A Place Called Pucky Huddle

Back in the early 1990's, we contracted with the U.S. Forest Service to do a bevy of road surveys. These were basically compass/chain/clinometer surveys, down existing log roads, in preparation to widen/cut/fill/ditch them into public access roads. 

Some of these roads were in the Salem-Potosi district of the Mark Twain, and it was there, we ran on to the most unique store I'd ever seen.

We were about 30 miles northeast of Salem Missouri (or 30 miles southeast of Cuba - not Castro's) at a wide spot in the road called Davisville. An old store stood at the busy "downtown" area, which reminded me of the old fashioned country stores from my youth.

Pucky Huddle store as I remember it in the early 1990's 

We walked into the store, and at first glance, its appearance and smell was like the other stores I had visited. At second glance (actually a bug-eyed stare), something was definitely different.

Down the middle of the open area of the store, there were two long tables with 3"-4" "sides", setting end to end. And on those tables...

There was heaped every kind of new merchandise you can imagine. Pairs of new blue jeans, new skillets and pans, cans of pork-n-beans, corn and tomato juice, boxes of candy bars that were just ripped open and thrown up on the pile, shoes in the box, boxes of corn flakes, sacks of dog food... If you wanted a particular item, you just had to root through the pile to get what you needed! It gave a whole new meaning to the term "Rummage Sale"!!

With stunned looks on our faces, we wandered to the back of the store. And got another surprise...

There was a post office area in the back-left part of the store and a sign above it that read "Post Office - Pucky Huddle, Missouri"!

The post-mistress was a short, feisty, older lady and when we questioned her about the name, she replied "Well, it IS officially Davisville, but we can trace Pucky Huddle back farther."

I worked on a project near Davisville recently and detoured over to show my crew the Pucky Huddle store. I didn't know that the old store had burnt down in 2013. A new store has been built on the old foundation site but alas, it was no longer in business.

I found a few pictures on Facebook of the store building which show it in the different stages of its "life". (I searched for the owner(s) of these pictures to request permission to publish but was unable to locate them.)

A Very Fowl Comet

 

This is Merriam-Webster's definition of a Comet: "A celestial body that appears as a fuzzy head usually surrounding a bright nucleus, that has a usually highly eccentric orbit, that consists primarily of ice and dust and that often develops one or more long tails when near the sun."

However, if you want to hear Ray-Ray's definition, you'll hafta keep reading!

A few days ago, I decided to burn a big brush/trash pile behind our house. Over the course of a month or so, we had accumulated several large limbs, cardboard boxes, sacks of old clothes, boards and other trash.

Unbeknownst to me, we had also collected something else in the big mound of refuse...

We had several "free range" chickens that had been roaming around our property that I guess belonged to our neighbors to the west. And... it appears that one of these chickens was sitting on a nest, somewhere up in the middle of the BRUSH PILE!

I grabbed my lighter fluid and proceeded to soak three or four places around the pile, then touched it off with my trusty lighter.

For a minute or so, nothing happened except the flames went higher and higher. When the inferno reached fifteen to twenty feet in the air, something spectacular happened.

Out of the scorching, blazing, pile of fire and brimstone - A Very Fowl Comet appeared!!!

It was a flapping, squawking, smouldering, smoking white comet that came shooting out of the flames, headed for Arkansas or other parts south!!!

This was all pretty hilarious!... Until I realized that this flaming terrestrial comet was flying right into the neighbors dry hayfield!! Yikes!!!

Ole Leghorn must have burnt out before hitting the ground and I haven't seen nary a chicken around the place for a few days now!

Shawnee Creek Cottages

 

My wife Tami and I just returned from a wonderful vacation week at Shawnee Creek Cottages, east of Eminence, Missouri. I have worked in this area for many years, and always wanted to stay at one of these cabins. It was absolutely, one of the best vacation weeks we have ever spent!

Our #5 cabin was the one as far from civilization as we could get! It had a queen size bed, small kitchenette with apartment size stove and fridge, small table with fold-down leaves and a small couch. There was a smaller size television with Dish network and no WiFi. I have Verizon service and could get spotty 1g service. We had internet withdrawals but we found out, you do not have to have WWW to live!

There are five cabins on the property; three are two person and the other two cabins are larger and will sleep at least four.

Shawnee Creek ran about thirty yards from the cabin over a stretch of rocks and riffles so we left a window open at night and were lulled to sleep by its "grumbling and rumbling and tumbling"! And even the coyotes sang us a lullaby!

We were close enough to Eminence to pick up any supplies we needed and there were lots of neat sights to see, within reasonable driving distance.

If you are interested in staying at this nice getaway place, leave a comment or message me through Facebook for contact information. I don't believe they have a website or Facebook page.

Otis - A Church Dog's Tale

Otis - "The Original Church Dog"

I have been a member of the Junction Hill Pentecostal Church since before I was born. We had our first service on December 7th, 1963 and my Mom was in attendance. And on December 19th, 1963, I was born. We have been blessed with six good pastors over the course of 57 years... And two church dogs!

Otis was the first "church dog" and was owned by Pastor Mike Blue and his family. When the Blues resigned the pastorate, Otis stayed and became a part of Pastor Dwain Galiher's family. When Otis went to that "Big Rabbit Hunt in the Sky", Hank arrived to take his place. Hank reigned supreme for a few years until he also "Moved to the shady side of the barn".

Otis' pedigree was "Heinz 57" but he was primarily beagle. Otis was special and he knew it. My mother brought "doggie treats" to Otis so often, that he came to recognize her car and would meet her in the parking lot for his snacks! He lived a long and fulfilled life, but there was that one night, when his grip on life was down to a single paw...

On that particular night (actually around 2AM in the morning), I received a call from my pastor, Rev. Mike Blue. In my sleep dazed state, I heard "Brother Ray, I need some help! I think Otis has rabies!!" Well... That brought me out of my sleep and when I could coherently converse, I asked for some details. It appeared that Otis was howling as if in pain, foaming at the mouth and was snapping and biting at anyone who came near him!

Brother Mike was prepared to shoot Otis but the entire Blue family, Ladonna, Jessica and Brandon, pled for Otis' life with tears and lamentations! Brother Mike then told me, "I just can't bring myself to shoot him. Could you come and put Otis out of his misery??"

Being the hard-hearted executioner that I am, I got dressed, loaded up my trusty Remington 22 and headed out to the parsonage.

When I arrived, the whole family was on the back porch, crying and watching Otis in the throes of rabies. And it was just as Brother Mike had described and perhaps worse. Otis was foaming at the mouth, howling, moaning, snapping at himself and anyone that came near him.

However, as I looked at him, it seemed that he was snapping at one of his hind legs. When I got close enough, I could see that the coated cable that he was tied up with, had gotten tightly wound around one hind leg! It was cutting off blood circulation and causing Otis extreme pain!

I then informed the whole family that Otis didn't have rabies, but we would need to get the cable un-wound from his leg. There was great joy and rejoicing at this announcement... but the problem still remained - How in the cat hair were we going to get the cable off of Otis' leg?!?!

Well, I found some old gloves in my truck and when I had them on, proceeded to calmly talk to Otis and get near to him. I finally got close enough to pin him down and grab his muzzle with one hand and hold his body down with my knee and the other hand. Then I instructed Pastor Blue to see if he could get the cable un-wound.

Oh Wow! That was a sight to behold and a ruckus to hear! Otis went into second gear with his (muffled) howling, writhing, kicking and thrashing around!

The cable would not come off. I told Brother Mike to get some side-cutters and see if he could cut the cable. But the tempered steel strands resisted the jaws of the pliers. After we had tried and tried to remove the cable with as much ease and comfort to Otis as we thought possible, I finally said "OK, there's one final thing we can do."

It wasn't pretty...

I had Brother Mike to help me and we held Otis down, I straddled his body and then sat down on his head! I was facing the hind leg so I just told everyone to stay back and plug their ears!

I went to work on the cable and Otis went into over-drive gear!

With his mouth partly free, he began howling, moaning, snapping, whining and even screaming! He couldn't get up with my two-hundred plus pounds on him but it didn't prevent him from trying!

After I had worked on the cable for a few minutes, it came loose and the leg was free. I continued to sit on Otis and the sound reduced to whining, then whimpering and finally... Silence.

Having had some experience with dogs, I knew that when I let Otis up, he might try to attack anyone that was near. So... I instructed the entire Blue family to go back to the porch.

I carefully got up off of Otis while I held him down with my hands. Then I released him and ran like a scared squirrel!

Otis just laid there... Nothing... No sound, no whining, no tail wag, no movement at all...

"Is he dead?", was asked by the Blue family. I answered "I didn't think so" but I knew Otis might need some encouragement. I asked Pastor Blue to whistle to him.

When Otis heard the whistle, he jumped up, shook himself all over, started wagging his tail and trotted over to the family waiting on the porch!

There was great joy and rejoicing from Sister Ladonna and the children, but I will never forget Pastor Blue's parting remark...

"You know, Brother Ray, I'm gonna kill that dog!"

Hank - "The 2nd Church Dog"

This story re-told with permission from the participants and the events as recorded, are strictly from the story-tellers recollection

Special Thanks To:

Pastor Mike Blue and his family for the story

Pastor Dwain Galiher for the picture of Otis

Evangelist Davy Boggs for the picture of Hank

Winter, Whittier and My Old Dad

 

My Driveway - All Shoveled Clean!
(Thanks to Dave and Anna for shoveling off the first seven inches!)

When it snows, like it has this week, I think of winters past, my old Dad and the poem "Snow-bound: A Winter Idyl " by John Greenleaf Whittier.

I am sure that my Dad did not read poetry. He read the West Plains Daily Quill, front to back, every day. He would read the occasional book or magazine, but poetry... Naaah.

However, Leamon Riggs and the father of JG Whittier shared a common wintertime custom.

It was a ritual around the Riggs house. The morning after a big snowfall, he would roust my brother Ralph and I out of bed with the announcement, "Come on boys, it's time to shovel some snow."

In line sixty-seven of "Snow-bound", Whittier's father expresses it differently, but with the same meaning; "Boys, a path!"

After bundling up in coats, boots and sock hats; we grabbed the shovels and went to work. Our "tools of the trade" were usually a regular snow shovel, a couple of old grain shovels and a broom.

We would begin by shoveling paths. A path from the wood box on the carport out to the wood pile. A path from the back patio, down across the yard to the "little door" of the shop. Paths to the pickups and other vehicles parked near the shop. Dad would use the broom to carefully sweep the snow from the vehicles and then we would shovel path around them!

When all the "path-shoveling" was complete, it was time to get down to business. 

The apron on the shop was shoveled off, the gravel parking area in front of the shop was shoveled off and the patio was shoveled off.

Were we done? Not by a long shot! It was time to start on the driveway!!

You may think I am exaggerating but I remember times when we shoveled the entire driveway, from the carport down to the county road. A distance of two to three-hundred feet!

This was my dad's reasoning. Get the snow off the walking and driving surfaces before it gets packed down. If you get most of the snow off the surface, the sun will do the rest.

I have found that "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree"... "I'm a chip off the ole block" or some such idiom.

When the snow stops falling, I find myself, outside, snow shovel and broom in hand, making the snow fly!!

A path from the front porch to the carport. A path from the front porch, around the house to the back deck. A side path to the propane tank. A path from the path to the carport to my in-law's house next door...

And then the driveway...

From the carport, out to the county road...

As I am shoveling, my mind wanders back to those times spent with my dad. It wasn't extraordinary. It wasn't "fun". It was hard, backbreaking labor that at the time, I begrudged. Now however, it's a bittersweet memory of Winter, Whittier and My Old Dad...

Gentry

"Gentry"
(The red bow has disappeared)

If you drive Missouri Route 14, from West Plains to Ava, you will pass through some of the beauty and ruggedness that make these Ozark Hills famous. However, there is really nothing extraordinary, just hills, hollers, pines, hardwoods, glades... and a crooked, curvy highway.

But when my wife,Tami, and I travel it, there's that one certain place...

Tami and I had our first date on February 15th, 1985. I took her to a church sponsored Sweetheart Banquet and by late spring, we had begun dating steady.

On a particular spring evening, we decided to travel to Ava, eat at the Pizza Hut and look at a project I had been working on in town. After eating a good meal, and driving around the prosperous metropolis of Ava for awhile, we decided to mosey on home.

The sun had set by the time we left and it was dusky dark when we passed through the intersection of 95 Highway at Gentryville. Just down the hill east, right before crossing the Brush Creek bridge, there was couple of old vacant store buildings on the north side of the highway. There was a gravel area right in front of the buildings where you could pull off the highway...

And that's what I did!

Now, I didn't realize it at the time, but Tami was quite concerned. She knew I was a Christian, and surely, surely, I wouldn't be pulling off to "park"! "Maybe he just feels the call of nature" but that too would be very embarrassing! 

In the meantime (while her mind was racing) I had got out and asked Tami to lean forward so I could get something from behind the seat of my truck. I retrieved a little package, put the seat back, handed her the package and got back in.

When she opened it, there was a small stuffed "Bambi" deer inside with a red bow tied around it's neck!

To say she was pleased would be an under statement! Tami immediately dubbed the little buck "Gentry" for the burg we were near and then we traveled on home.

And now, when we travel 14 Highway and pass through Gentryville, we chuckle, remembering this little episode in our courting days and are reminded again of how much we love each other!

As we get close to Valentines Day, there are a couple of observations that I draw from this little adventure in our lives.

Number one, the gift doesn't necessarily have to be big and expensive, to be pleasing. As you can see, Tami has kept this little memento for almost thirty-six years!

Number two, make memories close to home, where you can easily be reminded of them in years to come. A trip to Hawaii or Cancun is nice, but usually, only pictures remain. As Tami and I travel about here in the Ozarks, we are always passing by someplace and saying "Do you remember when we were here...."

After 36 years, all that remains of the old store buildings near Gentryville is the foundations