Cotter, Arkansas – Trout Capital USA
November 5th, 2009 at 12:54 pm by Dee O'Neil Andrews
. . . so they say. (See here.)
That’s where we’ve been for the past five days. But we didn’t go to fish.
We went with all of Tom’s family on a grand adventure as part of yet another family reunion this year. This time it was an “Andrews’ Family Reunion & Memories Tour” up in the northernmost part of central Arkansas in the southernmost part of the Ozarks next to Bull Shoals Lake and below the dam on the White River.
All four of the Andrews siblings – “Dickie, Jimmy, Tommy & Debbie” – along with their spouses (Joyce, Arlinda, moi, and Steve, Debbie’s husband) and their cousin Oliver made the trip from all over the country to visit the little towns in that area where the three boys (Debbie had not yet been born) and Oliver lived when they were just little fellas.
You see – they lived in the area over 60 years ago for about six years and none of them had ever been back up there.
All of us but Oliver gathered in Memphis last Friday to journey together in a rented 15 passenger van up to the area on Saturday. What should have been a leisurely four hour drive turned into a seven hour marathon with all kinds of starts and stops, detours, misleading GPS directions, friendly feudin’ & fussin’ …
But, I get ahead of myself.
Actually, it’s a long story full of a vast range of emotions. Laughter, joy, tears, shared memories, individual memories shared for the first time with the rest, differing memories between brothers and their cousin about how things “really” were or where things “really” were. And, along the way, brand new stories were created to be to be mingled with the memories from a distant past for the four “boys” (Dickie, Jimmy, Tommy & Oliver).
The rest of us – the four spouses and Debbie – have a deeper understanding of these men in our lives and a new respect for their roots. We marvel at the young lives they lived, at how hard it must have been for their parents to provide for them and how well they’ve all “turned out” as now aging men with with stable, loving families and long careers of service to others in so many different ways.
Each of them. All four boys.
I am more proud than I have ever been to be the wife of Tom Andrews and to be part of this Andrews family.
Stay tuned over the next several blogs as I share with you their stories, pictures from the trip and stories on the road from south Mississippi, central Mississippi, southeast Louisiana, the panhandle of Florida and near Baltimore, Maryland to the little Ozarks town of Cotter, Arkansas. And Gassville, Yellville and Flippin – all places where they lived.
You’ll have a great time, I think, and learn a lot, too. I did.
Y’all have a great day today and may God shower upon you many blessings!
Dee
Can’t wait to hear the rest of the story.
ya was that close and didn’t stop!
The trip explains your silence in the blog and email world. So here we go again, a “wait and read” bait blog.
Looking forward to the stories.
Sounds like a great adventure, I’m looking forward to our future travels and to reading more of yours.
Welcome back!
I’m looking forward to the stories from that trip! It’s not too far from me. We drive that way when we go to Branson.
I don’t go to our family reunions ’cause gunfire makes me break out in wee holes. They tend to look a lot like the first 24 minutes of “Saving Private Ryan.”
You were in MEMPHIS? Darn! Wish I’d known. And I don’t wonder that it was a good trip. You were in God’s country, after all. Good people come out of those small Arkansas towns!
I was born and grew up in another part of the state, the northeast corner, in Corning. I will especially appreciate your stories of travel through the “Natural State.”
[...] older half-brother who died many years ago) to the Ozarks of Arkansas near Mt. Home, Arkansas (see here) was 60 years in the making, I [...]
[...] time, so I don’t know if you remember how I started this entire series last November. (See here.) (Yikes, Dee Ann, are you that slow and long-winded in your writing?! Good grief!) Cotter [...]