The Dark Side
November 2026
On a Friday afternoon headed home from Metropolis Illinois, home of Superman, I drove through Chester, Illinois, home of Popeye.
Well then, after seeing the birthplaces of the greatest crime fighters of my childhood, what can Missouri offer to compete?
Following a more scoundrelous theme, Erifnus (my car) and I headed to a pirate’s hideout. Rumors persist that three centuries ago during high water on the Mississippi River, the pirate Blackbeard sailed up Joachim Creek west of Herculaneum and buried treasure at what is now called Blackbeard’s Cache Natural Bridge. According to legend, waters receded and Blackbeard’s vessel ran aground. The crew rolled the ship on logs four miles back to the Mississippi. Sounds like a tall tale.
Today Blackbeard’s Cache Natural Bridge keeps the name, and it’s a great spot to hide your loot if you don’t mind treasure hunters.
From there we drove through a mellifluous cadre of names—through Frumet, over Flucom Creek, past Tanglefoot and Melzo, Horine and Old Ditch. We crossed Skullbone Creek and passed the ghosts of Moontown School, Mothershead School and the old Saint Joseph Hill Infirmary for Aged and Chronic Incurable Men.
Darkness fell as my car reached the National Horseshoe Pitchers Hall of Fame in Wentzville.
We detoured to see the stars. Every Friday night when the sky is clear, astronomers welcome curious stargazers to Broemmelsiek Park to peek through powerful telescopes and take a gander at Orion and Polaris, the moon and the Milky Way.
Jack and Betty Broemmelsiek would approve. The Defiance couple operated their 494-acre farm with an eye toward conservation and a desire to protect this land from suburban development. Now as urban sprawl spreads deep into Saint Charles County, this land remains pristine.
During the daytime Broemmelsiek park offers a spacious fenced dog park, an agriculture educational garden, a playground, and picnicking. But at night it gets very dark. The local astronomy club knows this, and in a friendly educational gesture, club members bring their powerful telescopes to the park and allow amateurs to peek into the heavens. My son-in-law had driven our family to this spot a few months earlier. It was a hoot, and I couldn’t wait to return.
On this night I channeled the ancient mariners, the world’s first abstract artists, who drew imaginary lines between stars to make pictures. All of these celestial pictures have names, and if I spent more time bobbing in the ocean, I’d learn them all.
But seriously, how does the constellation Pegasus look like a horse?