a battery of meetings, Erifnus took me deep into the Ozarks.
When you slip away from Branson’s glitter and strip away the greasepaint, the land and the people shout their own rich culture, punctuated by city-limit signs showing names like Mincy and Pine Top, Gobbler’s Knob and Walnut Shade.
We drove south, exiting the state through Blue Eye, population 129, where if you study real hard you can get a sheepskin from Blue Eye High . . . not that I would trade my bloodshot eye education.
Jane & Jesse, Noel & Nakedness
The road reveals unalterable truths. One such truth is this: You can take Jane out of the Walmart, but you can’t take the Walmart out of Jane. Jane, Missouri, is the tiny suburb of almost-as-tiny Pineville. Well technically it sits halfway between Pineville and Bella Vista, Arkansas. It’s just south of Big Sugar Creek State Park and Huckleberry Ridge Conservation Area. Campers and hikers flock to Jane, since this small town has a mighty economy, boosted by the county’s only Walmart.
Local history suggests the James Gang hid in the caves around here. There’s no solid proof. But if Jesse was looking for a place to hide, he couldn’t find a more remote location. Driving around these rugged backwoods, I can see how outlaws could still hide in its nooks and crannies, and get their supplies from the Jane Walmart.
Back in 1938, filmmakers chose this remote location of Greater Jane for the setting of the movie Jesse James, starring Tyrone Power, Henry Fonda, and Randolph Scott. The movie was a hit, finishing fourth at the box office behind Gone with the Wind, the Wizard of Oz, the Hunchback of Notre Dame, and ahead of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Not a bad lineup.
As word spread about the film location, thousands of fans flocked to get a glimpse of movie stars Power, Fonda, and Scott as they relaxed at Shadow Lake Resort in Noel.
Yep, Noel.
Even though the local motels and the post office get a spike in visitation every December 24th, the town isn’t named for Christmas. It was named for a man whose last name was Noel. Willis Bridges Noel. Went by the name of Bridge. Must’ve been an interesting character.
The town of Noel sits at a sweeping bend in the Elk River, with a reputation as a resort getaway on the cutting edge of wild and wooly.
The Elk River is seductive, coursing along a deep crack in the Ozarks, offering a scenic float through the very southwest corner of Missouri. And on steamy weekends, it can get wild. Drunkenness. Nakedness. Debauchery.
I used a delightful day to kayak Indian Creek into the Elk River from Anderson to Noel. Floaters were having a great time. I had a great time myself, but saw no orgiastic activity. Maybe things were calm because it was a Wednesday. But on any given sunbaked weekend, thousands of sun worshipers gravitate to this charming watershed. And somewhere along the float, a percentage of them lose all their inhibitions, and clothing, and they start freely distributing bodily fluids. Alcohol may be involved.
Not long ago, one Kansas couple brought their two young children for a weekend float. Before they committed to the trip, they pointedly asked the canoe outfitter if the river would be family friendly. “Oh, yes,” the outfitter reassured them. “We’re a Christian outfitter.” I don’t doubt that the outfitter shows up in church most Sundays, but to knowingly invite a family with small children to float on a weekend among depraved raving party animals is kinda like encouraging small children to play with a meth lab in the street.
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But the Great Equalizer has a way of evening things out. Drunken idiocy has its paybacks.
It was a hot summer day. A lady took her children to play on their backyard beach beside the Elk River. Along came some chemically impaired canoeists, who floated within earshot. Loud and lascivious, they spewed particularly vile passages from their favorite classic literature, Bodily Functions of Angles and Saxons.
Their unclothed cavorting alarmed the mother. She shouted out to them. “Please watch your language! There are children on the beach.”
Her request met a chorus of carnal cuss, a semaphore circus of anatomical demonstrations. She pulled her cell phone out of her beach bag. Seeing this, one besotted actor sprung from his canoe, bolted ashore and grabbed the phone from her hand. He heaved it into the river.
Justice bore down swift and sure. In a coincidence that may prove that there is order in the universe, a party of off-duty St. Louis police officers happened to be floating behind the attacker, and they witnessed the crime. Moving with all deliberate shock and awe, the cops nailed the poop-faced perp, pushing his face down in watery gravel. Local authorities arrived within minutes, and the lady’s husband, the sheriff, assessed a sobering charge of robbery.
As a result of this and other crime reports, McDonald County enacted stricter rules governing social behavior along the Elk River. The officials are doing their best to modify eye pollution and ear pollution and bloodstream pollution.
The jury’s still out regarding the efforts to reduce water pollution. But as of now, according to government tests, some streams in the region, and elsewhere in the state, are impaired. Some folks warn that pollution may be coming from tons of chicken shit, totally unrelated to the impaired chickenshit who landed in jail. The end is near.
Speaking of water pollution, just southwest of Southwest City, along Highway 43, a marker indicates the junction of three states, and I found myself standing in Arkansas, Oklahoma and Missouri simultaneously. I stood with each foot planted in a different state, and whizzed in the third.
Well, I thought about it, anyway.
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Dipping into Arkansas, I took a detour to Eureka Springs to see the giant statue of Christ of the Ozarks.
Besides his regular gig keeping watch over the flock of Pentecostal churches in the general vicinity, Christ makes quite a presence here, towering seven stories atop a formidable mountain. When the statue was first erected, he towered even higher. The Federal Aviation Administration cracked down on the builders of this glorious monument to our savior, saying that Jesus’ head was sticking into airspace, and as such, the Lord posed a hazard to airplanes in the area. Obviously, this was an awkward situation.
What would Jesus do?
The FAA’s solution was simple: Put a flashing red light on top of the blessed savior’s head.
“Blasphemy!” said the faithful, who instead cut Jesus off at the knees to get his head below radar and back to safety. For Christ’s sake, the faithful saved the statue from the indignity of a red light. For the statue’s knees, the end came with a terrible swift sword.
We turned toward Bull Shoals Lake and rode the old Toad Suck Ferry back into Missouri. This isn’t the original route of the old Toad Suck Ferry, which was on a stream way down near Little Rock. I guess somebody bought this old barge, with the Toad Suck name still emblazoned on its hull, and brought it up here. Riding the Toad Suck Ferry on the Peel Ferry route isn’t as romantic as climbing on the back of the ferry in the actual town of Toad Suck. But that’s no concern of mine.
And Erifnus enjoyed the float. Deep in the lake, beneath her wheels, giant trophies eyed the bottom of the Toad Suck barge as we crossed the water. Well, they’re not trophies yet. They’re the great-great-granddaughters of the trophies, the Missouri state record walleye, brown trout, yellow perch, striped bass, and largemouth bass. The latter record has stood since JFK’s first hundred days.
The
