PLATE 1. Beautiful jars of End-of-the-Year Relish, waiting for a winter season of hot dogs, brats, Polish sausage, pork chops and just-plain eatin’ out of the jar. Miss Angie’s End of Season Garden Relish by Joshua Heston This amazing relish has two important stories for me. First, the precise recipe is from Angie Haage-Hubbs of…
Mandolin Maker John Wynn (1938 to 2010) by Joshua Heston What is Ozark culture? “Self-made,” said John Wynn, without missing a beat. “When they got here to such backwoods, hilly country that you couldn’t hardly farm because there wasn’t a level piece of land around, they had to build everything they used. They built their…
Them Hills by Candice Gage with art by Mikki Sale “Why’d you want to move to them hills?” Grammy’s dark brown eyes crinkled with quiet laughter. My great-grandmother’s present was fading, but I was old enough at twenty-six for her to know — though not as well as she still knew the Ozark hills of…
PLATE 1. Confederate Church (Methodist Episcopal Church South) was a safe haven for Confederates during and after the war. A Confederate Church & Jesse James by Clint E. Lacy You might never guess the treasures hidden in your own background. That’s what I learned after buying our house at the corner of Englehart Lane and…
Shepherd of the Hills Country (1913-1960) by J. Thomas and Joshua Heston As Shepherd of the Hills became a bestselling novel, fans of the book began flocking to the Branson area. The visitors hoped to experience Shepherd of the Hills country for themselves. Locals latched onto the notion of making a living from this newfound…
Eastern Ozarks Rendezvous, Glen Allen, MO by Clint Lacy, March 16, 2019 Remarkably I had not been able to attend the first and second Eastern Ozarks Rendezvous event at Barks Plantation in Glen Allen, Missouri, so this year I decided to pay them a visit. The first person I interviewed was “Billy” from Cape Girardeau,…
The Harold Bell Wright Era by J. Thomas with Joshua Heston To understand Branson today, we must harken back to the earlier days of an old-fashioned people and the early steps of those who walked the paths of these White River Hills. With around seven million visitors a year, Branson has become a center for…
PLATE 1. “Young Matt” (Caleb Odenthal) fights the Baldknobbers. Photo by Beckie Fairchild. Smells Like Rain & Tastes Like Tears: Shepherd the Musical by Joshua Heston with Caleb Brubaker “Do they think this is the end?” Dave Wallace wondered as he looked over an audience rising to their feet. The applause was long and lasting…
PLATE 1. The Centaur Escapes. The Centaur Escapes displays an enraged centaur, half-man and half-horse — muscular back arched, fists clenched — against a troubled sky. From whom is he escaping? What cause is there of this angst? O’Neill, wisely, leaves that answer to the viewer — or, perhaps more personally, simply kept the answer…
John Anster Fitzgerald (1823-1906), Titania and Bottom The Celtic World by Joshua Heston “From the cradle to the grave our every move is shadowed by beings not quite of this world.” (1) In the old days, before our inundation of technology, before we could pat ourselves on the back for having discovered every mystery worth finding,…