StateoftheOzarks Weekly

Going Down to Eygypt

BEEN THINKIN’ ABOUT…. GOING DOWN TO EGYPT. The dark-haired boy is bent over blank white paper, black-and-red flannel obscuring a thin and insecure frame. His desk is dark brown, dark brown like his eyes, eyes like his father’s. The desk is handmade by his grandpa, pine impossible to scratch beneath layers of resin laminate. This…

Red Oak II Mill Barn

Red Oak II

Red Oak II by Joshua Heston [JASPER COUNTY, MISSOURI] — A sharp wind whistles across the rolling Missouri plains east of Carthage. Here, less than a mile north of famed Route 66, is Red Oak II, a community that isn’t a town, but a tourist attraction that is a homey neighborhood of museum-esque eccentricity. The…