RIVER CITY JOURNAL: BIG IDEAS ARE JUST LIKE SNOWBALLS ROLLING DOWN A HILL

But this is July, isn't it? How far do you think that snowball is going to go on a day like today?

OK. Maybe it's my fault after all.

I'll take the blame for giving everybody the notion to think big.

Look at what we've got going in Cape Girardeau right now:

There are all those school construction and renovation projects that are costing millions more than anticipated. Don't worry. Think big. The money will be there. Trust us.

The university has so many smart people cooped up in a small space that you couldn't expect anything less from them than a River Campus, polytechnic (is this what we used to call shop class?) building, the city's largest manmade waterfall, multilevel parking garage, alumni center and nylon grass in Houck Stadium.

Think-big fever has the city going in circles. Imagine a traffic circle right here in Cape Girardeau. Never mind that Rome has had roundabouts for 2,000 years.

And has been trying to get rid of them for 1,999 years.

And the churches. Have you ever seen so many grand houses of prayer and praise going up at one time at any place in your life? I'll swear (which, of course, I wouldn't do in church) you could play baseball inside some of our fine new religious edifices.

Say, that's not such a bad idea ... .

Whoops! See how easy it is for things to get out of control?

Some of my friends are saying, Joe (some folks use names that aren't quite so nice), everything went haywire because you kept carrying on about that downtown golf course. Pretty soon everybody thought it was OK to think big. See what you've done.

Yes, indeed, I see the error of my ways.

I should have started with a putting green on the Missourian's parking lot instead of aiming for an 18-hole championship golf course ranging over the courthouse lawn and along the great barrier reef, otherwise known as the floodwall, along that what's-its-name river.

Frankly, the downtown golf course, which is probably one of the grandest ideas ever to hit Cape Girardeau, has developed into a perpetual-motion machine. I thought I'd have to do a lot of head-knocking and heavy-handed persuasion to get backers. But that's not the case at all.

In fact, I've got so many people champing at the bit to get this downtown golf course going that I've already booked tee times well past the year Social Security is supposed to go kerplop.

I must say, however, that I've been doing a lot of deep thinking about all this. If all these grand ideas floating around Cape Girardeau really are my fault because of the amazing and indisputably outstanding golf-course concept, then maybe I owe it to the community to make amends.

A reasonable person, it seems to me, would try to get the town back on course: Start thinking small again. Aim low. Give all the lukewarm support you can. Find reasons not to do great things, because we'll all save money in the long run. Tear down other people's great ideas. That's what people like to hear.

Let me be blunt here.

I'm not a reasonable person.

I happen to think the downtown golf course is the best thing since the TV remote control and duct tape -- so you know I think it's really, really great. Just ask me.

Instead of letting traffic circles and horseshoe-shaped museums get in my way, I intend to steamroll my golf course.

As a matter of fact, I think we can find ways to make the golf course a part of every big idea that comes along. You want examples?

Well, obviously the River Campus -- with its museum, its performing arts center and its dance studios -- is missing something. Something like a 16th hole.

Traffic circle? A nice par-three with a tee box in the grassy median of Normal Avenue.

Artificial turf? There's the ticket for that tricky green on the 15th hole next to the river. Paste a little fake grass on the concrete on the river side of the floodwall and -- Presto! -- you have a green to rival just about anything at the municipal golf course.

Obviously, most of you reading this are eager to get going on the downtown golf course as soon as possible. We've talked about it long enough. I think I can speed it up. I'll get the university to kick in half the cost, even though I have no idea at present what that might be.

By the way, some of you also may be asking questions like, Who said the downtown golf course was the "grandest idea" ever to hit town? And who said the downtown golf course is an "amazing" and "indisputably outstanding" idea?

Hey. You just read it in the newspaper, didn't you?

~R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.