Experiencing the Ragtime World from Home

I grew up in the 1940’s reading science fiction stories of time travel and of mysterious flying carpets. Today as I sit here in still small-town Missouri and begin to type this column, I am reminded of the blessing of being here and yet simultaneously, being anywhere I want to be without time travel or Aladdin’s fictional carpet. Now this isn’t another of my metaphysical meanderings. It’s a reality. Union, Missouri, is but a tiny dot on a map in the East Central part of the state. It is one of those places in limbo between the suburbs and rural America with both feet still firmly planted in rural Missouri mud while being figuratively plummeted about the head and shoulders by urban mud coming down I-44 from St. Louis. But I begin to roam and need to tie this together. If anyone would have told me 20 years ago when I retired from teaching college history that I would have a rich life of national and international involvement, I would have been skeptical to say the least. Yet in these intervening years as my ability to be physically active has deteriorated, I am more socially and mentally active than I ever was able to be while involved in my former career. The fact is, I sit here at my desk all day having daily contact with some of the world’s most fascinating people: talented musical artists, gifted researchers, people with challenging inquires, offers of fascinating new i