April 30, 2007
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On a long afternoon drive out into our
hills yesterday, Doyle and I collected several new mental snapshots to
glue into our Ozarks Memory Book.
The first snapshot is labeled: "A Horse Meeting."
After
Doyle spotted this equine gathering, we had to turn around on the road
and go back so I could see it. Four beautiful sorrel horses with white
socks, who looked like brothers and sisters, were standing with their
heads close together in the middle of a big, healthy pasture, looking
for all the world like they were just having a leisurely chat.
It
reminded me of how I'd often see two policemen back home in
Mississippi, pulled up in a parking lot, driver's window to driver's
window, having a long talk during a boring patrol.
The horses' tails were lazily swishing. We could just imagine their conversation:
"Hey, could you brush that horsefly off my left flank for me? Thanks."
"Have
y'all discovered that good patch of fresh clover under the cedar tree
over in the north corner of the pasture? It's a dandy."
"Well, now
that those noisy grandchildren have gone home to Oklahoma, it looks
like we'll be safe from the saddles for a while now."
"Yup."
The four horses looked like they were enjoying a sunny springtime afternoon as much as any creature could.
We call the second snapshot "The Tea Party."
Driving
down a dirt road we hadn't been down in a year or so, we were delighted
to round a corner and discover a narrow two-story rock house that we'd
fallen in love with in 2005, before we ever moved to Harrison. Like a
house in a fairy tale, it sits under some big trees, looking just
exactly right, like it just sprang up by magic out of the rocky hills
to be somebody's perfect little home. Pink and white flowers were
merrily blooming on its tiny front porch.
"There's that little stone house we found the first time we ever came up here!"
"I had no idea it was down this road, did you?"
We
were even more charmed by it when we rode by and saw, on one side of
the house, five or six dressed-up people chatting happily on a patio
around a round table, under an umbrella, having what looked like an
English tea party. The adults were thoroughly relaxed and seemed to be
having a nice chat in the side yard, while three or four nice-looking
children were playing on the front steps.
Several cars were parked
under the trees in the front yard, so we imagined it was the children
and grandchildren home for a Sunday afternoon visit to the "old folks."
We were smiling as we drove past.
"Up the Ladder to Pretend" is what I'm calling the next mental picture.
A
few miles down the road, in a patch of pretty woods, we saw a
medium-sized tree whose trunk had somehow been bent by Nature and was
growing parallel to the ground, just about four feet high. A
rough-hewn, sturdy ladder of weathered gray boards - just three rungs -
was leaning against the trunk, obviously placed there so little
children could climb up onto the unusual tree.
I could picture
little ones riding the trunk like it was a horse, or walking carefully
along its length, pretending they were competing on the balance beam in
the Olympics. Or maybe cruel Captain Hook would have them blindfolded
and walking the plank, with the ticking crocodile waiting hungrily in
the sea below.
"I bet Papaw went down in the woods and built that ladder so the kids could get up onto their tree, don't you?"
"What a sweet grandpa."
Our last Sunday snapshot immortalized "Curly the Donkey."
Driving down yet another road, my sharp-eyed husband said, as he often does, "Did you see that, Honey?"
"What?"
"I've got to turn around and go back and show you. It was a curly-haired donkey. I've never seen one before."
Driving
past the small home of an elderly man who was sitting on front porch
with his large, bare feet propped up on the railing in the sunshine, we
turned around in a nearby lane.
"He looks like he's sun-tanning his feet," I said.
We
drove back about half a mile so Doyle could show me the donkey. Sure
enough, back a little ways from the road in a greening pasture, there
were two palomino donkeys, a mother and a cream-colored half-grown
foal. The mother's hair was as curly as a sheep's, springing into tight
little circles all over her back and sides. Neither one of us had ever
seen anything like it.
When we drove back by little house, the old
man gave us a friendly wave. He was still sunning his white feet in the
April sunshine.
By Celia DeWoody
Published April 30, 2007
Harrison Daily Times
Copyright CPI, Inc. 2007
Comments (5)
I just LOVE the old-fashioned rock houses that once were so common in our Ozarks. So many of them are gone now. What fun to discover one that is still being enjoyed by occupants! Sounds like your Sunday afternoon drive was fun. The best thing is that you can get out and do that as many times as you find idle afternoons, and you'll never see the same thing twice. Sometimes just driving a road from the opposite direction gives a whole new view, enabling one to see from an entirely different perspective. A new adventure awaits around every corner, if only we are looking for it.
I am fixin' to get homesick again... all this talk of mental pictures of beauty and love and Ozarks.
Cool!
Great mental pictures. Your jaunts have become our jaunts. Saves a lot of our gas money that way.
When I got to the end of this story I just said, "Wow!" You have such a great way of creating pictures with words. Horses in conversation, a Sunday afternoon tea party, the children's tree, the curly donkey; all so interesting.
I've been wondering how your brother's doing?
ryc: Writing another book is one of the reasons I quit at the Dispatch. Several years ago i wrote a bio about our experiences with cancer (before Merv had it) and was unable to sell it, so upon the advice of some editors and one publisher I'm writing another one in a different genre, but using anecdotes from that one to supplement it. So far it's going good to do that. I'm always glad when I can cut and paste large sections out of the old book and put them into the new one. That one will be an inspirational book, covering mostly the topic of faith and healing. Somehow it's taking a different turn from what I'd originally planned, but that's the way of books. and I have no doubt it's the work of the Holy Spirit. I also have another purely fictional book about 3/4 finished and I should get that done and over with, too. And yes, you can write that book that's inside of you, too. It's amazing how quickly a book takes shape by writing only so much a day. Or so much a week. And dont' worry about outlines and clear direction before you begin. I've tried doing this stuff the 'right' way and spent so much time getting rready to write that I have given up on that stuff and just decided the way to write a book is the way that suits you best. So just start the writing and let it flow however it may. I'tll be wonderful, I know.