http://issuu.com/esindependent/docs/esi_vol_3_no_9a/15

The other day I awoke to a misty morning down in the hollow and it reminded me of the old Ozarkian saying that “the fogs of August are the snows of winter.” Naturally, this led my mind to the legendary snow of March, 1968 when my mother was eight months pregnant and living in an apartment on Spring Street. She was afraid that if she went into labor, transportation would be an issue.

I’ve heard and read that local snow fall amounts ranged from 16 to 24 inches, but the main problem was a driving wind that created snow drifts of mind-boggling depths. I did some research trying to ascertain if the old stories were true and found a reference to the snow storm on the front page of the March 13, 1968 Northwest Arkansas Times. It says, in part, that “highway department workers attempting to clear a lane between Berryville and Eureka Springs drove a snow plow into a 17 foot drift.” The massive snowdrift was at the top of Bluebird Hill and the plow became stuck, as did the road grader that came to the rescue.

That morning, Mac Weems was driving to a bulldozing job and encountered the “commotion” on Highway 62 caused by the snowdrift. He turned around and drove down the Old Berryville Highway (now County Road 306, though the bridge that was there then has since fallen into Kings River) to James Garrett’s shop, where his big Allis-Chalmers bulldozer was stored. Later, the area Arkansas Highway Department foreman caught up with Mac and asked if he would get the two graders out and clear the snow drift. Not having his truck and trailer, he had to drive the dozer at a slow crawl up Highway 62 from near Kings River to the top of the hill.

He says the hard part of clearing the drift was being careful not to hook the abandoned cars buried under the snow with the dozer blade. It took awhile, but he was able to clean it up and drove the bulldozer home to his house in Eureka, clearing a few driveways along the way.

Often known as Chub or Chubby, Bob Lent was a well known figure around Eureka Springs, especially during his years as a mail carrier. He was also known for a speech impediment; when he ordered a cup of coffee it sounded more like he wanted a “chup of choffee.” Bob Lent was born in his parent’s home on Magnetic Road and lived there nearly his entire life.

As a young man, he worked several years for Britton Baker at the Esso station where Spring and Main meet (now the location of Scarlett’s Lingerie). When he left the Esso station, Mr. Baker gave him a watch as a gift, the same watch that took the brunt of an enemy bullet in Korea and probably saved his arm. Chub made sergeant during the Korean War because, he said, when everyone else gets shot and you’re left, they make you the sergeant.

In the 1960s, Chub spent time in the tuberculosis sanitarium near Booneville and ended up losing a lung. He had only one lung all those years he delivered the mail, walking up to 12 miles per day.

While a letter carrier, Chub was caught disposing of junk mail that he didn’t think his postal customers would want. He got in a lot of trouble and even hired an attorney to represent him. It made no difference and he was fired. Immediately, many locals came to his defense. My understanding is that Chub felt it was the involvement of John Cross that got him back his job at the post office.

Near the end of his life, he allowed a business I was involved with to put up a sign on the Lent property. When I inquired how much the sign rent would be, he responded zero, so I mailed him a printed and signed business check made out for $0.00. He had a lot of fun going to banks and trying to get the check cashed. I am told it was folded up in his wallet when he died August 11, 1994. He is buried in the Eureka Springs IOOF Cemetery under a tombstone that reads Charles Robert Lent. I never knew his name was Charles until I saw it on the grave marker.

McKinley Weems asked if I’d ever seen the crocodile-skin purse he’d bought my grandmother.

“No,” I said. “Where’d you buy it?”

“Havana, Cuba,” was the surprising answer.

“You’ve been to Havana?” I asked, suspicious.

“Sure, took a cruise there.” My mind went to a Love Boat-type cruise, which didn’t sound like something he’d do. I think my confusion amused him.

As it turns out, he and a group of sailors from the local U.S. Naval Reserve unit had travelled from New Orleans to pre-Castro Cuba on a training exercise. As odd as it may seem now, for nearly two decades, Eureka Springs hosted a United States Naval Reserve Electronics Division unit on the third floor of the McVay Building at 55 Spring Street.

For the 18 years of its existence, the unit was commanded by Tillman Morgan. He and Forrest Binall, a retired Chief radioman, started the unit in 1948. Harry Hussey was the first Station Keeper. Over time, more than 300 men trained at the unit, coming not only from Carroll County, but also from Bentonville, Harrison and even Point Lookout, Missouri. The medical officer was Commander Neil Compton, the Bentonville medical doctor, who became famous for saving the Buffalo National River from being dammed.

My father Donnie Weems was the active-duty Station Keeper for two years. He said that some unit members from dry places, such as Harrison, were attracted to joining because they could get a beer at the Hi Hat while in town for the Wednesday night meetings.

As surprising as McKinley’s trip to Havana was, it doesn’t compare to the time we were talking about guns. I knew McKinley had firearms and was a good shot. I’ve heard his aim was accurate enough to win the turkey shoot one year and that he used to hunt squirrels and elk. However, he seldom talked guns like some men do. He told me the reason why: “I’m skittish about guns on account of that time my brother shot me.” I think my jaw dropped open. I’d known him for almost five decades and I’d never heard about this? But, that’s another story.

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.