Betty McCall, who we called Granny, would often whistle while she worked. No harm in that, except I am told that Great Uncle Otto McCall would say, “A whistling woman and a crowing hen always come to some bad end.”

I was reminded of this saying when it was quoted by a lady in the audience for a recent presentation on Ozark superstitions sponsored by the Carroll County Historical Society. Susan Young, the Outreach Coordinator for the Shiloh Museum of Ozark History in Springdale, was the entertaining speaker.

For a reference, she used Vance Randolph’s 1947 classic Ozark Magic and Folklore and she read the opening line that “The people who live in the Ozark country of Missouri and Arkansas were, until very recently, the most deliberately unprogressive people in the United States.” As a group we contemplated whether or not there was an implied insult. I don’t believe that there is as Vance Randolph, a one-time resident of Eureka Springs, loved all things authentically Ozarkian.

Susan Young began the evening talking about the old belief that a cat will take away a baby’s breath. Cats used to have their necks broken for acting suspiciously around newborns because of this saying.

If you drop a dishrag, company is coming. In my mother’s family, if you drop a case knife, company is coming.

Many of the old beliefs of the Ozarks, of course, came from other places. The hills of Kentucky, Tennessee and North Carolina, shared many of these beliefs as so many settlers to the Ozarks originated from these states.

Frequently, the old superstitious sayings had to do with luck. For instance, if you find a horseshoe in the road and the open end is towards you, spit on it and throw it over your left shoulder for good luck. If the closed end is towards you, you’d better keep walking.

Susan Young asked if anyone had a buckeye in their pocket for good luck and two did. I used to carry a buckeye around until I lost it, which I suppose could explain a great deal.

I’ve been perusing some old editions of the Eureka Springs Times-Echo again. Sometimes I’m amazed at the minutiae old newspapers reported. For instance, we learn that in July 1971, Howard Easley mowed the grass at the Roach Cemetery near Eagle Rock. This was not told in the context of another larger story, it was a simple stand alone statement that might interest the readers.

Also, in July 1971, the Eureka Springs Chamber of Commerce announced that in the coming September, the First Annual Antique Car Show would be held with a parade and car displays. Then it says, “The rest of the afternoon will be used for the gorilla hunt with quite a bit of hillbilly action on the streets.” I really don’t know what that means.

In a continuing saga, Bob Vargo of Yellville was arrested twice in two weeks. His three children had previously been hired to perform nightly at the City Auditorium during the 1971 season, but, following an unspecified dispute, the contract was terminated. Mr. Vargo and his children, ages 5 to 15, took to the streets with signs in a protest march. Later, Bob Vargo was arrested for creating a public nuisance and disorderly conduct, after a performance by his children, in the front yard of a motel. Next he was arrested for disturbing the peace of Bobby Ball. It does not say how Bobby Ball’s peace was disturbed, but Vargo was found guilty in Municipal Court and fined $10 and costs by Judge John Maberry.

A tape-recorded lecture by L. Ron Hubbard was advertised to take place one evening at 8 Center St. The program was called The Game Called Life and there was to be no admission charged. The Barbra Streisand film On A Clear Day You Can See Forever played at the Gaslight Theatre in Eureka Springs. Or one could run over to Berryville and see Don Knotts in How To Frame a Figg at the Main Theatre.

Do you have memories or stories of the old Naval Reserve Unit that was located upstairs in the McVay Building at 55 Spring St.? If so, let me know at steve@steveweems.com or at P.O. Box 43 in Eureka Springs.

A few days ago, we had a nice visit with Paul and Joyce Hull at their large farm outside Eureka Springs. Even though Joyce has recently been ill and in the hospital, some things do not wait. She was in the process of canning 63 quarts of green beans and 33 pints of beets from their bountiful garden. Last year’s beans had burned up in the heat and drought.

If you aren’t familiar with the Hull farm, the county road enters it at the end of a long ridge, one of the highest points in the Western District of Carroll County. Just before the road drops into the valley there is a spectacular view which often makes me think of the farms of Yorkshire, England, (which stems, I think, from reading the stories of James Herriot in my impressionable youth).

What had brought us down to the picturesque Hull farm was the neighborhood story of the damage coyotes had done there. Paul Hull had recently lost a number of lambs and kid goats. Coyotes even killed a grown goat that had put its head through a fence and got stuck.

One morning Paul turned out a nanny goat and kid into a small pasture behind their house. Later, Joyce glanced out the window and saw the big white nanny chasing a coyote that had grabbed her newborn. Coyotes are getting brave indeed when they are grabbing kids in broad daylight within view of the house.

Coyotes weren’t the only thing we talked about that day, though I had meant to ask about their use of Great Pyrenees dogs and donkeys for guarding their livestock, too. As we left, Paul invited us back and said, “People don’t visit like they used to years ago.”

On a different note, I am saddened to hear that the classic toy store Happy Things is quitting business. It has been open downtown since 1970. Located at 55 Spring Street, it is having a big going out of business sale. It isn’t the place to go, though, if you are looking for cheaply made plastic toys that break the first time you play with them.

Driving home from Conway, Arkansas, recently, I tried a new route. Normally, it is a straight shot from Conway to Harrison, then an hour westward to Eureka Springs. Though a Sunday evening, this major artery through the Arkansas Ozarks seemed especially heavy with traffic and impatience. I try to avoid both.

At the town of Clinton, I had an idea and turned left onto a state highway and followed meandering asphalt through the Boston Mountains. The elevation rose immediately into dense forest and automobile traffic ceased to exist. The occasional opening on high spots showcased stunning scenery.

The population of wildlife I saw greatly surpassed that of domesticated humans in shiny metal boxes coming at me at high rates of speed. I found myself relaxing and my mind wandering. That is what a deserted open road does to me.

I missed the name of a dying community with a sizeable abandoned school building that I passed through. Probably the victim of school consolidation. In the Ozark National Forest, I thought of Charlton Heston as I drove through Ben Hur.

When I reached Boxley, I saw several elk, mostly cows, grazing along the highway. Despite my low rate of speed, I could have clipped a young gangly bull elk that stepped out in front of me had I not stomped the brake pedal vigorously. Balancing his huge velvet rack, he bobbed his head as he gave me the fish eye dismissively, then glanced back at three other bull elk that were watching. Perhaps he was trying to clip me as some sort of initiation rite for the juvenile street toughs of Boxley.

After Boxley and Kingston, I did see some vehicular traffic, mostly pickups and Jeeps with canoes and kayaks. I turned west and at Marble saw the first open gas station since Clinton and then took the short cut through Alabam and Old Alabam to reach Forum.
When I reached the city limit sign of Eureka Springs, I realized that it was the first population sign I’d seen since Clinton. One hundred and fifty-eight miles of driving and saw not a single community that had enough population to brag about it on their city limit sign. I liked that.

At a certain age, after spending thousands of hours in classrooms, I reached the conclusion that many teachers are in the wrong line of work. Not Kathy Remenar. She has the rare ability to be both interesting and entertaining while keeping order in the classroom. She fosters spirited debate, while maintaining standards of decorum with humor and the occasional flash of the eyes. After nearly four decades of doing just that at the Eureka Springs High School, she is, as she says, ready to graduate.

Mrs. Remenar’s teaching career started in 1968 in suburban Chicago after receiving a Bachelor’s degree in Communications and English from Illinois State University. After moving here and while working on her Master’s degree, she became acquainted with the Eureka Springs School District and served on the local school board.

Looking back, I asked how things had changed over the years at the school:

“Obviously the advances in technology have changed everything in education to a certain degree. However, some things never change: the power of the written word; the pain involved in learning; the pride in doing something for the first time; the ‘aha’ moments. I get a kick out of the fact that each class felt like they had discovered Emerson and Thoreau for the first time and that Shakespeare really did have something powerful to say.”

I’ve forgotten the names of many of my teachers, yet I still remember the first essay that I wrote for Mrs. Remenar in 1984 and her red ink comments. While a high school student, I found her forthright and positive outlook to be contagious. Speaking of teenagers, she recently told me:

“Their optimism, sense of wonder, daring, and humor is what defines them. So many people say to them, ‘Wait until you get into the real world’ as if what they are experiencing is pretend…It is not!

“You have no idea how lucky I feel to have been a teacher all my life; I have had an ‘extraordinary’ life and that is what I wish for all of my students. They kept me young as I grew older…teenagers are the best anti- aging drug on the market.”

I don’t travel much, unless you count sitting at a computer looking at aerial photography. Amazing what one can see without even leaving home. I’ve always considered Eureka Springs a unique town in most every way, including name, but I’ve run across some places that call the name part into question.

First up is the community of Eureka Springs, North Carolina. Located in Cumberland County, it is now a suburb of the city of Fayetteville, North Carolina, best known as the home of Fort Bragg. The US Special Forces and the 82nd Airborne are both based there. I know a guy from the army who was stationed at Fort Bragg, but he doesn’t recall there being a place called Eureka Springs, North Carolina. He had an interesting job. He was airborne artillery, which means not only did he jump out of airplanes, but he jumped from airplanes also dropping giant cannons called howitzers.

The second Eureka Springs I have run across is in Mississippi. It is just a small community, located in Panola County, not far from Batesville, Mississippi. It is home to the Eureka Springs Methodist Church and a cemetery.

Third up is the Eureka Springs area of Tampa Bay, Florida. Located in Hillsborough County, it is now a 31-acre public park located on Eureka Springs Road. It was originally a privately owned tropical botanical garden founded in 1938 around a group of springs called the Eureka Springs. Nearby is the Eureka Springs First Baptist Church.

Fourth, there is a Eureka Springs area in the city of Escondido near San Diego, California. Now it appears to be a housing addition of $500,000 homes.

In Fort Worth, Texas, there is a street called Eureka Springs Court, while Lexington, Kentucky and Surprise, Arizona both have streets called Eureka Springs Drive.

I will assert that our Eureka Springs is the most famous of all these places, but I can’t prove it. While in the US Army, I can only think of five people I met who’d heard of Eureka Springs. But then again, I met several who claimed to have never even heard of Arkansas.

The Eureka Springs High School Alumni Association is the oldest high school alumni association in the State of Arkansas. It held its 124th annual banquet and meeting at the Inn of the Ozarks Convention Center over the weekend.

Celebrating their 50th anniversary, the class of 1964 had the most members present at the banquet. Nancy Clark, the 1964 senior class sponsor, and Alice Barker, the 1964 class “room mother” for grades one through twelve, also attended. This year’s association president, Mary McCall-Weems was in the class of 1964 and she and others of the class presented much of the night’s program.

Randy Wolfinbarger (Class of 1973) welcomed the newly graduated Class of 2014 as members of the Eureka Springs Alumni Association and admonished them to not forget from where they come. Randy’s son Langley Wolfinbarger  (Class of 2014) responded by accepting the invitation on behalf of the graduating class. A slideshow of the members of the class of 2014 was shown while the class song, Freebird, played.

Genes Bland (Class of 1964) presented the Alumnus of the Year Award to Jeff Reynerson (Class of 1974), an attorney in Springdale, for his years of service to the association, the Eureka Springs schools and the Northwest Arkansas community.

Allen Huffman (Class of 2003) presented Pauline Crawford (Class of 2014) with this year’s Alumni Scholarship.

Ben Rivett (Class of 1964) called the roll of the members present. The two oldest members at this year’s banquet were Tommy Crews and Mary Janice Thomas-Morris, both of the Class of 1942.

Genes Bland (Class of 1964) read the names of alumni who had died in the previous year.

Bobby Dale Thurman (Class of 1964) asked trivia questions and handed out door prizes. It was determined that the Crews family was the family with the most alumni members present at the banquet.

Association Treasurer Tammy Sherman-Bullock (Class of 1991) presented the financial report and Association Secretary Gayla Goff-Wolfinbarger (Class of 1981) read the minutes of the 2013 meeting.

Eureka Springs School District Superintendent David Kellogg was thanked for attending the banquet, and the crowd sang the Alma Mater.

In response to last week’s column about the black panther sightings in the area, a reader related a fishing expedition earlier this spring on Table Rock Lake. While fishing near Holiday Island, he noticed a large black cat on shore and photographed it. The pictures are fuzzy because of distance and a rocking boat, but they do seem to show a black panther in an area of timber and large rocks.

“When the cat spotted me he was gone in a flash,” the fisherman said. After getting close to shore and comparing the size of the rocks in the photographs, he said the black cat must have been at least four feet long. “Definitely not your typical house cat,” he said. “I really feel blessed to have witnessed this beautiful animal, something I’ll always remember.”

Now onto another matter. I’ve long been fascinated by the old story of William Wrigley of Wrigley Gum fame and fortune coming to Eureka Springs and he loved the town so much that he tried to buy it. Most of what we know about the matter seems to come from four paragraphs in Otto Ernest Rayburn’s The Eureka Springs Story.

Mr. Rayburn’s account says that William Wrigley visited Eureka Springs in 1902 and 1903 and offered to purchase all the land “within a radius of three miles of the city and make it into a public park if the city authorities would agree to keep it policed and free from junk and garbage.” After being turned down, Wrigley “went to Catalina Island, off the California coast, where he spent millions in development.” That is true, but it occurred almost twenty years later when Wrigley was a much wealthier individual.

The earliest reference to the Wrigley episode that I found was a scathing 1936 editorial written by Roberta Fulbright in the Fayetteville Daily Democrat in which she ridicules Eureka Springs for not selling out. Roberta Fulbright is better known as the sister of Arkansas Senator J. William Fulbright and grandmother of political pundit Tucker Carlson. She also married the head of the Swanson frozen-foods empire.

Sometime back, my neighbor, a man with decades of hunting experience, saw what he would have called a mountain lion, except it was completely black. And he is not the only one down our county road to have seen a large black cat.

There are recurring sightings of black panthers in the Ozarks, though scientists generally discount these reports. The speculation is that the sightings are made in poor light by inexperienced observers seeing fleeting images of bobcats or black dogs or even river otters.

A few years ago, Jon Mourglia was coming down Planer Hill into downtown Eureka Springs when he saw a black panther up on the right. He stopped and watched the animal for a couple of minutes and then ran into a business to alert others. A lady came out, but only in time to see the animal’s tail as it jumped over a log and retreated. Jon said it was broad daylight and the animal watched him for as long as he watched it. The black panther was sleek and its tail was nearly as long as the rest of its body.

In South America, mountain lions are known to occasionally be black (called melanism), but this has never been proven to have occurred in North America. Another explanation is that a caged black leopard or black jaguar has been released into the wild.

What is interesting about this is that some early explorers and pioneers reported that there were black panthers in the area. In fact, when the wildlife of the Ozarks was listed by various observers, catamounts and panthers were often listed separately. Mountain lions can be called either catamounts or panthers by different people, but for them to be listed separately, the references must be to different animals.

Others have speculated about the historic range of jaguars and a smaller wild cat called the jaguarundi. Both are thought to have ranged north into Texas and Louisiana at one time, and possibly into Oklahoma and Arkansas.

For the record, the only Jaguar I’ve seen in town was driven by Larry Evans.

When I was a kid I had a big interest in the jungles of the Congo region of Africa. On the front page of the March 25, 1965 Eureka Springs Times-Echo is this notice: “Dr. Robert Etherington will be showing slides taken in the Congo at the Oak Hill Grange Meeting. April 3 at 8 p.m. Everyone is invited.”

I would like to have heard Dr. Etherington talk about his trip to the Congo, but, alas, he hadn’t delivered me yet. Robert A. Etherington was a doctor in Eureka Springs for many years. He was born in the state of Washington in 1922 and came here in the early 1960s to practice medicine.

I suppose Dr. Etherington took care of me as a baby (seems I recall a story about him dropping me), but I didn’t see him again until I was 15 and he was the doctor on duty in the Emergency Room at the Eureka Spring Hospital. I was gainfully employed early that evening as a busboy at Buckingham’s Restaurant in the old Ramada Inn. The busboy’s station had stuff piled up on the floor and I stumbled while taking down a pot of hot coffee from the burner. Coffee splashed down my neck and clean white shirt.

I worked awhile longer, but customers kept looking at me oddly, so I asked my employer if I should go home and change clothes. My employer became rather alarmed at the sight of me and the headwaiter rushed me to the hospital. Dr. Etherington said I had second-degree burns and proceeded to wrap my neck and head like that of a mummy. Had I known about his trip to the Congo, it would have been an opportunity to ask about it.

My contact with Dr. Etherington was limited to just a few significant occasions, but the interesting thing is that if you ask ten people about Dr. Etherington, you will hear 10 different surprising stories. When he left town, I always heard it was for Australia (and maybe it was), but records show he was soon living in Enid, Okla. He died in 1999.