tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6321070.post2141557018668765140..comments2024-02-27T11:26:39.655-07:00Comments on Southern Rockies Nature Blog: What People Are Missing from this Story?Chas S. Cliftonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00923547685265741325noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6321070.post-14415114678685679172012-11-26T20:58:11.437-07:002012-11-26T20:58:11.437-07:00I knew about some of the Civil War stuff, but not ...I knew about some of the Civil War stuff, but not the back story on "Shepherd of the Hills." The Wikipedia entry was enough, I think!Chas S. Cliftonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00923547685265741325noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6321070.post-37206696214594481432012-11-26T16:47:05.977-07:002012-11-26T16:47:05.977-07:00I was born and raised in the Ozarks. There are, o...I was born and raised in the Ozarks. There are, or were, some desperately poor people back in the sticks. Our parents liked to take Sunday drives in the country, to go visit relatives. I remember some that had no electricity, even in the '60s. They got water from a hand pump in the yard, and kept vegetables in a root cellar. Our father (born in 1910) told the story of his family being so poor that he couldn't have a bicycle. Finally someone gave him one, which he loved riding so much he wore out the tires. He couldn't afford new tires, so he tied ropes around the rims. He said it actually worked pretty well, but every time the knots came around and hit the ground, it gave him a kick in the butt, reminding how poor he was.<br /><br />We fished Table Rock many times. My mom's side of the family had roots there going back to the early 1800s. Read up on what the Union did in MO during the Civil War (fodder for stories such as the Outlaw Josey Wales, for example). Oh, and the first battle of the Civil War west of the Mississippi happened just SW of Springfield, north of Branson and Table Rock. Also, Shepherd of the Hills (perhaps the strangest John Wayne movie) happened in the Branson/Table Rock area, IIRC.<br /><br />I couldn't go out in the country there without getting covered with ticks. Ugh. Darrellnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6321070.post-18741094665081750642012-11-25T22:39:20.487-07:002012-11-25T22:39:20.487-07:00Before I moved out west 30 some years ago I lived ...Before I moved out west 30 some years ago I lived in the hills to the west of Quabbin reservoir in western Mass, a huge lake that drowned (I believe) five towns by damming the Swift River. No book has ever told the tale but it would be interesting.<br /><br />More weirdly, H P Lovecraft used the flooding of the Swift River valley as the backdrop for The Color Out of Space, and I always though his Dunwich Horror lived somewhere up near me in the still lonely hills of Franklin County.<br /><br />(Also see current Smithsonian on the New England vampire scare back then).Steve Bodiohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14434597061701369867noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6321070.post-9907345687124909022012-11-25T18:06:45.941-07:002012-11-25T18:06:45.941-07:00Lone Star! One of my favorite movies of all time.<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116905/" rel="nofollow"><i>Lone Star</i></a>! One of my favorite movies of all time.Chas S. Cliftonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00923547685265741325noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6321070.post-58660566564068424052012-11-25T11:32:13.678-07:002012-11-25T11:32:13.678-07:00In the Shenandoah National Park, the government ar...In the Shenandoah National Park, the government arbitrarily allowed residents over 60 to stay in their homes, while everyone else had to leave.Some descendants of these mountain people have tried, without success, to repatriate their ancestral properties. Wherever you see a big lake created by a dam, whether it be for energy or recreational purposes, rest assured that people had to be removed from their homes before the water rose. In the film "Lone Star" by John Sayles, the destroyed town bears the appropriate name of Perdito.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01511771923469786536noreply@blogger.com