Jeremiah Watt

It's Sunday morning and we are headed to Church with the Brennen's. Its a hectic sort'a morning and reminds me a bnit of my own home on many occassions as there are several rigs headed in different directions all at the same time. David is off to the airport, and to be gone for the week, as he is an Instructor of Languages at the Monterray Naval Academy. SO Allison and him are headed in that direction.

My self and the kids get dropped at the Church that the Brennens attend and sit for service. We met plenty pf folks, and the Pastor on this day is a travelling fellow from up in Kansas City. He does a good job of it, gives us some points to think about and closes out the service with an apt Prayer for all of us.

JEREMIAH IS SHOWING A GROUP FROM MISSOURI HIS NEW SOCKS........................
It's time, no more foot dragging, its time to mount up the Titanium Steed and head East young man..........head East. I am given ample warning, that where I am headed I am going to be pulling some hills, and so I leave with just a little trepidation. Never want to be to sure of oneself, since there are hills out there that will make you hurt by the time you get over them.


Allison and the kids drop me off over on the correct side of town, so that I can hit the back road out into the border lands of the Ozarks and the Mark Twain Wilderness. Its a grey sort of day, cool but not cold.mI stop in the tiny burg of Ozark and add a few groceries to my load and make sure that my water is all topped off. And with that I am off to the east, and the Mark Twain Wilderness greets me in Ozark fashion.

The country is very rolling, and the hills are just steep enough to make you break a sweat, but not hurt by the time you top out. There is a steady diet of rolling terrain, and before long you see some change in vergitaion and stream type. The trees are getting larger and much more of the quality hardwoods, the streams are no longer sluggich, but fast running and very clear with rock strewn bottoms. The creeks around here run on Limestone for the most part and in just the right ligght they have a blue tint to them. Very beautiful indeed.

My Cingular cell phone has failed me once again. I could not get out in Springfield, and cannot get out here. I try from hill tops, and valleys both and nothing works. Cingular sounds alot like Jugular to me, and I feel like getting that skinny necked phone salesman by the neck when I get home. Oh well, I will just keep pedaling. I enter into the tiny village of Bradleyville, and some 10 year old calls out to me " Hey are you a homeless bum, we don't want bums around here". I am sitting and taking a look at the map, to be sure I take the proper back road south and east from here. So, I pack up my map, and take a drink and ride over to that young fella, and strike up a conversation with him, I assure him that I am not homeless and not a bum...............we have a good visit and he says he is sorry for talking to me that way....................so I told him not too worry about it at all, and I let go of his neck........just kidding.

I rode on out of Bradleyville and really enjoyed the ride. This is some of the prettiest country that I had been in, inm some ways it reminded me of Europe with it's winding narrow roads and often times canopied by arching tree tops. The traffic was slight to modest at best, and of thise they were also polite, slowing behind you and waiting to take there pass. Since there is NO shoulder on this road, that takes a little of the worry out of it when drivers are polite as these folks are. The sky was getting full and deep with heavy cloud, so I started looking for someplace to holw up for the night. I spotted an old Church on the top of a ridge, and when I got there I found that it had a covered portico sort of affair over a picnic area. So I made that home for the night, pitched my tent and found an old hub cap in the junk pile out behind the Church. I lit a fire in the hub-cap and had a great supper and some tea. The night breeze was cool, and the fire felt good.

Headlights flashed across my camp site, and I just knew that the worst was coming. But as it turned out, it was a local fellow by the name of Beryl, who has very serious breathing problems, and is on full oxygen all the time. When he gets feeling to hard to breathe he goes for a ride in his truck with the windows down, that way he gets a little extra air to work with. Well anyways, Berle retired form the steel mills up in Ohio, and then he and his now deceased wife moved on down here in the Ozark firnges. Been married 54 years before my wife passed says Berle...............fine women, doubt I will ever find another like her. Yes I assure him,. a good wife is a blessing from God for sure, becasue it sure seems like a bad wife comes from that other place of which we do not speak of often. Heck of a thing says Berle, they ain't no place for amn to work round these parts, no sir none..............my oldest boy is 50 years and has never had a full on job anyplace. Good thing I get a pension, cause he lives with me, if he didn't I don't know what he would do. USed to be a man could cut wood about these parts, but now all of that is shut down. Not sure what the Government thinks us folks live on, air I guess. I mostly listened, Berla had a few things on his mind and was fairly just with his critisism of parties and politicians. There we districts, and pocets within districts that were seeing business d
evelopment, but too many areas were falling backwards or just stagnant.

I was pretty tired, and so I heade to bed when Berle was done. It was good to have a vist with a working man, who sees the plight of the folks in an area that he choose to live in when retired and not needing to work. I ponder on that and a few other things as I say thanks for the safe roads and safe trip so far. I for one can feel the hand of the Lord out there guiding and protecting me as I ride. I find myself calling on him more often, not less as I ride, knowing full well that he is as concerned with me as can be.
Good NIght and God Bless