Dear journal,
This morning, I walked through a door I last opened nearly two decades ago. From 2004 to 2007, I worked the front desk at the Carthage Civil War Museum, a small but dignified space on the square, nestled in the heart of my hometown’s historical identity. Today, I stepped back into that same role, now older and weathered by experience, but still grounded in a quiet love for Carthage and its layered past.
Time has passed, yet the marble of the courthouse still reflects the same soft yellow in the morning sun. The echoes of history in this town do not haunt. Instead, they educate. They wait patiently for someone curious enough to ask, “What happened here?” I have always wanted to be the one to answer.
The job itself is humble. It involves greeting visitors, managing the gift shop, and watching over displays that recount the story of the Battle of Carthage and the divided loyalties of Missouri. For me, though, it has always been more than that. It is a kind of stewardship, not merely of artifacts and dates, but of memory and meaning. When people walk into the museum, they are not just stepping into 1861. They are stepping into an ongoing negotiation between past and present, between what was and what still echoes.
Carthage has always been a place of convergence. Historically, it was a site of military and political tension. Geographically, it continues to serve as a crossroads. U.S. Route 66, the “Mother Road,” runs just a few blocks from the square, drawing travelers nostalgic for mid-century Americana. At the same time, the Jefferson Highway—an older north-south route known as the “Pines to the Palms Highway”—passes through Carthage on its journey from Winnipeg to New Orleans. These intersecting paths make the city not just a waypoint, but a destination in its own right. Tourism here is more than economic. It is cultural, rooted in a collective fascination with movement, memory, and place.
Fittingly, as I stood in line for the routine drug screening required of all city employees, my phone rang. It was the mayor. In a tone that was equal parts official and amused, he asked if I would be willing to serve on the Civil War Museum Board. I nearly laughed, not from disbelief, but from a sense of symmetry. First the job, now the board. This would not be my first time serving in connection with the board. During my time on the City Council, I had been the official liaison to the museum, representing the city and supporting its preservation efforts. Now, years later, I return not as a councilman, but as a worker and a board member. History does not simply repeat itself. It revisits, revises, and occasionally invites a person to return in a new role.
I said yes, without hesitation.
It is a strange and lovely thing to return. Not only to a job or a building, but to a part of oneself that never truly left. I was twenty-two when I first sat behind that desk. Today, I returned at forty-three. I am older, yes. Wiser, I hope. Yet I remain drawn to the stories that shaped this city and, in so many ways, shaped me.
Always,
Dave