The DrHGuy Alternative Southwest Missouri Tour - Part I

July 22nd, 2008 · No Comments

Livin’ ain’t easy, Bloggin’s twice as tough¹

The Vulnerable Soul Of The Blogger

One can blog ones little heart out to bring what Matthew Arnold called “sweetness and light” to the public, asking for no other gratification than occasionally imbuing the reader with a bit of wisdom to enhance that individual’s life, only to have that vision shattered by those near and dear to him.

And, no, I’m not referring to the tragedy of discovering last month that my closest friends did not know, despite the multiple Heck of a Guy posts broadcasting the fact, that Leonard Cohen wrote “Hallelujah.” That episode is past; I have found that one can indeed love the sinner while hating the sin.

No, this desecration of the dream came to light this past weekend as I was catching up on the past month’s missed reading of the blogs I follow. In this process, I noticed that fellow McHenry County inhabitant and blogger, Cal Skinner of McHenryCountyBlog, had posted a description of his family’s vacation in and around my old stomping ground,² southwest Missouri.

Given that I’ve written volumes about the wonders of this area, I was eager to read the Skinner family’s take on those sights.

I’ve excerpted the pertinent portions of Cal’s entry, Back From Vacation, below:

If you have noticed a dearth of local, breaking news since Independence Day, it was because our family was in Missouri on vacation. … We stayed at Joplin’s Hotel Desmond, much more than a bread and breakfast, because my gracious little sister and my brother-in-law run it.

We were treated to a Grand Lake, Oklahoma, 4th of July Saturday. … The rest of the day was spent in an undeveloped cove of this 66 mile long man-made lake. … My son was enchanted by the Undercliff Bar and Grill south of Joplin. We went twice. It had a toy scoop money grabber that guaranteed a prize, even if it was a piece of penny candy. He eventually got the bracelet he wanted. … We went to the Dickerson Zoo in Springfield, up I-44 from Joplin. The highlight (pun intended) was seeing folks feed the giraffes from a raised platform. The same day we visited the Fantastic Caverns. The latter were fantastic because one does not have to walk. We guys … went to see Big Brutus in southeast Kansas coal strip mine country.

Big Brutus is the second largest drag line in the country. It has been preserved and folks can climb to the cab. … we went together to the Precious Moments Chapel. I have to admit not wanting to go the first time around back in the early 1990’s. I thought the Precious Moments statuettes were “terminally cute.” The figurines still are, but the Chapel is worth the trip. … Next, the two sisters decided it was time to visit Branson, which is about as far south in Missouri as Joplin, but without a direct west-east connection. … Sunday we ate at Andy Williams’ Moon River Cafe. He was out playing golf, the bartender told us as he was serving our meal at the almost empty restaurant. That night, I enjoyed the joint show of Paul Revere and the Raiders, plus Bill Medley, the remaining and deep-voiced Righteous Brother. … And, who was in the audience? Andy Williams, Ann Margaret and her husband Roger Smith. They were sitting way up top, but I didn’t bring my camera. …

The Response

Heck of a Guy readers are no doubt appalled by this account - and not just because, in defiance of his own advice, Cal didn’t have his camera handy and thus forfeited his chance to play paparazzo to the Branson jet set.

No, the true horror arises from the realization of opportunities lost.

While I do not criticize those sites the Skinner family did visit,³ I cannot but lament that the most important local attractions⁴ were missing from their itinerary.

Let’s start with the absence of …

The Obligatory Parent-initiated Vacation Forced March To An Historically Or Culturally Significant Location (OPVFMTAHOCSL)

As it turns out, one can’t swing any sort of cat - deceased, live, or suspended in status Schrodinger - in the vicinity of southwest Missouri without hitting a Historically Or Culturally Significant Location (HOCSLs): a live feline, for example, placed in the prescribed centrifugal, arms length orbit could be clawing at civil war battlefields, archaeological digs, museums, mineral displays,⁵ or all manner of civic festivals. Heck, the whirling cat himself could well become the nidus of a festival.

But, of course, the obvious choice from this category would have been Diamond, Missouri (AKA The Gem City of the Ozarks), less than a 30 minute drive from Joplin and the birthplace of George Washington Carver, who was featured in six Heck of a Guy posts,⁶ and DrHGuy. There is, in fact, already a national monument located at the farm where George was born.

George Washington Carver National Monument near Diamond, Missouri

Scenes from the George Washington Carver Monument

DrHGuy’s earliest home is, alas, not available for viewing because of its current role as - and I kid you not - a shed.

DrHGuy is far too modest to point out that the Skinner clan could, without leaving the city limits of Joplin, have made the pilgrimage to the McDonald’s where a young DrHGuy learned the ways of commerce, starting as a humble and lovable bun boy, then moving up to condiment dispenser, and finally rising to the position of shift floor manager. It was, in fact, that selfsame DrHGuy, who compiled, with his own hands (carefully washed as per the McDonald’s instructional video) two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun into the first Big Mac sold in Joplin.

Dramatization of first Big Mac sold in Joplin, Missouri. DrHGuy, creator.

Not that DrHGuy’s feeling are hurt or anything.

The Spiritual Venue

The Skinners did visit the Precious Moments Chapel, which technically qualifies as a spiritual site although its only mention in a Heck of a Guy post was as part of a threat in an extortion scheme.⁷

Regardless, The primal preternatural locus of the area is clearly the Spooklight, the apparition described in this excerpt from Spooklight Story?

The Spooklight has appeared here since the 1860s, typically taking the form of a bright light (sometimes described as a “ball of fire”) of a yellow-orange color, ranging in size from what one might guess would be a large flashlight to something the size of a bushel basket or larger, that seems to be at the top of the next rise. The light routinely moves to the left and right. Less often, it’s said to split into smaller balls of light or take on different colors (red, blue, and green). Those walking toward the light find that it disappears until, if they continue forward, it reappears behind them.

The Spooklight offers, in short, the consummate religious experience:
the opportunity to scare the bejesus out of all involved⁸

The Spooklight, near Hornet, Missouri

And, this reliably occurring miracle was certainly close by.

Spooklight Road is eleven miles southwest of Joplin, Missouri, just past the village of Hornet, in the area where Missouri borders Oklahoma and Kansas. The light is most commonly described as being visible from inside the Oklahoma border looking to the west.

Yet (cue ominous music) no Spooklight expedition was mounted by the Skinner Party.

Tomorrow:

Part II of The DrHGuy Alternative Southwest Missouri Tour -If She Finds Out, This Will Break My Mother’s Heart

Footnotes

My apologies to Bobby Vee who performed and Martha Sharp who wrote Come Back When You Grow Up with the line “Livin’ ain’t easy, lovin’s twice as tough” ↩
OK, “stomping ground” does not convey an accurate sense of how I spent my childhood and adolescence in that area, but “stepping-gingerly ground” seems a non-starter as a colloquialism ↩
I am, in fact, impressed by Big Brutus, and the Bread & Breakfast looks positively bucolic. ↩
As judged by the 2006 Revised Standard Heck of a Guy Blog Signification, Pith, and Primacy criteria ↩
If one gets off on defunct lead mines - and who doesn’t - southwest Missouri is the place to be ↩
See
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Excerpted from Wedding Protection:

Indeed, my argument is not that these folks, suckered in by the diamond, flower, and chapel cartels to sign up for a formal marriage ceremony, don’t deserve compensatory gifts, but that others – oh, let’s say me, for example – also deserve some of the loot. Moreover, you will be happy to learn that not only have I developed a means of leveling the playing field, but I’ve also given the procedure my own special spin, creating in the process, a win-win situation.

Have I got a deal for you.

I admit that I’m perfectly content as and prefer to remain a member of the unmarried, but I will also point out that I certainly have the potential for getting married. Heck, if one takes a look at my first marriage, it’s clear that I am capable of marrying the wrong spouse at the wrong time for the wrong reason in the face of all kinds of warnings and signals. I am the proverbial loose cannon. And I figure that’s gotta be worth something.

The bargain I’m offering to strike is a simple one: friends, family, and anyone else that I might find a reasonable premise to invite to my wedding, reception, showers, bachelor and bachelorette parties, etc (and I can be pretty darn clever when it comes to such rationalizations; if your name can be approximated with the English alphabet, you are in jeopardy) can either make a modest contribution (calculated at approximately half the value of an appropriate wedding present) in commemoration of my unwed status OR those same individuals can risk the pains, inconvenience, and fiscal cost of involvement in my matrimonial bliss. Now, I’m not saying I will definitely get married if you all don’t pay off. Maybe I’m just bluffing; maybe I’m not. But before you decide whether to call that bluff, consider the following.

Those in receipt of this announcement should be aware that, if I have to make good on the threatened exchange of nuptial vows, this will not be one of those simple, quiet ceremonies with only a few family members present one is always hearing about. No, I’m thinking of a ceremony more along the lines of Papal Election meets Fear Factor – tentatively to be held at the either
(1) The Dugout Bar of Mickey Mantle’s Holiday Inn (AAA Approved) in Joplin, Missouri (besides lending his name to the place, The Mick also authored the slogan used to push the fried chicken served in the hotel restaurant: “To get a better piece of chicken, you’d have to be a rooster;” I couldn’t make this stuff up) or, if I’m feeling more precious,
(2) The Precious Moments Chapel in nearby Carthage Missouri, which has generously offered me a cut of the profits from the sale of figurines (the perfect souvenir!) to my mother and, should she overlook any, to the other guests.

↩
Which was exactly what happened to my colleagues and me in Spooklight Story. Further, while I cannot speak for the others, I can testify that I have remained bejesus-free since that episode. ↩