StateoftheOzarks Weekly

The Minstrel Oaks

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THINKING’ ABOUT… THE MINSTREL OAKS. The shadow of the afternoon sun’s heat remained, covering the deep greens of the tightly mown fairgrounds, covering the land and sky itself and making the forest beyond the gravel road wave slightly, a shimmer as though of another time and place. Beyond the line of dark forest, the sun…

StateoftheOzarks Weekly

The Only Place Left

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BEEN THINKIN’ ABOUT… THE ONLY PLACE LEFT. I remember how cold the air was in the lonely hospital garden that Saturday evening in late November. Winter arrives early on the central Iowa plains and the wind played in that empty, man-made canyon, a hollow box of mounded earth and agreeably curved pathways. Over here, a…