When I went to Houston for the Dodge Merrin book signing, I took a different route home:
As to the trip to Houston, I took I-44 to US 38 in Marshfield–the same route to the Independence Day parade, but then rolled east on 38 through rolling hills and hay fields through Hartville (although north of the White Hart Renaissance Festival) and into Houston which is not quite as big as some of the Springfield suburbs but is not exactly a small town. On the way home, I rode down US 63 which is a bigger road that runs through Cabool and down to West Plains, although I got onto US 60 (the Stepmother Road according to the current Citizens Bank of Rogersville radio ads I hear whilst cutting the grass).
One of the reasons I took the southbound route was because I wanted to visit Larry Dablemont’s museum down there. I didn’t see it, and last Monday he explained why:
I tried my best to create a Big Piney River museum and Nature Center near my hometown of Houston Missouri. But it was not to be and now I have to empty it in hopes that someone else can take over and use that building, there in a beautiful, wooded setting a mile south of town, for something useful and lasting. It could have been something great with all the Big Piney artifacts I have from 100 to 60 years ago. I planned all kind of exhibits and a Big Piney aquarium filled with river creatures. I thought God wanted me to do it but I know that sometimes I have tackled things I thought God wanted me to accomplish when it wasn’t His idea at all, but just a product of my own misguided enthusiasm.
My newspaper subscriptions have dwindled, so the dwindling number of papers that carry Dablemont are not available to me, so I need to make a better habit of visiting his blog for his weekly posts.
