(Editor's Note: I had a pleasant surprise yesterday evening when I checked my email and found the following commentary on small towns from my good friend, Ranger Bob. It's a beautiful piece that captures the essence of a road trip that Bob had taken to a community in rural Missouri, a trip that reminded him of his own small Missouri hometown - as it reminds me of the one in which I grew up as well. Please enjoy!)
Small Town Nostalgia
by Bob Randall
Drive ten miles through the Missouri countryside on almost any old county road and you’ll find a small town. I think the spacing was a function of pre-modern transportation. One hundred years ago, a farm family just didn’t want to drive more than five miles for whatever they needed. If you drive through a small town on whatever their main street is named, you sometimes find a glimmer of esteem remaining. Maybe you’ll find a small café or gas station. There may be a church or two. A small town on a busy road may have a junk store with a sign that claims to be selling antiques. For sure there will be some old, abandoned buildings that used to be vibrant parts of the town's commerce. Of course, there will be a post office. The post office may even be functional, but that’s mostly because politicians won’t let the USPS operate as a business and the locals can’t bear to see it close. I get it.
This morning I went for a country drive and there I was in such a town. It was a little smaller than my hometown of Wheeling, Missouri, but it still had a functioning elementary school. Wheeling doesn't. Go figure that. It had two churches. Of course, the post office was right there on Main Street. Then there were the old, abandoned stores and one spot where I could tell that a building had been torn down. Junk and weeds were scattered on what had been the floor of the building. One store front had a sign that said, “General Store”. The lock on the door was probably frozen with rust. One of the old buildings had a wooden overhang over the sidewalk. On top of that was a railing around the balcony. Maybe that was an old hotel. Wheeling had a hotel once, but it burned down. I was flooded with nostalgia and a small degree of regret that my younger days are over. For a moment, I was hanging out in front of Smiley’s Drugstore on a warm Wheeling town-night. Then I blinked my eyes and by the time I opened them, I was at the other end of Main Street looking at the back side of the city limit sign. I went clear through town and didn’t see a single person.
I can’t leave this page without sharing something else about this small town. It is named Bois D’Arc. The name probably originated from early French trappers. It refers to a particular species of tree. The Osage Indians knew it as a tree that had strong, flexible, curved limbs that were just right for making bows. You may know it as a hedge tree, but its proper common name is the Osage Orange. The hedge trees that were on the farm where I grew up near Wheeling had been planted many years before I was born and if the farmer pruned them aggressively, they formed a hedge that was horse-high, bull-tight, and pig-proof. Then along came barbed wire and the abandoned hedge grew into trees. The hedge trees that I remember are gone now. Locally, here in the Ozarks, the town’s name is pronounced “bo-dark”. In a more elegant French accent, it might be pronounced “bwau d-ark” or some such construct of tongue and lips. I find that to be an interesting twist of place-name creativity. Wheeling, of course, was named after the founder’s hometown of Wheeling, West Virginia. That’s fine but it’s not very creative.
This morning I went for a country drive and there I was in such a town. It was a little smaller than my hometown of Wheeling, Missouri, but it still had a functioning elementary school. Wheeling doesn't. Go figure that. It had two churches. Of course, the post office was right there on Main Street. Then there were the old, abandoned stores and one spot where I could tell that a building had been torn down. Junk and weeds were scattered on what had been the floor of the building. One store front had a sign that said, “General Store”. The lock on the door was probably frozen with rust. One of the old buildings had a wooden overhang over the sidewalk. On top of that was a railing around the balcony. Maybe that was an old hotel. Wheeling had a hotel once, but it burned down. I was flooded with nostalgia and a small degree of regret that my younger days are over. For a moment, I was hanging out in front of Smiley’s Drugstore on a warm Wheeling town-night. Then I blinked my eyes and by the time I opened them, I was at the other end of Main Street looking at the back side of the city limit sign. I went clear through town and didn’t see a single person.
I can’t leave this page without sharing something else about this small town. It is named Bois D’Arc. The name probably originated from early French trappers. It refers to a particular species of tree. The Osage Indians knew it as a tree that had strong, flexible, curved limbs that were just right for making bows. You may know it as a hedge tree, but its proper common name is the Osage Orange. The hedge trees that were on the farm where I grew up near Wheeling had been planted many years before I was born and if the farmer pruned them aggressively, they formed a hedge that was horse-high, bull-tight, and pig-proof. Then along came barbed wire and the abandoned hedge grew into trees. The hedge trees that I remember are gone now. Locally, here in the Ozarks, the town’s name is pronounced “bo-dark”. In a more elegant French accent, it might be pronounced “bwau d-ark” or some such construct of tongue and lips. I find that to be an interesting twist of place-name creativity. Wheeling, of course, was named after the founder’s hometown of Wheeling, West Virginia. That’s fine but it’s not very creative.
I live about 200 miles from Wheeling. I don’t visit often, but I think about it each time I drive through a small town. If you’re feeling nostalgic, go for a drive on a lonely county road.
1 comment:
About thirteen years ago I was driving my three-year-old grandson along the dusty gravel roads of Miami County, Kansas. Suddenly he announced, "those are Osage Orange trees." I stopped the car and asked how he knew that. "Don't you see all the hedge apples under them," he replied.
I see these trees, and others, as I walk most mornings along Turkey Creek in Merriam, Kansas at Waterfall Park, with railway tracks buffering I-35 on the opposite bank. Last week I also saw a bobcat. I prefer the trees.
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