April 24, 2021

Good morning America. A bright, chilly day gets us moving south on Route # 125 along the spine of the “Hills of the Ozarks.” At Bradleyville we take Route #76 East to Brownbranch and cross Beaver Creek.

We swing around a curve just south of Ava, MO (population 3,000) just in time to see a mature male bald eagle with out stretched wings sitting smack dab in the middle of the road. He turns to gaze at us with piercing bright yellow eyes then takes to the air with a flap and a flourish.

Leave it to Beaver

From Ava, we head north on Route #5 and pick up Route #60 at Mansfield (population 1,300).   Actor Ken Osmond lived in Mansfield for a time.  Osmond played Eddie Haskell in the 1950s and 1960s family sitcom Leave It to Beaver. Eddie was Wally Cleaver’s (Beaver’s) best and worst friend,  Who among us has not seen a episode of Leave it to Beaver? Anyone under 60 years old need not answer.

After Mansfield, we pass through Mountain View (population 3,000), then Fremont (population 127), and Ellsinore (population 446). Poplar Bluff, “The Gateway to the Ozarks”, is next with 18,000 souls. Gateway cities are always bigger.

Then comes Dexter. In 1873 a Mr. Dex named his one and only horse Dexter, then named the town after the horse. I wonder how many towns in American are named after horses.

After Dexter, we come to Wilson City (population 115). Wilson has a bit of interesting history.  In the 1940’s many, white land owners forced tenant farmers from the land they farmed. The Farm Security Administration (FSA), a federal government agency, built four hamlets including Wilson City, to provide housing for these unfortunate souls. They segregated the villages by race. Wilson City was the one designated for African Americans. I suppose that is better than nothing.

The Mighty Mississippi

After Wilson City, we cross the Mississippi River and then the Ohio River at their conjunction.

The 2,320 mile long Mississippi flows south into the Gulf of Mexico, draining all or parts of 32 states. It is the largest river basin in the Continental United States. Native Americans lived along the river and its tributaries for thousands of years. Most were hunter-gatherers, Some formed prolific agricultural and thriving urban civilizations.

I suppose that puts a big fat kibosh on former (thank heavens) Senator Rick Santorum’s recent stupid comments concerning the settlement of America. At a Young America’s Foundation event last month he said that the Founding Fathers “birthed a nation from nothing.”

Nothing?

Who the hell are the Young Americans anyway?

Manifest Destiny

Europeans began to dismantle the native American civilization in the 16th century . Along came the United States in the 19th century and led the dismantlement in earnest. Manifest Destiny, a widely held cultural belief that Americans and their institutions were virtuous and special, mandated that white settlers own America from “sea to shining sea. That enterprise involved removing all obstacles, including those pesky indigenous peoples.

Historian Frederick Merk has said that American leaders created this concept out of “a sense of mission to redeem the “Old World” by high example … generated by the potentialities of a new earth for building a new heaven”.

There you go. A new heaven.

It only took us one hundred years to introduce major pollution and environmental problems on the Mississippi. Elevated nutrient and chemical levels from agricultural runoff cause today’s “dead zone” in the Gulf, a vast oxygen depleted area.  Thus the term dead. Add in gobs of sediment from development and many failed attempts at “taming” the behemoth and you have a real mess. Not to mention chemical pollution from oil refineries dotting the Delta landscape today.

The Mighty Ohio River

Same Story.

The 981-mile long Ohio River drains parts of fourteen states. It is the third largest river by discharge volume in the United States and the source of drinking water for three million people. Yuk!

The name “Ohio” comes from the Seneca people who used to roam freely along it banks and lands. Put that in your pipe a smoke it Ricky boy. Nothing?

Some historians point out that the river was part of the border between free and slave territory in the United States. Where the river is narrow thousands of slaves crossed it to find freedom in the north. Heroes of the Underground Railroad resistance movement aided them. Think Harriet Tubman.

In modern times we have treated the Ohio no different than the way we treated the Mississippi with respect to environmental problems. In 2001 the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission (ORSANCO) ranked the Ohio River as the most polluted river in the United States. Today it still is. Toxic nitrate discharges from farm runoff and waste water from industrial processes such as steel production, and mercury and fluoride based Teflon pollution top the list of insults to Ohio River ecology.

Its not all bad. In my view, nothing is more thrilling than to see a steam-powered stern wheeler dancing its way along these river waters, spreading joy and mirth far and wide.

Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area

Next comes Barlow, KY (population 675), then Kevil (population 376) and finally Paduka, KY (population 25,000). Paduka is sited on the confluence of the Ohio and Tennessee Rivers. Finally we come to Grand Rivers (population 382) at the confluence of the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers. The Tennessee Valley Authority and the Army Corps of Engineers dammed both rivers in the 1940s and thus created two lakes and an isthmus. We camp on the isthmus near the shore of Lake Barkley, one of the two lakes. The other is Kentucky Lake.

The 170,00 acre Land Between The Lakes National Recreation Area is a hidden gem. It occupies the largest inland peninsula in the United States. A scenic highway winds its way southward on the peninsula, through a forested region of rolling hills. Mini “fjords” punctuate the coast lines.

—–

Its cold this evening. The biting wind kicks up white caps on the lake. We are alone. Sawyer is running free, in dog heaven. It is time to fire up the furnace.

Good night to all.

Tomorrow we head ever eastward.