Failed search for Kincaid Mounds
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[After slaloming our way around the fallen trees for about a mile, I had to stop the car. Someone had cleared that far, apparently to reach the wheat field, but ahead trees blocked the road as far as the eyes could see.
The ice storm damage along the river bottoms in far southern Pope County was a shock. Fresh, yellow wood shines at the top of every tree there. Every single one. The ice did a more efficient job than a utility crew could in topping the trees and it occurred to me it was probably not safe to be on that tree-lined road.
I looked up for widow makers that could crumple the car and, for that matter, crumple Vicky and me.
We were searching for Kincaid Mounds, but that route to the archeological site is blocked until a clearing crew can get in. Considering no one lives in that desolate area, I have my doubts the road crew will be out with their chainsaws any time soon.
The country is flat and there is a sort of dampness in the air. Green clumps of mistletoe add an exotic element to the scenery.
We had stopped for a bit at the Bay City General Store and we spoke with the caretaker, Jerry Stafford. He showed off the old pickup truck that was converted from a school bus and demonstrated the passenger door still opens by the driver pulling the handle.
We also spoke about the days of filming the movie "U.S. Marshals" there. The store was remodeled into Roy Willy's Barbecue for the filming. Stafford worked for Southeastern Illinois Electric Cooperative at that time and was assigned to the job of snapping of electric poles in the area, as they would have been snapped by a passenger jet crashing into the Ohio River.
The crew created a memorable scene, for those of us there as extras, of a jet being on fire as it sank into the midnight depths. You don't soon forget the sight of a man wearing garish makeup - as though in drag - and a yellow jumpsuit leaping from a burning jet into the river.
It was a cold night, as I recall it, and I and my fellow extras - portraying federal prisoners on board the plane - were hosed down thoroughly for the scene of us struggling on the river bank. Then the director decided to film a different scene and we shivered in the November cold.
The lead actor, Tommy Lee Jones, and the director bickered constantly. At one point, Jones, exasperated by the director's demands, shouted, "I'm not going out there and treading water until you set up your shot."
Stafford said Jones threw 15 cellular phones in the river to make sure his scene was perfect.
Besides the store, there is little commerce in Bay City, home to about a dozen people. The town was at one time a social hub for farmers in the area. The river cruise ships would stop by to entertain with calliope music and would pick up and return people for shopping in Paducah, Ky.
On Monday the view of the river was expansive from the general store's perch on the river.
As the sun set, the geese and crows were flying to roost and the fields were filled with herds of deer. It was a quiet evening in a quietening part of Southern Illinois.
-- DeNeal is a staff writer for The Daily Register and The Daily Journal. He may be contacted at 253-7146 ext. 230 or by e-mail at bdeneal@yourclearwave.com.