Kansas City, Missouri, was the city my father loved. I ventured there from Hawaii in 2003 to attend to him, and, like father like son, I have never loved a city more. The Heart of America is a tragic yet unbroken heart, always in need of revitalization. I took up residence in the nearly dead downtown as the Kempers and other civic leaders led by Mayor K Barnes endeavored to revive it yet again. I fancied I was a journalist like Theodore Dreiser, a hero of mine. Alas, the Kansas City Star would have nothing to do with me and nary a business would take me on despite my long experience and excellent references, for I was, as it were, an outsider. When I finished my business, I went on to Miami, an immigration capital, where I was soon employed. Yet I had my regrets because the real heart of America is the people there, and I found them wonderful, especially a little girl, named Sophie after wisdom, who, for me, represented the future of the Heart of America. I have a passion for writing so while in Kansas City I started my own publication, the Downtown Kansas City Journal, as a free blog because I didn't have the budget for a website. The articles here are a collection of some of my entries.
Does the Heart of America still have a heart? Kansas City, Missouri, is no longer the meat-packing heart of America. It became well known to residents as a "one cow town" because of a sculpture of a cow on top of a pole overlooking West Bottoms, the old stockyard flats where the Missouri River and the Kansas River meet. What the reader will find in this little collection is a freelancing gypsy's impression of the further evolution of a great city during his visitation of its deadened downtown under its latest revitalization plan 20 years ago. There are notable personages mentioned therein, such as Jonathan Kemper, the most prominent living member of the Kemper banking dynasty, Wayne Cauthen and his kidnapped, suicidal daughter, and, of course, Tom Pendergast, the convicted kingpin who put foul-mouthed but honest President Truman in the White House. Always present is the Kansas City Star, whose political twinkling was rewarded with a $200-million-dollar printing plant. So, does the Heart of America still have a heart? You damn right it does!
