I live in Fayetteville, Arkansas, on a teensy weensy plot of land in the magnificent Ozark Mountains. I use the term teensy weensy because that is approximately the size it is in comparison to the rest of the vast picturesque 50,000 square scenic miles that stretches across one-half of Missouri, Northwest and North Central Arkansas, extending to Northeast Oklahoma, and the extreme part of Southeast Kansas.
Our backyard has your basic enchanting fairy land with fifty-five fairy houses, and a dense wooded area full of hickory and oak trees; these are the predominant types of trees found in the Ozarks. The hickory trees have a reputation of being strong, tough, and hard with lots of energy. Andrew Jackson, the seventh president of the United States of America was called "Old Hickory" because he was renowned for his toughness.
We have two majestic seventy-year-old oak trees standing tall in our front yard. Oak trees can easily grow to be one-hundred years old and up to one-thousand years old. Can you imagine the history they hold within their huge trunks and wide-spreading branches? What if those oak trees in our front yard actually retained every word, action, emotion, or experience that has happened in the forty-four years I have lived in this house...oh my!
In 1803, Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, and principal author of the Declaration of Independence, acquired the Ozarks for the United States with the Louisiana Purchase from Napoleon, the military and political leader of France. The Ozarks has been home to Native Americans, French, English, Spaniards, Hispanics, Germans, Scottish, and Irish - and this doesn't include all of the nationalities that have filled these hills with fascinating history and wonderful cultures.
One culture that is celebrated in the Ozarks is the hillbilly culture. The name means "hill-folk", and "billie" is a synonym for fellow. Hillbillies live in the back-woods in remote areas. At one time, the Ozarks had a reputation of being filled with socially backward barefooted hillbillies living deep in the mountainous hollows in little rickety log cabins. They would sit on their porches drinking moonshine and playing hillbilly music. Their outhouses were decorated with a stylish and fashionable crescent moon carved into the door; and their music was played with fiddles, banjos, mandolins, and the well-liked moonshine jug. Country music was once called hillbilly music. If you go to the major musical tourist attraction in Branson, Missouri, and attend their shows, I'm sure you'll see and hear some popular hillbilly musical instruments.
Today, the Ozarks is home of the most successful retail business in the world, but don't let that fact take away from the real wealth of the Ozarks - the breathtaking scenery and the richness of its history.
The Ozarks is a wonderful place to live and visit. Its hilly forested plateau is filled with spectacular springs, roaring rivers, and lots of captivating caves for the fearless explorer.
My concern for the beautiful Ozarks is that the natural wilderness is being tamed by overpopulation and the gorgeous scenery is gradually being whittled away. I know that environmentalists are working hard to protect and preserve the Ozarks, and the rest of Mother Earth, but my hope lies in the natural conservationist and ecologists - the younger generation.
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