheelian.

QUESTION: Why have a number of older people stopped watching situation comedies on television?

Answer: If you have been listening to the infernal laugh machine for too many years, it finally becomes intolerable.

Laughter normally stimulates laughter. Most of early television was done live. The studios had a trick for comedy shows, whereby they would put one or two people in the audience who had a big, infectious laugh.. This stimulated laughter for even the weakest joke.

Today just about all of the comedy shows are taped before hand, with laughter being handled by the annoying laugh machine.

Scene One

One of the leading characters walks into the room. The laugh machine twitters. One character says to the other, "Hello, there." The laugh machine twitters, with a few giggles. The other character says, "I've had a bad day. The boss has been on my butt all day." The laugh machine has a big laugh. "Welcome to the club, pussy cat," says the other fellow. And the laugh machine explodes.

Funny? Not at all. Exaggerated? Not much. The laugh machine will laugh at some of the weakest prattle ever presented to the American public.

Wait until you get old. By that time you will be sick and tired of the laugh machine too.

Pity the poor stand-up comic. Many, many of them have died on their feet, in lack of a laugh machine.