SOME OF ARCHIE SATTERFIELD'S WORK

Backroads and Byways of Missouri Countryman Press. $16.95, 30 b&w photos, 1 map


Satterfield's newest book, a history and guide to Missouri, is actually a rewrite of a book first published several years ago by Country Roads Press. It is a tribute to the state of his birth. One of the first reviews of the revised edition was in the Chicago Tribune, and it is reprinted below:
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By June Sawyers

Archie Satterfield is a veteran journalist who, as the title indicates, loves to meander down backroads, byways and all manner of lost highways. What he looks for on a trip are the kinds of things that are becoming increasingly rare on the American landscape—quirky towns, ma-and-pa shops and interesting men and women with a story to tell; in other words, places and people with character. And if there is a bit of fascinating history attached to it, all the better. No strip malls or high-speed interstates for Archie. If this type of travel appeals to you, and if you are, to use Satterfield's word, a "lollygagger" at heart, then you will love "Backroads & Byways." Being an old-fashioned kind of driver himself, Satterfield chooses places "that commemorate things that happened before the turn of the 20th Century." And so the endlessly curious Satterfield visits Lewis and Clark State Park, Jesse James' house in St. Joseph, the Amish country around Jamesport, Mark Twain sites in Hannibal and New Madrid, the "epicenter" of Midwestern earthquake country. Branson, the Nashville of Missouri, also is here, but a section on the lost art of front-porch sitting best captures the essence of this short but lovely book as Satterfield celebrates the fact that front porches still exist but laments that nowadays you seldom see anyone actually sitting on them.

The Chicago Tribune May 11, 2008

"What did you read for breakfast this morning?
"As millions of Americans have every morning for most of this century, you probably read the back of your cereal box, the most widely read medium of communication in the nation. If you are an adult, for at least a fleeting moment you remembered your childhood when you ordered a secret code ring or a balsa-wood airplane or a military insignia by sending a boxtop and a dime to Battle Creek or Minneapolis or Des Moines or St. Louis. You ordered the toys (known as premiums in the trade) secure in the knowledge that you wouldn't go down to the five-and-dime and see those same toys for sale."
-- The Elks Magazine

"Once you have visited the Balearic Islands, Spain's prized possessions in the Mediterranean, you will remember them with a touch of longing the rest of your life. You will remember the big windmills that turn so slowly while pumping water onto the red earth, and the olive trees older than sin clinging to the hillsides. You will remember the cathedral that soars high above Palma, and the deep lavender light along the northern coast. You will also remember the school girls in their blue-and-white uniforms walking down the narrow streets past elderly men sitting at sidewalk tables sipping cafe con leche and playing chess while colorful laundry flutters in the breeze from balconies high overhead."
-- Mobil Motorist

"When I decided to return to the US after living in France for six years the part I dreaded most was the flight home. Getting there or anywhere else by air is no longer part of the fun. Since I was immigrating (re-immigrating?) it seemed a good idea to arrive in the New World aboard a ship, the way my ancestors did more than 200 years earlier. Although they arrived in steerage, I felt I had sufficient steerage experience from flying on commercial airlines. Being touched all over by uniformed people while dogs sniff and drool all over my luggage, then wedged into child-sized airplane seats amid a sea of coughing strangers for hour upon endless hour is all the steerage experience I need."
--Porthole Magazine

"The heart of Missouri winemaking is called the Rhineland, a touch of the Old World strung out along the last 100 miles of the Missouri River before it joins the Mississippi near St. Louis. Oak and walnut timber covers the low hills and row crops join with grapes to march across the rich bottomlands toward the river. Sturdy towns made of limestone and brick perch on the high bluffs along the southern bank of the river, most with the church steeple jutting above the treetops. Some of the oldest wineries in North America were established here. Since most were built of the inevitable stone or brick, they still stand."
-- History Channel magazine