After two weeks in the Ozarks

 

 

                Home now from two glorious weeks at the Writers Colony at Dairy Hollow in Eureka Springs.

Oh, the new chapters I wrote. Oh, the books I read and reviewed.  And the poems I penned.

               I also contacted the poets who’d submitted to “CALLIOPE: A Writer’s Workshop,” for which I’m the newly-appointed editor.

              What else? I learned to operate the digital camera bought two months ago, and while doing so, discovered the company had been out of business for eight years! Why were their products still being sold?

              I made notes from the books I read. I brainstormed scenarios for the sequel.

                Talya and Dorothy were housemates. We visited over wine-thirty and at dinner.

The last few days, others moved in, either for Crescent Dragonwagon’s Fearless Writing Weekend or for the Colony’s board meeting on Saturday.

Checking my journal, I realized I hadn’t told anyone about the elk head I saw at Marshall on the way up. I’d stopped for gas. Four or five fellows were gathered around a pickup bed. I saw antlers and—nosy, uh, curious me--went over to look. A young man had just killed the beast near Woolem. He described it as “3.5 points.” Woolem was fairly close to Marshall; I passed a sign a little north of there.

For you who like to read about local folks and their “doings,” I have an idea.  Dr. Pat Adcock, professor emeritus at Henderson State University, has written two novels, both of which I read while at the Colony. Bill White of Hot Springs AR especially will enjoy Dr. Adcock’s Muggsbottom stories, for they are set in the Arkadelphia-like town of Arcady. Confession: I loved the books, but I should have had a dictionary at hand. Instead, I listed the unknown-to-me words (I love to find new words.) and later, looked them up.

Some words I knew, thank goodness, from other readings: reprobate, sodomite, debauched, hirsute and reconnoiter. I knew conundrum, cryptic and caveat, contretemps, lachrymose, intimations and histrionics.

But back to the stories: they involve four British gentlemen who do not like the government of Mrs. Thatcher. Therefore, they decide to find another country in which to retire. They butt up against some of the local Arkansas people, their customs and attitudes. The narrator (the thinly disguised author) becomes a friend, observes and reports all their shenanigans. Therein lies the fun.

 Enjoy your autumn-- literally and, if applicable, metaphorically.