"HillBilly Junction"

I don't really like our county road numbering system. When I am visiting with Tami's family, invariably, the talk turns to emergency services and what's been happening county wide. The conversation is in code. "Did you hear about the 1094 out at 9730?" I am completely clueless. Now, if they had said someone was drag racing at Rouintree Corner, I would be in the know.

I like for things to be named. County Road 6070 can't hold a candle to "Sanders Corner Route". And I would much rather use "The Myatt Road" instead of "County Road 9230". But we must have "progress" I guess... Because I am name oriented, when I give directions to someone traveling to West Plains from Springfield, I have to remember to "direct" in "correct" terminology.

For many years, there was a restaurant and gift shop near the intersection of  U.S. Highways 60 and 63 called "HillBilly Junction."

It was a pretty nice place to eat and was a good "stopping place" for folks traveling through the Ozarks. My typical directions would be "just follow 60 until you come to HillBilly Junction and come south on 63 to West Plains." When they put the four-lane in and made the interchange at 60-63, they cut off direct access to HillBilly Junction. After that, you had to exit off and then take the service road. The establishment continued for a few years but it seems that this caused the decline and final closing of Hillbilly Junction. So...if I ever give you directions and mention HillBilly Junction in those directions, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about!

One little story... In the early eighties, before I was married and was working at Schnurbusch Land Services, HillBilly Junction had a seafood buffet on Friday night. I had ate there several times with my family and it was a wonderful buffet with several kinds of "fishy" items. On a few occasions, I had made my brag to some of my coworkers about how much I could eat. One coworker, Stan Mundwiller, a former college football player and rugged outdoorsman, had the audacity to challenge me to an eating contest.

On the Friday of the big showdown, I ate my regular lunch but Stan just had a snack, saving his appitite for the evening meal. He commented that I shouldn't have ate so much because now, I was SURE to lose. He didn't know that I had a plan! We had a wood stove and Dad had bought several rank of wood that needed to be split. I took off early from work and spent most of the afternoon splitting wood! By the time evening rolled around, I was STARVING!

My brother Ralph, his wife Lisa, Stan, myself and another coworker, Doug Young all met at HillBilly Junction. We laid down the rules of the contest which were very simple... The one that eats the most platefuls, wins.

Stan and I heaped up the first plate, sat down and polished it off pretty fast. The second plateful...not as fast but we worked our way through catfish, shrimp, froglegs, hushpuppies and sundry other delicacies. The third plateful?... Yes...the third plateful. We heaped them up, sat down and started in. It was slow going but we kept at it. About halfway through his plate, Stan started to falter and moan and groan. Of course the others were laughing at us and we couldn't laugh which made it that much worse. I finally finished my plate but Stan had a few more pieces to go. After a few minutes and a valiant attempt to force down the rest, Stan conceded! I was the (stuffed) Winner!