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Marijuana and left/right have essentially zero to do with one another. Many conservatives in that area are far more libertarian than anything else -- making their views of weed right on target.
Agree, but many people for reasons I can't figure out why don't seem to know that.
This is an interesting thread ! I found it when I was looking for info and maps/satellite photos, etc. about my Uncle and Aunt's area of Kimberling City/Branson, to see how close the leap year day tornado was to them. The 22 mile long, 400 yds wide, EF 2 tornado began near Joe Bald Rd. west of the center of KC and passed about 1.7 miles south of my relatives' home on it's eastward path through Kimberling City, the marina at Table Rock reservoir, and on east to Branson.
My Uncle moved to the Branson area in 1994 and bought a nice big new home in KC, to the N.W. of Table Rock lake. He is a 3rd generation Californian (almost 4th), a retired savings and loan branch manager from Southern Ca. and before that career he retired from 20 yrs in the Army as a Lt. Colonel who also was a young officer in the early days of the Vietnam War. (we were always told ever since he retired in 1973 that he was a full bird Colonel, but it came out this summer to my Dad's doctor when we were all gathered around our dying Dad, a retired Navy Commander, that our Uncle actually "retired as a Lieutenant Colonel). Surprise, Surprise.
About a year or so before the bank manager Colonel Uncle moved to the greater Branson area in '94, one of my Orange Co. SoCal cousins, the Colonel's niece and her family, our first "Eastward Ho" reverse pioneers moved back near Bull Shoals Lake, to Theodosia, about 60 miles east of where our Uncle soon moved. She and her family are thriving there in Theodosia and really love it. In fact she's the local chamber of commerce president. How's that for incorporating well in to her S.W. Mo. community as a self exiled So. Californian?? She's a real red headed spitfire beauty, full of energy and opinions, a real character who always lights up the room. She sort of looks like Ann Margaret. She never has to be concerned with having to bite her tongue in certain regular political and religious, socially conservative circles in her small town. I'm pretty sure that most of her friends are tea party people. After all she's a true native from Orange County, Ca. from where much of the early developed philosophy of conservatism first sprung on to the national political stage in the 1950's and 60's.
Her mother, my elderly Aunt who is 83, moved with her husband to Benton, MO, almost 4 years ago. They are the last of the family to move back to Mizzery. They bought a new upscale house as it was being built on farmland in a small semi-ritzier development. The house is too big for them and my tax preparer Uncle brags about it being so big that they only use less than half of their house, with the unused part closed off. They jumped up from the middle class, maybe a little on the lower side of the middle of the middle class in expensive Orange County old small track houseland, to the upper middle class when they moved to S.E. MO farm country.
Benton, MO., not far from the Mississippi R., is about 270 miles east of her brother's home, my retired Southern "Colonel" Uncle in Kimberling City. Another cousin, a second daughter of my elderly Aunt moved about 20 miles, from her mother and stepdad in Benton, to a nice restored farmhouse in the middle of flat, bucolic S.E. Missouri farmland. This cousin had lived closer to her sister's family in the Theodosia area for a while, during the time she and her cousin were looking around to buy a house. "Chain Migration" to Missouri?? Her daughter still lives in Orange Co., so my Aunt goes back and forth to see her and her precious twin autistic grandsons.
So, I have two Uncles and Aunts, one pair in the Branson area, one pair in S.E. Mo., and two female cousins and their families all scattered out across Southern Missouri. They are all from Orange County, Southern California, a bastion of Ca. conservatism, as you know. Well, actually the retired Lt. Colonel is from Walnut, Ca., which is about 7 or 8 miles north of Orange Co., in eastern L.A. county, but it might as well be in Orange County. The first named settlement of this Walnut/Diamond Bar area, built in the 1860's south of Pomona, was a small part of a huge Mexican land grant of Brea (much of it in N. Orange Co. and west of Pomona) which was in early California ranchland hills east of Los Angeles. This first town settlement was built by a pioneer guy from Arkansas and he named it after his hometown of Spadra, Arkansas. The hills around this early settlement that became Diamond Bar looked pretty much the same up until the late 1950's.
I find it very ironic that a good sized group of our family, the majority of my recently deceased Dad's surviving siblings' families, moved back to the general region that our family left in 1862, in a small wagon train, for a better life with good cheap farmland in Northern California. They also yearned for freedom from the Civil war and the grave results of our most tragic culture war of "divisive politics" in the early 1860s. They were pioneer farmers from Northern MO. and adjacent, extreme So. Iowa (Van Buren Co. Iowa). My Missouri family members, of four contemporary generations of the 3rd, 4th, 5th, and now the 6th generation are all descendants of these old Missouri and S. Iowa pioneers. They are now back where the family started out in the latter 1820's--with a better life for them, and a more affordable life, living in bigger, nicer houses around people they are comfortable with.
And maybe there will be more of our family to follow them to Mo., and especially to the Ozarks. Maybe this could be considered "chain migration" to Missouri?
But not my brother and I, we live in the N.W. part of our country, that we love. We'll never be part of that Missouri new family chain!! My brother is a retired mechanic who lives near Eureka, Ca., and I'm from the Redwoods too, but live in Southern Oregon. I spent 23 years in Alaska, mainly in Southeastern, and lately have been spending much time in North Idaho with another part of my family, originally from Humboldt Co., Ca., as well. My county in So. Oregon is a Republican conservative voting one, with a primarily timber based economy, with ranching too. I had some timber/ranch land in this OR county for 20 years, doing regular selective "green" harvesting, gradually managing the 200 acres to restore it from a couple of waves of clearcutting in the 50's to early 1970's.
Before I bought this Oregon timberland I went to Northern Arkansas, to the Ozarks in Newton Co., around Parthenon, Jasper, Ponca, Murray, of the upper Buffalo National River area, looking for farm and timber property to homestead on. This was a decade and a half before my family started moving back to Missouri, or knew the first thing about Missouri and the Ozarks!!. This was in 1980 when many "transplants" as they were called were moving in to the Ozarks. The transplants in this part of beautiful N. Arkansas were from all over. The ones I met in my two week stay were from the Mississippi R. valley area of Southern Illinois, and Paducah, Kentucky, the greater Chicago area, St. Louis, and other central and upper midwestern more urban areas. I met a few from California, but they were in the minority. Most everybody was there for the cheaper land, the wonderful creeks and rivers, and the laidback lifestyle. I did meet a couple of weed growers, and heard a lot of good stories. I met a real Ozark mountain guy who plowed his fields at 70 yrs. of age with mules!
There was a joke that the long time locals had, saying that the new growers in their area of Murray, had changed the name and reputation of their town to "Murray-uana". And that the local girls had to question the new transplanted "big" land owners of new undeclared means, carefully, when they said they had 40 or 80 acres--like "oh yeah 40 acres with what, a tent?" "40 acres and a mule" had transformed to "40 acres and a tent" and growing pot to be able to stay on the 40 acres and make the payments. This area is about 65-70 miles south of Kimberling City, over the border in the Arkansas Ozarks.
I looked at a few small farms for sale in this area, with old semi-shacky farmhouses, and really liked one of them. It was a great deal; I imagined living there easily. But I couldn't commit to making an offer to buy, because in the back of my mind I new I was destined to continue to be a seasonal worker in Alaska, surveying and salmon fishing, and might end up living in my new Love, Alaska, year-around. It was the right move, in hindsight, but I probably would have enjoyed having some timber property near the Buffalo National River too. I distinctly remember from 32 years ago that in 1980 the AR Ozarks transplants were finally being pretty much universally accepted in that part of rural N.W. AR, after some very hard years of divisiveness in the late 60's and during the 1970's. I think the first "transplants" to that area, from all over, were not very welcomed; and much much less welcomed than Californians of any political persuasion are in the Branson area nowadays.
In fact the coolest old time Ozark hill family with long long 1800's roots that I met told me they thought the transplants had contributed much to their area, in a lot of ways. They did not believe that for a long time, at first. They credited them with being the main driving force of working for years and years to save the Buffalo River and these new transplant neighbors did much to get it Federal status as the first national river. Some of the transplants had to work hard just to be activists for the idea of a new federal designation of national rivers, where there had been none. Without the transplants' energy, persistence, and dedication, and experience with working with govt. bureaucracy and early environmental efforts, the Buffalo River might have wound up looking like Bull Shoals or Table Rock Lake on the map, instead of being the first National River with no water impoundment and full protection for its 300 species of fish, and 400 to 500' limestone escarpments, caves, pristine, non-industrial nature, etc., etc., etc.
I stayed in a cabin on the upper Buffalo River for three days during a flood in May of 1980 with my cut-off vehicle on the wrong side of the river ford, and read much of the stacks of Buffalo R. project work that the scientist owner of the cabin had worked on. I read most of the early 1970's studies beginning in the 1960's, and the various proposals steps to get in to the brand new federal classification of a national river. I worked for the USGS studying rivers and collecting water data in S.E. Alaska so I found his cabin library really interesting.
I would like to check out Eureka Springs, Mo. to see if it is somewhat like a present day more developed memory that I still carry of Ponca and Jasper, AR, etc.. I would recommend a canoe trip, or a whitewater rafting trip in high water, down the upper Buffalo Nat'l River, or further down the Buffalo River in the great middle sections for canoeing would be great as well!!! I would go to the Ozarks just for that reason.
Green, you will not find a more beautiful river to paddle. It would be a nice change from getting to know the reservoirs and lakes around the Branson area, like Table Rock Lake and Bull Shoals. It's not that far of a drive down to that area from Branson, and it's a very beautiful drive.
I'm sure I will spend more time going down that part of my 32 yr. old Ozarks memory lane, versus having to bite my tongue to keep from laughing with and at my Lt. Colonel Uncle with his tea party buddies. I want to kid him in front of his retired tea party friends by bringing up how ironic and interesting it is that my uncle, who was named after President Roosevelt in 1933 when he was born to poor depression era farmers in the Central Coast area near Salinas, Ca., -kid him for changing his first name to Frank, by dropping the "LIN" off of Franklin. And how he only uses "D" for Delano for his middle name, instead of going by Delano Roosevelt for his full given middle name, or even just "D.R." for a middle name, like he used to in California. His excuse is that law enforcement people see his middle initials as D.R. and might think he's a Doctor ! It happened once, I think when he was getting a DUI in Orange County.
How does a 78 yr. old dirt poor depression kid from a remote homesteaded ranch from 1867, with old democrat voting parents who loved FDR, who received a congratulatory letter and embroidered FDR baby blue handkerchief from the President, for his new namesake, feel embarassed that he is named after President FDR? Especially a retired Army Officer!! And it's not just because he is in to the tea party and a very conservative republican, and hasn't been a democrat for years. The self-promoted full bird Colonel Uncle admitted that he doesn't like to use his full FDR name because people think he is an African American!! And his wife is a LaVerne !! Oh My God !! Funny the things that come out during the highly charged emotional state of losing a brother, my father, while sitting in lawnchairs in his yard under 150 yr. old Redwood trees next to a cool creek, at 75 degrees with a cool ocean breeze in July, --while it's 100 degrees, with 95% humidity, back in your yard on a bluff above Table Rock Reservoir, and you're surrounded by strange odd looking Hippie and Ethnic types and Mexicans and illegal aliens in Santa Cruz County. It just made Uncle Colonel long for his S.W. Missouri home even more. Once the heat spell had diminished at home and long after he turned our father's week and a half terminal illness and death and help to our Stepmother into a 2 month visit to central coastal California, he headed S.E. again, talking with La Verne about how lucky they are that they were able to get out of California while they could.
I met only great, friendly, very hospitable people, locals and transplants, when I visited the Ozarks in 1980. They opened up their lives and homes and families for me to get to know them and enjoy them. I had a great time camping, swimming, canoeing, horseback riding, hiking, listening to good stories at BBQ's and touring farms and ranches, traversing homemade suspension bridges over steep limestone ravines, and much much more !!! I even started hanging out with a cowgirl who lived on a nice horse ranch, a popular transplant from Paducah. She's the one that let me stay at her biological scientist friend's cabin on the Buffalo River.
I just found her on facebook, even with her divorced name, and she's single again and still in to horses !! She's got a sweet family and looks happy. I think it's time for a visit back to the Missouri and Arkansas Ozarks this spring! I want to go horseback riding with her again, like she's pictured herself doing on facebook.
My Colonel Uncle needs me to drop in on him, as well!! He needs his former Marine nephew to shake things up in his hometown with him, a little. Thank God they were spared by this morning's tornado and if, God forbid, his home had sustained roof damage or he or she had been injured, etc., --in the Springfield News some readers probably would Not have thought he and his sweet little wife, my Auntie of the tea party, were African American victims, because he had the foresight to change his MO. driver's license, to no longer go by his full Franklin Delano Roosevelt name.
That would be quite a rarity for Kimberling City and Branson, a retired military officer and his wife, LaVerne, two African American Tea Party members in their late 70's living in a big house "estate" over near Joe Bald Rd. for the past 17 years. But, "hey, it's really Very likely that they're Black, Ma !!; It says it's Colonel Franklin Delano Roosevelt Carver and his wife LaVerne down in Kimberling City, dear !!! Their roof is gone but they're o.k.!! Thank God !!!
Last edited by Rancheria; 02-29-2012 at 10:44 PM..
Because I'm liberal does not mean I don't love my country. I remember what brought our forefathers here. Do you? Freedom of religion. What that means to me is that everyone has the right to choose their religion and, even (oh my God) if they choose to, not have any religion. Freedom is all I want! I am thankful for the men and women who fight for my right to be free. Free to be...me!
I was somewhere recently and the conversation inevitably turned to politics. People were complaining about the Obama administration. Some cretin said, "He can't even prove he's a citizen". OMG!! What kind of comment is that? If that is the most intelligent thing you can say, shut up already! That is how I feel about the comment about liberals being against religion, flags and military.
After thinking about my last paragraph it makes me realize that I wouldn't even mind living somewhere conservative if there are intelligent, respectful, thoughtful, caring and loving people. Is this something I will find in Branson, Mo?
Re the bold. Typical liberal IMHO. Someone states something you disagree with and you would just as soon remove their right to speak their mind. Just started reading this thread, so, if someone already pointed this out, sorry. I will return to reading the rest now...
Rancheria? Your point was? I started reading it, but I wasn't that interested in someone's family history. New thread?
I just started looking at SW MO for a possible retirement location. Probably won't happen, since my three kids are still living in this state, but I like to dream. The lakes there look great, and the waterfront RE costs are fantastic, compared to non waterfront costs here(MD).
I hope the area stays conservative. I keep thinking of other desirable areas to live in that have gone the other direction, such as SF, Cape Cod, Key West, etc. I can coexist peacefully with anyone, as long as their lifestyle is not in my face day in and day out.
Re the bold. Typical liberal IMHO. Someone states something you disagree with and you would just as soon remove their right to speak their mind. Just started reading this thread, so, if someone already pointed this out, sorry. I will return to reading the rest now...
That comment was specific to someone claiming our president was not born in the US even in spite of absolutely every piece of evidence to the contrary. That's hardly the same as attempting to engage in rational political discourse and being told to shut up, which would to most be very offensive. Do you not agree?
Rancheria? Your point was? I started reading it, but I wasn't that interested in someone's family history. New thread?
I just started looking at SW MO for a possible retirement location. ..... I can coexist peacefully with anyone, as long as their lifestyle is not in my face day in and day out.
Let's see if I understand. One new member from Oregon writes an extensive family history explaining his ties to Branson and the political affiliation of his family members who live here - and a member from Maryland scolds him for writing too much? Why? Because it was more than 25 words - or wasn't written in a combative tone?
And what is your tie to the Branson area and your input to the thread topic Cruz? You might want to live here someday?
Thanks for taking the time to share information relevant to the thread Rancheria. And welcome to the forum.
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