BEEN THINKIN’ ABOUT… A GREEN CHRISTMAS. “A green Christmas makes a full graveyard,” goes the old mountain saying. It is an old Appalachian omen, dating back likely to old Britain. But Vance Randolph recorded the saying in the Ozarks too and the words have echoed in my mind the past several days. Days in which…
BEEN THINKIN’ ABOUT… ONCE UPON A CHRISTMAS. The wind was a ragged squall line in the dark, blowing hard over the Missouri Ozarks, dropping temperatures some 30 degrees not long after the sun — a distant orange ball — had passed beyond misty western clouds. The longest night of the year is upon us. The…
Artwork by Clint Loveland, February 25, 2017. BEEN THINKIN’ ABOUT… STORIES TO TELL. Leaning back in my chair at Vintage Paris Coffee, I close my eyes, listening to the stories being spun and woven by the small group of dedicated writers around me. There is an oaky bitterness in the air, but only because I…
Scottie’s Christmas, circa 2022 by Joshua Heston [SPARTA, MO] — Scottie Snider, longtime antique collector, artist and decorator, stands in his 1880s’ farmhouse, welcoming the civic-minded and the curious of Christian County into his holiday-ensconced residence. “I have collected antiques since I have been married and my wife Pam and I loved the old primitives.…