The first time I ever heard of this town of 3600 residents was driving from Chicago to Memphis. To my husband, who may have been my boyfriend at the time, Cairo was infamous; it was also infamous, it seems, to other African Americans. According to my husband, Cairo was known for having many speed traps, so he had been taught by "his people" to always drive the speed limit or below the speed limit through the area.
Well, I drive the speed limit (or just slightly above it) through all areas, so I didn't have the same fear of the area around Cairo that my husband had inherited. Also, my family had not migrated from the South to Chicago, so I had not grown up traveling up and down I-57. I in fact had known nothing about the town, so I thought that my husband was mispronouncing, exaggerating, its name. Why Kayro instead of Ky-ro? I'm sure someone has an answer to the question, maybe even some of the African American families that migrated there during and shortly following the Civil War.
It's been many years since I first discovered the town while traveling with my husband. Now, I have occasion to travel through the area regularly. So, last summer I decided to pull off and see the Cairo closer up. I was amazed at its decline, but I hesitate to call it a dying town for the reason that I hate it when people label my hometown of Detroit in this way. Rather, I am intrigued by what some might consider Cairo's ruins, juxtaposed with several mansions built after the Civil War. The mansions are in excellent condition, which seems strange but suggests that there is some business center nearby, which I did not find.
Cairo is small, so I suppose it was easy for the country to leave it behind. However, it remains an interesting place, one that would seem to have a future in one fact alone: it is so perfectly located between Chicago, arguably still a major national retail center, and Memphis, a major distribution center.
Here's to Cairo, a real symbol of absence and presence.
