For most of our history on this earth, extended families — clans, tribes — have lived within shouting distance of each other.
Grandmothers,
grandfathers, aunts, uncles, cousins, sisters, brothers, mothers,
fathers, daughters, sons — their lives lived out near one another,
intertwined in a number of ways.
A young wife, troubled about her
fussy baby's teething, could just walk down the road and ask her mother
or her grandmother for advice.
An only child didn't want for playmates, because just over the hill were two or three housefuls of cousins ready for adventure.
A farmer who needed help getting his crop in could call on his brothers and uncles and cousins, knowing they would help him.
A
housewife, lonely during long gray winter afternoons, could get
together with the other women in the family to quilt while they visited
by the fireside.
A man could talk things over with his brothers and his dad on their way to the woods, or sitting on a creek bank.
Many
hands made light work when it was time to get crops in, build houses
and barns, quilt winter covers, put up vegetables from the garden, or
tend to a sick loved one.
I believe this world of ours, where
families are so often cut apart and scattered, suffers from the loss of
this good, time-honored way of living close to our kin.
When Mama
was growing up in Mississippi in the Thirties and Forties, her mother's
mother lived right next door, and her daddy's mother lived five miles
away. She had aunts, uncles and cousins galore to enrich her life.
When
Daddy was growing up, he and his mother lived with her parents, and all
four of his mother's siblings lived nearby. His uncles and grandfather
took him fishing out on the Gulf, and taught him about boats and
airplanes and things that a fatherless little boy needed to know.
During
my growing-up years, our Navy family moved here and there across the
United States, usually far away from our kinfolks in down South. When
we were able to spend a few months in Mississippi, my sisters and I
thought it was wonderful to live with my mother's parents, with our
cousins right down the street. Granddaddy would take his riding on his
big black horse, and let us drive his golf cart. Our adored cousin Beau
taught us how to catch a football, and urged us to climb trees and do
outdoor things that a houseful of little girls needed to be pushed to
do.
When I was a young mother, I lived in my mother's hometown, even
though she was living far away in northern Virginia. I had the blessing
of having my grandmother and aunt nearby, and I got very close to them.
When my first son was born, the older women were there for me to ask
all the scared-young-mother questions: "What do you do about diaper
rash?" "How high does the baby's fever need to be before I call the
doctor?" "He's coughing his head off — what should I do?"
For just a
handful of years later in my adult life, I lived in the same town —
Sarasota —  with my mother, my dad, two of my three sisters, and my
brother.
Being close enough to run over to a sister's house to just
say "hey," or to Mama's for a cup of coffee and a piece of lemon icebox
pie, or to sit by Daddy's pool and visit with him, was a fresh delight
that never got stale. I overjoyed to be able to be at the hospital when
my youngest nephew was born, and to celebrate his first birthday and
first steps.
We all shared Thanksgiving dinners and Christmas
get-togethers, and lots of birthday parties. For a woman who had lived
so far away from her family most of her life, it was a rich, joyful
time to treasure.
I love our new life here in the Ozarks, and am so
thankful for my husband and my mother-in-law and my son being here, but
sometimes I really miss living close to my extended family.
My
grandparents and parents have all crossed the River, and now that there
are only the five of us children left, I feel more keenly how vital it
is for us to keep in touch and stay close. I long for our kids to know
and love each other, now that they're scattered from Colorado to
Washington, DC., to south Florida.
Sometimes I envy my friends whose
sisters all live within an hour's drive, who can run down the street
and have lunch with their mothers every day, whose children all live
close enough for weekend visits.
If most of your kinfolks live
nearby, be grateful. I know they get on your nerves sometimes, because
we all do that to each other, especially the people we love most, but
treasure your time with them.
And as for me, I'm fixin' to start planning a family reunion in the Ozarks.

By Celia DeWoody
Published Oct. 17, 2007
Harrison Daily Times, Harrison, Ark.
Copyright Harrison Daily Times, 2007

Hey, friends,

We've been having a very Ozark-y weekend.

Friday,
a couple of colleagues and I drove over to Yellville to the very early
part of the annual Turkey Trot Festival, which draws thousands every
year. Here are a couple of my favorite photos from that trip:

I
had to work on Sunday's paper yesterday, but got through early, so we
had time to relax in the afternoon at home. Then last night, we headed
down south to Jasper to the Ozark Cafe', where we thought they always
had live music on Saturday nights.

The
Ozark Cafe is a very unique old landmark, open since, I think, 1909.
They have great hamburgers, milkshakes, and fried mushrooms (Southern
health food!) But last night, instead of live bluegrass, as were
expecting, they had karoake, Ozarks style! I've never been anywhere
they were doing karaoke, and got a huge kick out of staid, unsmiling
grandmas who'd walk up to the mike and start belting out Patsy Cline,
or large fellas in overalls who could do a mean Conway Twitty. Of
course, some of them were awful, but more were good, so we enjoyed
people watching while we ate.

This
morning, we drove over to Yellville to 11 a.m. Mass because I was too
much of a sleepy head to get up for the 8 a.m. Mass here. Doyle went
with me and then we drove down to the Buffalo River over that way to
see about lining up a float trip on the Buffalo for next Sunday. We
ended up eating a delicious barbecue sandwich in the outfitters shop at
Wild Bill's, then drove down to Buffalo Point.

I'd
never been to Buffalo Point, which is a gorgeous state park, campground
area. Here are some of my favorite scenes from there. We're planning to
inaugurate our teardrop camper over there as soon as Doyle finishes it!

Last weekend, we drove over to Eureka Springs, and Doyle took me to Thorncrown Chapel, which I'd never seen. It's an absolutely lovely chapel in the woods, designed by E. Fay Jones, a well-known Arkansas architect, and opened in 1980.  The chapel looks like it grew in the woods. It's been called "one of the finest religious spaces of modern times."

The
Northwest Arkansas District Fair has been in town all this week,
complete with carnival, rodeo parade, and cotton candy. All of us in
the newsroom have been shooting photos galore for the paper. Here 's my
own favorite. I ran this on the front page yesterday:

Our goal was to find me some pretty old barns to shoot, and we found one that may be my favorite of all the barns I've collected so far:

How would you like to walk across a hanging footbridge
 to get to your house?

Or drive across an Ozarks covered bridge?

My eagle-eyed outdoorsman spotted
 lots of wildlife for me to shoot:

Did y'all know we have Rocky Mountain elk here in the Ozarks? Once native to the hills, they died out and were brought back in cattle trucks about 25 years ago from the Rockies. They have flourished in the Buffalo River area, to the point that the farmers in some places are really having
a problem with them breaking down fences
and eating up their pastures.
This is a young bull elk. I've never gotten one
this close before.

Hey, friends,
Boy, have I been missing my wireless laptop, which is like my right arm! Its power source died a week ago, and we had to order a new cord from Dell, which finally arrived today...yay!
Our big and wonderful news is that my sweetheart is about to become a published novelist! He's been writing all his life, and several years ago completed a delightful novel based on some of his father's memories of growing up in Arkansas during the early part of the 1900s. It's a series of letters between a girl, who moves with her family away from Boston to the frontier in Arkansas, and her male friend back in Boston. Anyway, D would never pursue trying to get it published, even though everyone who ever read it loved it and urged him to.
I met a woman via the newspaper, an English teacher from Mississippi, originally, as a matter of fact (a bond between us!) who has a small publishing company here in Arkansas, and when I told her about D's manuscript, she graciously offered to read it. And just a few days ago, we heard from her that she wants to publish in next year. We are both so excited about it.
I plan to write more soon. I have lots of pictures to share, and this week's column. But for now, here's a photo to make you smile. We had to order Hagrid an extra-large doggie crate, because he had already outgrown the one we had. He was scared to go in it last night when Doyle got it all set up, I guess because it smelled unfamiliar. So I got in first.

When you write for a newspaper, your stories cover the
whole spectrum of human experience and emotion. You're writing about
life, with all of its poignancy and fear and beauty and humor and
horror and joy.
During the almost 10 years I've spent as a reporter,
I've covered stories so heartbreaking they'll never leave me. Some of
them I wrote with tears running down my cheeks as I typed.
I'll
never, ever forget the pretty high-school homecoming queen who kept her
pregnancy secret from her parents, gave birth alone in the bathroom of
their home, then strangled her newborn daughter with a sock. I've
watched the girl's devastated father, the mayor of the town, standing
by as his hysterical daughter was being brought in in handcuffs. I've
sat through her trial. And I've gone back to the office and written my
story.
I've cried with a grieving woman as she told me about her
elderly father, a kind and respected man, who charged with manslaughter
after he went out at dusk one evening into the woods near his home and
shot at what he thought was a deer, and instead killed her husband. And
then I've gone back to my computer, and I've written my story.
I've
sat in the gentle springtime sunshine on the front porch of a modest
country house and interviewed a frozen mother whose little boy had
burned to death in their nearby house just the day before. And I've
gone back to the office and written my story.
I've talked with a
dignified, shell-shocked couple who had just been notified that their
Naval officer son, their baby, had been killed when the USS Cole was
torpedoed in Yemen. And I've gone back to town and written my story.
I've
stood on a  Mississippi highway on Ash Wednesday with a freezing rain
falling on the broken bodies scattered all over the road, after a van
crammed with too many Mexican workers was broadsided by an 18-wheeler.
I've knelt and covered up one young man with a shirt from my car,
trying to keep him warm until the ambulance got there, before I
realized he was dead. And I've gone back to the office and written my
story.
I've sat on Wesley and Peggy Bushnell's deck at Mount Sherman
and talked with them and their three heart-torn daughters about their
Billy, their fallen soldier son and brother, and we all cried
together.  And I've driven back to Harrison and written my story.
But
as you know, not all of my stories have been sad ones, and especially
since I've been here at the Daily Times, I've had the opportunity to
write about people who are making this world shine a little more
brightly, people who have inspired me more than they can imagine with
their big hearts and their unselfish giving.
I've talked to some of
the outstanding Mennonite young people who come here to Harrison from
all over the country to give months of their lives in volunteer service
to the elderly at Hillcrest Home. I've watched a handsome boy, at the
age many kids are only thinking about their own good times, helping a
frail old man to eat his lunch, as kindly and gently as a mother taking
care of her child. And I've gone back, and I've written my story.
I've
visited a group of women who gather to stitch quilts to comfort little
children who have been taken out of their homes because of bad, scary
things that were going on there. And I've gone back to the office, and
I've written my story.
I've walked through our Hospice House, for
which untold people have given freely of their time, their money and
their talents, so that our dying neighbors will have a place to go
where they will be cared for with dignity and kindness. And I've gone
back, and I've written  my story.
I've gone to see a kind-hearted
lady and her disabled friend, to whom she gives almost every morning of
her life. And I've gone back, and I've written my story.
I've been
to Make-a-Wish Foundation parties, and have seen love in action as sick
children's dreams are brought to life by the kindness of their
neighbors. I've seen their parents' eyes fill with tears as they watch
the joy on their son's and daughter's faces. And I've gone back, and
I've written my story.
Writing for a newspaper is writing about life.
Sometimes
my heart breaks. Sometimes I laugh. Sometimes I’m terrified. Sometimes
I'm sickened by the horror of it. And many, many times, I'm touched and
strengthened by the kindness and unselfishness and loving hearts of
those I meet. And I go back, and I write my stories.

By Celia DeWoody
Published Sept. 12, 2007
Copyright Harrison Daily Times, Inc. 2007

In the 17 days that have passed since Doyle and I adopted Hagrid, our Great Dane puppy, we've learned a lot.
Along
with finding both of our hearts being wrapped around his gigantic paws,
we've collected some amazing facts from reading on the Internet about
Great Danes....
For example, I had no idea that there were so many famous cartoon Great Danes.

Did
you have any clue that Astro, the Jetsons' big dog on the old cartoon
show, was a Great Dane?
 Or Marmaduke, in the newspaper comic strips?

Or, for heaven's sake, SCOOBY DOO? Who knew?

We've also picked up a
little bit about the history of the breed. One website says that in 407
A.D., Europe was invaded by an Asian tribe who brought their powerful
dogs along. Later, in Germany, these big strong dogs, admired for their
ability to whip up on bears and wild boars, were crossed with Irish
greyhounds, resulting in the dogs we know as Great Danes. Other sources
have differing histories of the breed, but all that I've read seem to
agree that hounds played a role in the development of our present-day
Great Danes.
I knew there had to be a hound-dog in the family tree
somewhere. Those drawn-out howls that sometimes erupt from our big
black puppy, especially when he's frustrated because Darnit Kitty won't
play with him anymore, sound suspiciously hound-doggish. In fact, so
hound-doggish that we've been tempted to changed Hagrid's name to
Elvis. Luckily for the neighbors, our dog doesn't howl -- or even bark --
very often. For a puppy, he's pretty laid-back, which is supposed to be
another characteristic of the breed, and suits Doyle and me just fine
at this age and stage of our lives.
Great Danes are supposed to be
good at tracking, being watchdogs, and "carting," I've also learned.
Carting? I wonder if Doyle would hammer me together a little cart so
that I could hitch Hagrid up and drive him down the hill to the Square
to work. I'm envisioning something sort of like those gladiator
chariots in "Ben Hur." Getting me back UP the hill might be a whole
'nother story. I might have to put him in the cart and hitch myself to
the front, depending on how my diet is going.
I've also read,
"Because of his giant size, the Great Dane should be thoroughly
obedience-trained when young so it will be manageable when fully grown."
Hmmm.
We've tried to really take this to heart. I have visions of being
dragged around Harrison at the wrong end of a leash by my
Shetland-pony-sized pet. Or of me trying to stop him from barking at
the pizza delivery guy, and being totally ignored by a massive creature
who outweighs me, which he eventually will, unless Brasel keeps
bringing doughnuts into the newsroom all the time, then I might have a
few pounds on Hagrid even after he's fully grown.
Seriously, Doyle
and I have both been working hard to teach our new doggie what he needs
to know at this stage of his puppyhood. He's learned to walk on a leash
pretty well, considering he'd never even seen a leash or a collar until
we brought him home, and acted like we were trying to strangle him to
death the first time we tried walking him.
He knows what "sit" and
"stay" mean, and he's obeying those commands pretty faithfully. Coming
when he's called is going a little more slowly.  He comes most of the
time, unless something more interesting has his attention — like the
cat.
The one thing we're not having any luck getting him to do is go
into his crate when we tell him to. We've tried telling him, bribing
him with a treat, everything we can think of, but every time, it takes
bodily dragging him in there and closing the door. As I write, he's in
the crate (where I dragged him) for "time out" because he wouldn't stop
chewing on the armchair. Even though he has has about 47 chew toys of
various shapes and sizes scattered around the house, the legs of the
furniture -- and my leather sandals -- are his favorite things to chew.
He
ADORES his brother the cat, and Roscoe tolerates him. Now that Roscoe
has gotten used to him, they romp around the house, batting at each
other, play-biting, rolling around, until the cat gets bored with all
that silly dog stuff and hides behind my grandmother's antique rocking
chair. The first few days after Hagrid joined the family, Roscoe
totally avoided him and perched up in a high windowsill, giving that
whippersnapping intruder the baleful stare that only a haughty feline
with its nose out of joint can pull off. But now Roscoe has completely
thawed and seems to be actually having fun playing with his upstart
baby brother.

 So we're all adjusting, and meanwhile, I'm still studying up on our new dog and his kinfolks.
Did you have any idea that the Great Dane is the state dog of Pennsylvania?