by Pa Rock
Man with a Trowel
Alas, Ranger Bob and I returned from our adventure to the wilds of McDonald County yesterday empty-handed. It was a long and difficult day, much of it spent in chilly and rainy conditions, but my old college roommate and I had fun catching as we searched in vain for a time capsule that I buried in McDonald County roughly sixty years ago. Sadly, the capsule, an old Mason jar, remains buried somewhere beneath the surface of a rough patch of land overlooking the Elk River a few miles north of Noel, Missouri.
I left West Plains at 7:00 a.m. yesterday and headed west for a hundred miles where I picked up Bob at his home in Springfield. It had been raining off-and-on the preceding night, and the rain was continuing as we drove on southwest for another hundred miles to McDonald County, Missouri, the southwest corner county in the state. We arrived at our destination about 11:00 a.m.
We had brought some dry clothes, a couple of garden trowels, a small digging shovel, and a metal detector which I had purchased new for the dig. Unfortunately I had not done my homework and practiced with the metal detector, so I asked Bob to study the instruction booklet while I drove us to our destination.
The place where we were heading was an old set of tourist cabins that my parents bought in 1958 and where I lived from age ten to sixteen. It had been called Riverview Court and it sat next to the well known resort of that era, Ginger Blue Lodge, where our little eight-unit court caught some of the overflow crowd from Ginger Blue. Those were great years and my sister and I were fortunate to have lived there during that Noel's tourist heyday. Today the area has many "vacation rentals," along with campgrounds and places that rent canoes and kayaks for floats on the Elk River.
Riverview Court no longer exists, but some of the original buildings have been. modified and are still on-site. The area where I had buried the time capsule back in the early 1960's was back behind the old home and office, and in behind the small building which contained the wringer washer and rinse tubs that we used to wash the motel's bed linens and towels. But that building and the old garage which also sat behind the house had been torn down over the years, so I had to try and visualize things as they had been in order to know roughly where the capsule would be. The area where we wound up digging now has RV-hookups. We got several pings on the metal detector and did a lot of close-in hand-digging, but never came up with what we were after. In fact, as Bob noted later, we actually never unearthed anything made of metal at all.
The weather was yucky and the ground was mucky, and the vessel from yesterday remains hidden.
Ranger Bob was a life-saver, not only because he did most of the work, but when I was on my hands and knees digging with the trowel and finally gave up, I discovered that I could not stand. It took some major work on his part, but finally Bob managed to get me upright and on my feet, If he hadn't been there, I would still be crawling east today!
After finally giving up the quest, we drove into Noel and looked around for a bit before enjoying an interesting lunch at what used the be the town's old Dari-Lane. I didn't see a person that I knew from the many years that I lived there, nor did I expect to.
Riverview Court and Noel had changed, and some of that was disappointing, but it had been a day well spent with a good friend, and I was glad that I had managed to once again touch base with the little town that has been such an important part of my life, even if big chunks of it were almost unrecognizable to me now. I talked to my sister on the phone as I drove home and told her how much things had changed, and she replied that it was true, and then reminded me of the old adage, "You cannot go home again."
I returned to my West Plains home just at dark after 420 miles on the road, and Rosie, who had been home alone most of the day, was most pleased to see me! Unlike Noel, she had not changed at all!
(Thanks for tripping with me, Ranger Bob. It's always great to see you and Sandy.)
1 comment:
Another adventure was had. A wet adventure.
It was not only fun to hang out and visit but I imagined the resort back in the 60’s when Rock lived there. It seemed like a great place to grow up.
I had been to Noel twice, once in the late 60’s when Rock and I were in college and once in the 90’s while traveling through on my way to visit my parents. Although it is not at all like my hometown, it seemed to have a familiarity to it. It was vaguely like a homecoming.
We had lunch in a greasy spoon called the Cliffside Café. It had character, and that’s a compliment. Why eat lunch in a restaurant with no character, especially on a “hometown” visit? My lunch was tasty.
As soon as I arrived home, I got comfy and fell asleep for two hours. All the excitement wore me out.
If I get to go on the next adventure, I’m not going to quit digging until I’ve found a rusty nail or a tab top or an old Mason jar. Thanks, Rock.
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