JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC

While my esteemed colleague, Tony Botello, has written at length about how bad many things in Kansas City are, including the Power & Light District and The Star, I’ve always defended my beloved city and most of its institutions, including P&L and The Star.

But now, I’m reconsidering. Maybe the balance has tipped, ever so slightly, toward the negative.

I returned home Sunday evening from an overnight trip to Tulsa, where I took our son Charlie for his senior year at Tulsa University. I opened the Sunday morning paper and saw that three young people had been shot on the Plaza late Saturday night and that Mayor Sly James, who happened to be at the scene, was shoved to the ground by his bodyguards. (My sources also tell me he was violently tickled.)

Even Kansas City’s Prince of Peace, Alvin Brooks, who also was at the scene, couldn’t quell the disturbance.

This comes on the heels of a rout of the Chiefs Friday night and a baseball game last week where the Royals managed to give up five runs in the ninth inning and lose, yet again, in incredibly creative fashion.

One more thing about the Chiefs…They are run by the three biggest dullards you could ever find in one organization — Clark Kent (I mean Clark Hunt), Scott Pioli and coach Todd Haley. (Haley has discovered that the best way to keep hopes low is to never change inflection and the only time it pays to shave is when he has a chance to get lucky.)

Then, there are (were) the Kansas City Wizards soccer team. I understand they’ve left town and changed their name. I’m looking for them out West, but I don’t know how far to go.

So, with things getting grim on several fronts, I think it’s time to consider alternate places to live.

A former editor at The Star, David Zeeck, used to be fond of saying,
“Don’t bring me problems; bring me solutions!”

Alright, then, here are some alternatives to Kansas City, if, like me, you’re thinking about lighting out.

Fortunately, as I said earlier, I went south this weekend, and I want to recommend three cities for our mutual consideration.

First, let’s look at Butler, Mo., which is about 65 miles south of Kansas City, just off U.S. 71.

Butler is called the “Electric City” because it was the first city west of the Mississippi to have electric power.

I pulled into Butler on Saturday afternoon, thinking about going to McDonald’s but not really wanting to. From the McDonald’s parking lot, I saw, behind the restaurant and across a parking lot, a Country Mart.

At the Country Mart deli counter, various meats and cheeses looked eye-poppingly fresh behind sparkling-clean glass cases. About five employees stood ready to take my order.

“Ham off the bone sandwich with swiss cheese and lettuce,” I said.

A couple of minutes later, the lady handed me the sandwich, perfectly wrapped, and said, “That’ll be $2.60.”

“What?” I said.

“Two sixty,” she repeated.

“The prices are right here in Butler,” I said.

“Like how much better?” she said.

“About $2, compared to Kansas City,” I said.

So, I filed it away, never thinking that Butler might crop up as an alternative place to pack up and move to.

***

Then, it was back on the road, next stop Joplin, at the juncture of 71 and Interstate 44.

Anxious to get a look at the town in the wake of the spring’s devastating tornado, I drove north on Range Line Road to a Braum’s restaurant and ice cream store. Along the way, I saw a few remnants of the tornado, such as trees down and a few bare plots where buildings used to be. But, all in all, the place looked good, and, judging by the laughing and happy talk I heard at Braum’s, morale is high.

I ordered two dips of chocolate in a cup, and the lady serving me came back with a four-inch-deep cup packed to the top.

“Two oh six,” she said.

“Huh?” I said.

“Two dollars and six cents,” she said.

Because I didn’t want to plant any seeds about raising prices, I didn’t tell the young lady that the same cup of ice cream would run about five bucks at Baskin Robbins.

I sat down at a booth and enjoyed some of the best ice cream I’ve had in a long time.

Little did I know when I left Joplin that just two days later I would be holding out Joplin — the city that about got blowed away a few months ago — as a possible residential destination for someone thinking about relocating.

***

The last stop, of course, was Tulsa, where everything happens on Tulsa Time, which runs a tad slower than in Kansas City..and even slower than Joplin in the wake of the tornado.

Charlie needed a bed, mattress and chest of drawers, so we went to a place called Affordable Furniture, Admiral and Harvard, where we’ve done business before. You know this stuff is affordable because a lot of it is set up outside the store, leaning against the walls, so you can shop from your car.

The impresario is a man named Malik, a friendly and accommodating sort, who just loves the college students. (His store is about half a mile from campus.)

We looked over Malik’s inventory and selected a pillow-top-type mattress (with box springs) and a chest of drawers that Malik contended was brand new, even though it had some scuff marks along the top left edge.

After some fierce negotiating, we settled on a price of $287, including tax…Why, I’ll bet that in Kansas City a deal like that couldn’t even be had on Truman Road!

So, there you have it. If you’re looking for an affordable place to live and you’re sick and tired of big-city prices and “flash mobs” running amok on the Plaza, I think Butler, Joplin and Tulsa all warrant look-sees.