Ozark Ice Storm: Photos from Kinfolk in Fulton County

Ice Storm, Photo 1

Home of Aunt Pauline and Uncle Woodrow

Cousin Martha Jean Foster (née Hodges), wife of Bob Foster, sent three photos of the recent ice storm that has cut the rest of the world off from the Ozarks. I'm inferring that these photographs were taken early in the morning as the sun rose on the crystalline Narnia-landscape that the Ozarks had become during the overnight storm that had added another layer of ice to the ice sheath left by a previous storm a day earlier.

Ice Storm, Photo 2

Home of Cousin Martha and Husband Bob

In this second photo can be seen an indication of the sort of destruction wreaked throughout the Ozarks -- branches broken off under the burden of ice, hinting at the fallen trees and severed powerlines that have left thousands without electricity, possibly for several weeks to come. Note, also, the icicles hanging from the high eaves.

Ice Storm, Photo 3

Home of Cousin Martha and Husband Bob

This third picture offers more trees with branches down, albeit less dire in appearance. Now, let's read what Cousin Martha has to say concerning their determined recovery from this disaster as they and others either continue to use firewood to cook and heat or go to the extra trouble of purchasing fuel-driven generators to power their homes with electricity:

Well, the big news is we have a generator and have TV, computer, and lights. We probably have other things, just haven't tried. Oh, the water was most important and [we] can [now] flush toilets without carrying water. Yippee!!!

We will turn on the hot water as needed for baths. Went to Andy and Leah's for showers as they have gas hot water and city water which will run without [electrical] power. Well water won't.

That "Well" is not a phatic expression but refers to water from a well. But you knew that, of course.

Next, Martha reports on Aunt Pauline and Uncle Woodrow:

Mom and Dad go from the little house to sleep and eat, the big house just has one gas wall heater and the cabin is warmer with gas wall heater and wood cook stove. Too hot actually for Dad, but good for Mom.

By "go from," I think Martha means that Aunt Pauline and Uncle Woodrow are staying in their nearby little house -- or 'cabin' -- and going out from there to do their farm chores. Or maybe she meant "go to."

But on to other relatives, including Martha's sister -- my Cousin Velna -- and husband, Curren, among others:

Velna and Curren got two generators yesterday. [Aunt] Kathryn and Unc[le] Buell are at [Aunt] Virginia's as of last Sat[urday]. No one has heard from them since.

That sounds more ominous than was intended, I think. But to continue:

Our phone[s] were out till yesterday, mine and [Aunt] Virginia's anyway. Assume they [-- Aunt Kathyrn and Uncle Buell --] are ok. [Uncle] Cran has talked to Mom several times and they [-- Uncle Cran and Aunt Gay --] are living in the basement with wood heat. We have a wood stove in the garage and leave the door to house open and have been just fine. I cook on the gas grill burner. Velna has gas cook stove downstairs, gas fireplace up stairs. They are fine also. Ok, will type more later.

Everybody's turning to firewood and gas in lieu of electricity, unless they have those generators mentioned above, about which Martha adds:

Oh, no we don't have electricity, they say may be 8 to 10 weeks. Some already have it back, but us country folks don't. Poles and wires are down everywhere, thanks to the ice. Will type at you later, as long as the generator keeps a tickin.

Odd, how we say such things as "thanks to the ice," as though we meant to thank a natural disaster for the evil that it has wrought!

I'll keep everyone posted on the ensuing evils or blessings as they develop . . . depending on reports from kinfolk, who can only send email when their generators are working and their phones capable of handling internet dial-up.

Or so I surmise.

Ozark Ice Storm: World Isolated from Northern Arkansas

Ice Storm in the Ozarks

(Image from The Grunge House)

I was wondering why I hadn't heard from my Ozark kith and kin recently, but this photo shows the reason. The Arkansas Ozarks are covered with inches of ice, as shown in the image above. Actually, the reality is worse than depicted here, for the powerlines in this photograph still look functional, which may explain how the picture reached the world outside. Here's what 'Bullet Luke' of The Grunge House has to say:

I have a friend that's totally iced in. He got hit hard by the ice storm in Arkansas. The last time I talked to him he had no hot water and he's running on a generator for electricity and wood for the stove to keep his house warm. The pic in this post is scenic, but eerie because the power pole is bending under the weight of the collected ice on the lines. A tree branch broke and landed on his truck, and everything that looks like snow is, in fact, ice.

You can see the image better at Bullet Luke's Grunge House, but expect some music when you arrive (though you can turn it off by scrolling down a bit and clicking on a button) -- or (as I've just realized) you can click on the image above and get a larger, more detailed version.

I was motivated to go searching for an image because of a "Weekly Rambling" message from Cousin Bill, who lives in Kansas and is therefore far away from the damage. He reports on what he's learned by phone from Uncle Cran and from Cousin Martha's husband, Bob, about various relatives on the Hodges side of my family (though no word yet from Salem on my mother or my brothers John and Tim):

Things are okay Kansas way -- not so in Arkansas, as Mother Nature wasn't kind to northern Arkansas this past Monday, with ice eliminating electrical power to everyone.

Attempts to contact Woodrow, Cran, Martha, Velna and Virginia were unsuccessful until late week, when I finally got through to the Foster's (Bob answering). I was able to contact Cran yesterday, however, have not yet talked to the Woodrow's or others.

From conversations with Bob and Cran, appears the Woodrow's are fine, currently residing in the cabin (the phone is in the big house). Bob advised Woodrow has two working generators, so they'll be okay there. And the Everett's are fine, with Curren and Velna day tripping to Little Rock to purchase generators.

This morning I found Martha now has some "generator juice" powering the necessities (computer). Her email advises all may be without electricity for several weeks.

Bob and Cran both advised the whole area looks like a war zone -- timber down, and most power poles and lines at ground level.

Cran says they've got every available container filled with water (melted ice scooped from outside) with drinking water brought in from Mt. Home. He says his generator is not yet working, so they're living life as in the "old days".

All, apparently, are cooking on woodstoves and grills. And as Bob and Cran said "we'll survive".

Wow, that's worse than any ice storm that I ever experienced growing up in the Ozarks. The one that my family and I woke up to a year ago during our Ozarks visit was harmless compared to this -- as can be seen in my "Ozark Photoblog."

Cousin Bill concluded his email with an implicit appeal for thoughts and prayers on behalf of those still out of touch:

I know some won't receive this email, so request those receiving do let the others know we're keeping everyone in our thoughts and prayers.

People will need those as well as practical help if they're truly to be without electrical power for several weeks. I expect some alarming photos from Uncle Cran when he finally gets back online after this ice age is over. And since I'm speaking not only of kin but also of kith, perhaps that 'professional hillbilly' JK will have photos to share.

Now that I think of it -- and have also checked -- I see that Denny of Exploring Izard County has already posted images, including videos (especially this one), of what is being called one of the worst ice storms in Arkansas history.

Side Effect of Last Winter's Ozark Ice Storm?

A Nice Storm Baby?

(Image from KAIT8)

Most readers will vividly recall the images of ice from last February's ice storm that paralyzed the Ozarks and other regions of northern Arkansas and southern Missouri. That was nine months ago last month, as KAIT8 of Jonesboro, Arkansas reminds us:

Who can forget the paralyzing effects of the ice storm earlier this year? Communities, entire cities in total darkness for days at a time. Months later -- nine months later to be exact -- many people are remembering the natural disaster, as not such a bad time after all!

Well, it seemed pretty bad at the time:

Mother nature's fury. Unrelentless in its devastation. Tree limbs coated in ice brought down power lines... northeast Arkansas plunged into darkness. Transformers blew up and sparks flew -- both outside and inside.

I remember reporting on just about all of that as family and friends slowly came back online and sent emails. But they didn't tell everything . . . such as what went on in the cold darkness of their homes as they huddled to keep a spark of warmth:

In fact, there's a bit of a baby boom in northeast Arkansas.

"We're seeing a little over a 12% increase in deliveries," said Dr. Charles Dunn, an OB-GYN. "If we look at when the ice storm was and the date of conception, . . . [the increase in deliveries] would have pretty much happened during the month of October."

"I think I've just delivered my sixth baby this week," said Dr. Karl Hasik, an OB-GYN. "So that's in less than three weeks. We've been very busy and we're not finished yet."

55 babies were delivered during the month of October at Arkansas Methodist Medical Center. Normally they have 35 to 45. NEA Baptist Memorial delivered 66 babies in October. That's a 20% increase over a year ago.

Now if there's a baby boom being reported in Jonesboro, which is in northeastern Arkansas, then I'm going to suggest that the same boom has hit northcentral and northwestern Arkansas as well, where the Arkansas Ozarks are found. Yet if I turn out to be wrong about this, then the blame lies not with me but entirely with my fellow hillbillies!

I expect some truth-telling from friends and family, and you'uns can start by posting comments to this blog entry.

Uncle Cran Rejoins the 21st Century

Let me open Uncle Cran's report with the photo above, showing that the ice storm -- which came in two separate icy blasts -- included a bit of snow atop the ice. Uncle Cran tells us:

This is the lovely scene that greeted our eyes on Tuesday morning. I didn't get a picture of the 40-50 birds . . . blue jays, snow birds, woodpeckers, starlings, and a few others . . . that I fed with dog feed for about two weeks, until the ice melted. Yes, the birds did just fine on dog feed. We didn't have any bird seeds to give them.

Note the broken trees in that photo above . . . and this is just the beginning of a horrific tale of Uncle Cran's struggle against nature's formidable odds in "The Great Ice Storm of 2009!" But before we enter fully into Uncle Cran's world, let us wholeheartedly agree with Cousin Bill's sentiments:

Good to see your written words again! And welcome back to the world. Send pictures. Let me be specific -- make those ice pictures. We don't need any of you soaking in a wash tub or dressed in red long johns [and] screw soled work boots [while] clutching a circa 1940 Sear's catalogue in preparation for a midnight run to the outhouse. Trust Aunt Gay will edit all you send.

I especially second Cousin Bill's sentiments concerning the outhouse run and thank Aunt Gay for her prudent editing. Now, let's see the rest of those written words and the remaining photographic images, starting with Uncle Cran's summary of his ordeal:

After the biggest ice storm in recent history, we are surviving, and doing ok. Grover Borden, a local resident about 95 years old, said he has never seen anything like this in his lifetime. Since there were no previous stories current in our area from our parents or grandparents, it likely would be back in the 1800's to find anything comparable.

I would have expected Uncle Cran to provide some wild stories about the terrible ice storms of his youth, so this humility is unexpected. But I suppose that the reticence simply enhances this story of his current ordeal, a story that we now learn about in horrific detail:

We were stranded from Monday until Saturday after the storm, before we could get out of our yard and go to get groceries. When it became obvious that we were going to be one of the last ones to get electrical service restored, and likely not before March 1, I bought a 5000 watt generator. So for two weeks we huddled by the wood stove at night with candles and two old coal oil lamps. Luckily we had several flashlights after lights out at night.

Note how subtly Uncle Cran claims to have gone without sleep for two weeks! Burning candles and coal-oil lamps . . . and shining flashlights? Sounds like games of scarey shadows on the wall!

The generator is a a real help. We run it three times a day to keep our freezer and refrigerator usable, and have a wood stove in the basement, where we do our cooking, plus we have a bedroom in the basement where we sleep.

Oh, he now admits to sleeping!

When I grew up, we didn't have electrical service until I was 10 years old, and the only running water was twice a day we ran down to the spring a thousand feet away, with a bucket in each hand.

I interrupt Uncle Cran's addition to his "Legends of Uncle Cran" to point out that this is an addition to his "Legends of Uncle Cran" -- especially the point about being a grown-up at 10 years old! The precisely measured distance to the spring is also a nice detail, very authentic sounding. Anyway, back to his legend-making:

Now I run to Bakersfield and get city water in two large new plastic containers, and 6 gallon jugs. We buy bottled water to drink.

He's now claiming to run to Bakersfield for water! With his new titanium hip! On ice! As we see:

The ice was about 2 inches thick, and a total of almost three inches of precipitation. It was too dangerous to get on it, so I took an old worn pair of work boots, and ran screws through the outside edges of the soles and heels, and I could walk anywhere without slipping, so I could tend to the cows.

And run to Bakersfield...

I told Gay, This is just like the Good Old Days! . . . sure will be glad when it's over!

Right, because you can then safely brag about it. But before this grows too mythological, let's see the rest of those images . . . with Uncle Cran's sometimes cryptic commentary:

The morning after the night before.

There is an inch of snow over two inches of ice.

That, for instance, was a rather cryptic comment from Uncle Cran. But let's not remain mired overly long in hermeneutical musings on what Uncle Cran meant by "the morning after the night before." More photos await our critical, if meandering eyes:

On Tuesday after the first inch of ice came,

it rained all day and night, adding another inch of ice

with an inch of snow on top. When the limbs started falling,

it went on for three days. Every time a limb or tree broke

it sounded like a shot gun firing. We could hear them

down in the woods . . . every few minutes another boom.

Great guns! Just like hunting season!

Luckily every limb fell straight down,

and none of the trees in the yard broke over.

There wasn't any damage to buildings or vehicles.

Do limbs ever fall in any direction other than straight down? I'm just asking...

The view to the southwest.

Uncle Cran's helpful enrichment of our orienteering information -- to fill in the details that Google Earth lacks a perspective on as we gaze down upon Uncle Cran from above . . . as we've been doing for a couple of weeks now. I saw you, Uncle Cran, on your run to Bakersfield!

Just to the left of Gay's Mother's trailor

you can see the mound that is the cellar

that saved our lives during the tornado

on April 2, 1982.

Have you reported on that experience for our blog, Uncle Cran? Note that I say "our blog" . . . now that you're back.

I will push the 27 piles of limbs

out of the yard with the tractor.

His winter wonderland vanished, the ever-precise Uncle Cran gets back to work. But all kidding aside, Uncle Cran, we're glad to hear from you again and see that you did, in fact, survive the ordeal. We look forward to hearing more about this experience over the next several years as the story grows and becomes even more fascinating.

Ozark Ice Storm: Images of Ice

"Morning comes the sunrise,

and I'm driven from my bed..."

As electrical lines are slowly being reconnected throughout the Ozarks, friends from my hometown of Salem and surrounding areas are beginning to send me beautiful photographs, lovely scenes of crystalline destruction.

This first image comes from Jeanie Oliver (née Scott), who also writes:

I sit here tonight hugging my computer as if an old friend had walked into the door.

I'm tempted to make some witty but inappropriate remark advising Jeanie to tell her old friend to walk with eyes open wide through the doorway next time, but I'll be serious because the circumstances are:

Winter has hit us as a freight train of ice and snow over the last week. The whole area has been devastated as if ripped by a bomb set off by mother nature. Our local electrical cooperative still has over 15,000 people out of power and the prognosis is for some of those people to be out of power through the month of February. As most of you know, my knowledge of the details of the coop [aka "co-op"] is quite intimate as Eddy has been been an employee there for over 30 years. They have brought so many crews in from so many other places that Eddy has lost track of the count. He moved today to Pineville to oversee crews from Texas as that endeavor had to have the most experienced foreman because the lines cross the river. They came and got my power on so Eddy would have lights and hot water when he came home at night. Since I had only been seeing him for 2 or 3 hours a night that was a nice change. He is now sleeping from midnight to 4 am. Then going back in for command meetings and back out to work. They will work these hours and 7 days a week until every single person is back in power.

That sounds really serious if they had to call on Texas for help! We Arkies generally prefer not to inflate the Texan ego by requesting help. But good to hear that Big Eddy Oliver is getting more rest . . . on a full four hours sleep per night. Meanwhile, Jeanie parents -- Jim and Barbara Scott -- are handling their isolation well:

My mom and dad have all kinds of camping equipment and dad is the ultimate throw-back to frontiersman so they have been making it okay. They don't have power, though, and no clue when the coop [aka "co-op"] will reach them. The saddest aspect for them is the fact that so many of their beloved shade trees have been destroyed.

I figured that if any individual would know how to survive midwinter on an Ozark farm cut off from the world, Jim Scott would be the one.

The scope of the disaster is made clear in a link sent to me by my old friend Herschel Ducker concerning the efforts made by the North Arkansas Electric Cooperative to restore services:

The number of additional linemen and ground crew members helping to restore North Arkansas Electric Cooperative's power grid swelled to 700 on Tuesday following last week's ice storms which left thousands without power, plunging them into cold and darkness.

Mel Coleman, NAEC chief executive officer, said the co-op normally has about 75 maintenance and installation crews. Some 21,000 consumers on the 35,000-member service grid in Baxter, Fulton, Izard, Sharp, Stone and Marion counties remained without electricity on Tuesday, he said. (Frank Wallis, "NAEC calls on 700 workers to restore power," The Baxter Bulletin, February 4, 2009)

Note the statistics: 21,000 people without electricity in the middle of winter. No lights, cooking, or heating until the powerlines are back up . . . unless people can improvise. Herschel has been having a few ice-bound adventures of his own:

I've had some "adventures with neighbors" trying to keep warm. Thursday was especially exciting (as far as adventures go). One of the old ladies decided lighting off the charcoal grill in an unchimneyed, wood-ceilinged, unvented commons area of the apartment building was a good idea . . . . [W]hen I entered the commons area, well, "ballistic" is a pretty fair description of where I went . . . . [T]he local fire chief showed up a bit later advising everyone that there had been "a number" of confirmed CO poisonings with a few fatalities. To my added relief he mentioned that lighting charcoal or wood fires in unvented buildings would be treated harshly.

Herschel was entirely correct in forcefully expressing his alarm, for as this link shows, the consequences can be deadly:

A massive ice storm last week which caused thousands to lose power and heat resulted in the death of a Gassville man who died of apparent carbon monoxide poisoning, authorities said. The body of Nathan Johnson, 47, of 625 Magness St., was discovered over the weekend by the Gassville Police Department.

Baxter County Sheriff's Capt. Jeff Lewis said Johnson was believed to have died from carbon monoxide poisoning.

Johnson apparently was running a generator in the garage, with the door open into the house, according to an incident report. (Armando Rios, "Officials: Carbon monoxide kills Gassville man," The Baxter Bulletin, February 3, 2009)

I hope that my kinfolk are being careful with the generators that they have running.

While I worry about that, take a look at the next four images, posted to me through two poorly-formulated links in a previous blog comment from Ruth Skrapates but also sent via email by way of both Herschel Ducker and my brother Tim Hodges. Here are two links, now properly done, to Ruth's many photographs. I recall Ruth well from my teenage years when she was a little girl nicknamed -- for some reason or other -- "Boobie" . . . though she now signs her rare comments here with "Skrap." Maybe she can clue me in on this old mystery of her nickname.

Icy Destruction, Downtown Salem, Arkansas

Driving south on North Elm Street, Salem

Icy sign, lines, trees, and slope of Salem Knob

High up on Salem Knob, looking higher...

The next two images -- as with the very first one -- come from Jeanie Oliver, who lives on a hilltop in the Ozark countryside.

Iconic Tree of Icy Knowledge

Fire and Ice

That last photograph might very well be a sunrise, but it has a setting-sun quality to it, an appropriate final image that also reminds me of Robert Frost's fine poem:

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

That's "Fire and Ice," published in Frost's 1923 book of poetry New Hampshire and first taught to me by Mrs. Deshazo in her 8th-grade English class during the winter of 1971.

Fire or ice, take your choice.

Ozark Ice Storm: More Icy Images

My sister-in-law Sandy Hodges -- married to my youngest full brother, Pastor John -- forwarded these pictures taken by her friend Karen Willett and revealing, in the most stunning detail yet, just how severe the ice was in my hometown of Salem and the surrounding area.

The first is obviously just outside of somebody's home, perhaps Ms. Willett's, early in the morning after the storm.


The next photograph shows the drive out of someone's front yard, possibly again Ms. Willett's place. Note the broken limb dangling dangerously at the top center. That's surely come down by now -- either by cutting or by the recent windstorm.


The following photo is similar, again a driveway with trees and their bent limbs, but also revealing the heavy ice pulling on the powerlines. Note those long, sharp icicles!


Next, an entire tree seems to have come down, along with several powerlines.


In the following image, taken during a drive, note the many powerlines hanging dangerously low.


Below, a frozen road, broken tree, icy powerlines, and wispy clouds.


Bowed and broken trees in a penultimate image.


Finally, a close-up for everyone to see what two inches of freezing rain will do to a tree branch . . . and note the dusting of snow that followed the ice storm.


If you want to see more images, Ms. Karen Willett has them available on Kodak Gallery, where you can click on the slideshow and see them all.

Uncle Cran Reports!

A big winter storm seems to have hit the Midwest and parts of the South a couple of days ago, so let's go to Uncle Cran's Ozark Farm Report for a full and accurate briefing:

Yesterday about 9:30 AM it started sleeting/freezing rain that continued until we went to bed at 10:00 PM. There was 2 inches of sleet mixed with ice at that time. This morning at 5:00 AM there was another 4 inches of snow on top of the sleet and ice. While I was shoveling snow at the barn, Gay called me. She had slipped on the ice and I had to help her get up. Thankfully she wasn't hurt.

I started at 8:00 this morning feeding cows, chopping ice, shoveling snow and using the tractor to clear snow from the front of the hay barn. I was able to get two round bales out into the field. Then I drove the tractor up and down the driveway.

Eh? Why "up and down the driveway"? Just for the hell of it? Or the challenge, to see if you could?

It took four tries before I got all the way to the road.

That can happen when you drive "up and down the driveway" a few times.

We can get the truck out if needed, but we don't plan to go anywhere before Wednesday as the road is ice covered. It sounded like every school in north Arkansas and southern Missouri is dismissed, and who knows how many others in the two states. Schools in our area have already missed 23 or more days because of snow.

But it does have some benefits.

Always look on the bright side of life!

We weren't able to burn our trash for almost three weeks, as there was a burn ban most of this time. The sleet and snow will bring needed moisture as well as adding nitrogen to the fields. This will stimulate the grass in the fields when the weather warms. So Gay and I will take things easy the next few days.

There appears to be an unfinished thought in that passage. Anyway, Uncle Cran hadn't originally included any pictures, so I asked:

Any photos? Is this like the ice storm of a few years back?

Uncle Cran replied:

The snow was so beautiful when I went outside this morning. Now that I've shoveled, waded through, driven the tractor through, and the dogs have made tracks everywhere, it isn't so pretty. The wood pile I took a picture of back in February is down to just a few sticks. But you can see by the fence another two ricks I cut recently that hopefully will last until sometime in April.

From ricks to sticks! But he did send two photos, the one above . . . and this one:

Hmmm . . .

Ozark Adventure: Photoblog

We flew out of Seoul's international airport on the morning of February 7, changed planes in Tokyo, and continued on into the past as we crossed the international dateline. By the time that we reached an airport in Detroit, where we were to again change planes, Sun-Ae caught me and the kids in a moment of our great excitement at being headed for Arkansas. Hardly able to contain myself, I forced my rear into a seat and read the second novel in Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea Cycle: The Tombs of Atuan. Sa-Rah and En-Uk dealt with their own excitement by napping.

We flew on from Detroit to Memphis, where my mother and the wife of my brother John picked us up after a delay due to tornado damage from the twisters that had hit Arkansas and Tennessee, among other states, only a couple of days before. John's wife, Sandy, drove us the 150 miles to my hometown of Salem, Arkansas, nestled in a river valley with a couple of Ozark knobs as scenic diversion . . . except that we arrived late at night and couldn't see a thing.

After a very long trip, we found ourselves crashing into bed on the same day of our leaving . . . by the calendar, anyway, but as I discovered in my very first Ozark blogging effort on the following morning, February 8, my entry posted on February 9, as if I were still in Korea. Nevertheless, the links that I make to various blog posts will lead to the correct entries despite the date shown.

Anyway, on the morning of February 8, we drove east from Salem for 20 miles on Highway 62, then turned left toward Hardy, passing through part of Ash Flat and Highland, where we saw some of the damage wreaked by Tuesday's F4 tornado. As I noted in my blog entry about that drive, "An entire shopping mall was blown away, and enormous steel sheets littered the upper branches of trees, where the 200-mile-per-hour winds had twisted and wrapped the metal about like tin foil."

The resort town of Hardy had weathered the storms without damage, and after visiting that old place for an hour or so, we drove north on Highway 63 to Mammoth Spring, where the only halfway decent photo of the spring's enormous outflow of nearly 10 million gallons each hour appears below, showing Sa-Rah peering down upon the thunderous chaos of crashing water -- though the image captures only about half the overspill at the local dam, so the effect is not so impressive. I wish that the water were not dammed up so that one could see that huge spring emerging from the ground, but the dam has its own historical value as a landmark.


After a lovely Friday driving from Mammoth Spring north into Missouri and along the Missouri-Arkansas border on dirt roads where we saw many deer and a few armadillos, as well as the expected cattle and horses grazing in the roadside fields, we returned to Salem to relax and catch up on family stories and local rumors.

On Saturday morning, we all got up early and joined my brother Tim to visit the cattle that he and our Uncle Clarence Bowling have on the latter's farm near Bexar, Arkansas, a few miles south of Viola. In the photo below, you can see Sa-Rah and me feeding the cattle.


Afterwards, we returned to Salem for a family get-together in the gymnasium that belongs to the church where my brother John preaches. In the first photograph below, you see me speaking to my paternal cousin Clyde Ashley, with whom I used to play high school basketball. Clyde could really jump back in our youth. He could take a step and a half and leap up to get his elbow on the basketball rim -- despite being merely 6 feet and 3 inches tall. I used to envy his leaping ability.

On the left of the photo, you see my nephew Andrew, son to my older brother, Pat. Andrew has studied political science and is currently working for somebody's political campaign in Kansas . . . I think.



In the next picture, you see Clyde's mother, Virginia, who's directing her mysterious Mona Lisa smile toward the camera as my paternal cousin Bill, whom I hadn't seen in 40 years, is holding forth on something or other that has so utterly enthralled the attention of my Uncle Cran's wife, Gay Hodges, that she has momentarily closed her eyes. My Uncle Woodrow Hodges, however, still handsome and youthful at about 80, looks more skeptical at Bill's remarks.


In the next photo, you see my brother Tim coaching En-Uk on the finer points of dunking a basketball: "First, young man, you have to grow a little more." Tim should know, for he's as tall as Clyde and could jump even better back when he played ball, for he could consistently stuff the ball two-handed in a behind his head dunk and occasionally nearly hit his head on the rim. Playing against him was a humbling experience . . . but I think that En-Uk posed a significant challenge to Tim's current jumping skills...


After the family reunion was over, we retired to Tim's place to drink a few beers with cousin Bill, catch up on family history, and listen to an unofficial gospel recording made by David Lynn Jones that came into the hands of Tim's older son, Justin Hodges, when Jones 'retired' from the music scene. I'll have to tell that story sometime after I've listened to the music enough to have something intelligent to say about it. Justin, by the way, has his own band, Gazer, based in Batesville, Arkansas, and used to know Jones well because Justin was dating Jones's daughter back then. But that's a different story...

The next morning dawned bright and early because we headed to the church where my brother preaches and were joined there by Daddio al-Ozarka and his family for the service before heading off on our Izard County jaunt. Daddio has a website that he calls Exploring Izard County (EIC), so he's semiprofessional as a guide to Izard's lovely Ozark sites.

In this first photo, you see some magnificent bluffs on the White River. These drop some 200 to 300 feet down to the water, so don't be fooled by appearances. The sight is dizzying -- especially after a beer that Daddio generously provided. I did no more drinking that day.


The next photograph shows a different location, this time on the upper Calico Rock Creek near Dolph, Arkansas in a hollow formed by an old, very old, collapsed cavern system of which this natural bridge remains as evidence. In this image, you see a mingling of families -- mine, Daddio's, and that of a fellow EIC man named 'Rick'. This natural bridge arches about 30 feet up, I estimate.


Next, you see another image of this bridge, with Daddio, his lovely wife, and two of their energetic children.


After our exploring, Daddio led us to a place called Roscoe's for dinner, where we were joined by an echo from my childhood -- the young fellow wearing glasses and sporting a moustache. I hadn't seen him in so long that I no longer remember his name. Just kidding. Actually, that's his name, "Just Kidding." Or something like that. Incidentally, he saw that tornado pass near Melbourne, Arkansas on its way to Zion, Arkansas, which it destroyed before heading on to Ash Flat.

You also now see in this sequence the very first image of my beautiful wife. That's Sun-Ae seated just beyond me and smiling in your direction.


The next day, a Monday, my family and I visited the home of my old Scoutmaster, Mr. Albert Holland and helped him feed his cattle. You see us bundled up, for the temperature had dropped from the day before. Sa-Rah looks frozen, and En-Uk is taking extremely seriously his job as scarecrow, which he performed very successfully, for we saw no crows. However, we did see a lot of turkeys and some deer as well.


The very next image shows us relaxing with Mr. Holland in his home. I hope that I'm doing as well as he when I reach 91! The man is amazing. He fought in the Pacific during World War Two and then again in the Korean War, where he got trapped behind enemy lines along with many other allies, and they had to fight their way back, earning the name "The Chosun Few" in honor of their achievement and the place where they were based when surrounded, the Chosun Reservoir. Mr. Holland is still mentally alert and can recount stories from that time, even recalling dates and names. I can't quite do that at a mere 50!


I don't have any photos from our time spent with Mr. Scott and his wife on Tuesday, another cold day. Mr. Scott, who is now 74, was my high school math teacher, whom I also worked for one summer as a chainman on his surveying team.

I wish that I had some photos from this day, for we saw not merely his cattle and horses, which we fed, but also a lot of deer and even a dead coyote.

In the next sequence of photographs, you'll see the ice storm that struck on the night after our visit to see Mr. Scott. Despite the clouds and cold of the previous day at Scott's place and the freezing rain that fell overnight, this Wednesday was bright and cloudless. Even the highways were clear of ice, so we drove through some 50 miles of diamond trees that glittered in the morning sunshine in the most stunningly beautiful Ozark day that I've ever seen. I'll just let you look at the next three images and imagine the rest.






Next, you see a large hotel (I presume) atop one of the high bluffs overlooking one of the tributaries to the White River. We had stopped just across the Sylamore Bridge to re-fuel, so Sun-Ae snapped this photo.


Eventually, we reached our destination, Blanchard Springs Caverns. This image is a bit dark, but I wanted to provide a hint of the underground beauty that matched that of the ice above ground.


You see us here standing with my younger brother Shan just outside the cavern. Shan's wife Shoshanna took the picture and thus doesn't appear here.


She also captured us in this pose a few hundred feet down from the cavern site at the place where Blanchard Springs bursts forth from the side of the mountain.


Now, you finally see the lovely Shoshanna standing by her Ozark man.


Only a few meters away, Sa-Rah and En-Uk stand where this mountain creek falls steeply on its way to feed into the larger stream formed by Blanchard Springs.


Later, on our way back from Blanchard Springs toward Uncle Woodrow's place, where Aunt Pauline would have a steaming hot dinner awaiting our appetites, Sun-Ae caught this scenic outlook toward a knob in the lower Boston Mountain region.


Eventually, we reached our destination, where we discovered that the ice had not melted off the trees at all, and Sa-Rah and En-Uk met up with their cousin 'Shiney' (actually, Cheyenne) to ride her horse and play around the in the field and upon the wooden fence, as the following images demonstrate.




If I may interject . . . you see here my Uncle Woodrow and his son-in-law Curren Everett smiling at the antics of En-Uk as he clambers over the fence to escape Shiney's horse.



As you see above, En-Uk's courage returned. Further below, En-Uk reveals his more domestic side as he assists first Aunt Sandy and then her husband, the already-mentioned preacher, my brother John, as they decorate the Valentine Cake for our Valentine dinner the day after our ice-storm trip.

This evening, by the way, followed a trip to Horsehoe Bend, Arkansas to see my maternal Aunt Ava Jo and her husband Uncle Clarence at their lovely home overlooking a lake about 15 miles from Salem. Unfortunately, the photos didn't turn out so well, but you can read about that fascinating day on an earlier blog entry.



Now, you find us at the actual Valentine's Day dinner in John and Sandy's home. Note my 'overexposed' mother in the lower lefthand corner. Opposite her, you can see three-quarters of Chris, my brother Tim's son.


As usual, my brother John ate too much and is suffering the predictable consequences of wind on the guts.


But that's too painful to contemplate, so let's proceed to a more civilized evening in the cultured city of Little Rock, home to the Bill Clinton Presidential Library with its many books and documents, including an entire shelf devoted to the ambiguities of the verb "is."

But enough about Slick Willie. Below, you see our gracious hosts, my childhood friend Bruce Cochran and his wife Liz, who hails from San Antonio, Texas but moved to Little Rock and met Bruce working in a hospital. She took one glance at him and knew without a doubt that he was the one. That was about 30 years ago, so she must have been right.


We were joined by the Beer Man, John Wells, and his wife whose name -- for some embarrassing reason -- escapes me at the moment. Mr. Wells, you may recall, hosts a beer website, but more on that later.


We enjoyed fine wines and wonderful food, but I'm running short on time, so I'll abbreviate my tale for now and return to the details another time.

The following day, Sun-Ae and I drove back from Little Rock to Salem and got a photo with all my full brothers and my mom. My half-brother, Matthew, was missing from this one, and the one that he appears in has us looking demon-possessed due to our hellishly red-glowing eyes. I really need to learn how to photoshop.


For some reason, this was the last of the photographs that Sun-Ae sent to my computer, so I have no more to share. We stayed several more days, of course, but this entry is a photoblog, so I'll be brief about the rest of our trip. I left soon after the above picture and drove to Bruce's old farmhouse, where I joined him and John Wells for an evening of beer and talk. John provided the beer, as was fitting for the Beer Man who hosts a beer site online.

After that evening, I awoke early on a Sunday and drove to my brother's church for absolution, then took a little trip with my nuclear family on Monday to visit with my paternal Uncle Cranford and his wife Gay, then with my wife treated my brother John and his wife to a meal in Mountain Home on Tuesday, and left the Ozarks on Wednesday for Memphis with Tim and his wife Dona doing the driving. After an evening in Memphis, we flew our weary way back to Seoul.

And that's the truth...