31 More ramblings from Mount Olive

Chapter 31 More Ramblings from Mount Olive

Developers, Lonesome Dogs, Wild Skies and Wal-Mart Fall Apart.

It was still light and there had been an older couple with a young girl across the river in front of a house. They were fishing while the child was playing and shouting gleefully to her, I guessed, grandparents. When it started to get a little late they packed up and left. I was surprised because I thought the house was their home. They had parked in the driveway and walked down to the river as if they lived there. I might have been busy and not noticed they had not gone into the house when they arrived. I just assumed they belonged there.

One of my cruiser visitors explained the houses on the island were built as first and second homes. I don’t know how true his story was but it made sense of the dark house. The problem, he explained, was the new owners didn’t know the history of the island. They did not follow the real estate practice of caveat emptor. He said the unsuspecting folks were taken to the cleaners by a shifty developer. For some reason the real estate promoter told the potential buyers that the island was higher than a one hundred year flood. Two years after the houses were built, a normal rainy-year flood came along and damaged every one of the houses. It seems in the hills or the city there are few sales pitches one can believe. All else requires a lot of research, especially when it comes to real estate developers. The man with the rumor told me the house across from us had been damaged in the flood. The house had been moved off its foundation and therefore was unlivable. Sounded just like the deal Amy and I got into in Colorado.

When the little girl and her “grandparents” left, something happened I still wonder about. A scruffy looking dog showed up and started scratching at the back door. There were no cars at the house and, according to the story, I wouldn’t expect any but the dog was convinced someone should be there to let him in. He kept scratching the back door. Finally, I got busy with something and forgot all about him. Every once in a while I would hear him or her whine or scratch and try to locate him in the fading light. Then I heard a loud thump and could no longer see the little fellow. I finally figured out there was a child’s gate guarding the front steps leading up to the front porch. The dog had climbed or jumped the gate and was now up on the deck scratching on the front door. He stayed up there all night and no one ever showed up. I don’t know if he was still on the deck when I left the next morning, but that was the last I saw of him. I still wonder how the little guy came out.

I also wondered if he had tracked the little girl’s family to the house and was convinced they were inside? I guess it will just have to be another river mystery for me to think about.

I was able to get my cell phone to work. I called and left a message at the Cotter Trout Dock for them to have someone pick me up at Guion the next day about one p.m. Guion was only eighteen miles down river. According to my map there shouldn’t be too many difficulties with shoals and that sort of thing. I then turned the phone off to conserve batteries as they had just about had it.

Now the Guion message was sure to raise an eyebrow back in Cotter. When I left Cotter, the deal was for me to go up the Buffalo, spend the night, then come down to Norfork for pick up.

As I waited on the dark, I listened to two crows talking to each other. Each crow had his own big old tree one on each side of the river. The one on my side was just fifty yards or so back up on the tip of the ridge above me. He sounds as if he were right over my head. They cawed and clucked at each other until the darkness seemed to sweep them away.

I had quite the unexpected treat when the sun began to set. From where I sat I could see the sun dropping behind a mountain. The camera perspective would make that hill appear to rise from the middle of the river. As the sun dropped behind the hill, the rays hit the water in a beautiful golden reflection. The water turned gold but still bright enough to hurt your eyes. I grabbed a camera and fired away. When I was able to get the pictures into a computer I played with the color a little and made them even more dramatic. That was a nice gift and I enjoyed recording the moment.

I see a note in my little handwritten journal that says, coffee, camp chair, river and sunset …not a bad way to end a day.

It was finally dark and I was ready for bed. But once again, the Lord handed me proof of his existence. I think it was about ten p.m. when it got really good and dark. I must have turned over on my back and looked up at the sky. It was like Christmas without the colors. I haven’t seen so many stars since the cold clear nights of Colorado’s Conejos Canyon. Then irony struck me. I laughed out loud when I thought of the stars of Arkansas outshining the Lone Star states stars. “Oh the stars are bright, late at night, deep in the heart of the Ozarks.” This was a highlight of the trip. The stars did not need help from the moon. The river had its own lights dancing with a brilliance that could have been mistaken for reflections of a full moon. With the reflection of the stars and moon it was if day had already began to break. It was a beautiful scene, one I will carry for the rest of my life. I gave thanks in prayer.

Funny, I didn’t have my pistol and for this night at least, I didn’t feel a need for it at all. I was sleeping without cover, on a cot, next to a road, that ended twenty feet away in the river. I had already seen quite a bit of cruising traffic but as soon as it got dark, all that stopped. It had been about fishing and nothing more sinister. I liked it here and felt secure without a weapon. Again, I don’t fear critters, only people. Maybe the serenity came with the stars and the prayer, who knows. I do know I was finally slowing down.

Mt. Olive is where you want to camp if ever the occasion arises. There is a funky, and I mean funky, port-a-potty furnished by the Game and Fish Commission. Other than a boat ramp, the woods are at your back and the river is in front of you, and that’s it. All around you there is an aura of wildness, history and beauty. Try it if you ever have a chance especially if you’re floating the river alone. The place almost talks to you. At least after the people leave it will.

I wonder why I was so awestruck with the history and so filled with song. I wonder why I had been guided to this very special place. I looked down river almost expecting to see a big old steamboat or even a keel boat with its crew of rowdies coming in to tie up at the iron ring. If there is such a thing as a black hole in space or parallel universes for aliens and such, I think I was sitting right slap on top of a history hole. Yes sir, you could almost hear the sound of the boilers working while the wood and whiskey was being loaded from this very ledge. You could almost smell the sweat and the tobacco on the men loading the cargo and fuel. They would be off-loading some freight. Most of the supplies for the region would be off-loaded on Polk Bayou near the old Ringgold place. Then the wholesale houses of Batesville would send them up river in smaller boats or by wagon. Eventually the railroad would replace the steamboats and the big semi trucks would replace the wagons.

Then Sam Walton would screw it all up for everybody trying to make a living out of the distribution of goods throughout the Ozarks. Sam’s China-made products would circumvent the American way all the while selling the yokels on company patriotism. I still can’t get over the communities with so little industry watching the shirt and shoe factories close while they are driving to Wal-Mart to buy “cheaper” shoes from China. Meanwhile the neighbor is out of work and the guy going to Wal-Mart is seeing his taxes go up to support all the unemployed folks in the hills. Wal-Mart, to me, is as evil and as big a drain on the hill people as methamphetamines. Wake up people, you are letting them do it to you. You are the cause of the jobs going over seas. Every time you walk into a Wal-Mart store, you are taking away an American’s job. Just think of it. Every time you walk into a Wal-Mart, an American loses his or her job.

When I woke up the next morning there was a large grey bird standing next to my now floating canoe. He was fishing and the canoe was bobbing as if suspended from its tether. The bird had a brown cap and was not as long legged as the Great Blue Heron. He had a wise look to his face like he was an old man of the river or something. I was peeking out of my sleeping bag and he had not seen me yet. When I moved a little, he flushed and was gone. He flapped his way across the river to a less populated and probably higher-class neighborhood.

With the rise in water level came the usual cold fog. I got up, threw on my rain jacket. By this time I had learned it was a necessity for mornings on the river. I went down to the riverside and filled my little teapot. Then boiled the water for coffee and oatmeal. It is a great time to reflect on one’s larger agendas, this gray, foggy dawn. I knew I liked what I was doing and had enjoyed writing the first entry into this journal. The maps were starting to look marketable. Maybe I was on to something, at least it gave me an excuse to get the cameras out into nature. It puts us back to where the cameras and I started in the late sixties.
.
As I sat on the ledge above the river, I watched the fog swirl from time to time. I was cold in shorts and rain jacket. I don’t know what the temperature was but it felt like the low fifties. It was a wonderful time to drink strong chicory coffee and watch the world wake up.

As I sat there, one of those old songs kept jumping through my electric brain. How did it go?

“Well, I woke up this morning, and you were on my mind, and you were on my mind.”

Wee Five, I think. I sure wish I could remember more than that. “Something about having “worries oh whoa.”

It sounded more like a folk song from the Kingston Trio than a rocker but it got my attention and was another great one to sing in your head. Can you imagine kids trying to sing along to rap songs? Whew. No thanks! I’ll take the simple 50’s and 60’s.

That one goes back to Memphis days and a really dull job in Holiday Inn’s accounting department. Thank goodness some nice people worked there. I would have gone bananas without them.

Before shoving off I checked my messages. Debbie and Ron had called from Cotter. They were not going to be able to come down to Guion until about three p.m. They had a lot of fishermen to pickup and transport that day. I thought, “OK, I can deal with that”. I will just fish and float longer than I had previously planned. I had my coffee and oatmeal and shoved off.