Following Huck Finn: Hannibal, MO

As both the thematic and geographic capstone of our climb up the river, my expectations for Hannibal were high. Mark Twain was born in Flordia, MO, not far from Hannibal, where he spent most of his adolescence. Twain drew from his years in Hannibal for inspiration for many of the characters and places in Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. This year was the 175th anniversary of his birth– and the annual "Tom Sawer Days" festival was set to be bigger than ever before. Sadly, my high expectations were not well met.

But let's backtrack a bit: we left Memphis early as hell (read: 3am) in order to get to Cairo at dawn (pronounced KAY-row), where the Ohio and the Mississippi river join forces, and still make it to Hannibal in time for the parade. We departed in the night after two or three hours of sleep and arrived in Cairo just as the sun was peaking over the horizon. We jumped on our bikes and took a short ride into the now-abandoned single tourist attraction in Cairo: the RV park in the little leg of land that extends out between the two rivers before they merge. This town was so poor it couldn't maintain its only possible tourist money machine.

Almost every building in Cairo had a "for public auction" sign on it. Some of these buildings would make amazing artist studios, this place felt like what I imagine Marfa felt like before Donald Judd came and bought up all the land. There were still a few people inhabiting the city– it wasn't a ghost town exactly– it had the feel of a town that in it's old age had grown unsure what to do with itself.

After a short amount of exploring we parted ways with Cairo, a town rich with history and beset with problems, in order to reach Hannibal in time for the parade, which I, like any red-blooded American, was disproportionately excited about.

We rolled into town and it looked like any other middle American town. At one point, it had industry, and now, it doesn't. So in order to continue to exist it had to latch on to the one thing it still has: history. Since Hannibal stopped being an important stop on the river it has been come a deadly tourist trap designed to suck the life out of every last drop of authentic experience.

Do you ever wish something was a joke... that sadly isn't (and takes itself far too seriously)? Everything in Hannibal attempted to profiteer from its native son. There was a "Mark Twain Boyhood home, Becky Thatcher House, Twainland Express, Mark Twain Wax Museum, Mark Twain Family Restaurant, Mark Tawain Dinette, Mark Twain Fried Chicken, Mark Twain Book & Gift Shop, Beck Thatcher Book & Gift Shop, Mark Twain Card Shop, Tom Sawyer Dioramas, Mark Twain Cave, Mark Twain Riverboat, Tom 'n' Huck Motel, Best Western Hotel Clemens, Mark Twain Outdoor Theatre, Huck Finn Shopping Center..." to name a few. (From Lies Across America) Of course there was also the annual Tom & Becky contests where pre-teen kids dress up as their best likeness to the famous character and give speeches of why they should be this years Tom or Becky (it felt sort of like Prom Queen and King). And don't forget the National Annual fence painting competition where professional level fence painters speed-paint to victory.

What we saw here was a white-washed Mark Twain, a Twain whose impersonators played as a genial southern gentleman without the characteristic lightning-bolt sarcasm and snake-bite wit. If one were to assess the content of his books based on the shops and attractions in Hannibal, one would get a picture of watered-down children's storyteller. There was no Jim the Slave in sight; there was no depth of any kind in what this town believed Twain was; the essential themes of racism, humanity and coming-of-age had sadly been completely lost.

I'm sure this is not an uncommon problem in many small historical landmark towns. I don't know why it hit me so hard here– maybe I just expected more from a town which held the legacy of such a powerful and controversial American writer than I would from any other old historical money grab.

I'm not sure if all this comes through in the photos, but here they are. – L