do: crowd the highways or take a rail route.
* * *
Jim the conductor returned and sat down in the empty seat next to me. In a firm low conductor voice, he warned me:
“Keep Montauk a secret.”
And since he was the conductor, I listened.
“Promote the trout fishing at Bennett Springs if you want,” he said, “and at Maramec Springs and at Roaring River. But keep Montauk a secret.”
Fishermen are that way. Secretive. Possessive. Sometimes down-right paranoid. I think it has something to do with spending so much time alone with beer and worms. Since I was on his train, I lied and told him I’d keep his secret. At least until now. Truth is, there are thousands of secret water spots in the heartland. But Montauk isn’t one of them. The conductor knows that. Every fly fisherman within a thousand miles knows about Montauk.
I grew up nearby, near enough to frequent that not-so-secret Ozarks spring near the headwaters of the Current River. And roots being roots, I’m proud of Montauk. I recall my first trip to that remote little trout park.
It was about as far back as my memory goes, back when I was practicing my phonics on Burma-Shave signs. My family unit rolled out of Rolla in a ’58 Biscayne, leaving Route 66 in our rearview mirror, headed for the springs. Our car bobbed and weaved on a roller-coaster road that unfurled through the thick woods, deep in free-range country where we had to keep an eye out for deer, but also had to dodge pigs and cows and horses.
When our family arrived at Montauk, not one of us wet a line. We ran around the old mill, and fed the tiny fish in the hatchery and stood in the cold rushing water for as long as we could stand it, and marveled at the natural beauty of spring water busting out from under a mountain.
And I slept all the way home.
* * *
The historic old Montauk lodge is almost unchanged from the picture in my memory. Nowadays a few more cabins dot the hillsides. And the lodge has a new name, but it still serves up the same great Sunday dinner. Real mashed potatoes. Chicken like your grandmother made it.
And the trout have no clue that my friend the conductor might show up soon.
From Montauk, if you didn’t have to stay on the curvy swervy roads, it’s only about 17,000 frog hops back to Salem. From there a county road snakes south, down to Akers Ferry, where a barge transports cars across the spring-fed Current River into the deep Ozark Mountains. These are the backroads, and one of them goes past the Dillards’ old homestead.
You know the Dillards, whether you remember the name or not. They were the backwoods boys who showed up to play bluegrass music with jug-blowin’ Briscoe Darlin and his daughter, Charlene, on The Andy Griffith Show. And never far from Charlene Darlin was a ne’er do well named Ernest T. Bass, who would demonstrate his devotion to Charlene by strapping love notes to rocks and launching them through plate-glass windows to land at her feet. Briscoe and the boys weren’t too keen on Ernest, on account of his terrorist ways. The boys just wanted to play bluegrass music.
In real life, they’re still some of the best pickers on the planet. I don’t know if they ever ran into Yogi Berra who, like me, married a lady from Salem. It would be fun someday to sit in the dance hall at Salem’s Tower Inn with Yogi and tap our toes to the Dillards.
That’ll never happen, mainly because they tore down the Tower Inn. And I don’t know if the Dillards ever get together to pick anymore. They wouldn’t be complete, since their bass player and world-class storyteller Mitch Jayne died a few years ago. Mitch’s local radio show was famous for its Snake and Tick Market Report, more meaningful than Dow Jones to folks who trade in rattlesnake hides or who discover a Hoo-Boy White Dot Crushproof Dry Valley Wonder Tick on their scrotum.
Anyway, Mitch is gone, the Tower Inn is gone, and I don’t have Yogi’s phone number.
* * *
The onslaught of Wi-Fi and cell towers and cable TV and other links to the outside world take their toll on Salem. Call it progress if you want. But Ozark people are slowly losing their insulation from the world—and their unique dialect, and a precious part of their charm. Three decades ago, I called for a friend who was dining at the Davis Cafe on the town square. A well-seasoned lady’s voice answered. “May I tell him who’s a-callin’?” she asked.
“Mick Jagger.”
“Hey Calvin,” through a muffled telephone I could hear her yell, “there’s a Mitch Jaggard on the phone fer ya.”
But nowadays, even Mick has penetrated these hills. And his portrayal of the Devil mixes freely with dozens of local Ozark spots named for the Prince of Darkness.
* * *
So folks in the Ozarks are losing their innocence. As the Wi-Fi generation matures, plugged into social media and tweeting and texting their way through these hills, they’re much more sophisticated than my generation. Not necessarily smarter, but more sophisticated. And they accept diversity more readily than their Ozark parents.
A buddy asked me if I ever worried for my safety when I drove deep into the Ozarks backwoods. His exact question was, “Did you ever hear banjo music?”
“All the time.” My response startled him. “And when I hear banjo music, I just pick up a doghouse bass fiddle and join in.”
When in Rome . . .
The Bullfrogs Sound Like Banjo Strings
I drove down to Akers Ferry, which connects the wilderness north of the Current River to the wilderness on the south. It’s an area where the bullfrogs sound like banjo strings. That’s not a crude reference to the movie Deliverance or a slam at Ozark hill people. The bullfrogs really do sound like banjo strings.
The ferry is operated by Gene and Eleanor Maggard. Gene’s family has been in the canoe rental business since shortly after the birth of Julius Caesar. As Gene and Eleanor prepare for retirement, their son Marcus will take over operations. It’s no small business. Two million people float Missouri’s Ozark streams every year. The Current and its major tributary, the Jacks Fork River, are part of the oldest national scenic riverway in America.
Ever since the National Park Service secured these rivers, the feds have licensed the canoe outfitters. Hard feelings persist among folks who, forty years ago, lost their livelihoods when they found themselves without one of the coveted canoe rental concessions.
Such a protected scenic riverway could never happen today. Not with the anti-government conspiracy theorists, who believe it’s their God-given right to employ nature to fit personal purposes, environment be damned. Most people respect these waters. But it’s stunning how fast a few idiots armed with trash and tractors can destroy the land and foul the streams.
The Maggards know the importance of keeping these rivers clean. They’re good at what they do. Gene just got a new pair of knees to support his gentle-giant frame, so he’s regained the ability to singlehandedly hoist canoes atop the big five-high canoe trailers. That’s something I’ve never been able to do, even with good knees.
His son Marcus could hoist two canoes at the same time to the highest rung. He’s that big. I have a special respect for good-natured giants, and it’s comforting to know they’re on your side in a land where the bullfrogs sound like banjo strings. Marcus and his dad can keep drunken yahoos in line, if necessary.
Hey, since history began, folks have gathered to get polluted. And on any warm weather weekend along the Current, a natural progression plays out in a bumper-to-bumper regatta, as revelers drink and bake and drink and become victims of their own excess.
Lucky for me I had timed my visit on Wednesday, the best day to float the Current River because it’s the furthest day from the weekend, furthest from the rowdy drunken bumper boaters who show up to bong beers and snort Jell-O shots and fall out of their shorts.
Despite all that shiny aluminum traffic and all that beer piss and vomit,