My wife and I have been married 36 years. I suppose you could say that we have 72 years of combined experience being married. Does that mean that I should be a marriage consultant?
Judging from the use of “years of combined experience” in advertisements, many people must think that combined experience adds up to expertise, even in the Show-Me State, where people are not sheeple but skeptics. Here are some samples: Read the rest of this entry
Within a week, the heat wave will have run its course and we’ll surely have a little rain. Then we can get moving again in the wonderful Ozarks outdoors and watch the greens become gold, orange and red.
Here are some links for outdoor activities Read the rest of this entry
This summer, people around the country will be seeing the movie version of Daniel Woodrell’s 2006 novel, “Winter’s Bone.” They’ll wonder if the movie shows life in the Ozarks as it really is. The movie was filmed in Taney and Christian counties in Southwest Missouri, during the winter of 2009. You can see the trailer and read a synopsis of the plot.
This movie, with its glowing reviews and big success at the Sundance Film Festival, raises a couple of interesting questions: Read the rest of this entry
You know the story. The City of Branson gives a great deal to a private business to create an attraction on the Taneycomo lakefront. A few years later, the City doesn’t think the deal is working well for the City. The political winds have changed. Now there’s a lawsuit. Here’s how it went down, more than a half-century ago.
Jim Owen–not to be confused with the singer–played a major role in putting Branson on the tourism map. A consummate promoter of float fishing on the James and White rivers and tourism and commerce in the Branson area, he was unstoppable. Born in Webster County, Missouri (east of Springfield), he came to Branson in 1933, already experienced with public relations.
Soon Jim had built a movie theatre and started a float fishing business that got national attention and was also a banker and farmer. Some fine person posted this promotional silent film of one of his trips (11 minutes long) Read the rest of this entry
I’ve added a new feature called Ozarks on stage, with the first short bit about the play “Maid in the Ozarks,” which ran for 103 performances on Broadway in 1946, before and after thousands of performances in regional theatres around the country. Its playwright, a woman named Claire Parrish who was apparently an Ozarks native, is a mystery. Can you provide any clues about this person?
I would love to have an essay about the plays of Lanford Wilson, born in Lebanon, Missouri in 1937, who went to high school in Ozark, Missouri. He was a giant of Off Broadway in the 1960s and 1970s and won a Pulitzer for “Talley’s Folly,” one of the plays in the Talley Trilogy, which involved a family in Lebanon at the end of World War II and during the Vietnam War era. He also wrote “Hot l Baltimore,” which was first a play before Norman Lear turned it into a TV sitcom that had a short run in 1975. If you have stories or thoughts about Wilson or his plays, please let me know.
If you know of other plays set in the Ozarks, please comment.
I’ve also been fleshing out the Ozarks in fiction compilation, with new info about Suzette Elgin Haden’s Ozarks Trilogy, Donald Westlake’s Baby, Would I Lie? and Edgar Hulse’s Light on the Lookout. I’ ve received several helpful suggestions which I’m working on integrating into the text. Please let me know about deserving books that should be mentioned here.
Ozarks Law & Economy 