know the Dillards, whether you remember the name or not. They were the backwoods boys who showed up to play bluegrass music with jug-blowin’ Briscoe Darlin and his daughter, Charlene, on The Andy Griffith Show. And never far from Charlene Darlin was a ne’er do well named Ernest T. Bass, who would demonstrate his devotion to Charlene by strapping love notes to rocks and launching them through plate-glass windows to land at her feet. Briscoe and the boys weren’t too keen on Ernest, on account of his terrorist ways. The boys just wanted to play bluegrass music.
In real life, they’re still some of the best pickers on the planet. I don’t know if they ever ran into Yogi Berra who, like me, married a lady from Salem. It would be fun someday to sit in the dance hall at Salem’s Tower Inn with Yogi and tap our toes to the Dillards.
That’ll never happen, mainly because they tore down the Tower Inn. And I don’t know if the Dillards ever get together to pick anymore. They wouldn’t be complete, since their bass player and world-class storyteller Mitch Jayne died a few years ago. Mitch’s local radio show was famous for its Snake and Tick Market Report, more meaningful than Dow Jones to folks who trade in rattlesnake hides or who discover a Hoo-Boy White Dot Crushproof Dry Valley Wonder Tick on their scrotum.
Anyway, Mitch is gone, the Tower Inn is gone, and I don’t have Yogi’s phone number.
* * *
The onslaught of Wi-Fi and cell towers and cable TV and other links to the outside world take their toll on Salem. Call it progress if you want. But Ozark people are slowly losing their insulation from the world—and their unique dialect, and a precious part of their charm. Three decades ago, I called for a friend who was dining at the Davis Cafe on the town square. A well-seasoned lady’s voice answered. “May I tell him who’s a-callin’?” she asked.
“Mick Jagger.”
“Hey Calvin,” through a muffled telephone I could hear her yell, “there’s a Mitch Jaggard on the phone fer ya.”
But nowadays, even Mick has penetrated these hills. And his portrayal of the Devil mixes freely with dozens of local Ozark spots named for the Prince of Darkness.
* * *
So folks in the Ozarks are losing their innocence. As the Wi-Fi generation matures, plugged into social media and tweeting and texting their way through these hills, they’re much more sophisticated than my generation. Not necessarily smarter, but more sophisticated. And they accept diversity more readily than their Ozark parents.
A buddy asked me if I ever worried for my safety when I drove deep into the Ozarks backwoods. His exact question was, “Did you ever hear banjo music?”
“All the time.” My response startled him. “And when I hear banjo music, I just pick up a doghouse bass fiddle and join in.”
When in Rome . . .
The Bullfrogs Sound Like Banjo Strings
I drove down to Akers Ferry, which connects the wilderness north of the Current River to the wilderness on the south. It’s an area where the bullfrogs sound like banjo strings. That’s not a crude reference to the movie Deliverance or a slam at Ozark hill people. The bullfrogs really do sound like banjo strings.
The ferry is operated by Gene and Eleanor Maggard. Gene’s family has been in the canoe rental business since shortly after the birth of Julius Caesar. As Gene and Eleanor prepare for retirement, their son Marcus will take over operations. It’s no small business. Two million people float Missouri’s Ozark streams every year. The Current and its major tributary, the Jacks Fork River, are part of the oldest national scenic riverway in America.
Ever since the National Park Service secured these rivers, the feds have licensed the canoe outfitters. Hard feelings persist among folks who, forty years ago, lost their livelihoods when they found themselves without one of the coveted canoe rental concessions.
Such a protected scenic riverway could never happen today. Not with the anti-government conspiracy theorists, who believe it’s their God-given right to employ nature to fit personal purposes, environment be damned. Most people respect these waters. But it’s stunning how fast a few idiots armed with trash and tractors can destroy the land and foul the streams.
The Maggards know the importance of keeping these rivers clean. They’re good at what they do. Gene just got a new pair of knees to support his gentle-giant frame, so he’s regained the ability to singlehandedly hoist canoes atop the big five-high canoe trailers. That’s something I’ve never been able to do, even with good knees.
His son Marcus could hoist two canoes at the same time to the highest rung. He’s that big. I have a special respect for good-natured giants, and it’s comforting to know they’re on your side in a land where the bullfrogs sound like banjo strings. Marcus and his dad can keep drunken yahoos in line, if necessary.
Hey, since history began, folks have gathered to get polluted. And on any warm weather weekend along the Current, a natural progression plays out in a bumper-to-bumper regatta, as revelers drink and bake and drink and become victims of their own excess.
Lucky for me I had timed my visit on Wednesday, the best day to float the Current River because it’s the furthest day from the weekend, furthest from the rowdy drunken bumper boaters who show up to bong beers and snort Jell-O shots and fall out of their shorts.
Despite all that shiny aluminum traffic and all that beer piss and vomit, the river runs clear, thanks to the hundreds of springs that pour their liquid benefit into the mix. The springs are cold, and when the air temperature pushes 100 degrees, nothing’s better than planting your ass in sixty-degree water.
We floated from Cedar Grove back down to the ferry, a distance of eight miles, a four-hour trip. Halfway down the river, we stopped at Maggard’s cabin, a favorite hideout for the James Gang as they were terrorizing the railroads and banks in Missouri. This was the spot where the gang holed up after the Gads Hill train robbery fifty miles from here. The hideout has been restored, and the legend preserved.
We hit Welch Spring, home to the concrete shell of a spooky old abandoned country hospital, a sanitarium established by a doctor who built the monstrosity into a bluff over a cave, hoping to lure sick lungs to gasp for clean, cool, cave air. Long since abandoned by humans, the cave is now home to bats.
Drunken canoeists whine and bitch that the bats shouldn’t be the only mammals allowed in the cave. But ecologists prevail, the delicate bat nurseries thrive, and the bats show their gratitude by eating their weight in bugs every night. Go bats!
Welch Spring explodes onto the river with the force of a hundred hydrants, and the water is bag-shriveling frigid. So when the air temperature and humidity are right, the cold water emerging from underground hits the warming water in the river, and causes a pea soup fog as thick as anything off Nantucket. The phenomenon lasts a good half mile downstream, during which surprised canoeists can’t see beyond their own canoes, and they can only drift, listen to those banjo bullfrogs, and shit their swimsuits.
The cold water of Welch Spring and its wall of fog energized my useful senses as I felt and listened my way downriver to Akers and its real live ferry that keeps Route K continuous. We emerged from the fog and arrived at the ferry crossing in late afternoon, where we emptied our canoes and our trunks and our bladders.
The end of the float brought the same satisfaction that millions of visitors feel each year. The float is not whitewater; novices can complete the journey relatively unscathed. Still, it’s an exhilarating
