On a crisp, golden October morning in 2025, the little town of West Plains, Missouri (population 12,200) shut down its one stoplight and held its breath.

Dick Van Dyke, 99 years young and moving like a man who still expects an ottoman to trip him at any second, stepped off a private plane at West Plains Regional Airport wearing the same mischievous grin that once lit up black-and-white television sets across America. No motorcade. No red carpet. Just a 1948 Ford Super Deluxe convertible (borrowed from the local antique club) waiting to drive him down Portsmouth Street the way he used to ride his bicycle to high school in 1941.

Word had spread the old-fashioned way: phone trees, church bulletins, and the cashier at the Harlin Museum Café. By the time the Ford turned onto Washington Avenue, both sides of the street were lined three deep: farmers in overalls, little girls in Mary Poppins hats, teenagers who only knew him from TikTok clips of the ottoman trip, and silver-haired classmates from West Plains High Class of ’43 holding signs that read “We always knew you’d make it, Richard!”

He stood up in the convertible (yes, stood, at 99) and waved like he was riding a float in the Old Time Fiddlers parade he used to emcee as a teenager. Then he did what only Dick Van Dyke would do: he started singing “Missouri Waltz” a cappella, and the entire town sang back.

They had tried to keep it simple: a private visit before his “Century of Smiles” show at the historic Avenue Theatre that night. West Plains doesn’t do simple when its favorite son comes home. The mayor declared October 17–19 “Dick Van Dyke Days.” The high school marching band learned the Mary Poppins medley. Every venue that ever held his voice opened its doors: the old Glass Sword cinema where he worked as an usher for 15 cents an hour, the Harlin Museum that now displays his original 1940s radio microphone, the little Methodist church where he and his brother Jerry first did comedy sketches during Sunday night youth fellowship.

But the real pilgrimage was on these quiet streets.

He walked the route like it was 1939 again. Past the corner drugstore where he and Jerry practiced pantomime in the window after closing. Past the Lyric Theater (now gone) where he saw his first Fred Astaire movie and decided dancing backwards was a life goal. Past the high school auditorium where, in 1943, he and best friend Phil Erickson debuted “The Merry Mutes” (two teenage boys doing 20 minutes of pure mime) and brought the house down so hard the principal cried laughing.

At each stop he left something small: a single red carnation on the bench outside the old Walgreens where he used to practice tap steps on the tile floor, a handwritten note on the marquee of the Avenue Theatre that read “Still tripping after all these years — Dick,” a quiet moment of prayer at the little white house on Broadway where his mother Hazel raised two rambunctious boys alone after their father took ill.

At 803 Worley Street, the modest bungalow where he was born on December 13, 1925, a new mural had appeared overnight: a 25-foot painting of teenage Dick in a zoot suit, mid-high kick, bowtie flying, with the words “From this porch, America learned how to smile through anything.”

Dick stood in front of it and let the tears roll freely down those famous cheeks.

“This town taught me everything,” he told the crowd that now filled the entire block. “These cracked sidewalks taught me timing. These church suppers taught me harmony. These Friday night football games taught me that if you fall flat on your face, you get up, dust off, and take a bow.”

He talked about the lessons only West Plains could give: how to make people laugh when money was tight and the world felt heavy, how to love your audience like neighbors, how to grow old without growing bitter.

Then he did what only Dick Van Dyke can do.

He asked for quiet. The entire town went still. Even the cicadas seemed to hush.

And right there on the corner of Broadway and Worley, under the same Missouri sky that watched a boy dream too big for a small town, Dick Van Dyke, 99 years old, closed his eyes and did the penguin dance from Mary Poppins (slow, graceful, perfect) while humming “Jolly Holiday” under his breath.

When he finished, there wasn’t a dry eye in Howell County.

Later that night at the Avenue Theatre, 600 people rose as one when he walked onstage in a simple cardigan and bowtie, no cape, no special effects. He didn’t open with “Put on a Happy Face” or “Chim Chim Cher-ee.” He opened with the song he used to sing with his mom on the front porch swing: “Beautiful Dreamer.”

And when he got to the line “Sounds of the rude world, heard in the day / Lulled by the moonlight have all passed away,” the entire theater became that front porch again. The circle closed. The boy from West Plains and the legend who never really left became the same person.

Dick Van Dyke never forgot where he came from.

He just took its joy, wrapped it in a bowtie, and carried it around the world so every time he tripped over an ottoman or flew with an umbrella, a little town in the Ozarks smiled with him.

And on this October weekend in 2025, the town smiled back.

Homecoming complete.