The Old Heidelberg, Columbia, Missouri

[jumptheshadow]

What a shock it was to read in the NY Post today that the Old Heidelberg in Columbia, Missouri, had burned down last August.

I hadn't heard the news before. Where were all the journalists whose college days included being marinaded in alcohol at the joint?

The Post story, in its "Weird But True" column, stated that the Heidelberg owner has donated bricks from the tavern to the University of Missouri, where the Heidelberg was an off-campus mainstay. Apparently Mizzou alumni are snapping them up at $30 per. It might be true, but I hardly see it as weird.

In fact, I might just whip out the Amex and burn $30 on a smelly brick from the foundation of one of my all-time favorite dumps. But we are redecorating and I just don't have a clue as to where that brick would fit into the new design scheme. (With age comes discernment, I guess.)

The Old Heidelberg was a hoary old dive across from the J-School. It was there when I attended Mizzou in the early 70s, and probably had been in business for quite a while even then. Thousands of this nation's reporters and editors spent hundreds of nights in that gin mill, shooting the breeze, swilling the watery beer, meeting future life mates and hanging a buzz instead of hitting the books.

I looked up a newspaper article about the fire. It said that folks came to the site afterwards and picked up charred fragments of the tavern to keep as souvenirs.

I wonder how I could fit a burnt old brick into a Mission style household?