Just over a month ago, our nearby capital city was besieged with a tornado followed promptly by flooding from the rain-swollen Missouri River. Fortunately, there were no fatalities from theses calamities, but the townspeople still reel from the exhausting impact of two almost simultaneous natural disasters and troublesome resurging water levels of the river.
On the night of the tornado, a Facebook photo captured the roiling tumult of a malevolent tornado-spawning cloud as it churned across the outskirts of the city. Shortly thereafter, the cresting Missouri River breached its banks and spilled into the midtown area and over miles of surrounding floodplains.
With the capital building dome seen faintly in the distant mid photo, sandbags stand guard over unpredictable flood waters that threaten an off ramp approach to the Jefferson City Bridge near the submerged municipal airport.
The flood tide finally relented and started to slowly ebb weeks later, and folks began to recover from the storm damage. Bluegrass musicians gathered at a capital city yogurt shop for a sidewalk summer jam. Children and passers-by applauded the cheerful homespun music and harmony singing, and our clogger instructed dance steps to those daring enough to kick-up their heels.
Heartened by the rebounding festive community spirit, an on-looking citizen exclaimed, “This is what Jefferson City needs!”
When this antique and unmarked banjo first appeared in the BRC workshop, it was a forlorn grime covered instrument with a detached fretboard, fractured or missing mother of pearl inlays, and a yellow brown calfskin head that had dried into parched shoe leather.
