Timothy Birdnow

All Quiet on the Ozark Front or the Moonshine's Brightly on my old Ozark Home.

It's been a while since my last Ozark Hilton visit, and the diurnal temperature has been rising in recent days. I needed to get down to the dumpster paradise, especially as I had a lot of cleaning up to do from the thieves.

Tuesday was supposed to have a low in the mid '60's and it was going to be sunny and low eighties during the day.I could go and wouldn't need a fire. That would be good; fires necessitate wood, and wood necessitates me hauling it into the cabin. Worse, since the thieves stole my firewood, it necessitates either going early and cutting some or buying it and hauling it down. Also, only one room is heated in the luxury resort and I wanted to sit in the outer, unheated room, which is brighter as I had painted that room, unlike the inner one which I never finished off.

Also the storms of last week were over, and although I like being there in the rain (it's a most poetic sound, the sound of raindrops beating on the tin roof, especially at night when you are safe and warm in the middle of nowhere with a storm outside) It's tough to drive in and I run the risk of getting stuck down there, as I did on two separate occasions. Once some locals towed me out. The second time I was almost to the state road and the Auto Club actually showed up in the middle of a monsoon and towed me out! I swear my truck sunk six inches into the mud that day.

At any rate I was reluctant to go. I knew it was going to be a huge amount of work. But when I did my thinking in the philosopher's room my last excuse was gone. So off I went, with the exhortation of my dear wife, who no doubt was looking forward to my getting out of her hair for a day.

As it was early and a pretty morning I decided to take a little-used route, one I seldom take but enjoy taking nonetheless. It went out of the way to no small degree, but that's what I like about it; quiet country roads most of the way. I went south to Perryville and turned west, driving over a little-used state highway.

And since I wouldn't pass the Birdnow Memorial Outhouse my body decided it was going to protest and I had to stop at a gas station for mor "thinking". Right about the time I would have been passing the outhouse had I taken Highway 67.

At any rate I was off on this quiet rural road. Everyone else was too!

The Missouri Department of Transportation decided to redo the rural road, having it down to a single lane for miles with flagmen and stop-and-go traffic the whole way. If I had wanted that I could have gone anywhere in St. Louis and gotten it!

It probably tacked on an extra 45 minutes to the drive at least. But it was a beautiful day so I didn't get too upset - especially given the amount of work waiting for me.

Eventually I got through the massive botttleneck and traffic was moving again. Moving too fast as everyone was antsy to make up time. Moving way too fast, actually, for these winding country roads. I had cars riding up my tailpipe the whole morning, whizzing past me in non-passing lanes, even though I was going the speed limit.

Eventually I got down to the Hilton, and turned onto my drive, which any sane person would be concerned about walking much less driving on this, well, it looks like a game trail. I weaved my way around trees that were growing into the "road" and came to the clearing and there it stood, the magnificent jewel of the Ozarks! Construction material all over the place, rickety half covered porch, weathered plank siding, all the trappings of a, well, Ozark shack. The amazing thing is my cabin is the spiffy "rich city boy" dude resort for down there. The locals mostly live in worse. One guy was living in tow old school buses buttedup emergency door to emergency door!

I schlepped all my stuff into the cabin, or onto the porch anyway. I always have a lot of stuff to take in; cooler, box of accessories which includes movies and cords and medical supplies, portable DVD player etc. a 12 volt battery to run my portable DVD player, and now I have to lug kerosene and four lanterns (as the thieves stole all of the ones I left down there). I also bring several battery-operated lights to augment the four kerosene lamps (I used to have ten but can't bring that many down with me.)

At any rate I was soon unloaded and had work to do. The cabin appeared rather trashed again and I was unsure if someone had been in or not. I think some THING had been in; in fact I'm sure of it.

I started cleaning up a pile of refuse and soon realized there was far more than I had expected. It was a bunch of debris torn into little pieces - an enormous rats nest. As I set all the knocked-over stuff back up and moved things around I realized the cabin was chock-full of nesting. I no longer have a shovel down there but had brought a dustpan and shoveled, shoveled, shoveled mounds of debris into toilet paper case boxes I had brought. I filled no fewer than FIVE boxes with it! It had been hidden by all my furniture and other stuff the thieves had tossed around.

So I spent the afternoon sweeping and scooping, scooping and sweeping. Only when I was done did I realize how stupid that was; this was no regular pile of debris, but had been in the mouth of rats or other feral creatures. I needed rubber gloves and a mask. I didn't have rubber gloves down there but I still had a Covid mask in the car that would have helped keep dust out of my lungs. Stupid of me - If I come down with some horrible disease it's my own fault! And the thieves had even stolen my soap so I had no way to actually WASH my hands. I had to settle for pouring some kerosene on them then rinsing them off with some of my drinking water.

By the time I finished filling the boxes and putting them in the truck to take for disposal (to a nearby state park) it was getting late and I settled onto my chair on the porch. It was quiet out, with few bird songs or the sound of other critters. I sat on the porch and enjoyed the evening. It really was too bad I didn't have any visitors; I always enjoy visits from opossum or armadillos or other critters.

It was time to light my lanterns. I filled them, trimmed the wicks (with my fingers, not a cutting tool) and lit them up.

I turned my attention to my battery operated lights. I had two Atomic Beam lanterns and two cheap hand-held flashlinghts/lights. One of those was low on battery power but to replace the batteries in those requires removing the back with a small machine screw in it, thus needing a very small screwdriver. I would have to make do with just the one.

But I started trying to replace the batteries in the Atomic Beam lanterns and all of my batteries were dead. I kept trying new ones and it was always the same. I eventually settled on batteries that were clearly weak. They went out soon after sunset, leaving me with just four lanterns and one flashlight. The light level was woefully inadequate, especially for me as my night vision sucks.

At this point I started having a lot of problems, I had set my "junk box" on one of the chairs and it dumped over - twice. I had to pick everything up, and then it did it again (I'm a slow learner I supposed). I had set one of my lanterns on a storage box that was also tipped and IT fell while lit, imperiling the entire cabin as had it broken it would have started a fire and the thieves stole my fire extinguisher. I would have had to dump my cooler on it and failing that the whole place would have gone up! Lucky for me the lantern didn't break, or even go out. But it was a disaster narrowly averted.

Then, in the middle of watching a movie the DVD player went out. I noticed the problem; I had pulled the plug loose, and as soon as the internal battery went dry the thing went off. I had to plug it back in and wait half an hour. When it finally came back on the movie made it to the point it went off and then locked up! I eventually had to give up on the movie and choose another.

I went to the door to go out on the porch and use the "bathroom". Something bit my hand on the door knob. It hurt quite a bit too but I never saw anything. My guess is a spider, and I feared it may have been a brown recluse.

I don't think so now,but my hand is swollen and itching all the way down past my wrist. I'm going to have to keep an eye on it. If it gets worse I'll go to an urgent care place.

Anyway I did what I always do down there; I stayed up very late and enjoyed the peace of the place. I was up at first light and on the road as soon as I was loaded. Stopped for breakfast at McDonalds. Traffic wasn't too bad and the drive home uneventful.

I'm going to have to get back there quite a bit in the coming months, before the big heat hits Missouri. I have a LOT of work left to do there.

I am worried though; if the place is infested with rats or something else my health could be in jeopardy. But I've always lived on the assumption that God appoints the time of our death and it is only our job not to be too stupid. That attitude has only strengthened in the last decade as I came so very near to a permanent reservation in the sub-basement level back in 2011. I'm going to live while I can.

So, barring the very unfortunate, I will have more Ozark Hilton tales to tell.

Can't wait for the next one.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 09:00 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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