An early rise saw the boys get to the Clinton Museum almost right on opening time. This was for all of the members of the Road Trip You Can Believe In a great moment. Being in Little Rock alone was great but the museum brought it all home. Not only did the woman handing us the audio tour equipment tell us how much she loved our accent but it was just great to be in a place with all that Bill.
In the years ahead The Don, Scuzzlefark and The Doctor will be able to show their kids a photo of the three of them sitting at the US Cabinet Table of the United States of America engaged in furious debate. Unfortunately the room is a replica and the Don had taken his shirt off but it is still a memory they will hold onto dearly.
After raiding the Clinton gift shop, where they unfortunately don’t sell the original Clinton bumper stickers, the team went in search of our first Obama campaign office. It was eventually found in the Offices of the Postal Workers Union of America. The brothers and sisters of the CEPU had engaged in a bit of relocating you can believe in for the Team Obama.
By any expectations our visit to the office went very well. The campaign staff were pretty happy to see a group of crazy Australians who had travelled across the world and we were pretty happy to finally be amongst it. They gave us some Obama memorabilia, we presented them with an official Aussies Barracking for Obama certificate and we shared campaign stories.
We got a short tour of their facilities and found that a campaign office is a campaign office whether its located in Melbourne, Australia or Little Rock, Arkansas.
Meeting people who where so motivated and passionate about their cause always puts a spring in our step and we set the GPS for Eminence in the Ozark mountains.
Eminence is the other end of the spectrum from where the trip will finish. It is one of two towns in Shannon County, Missouri. Shannon is the biggest County in the State and is basically all wilderness. It has a population of 800 but an amazingly low $12,000 annual income. The only jobs are in a small mining sector and a little larger logging industry. Most people still live as they have always done, subsistence farming, hunting and fishing for their meat and they simply burn wood for heat.
The trip there was marked by two things. One was JT, who had arranged to meet some family friends in Eminence, was getting a little antsy in the pantsy about the time the other boys were taking to drive there.
The second was that as the Truck of Justice left the interstate for the increasingly smaller backways the McDonalds, Taco Bells, Arbys and Wendys were relaced with Baptist, Church of Christ, Assembly of God and Lutheran Churches. At one point we counted an amazing 29 churches in 49 miles. It provided the unique opportunity to develop a new game called church cricket. The most common Church (Baptist) was out and the more unique a church was the higher the runs the batsman was awarded. Readers might be able to assist the group at this point, if the Word of Life Church is six, what should you give the Tabernacle of the Testament Church?
Well before we got there we realised we were deep in the Bible belt and probably out the other side. A pastor on the radio we had on was warning people to not fraternise with “worldly people”. We decided that if challenged about this we would tell them the joke about Doggy Style Beer.
The houses had turned into shacks and caravans, and out front of these McCain-Palin yard signs were proudly on display like a Nuremburg rally.
We were right not to stick that Obama-Biden bumper sticker on the Truck of Justice. Aussies for Obama can now confirm that Arkansas is a southern state, and will not be voting for Barack Obama.
Despite our trepidation our visit was a roaring success. The people we caught up with were brilliant. They took us back to their amazing two story log cabin they had built themselves in traditional style and then out to dinner at the local restaurant. It would take more time than you or us have right now to give enough credit to the “cabin”. It was filled with incredible memorabilia from a previous life diving in the Caribbean, civil war antiques and the world’s most spoilt Coon Hound. It also had a collection of working antique revolvers and rifles which were in full working order. Skuzzlefark nodded knowingly when it was pointed out that the brass used in the handles of some of the revolvers showed them to be of Confederate issue. What a nob.
After a nice dinner where the trip learned a great deal about drifting, gigging, camping out and bluegrass music (it is also fair to say JT managed to bore even our hosts with questions of their fishing exploits let alone the rest of the group) the trip retired to the Hotel.
The night ended with a few bourbons and cigars around a campfire by the river near our Cabins as the group reflected on what had been a top notch day in a forgotten part of the world's biggest economy.
In the years ahead The Don, Scuzzlefark and The Doctor will be able to show their kids a photo of the three of them sitting at the US Cabinet Table of the United States of America engaged in furious debate. Unfortunately the room is a replica and the Don had taken his shirt off but it is still a memory they will hold onto dearly.
After raiding the Clinton gift shop, where they unfortunately don’t sell the original Clinton bumper stickers, the team went in search of our first Obama campaign office. It was eventually found in the Offices of the Postal Workers Union of America. The brothers and sisters of the CEPU had engaged in a bit of relocating you can believe in for the Team Obama.
By any expectations our visit to the office went very well. The campaign staff were pretty happy to see a group of crazy Australians who had travelled across the world and we were pretty happy to finally be amongst it. They gave us some Obama memorabilia, we presented them with an official Aussies Barracking for Obama certificate and we shared campaign stories.
We got a short tour of their facilities and found that a campaign office is a campaign office whether its located in Melbourne, Australia or Little Rock, Arkansas.
Meeting people who where so motivated and passionate about their cause always puts a spring in our step and we set the GPS for Eminence in the Ozark mountains.
Eminence is the other end of the spectrum from where the trip will finish. It is one of two towns in Shannon County, Missouri. Shannon is the biggest County in the State and is basically all wilderness. It has a population of 800 but an amazingly low $12,000 annual income. The only jobs are in a small mining sector and a little larger logging industry. Most people still live as they have always done, subsistence farming, hunting and fishing for their meat and they simply burn wood for heat.
The trip there was marked by two things. One was JT, who had arranged to meet some family friends in Eminence, was getting a little antsy in the pantsy about the time the other boys were taking to drive there.
The second was that as the Truck of Justice left the interstate for the increasingly smaller backways the McDonalds, Taco Bells, Arbys and Wendys were relaced with Baptist, Church of Christ, Assembly of God and Lutheran Churches. At one point we counted an amazing 29 churches in 49 miles. It provided the unique opportunity to develop a new game called church cricket. The most common Church (Baptist) was out and the more unique a church was the higher the runs the batsman was awarded. Readers might be able to assist the group at this point, if the Word of Life Church is six, what should you give the Tabernacle of the Testament Church?
Well before we got there we realised we were deep in the Bible belt and probably out the other side. A pastor on the radio we had on was warning people to not fraternise with “worldly people”. We decided that if challenged about this we would tell them the joke about Doggy Style Beer.
The houses had turned into shacks and caravans, and out front of these McCain-Palin yard signs were proudly on display like a Nuremburg rally.
We were right not to stick that Obama-Biden bumper sticker on the Truck of Justice. Aussies for Obama can now confirm that Arkansas is a southern state, and will not be voting for Barack Obama.
Despite our trepidation our visit was a roaring success. The people we caught up with were brilliant. They took us back to their amazing two story log cabin they had built themselves in traditional style and then out to dinner at the local restaurant. It would take more time than you or us have right now to give enough credit to the “cabin”. It was filled with incredible memorabilia from a previous life diving in the Caribbean, civil war antiques and the world’s most spoilt Coon Hound. It also had a collection of working antique revolvers and rifles which were in full working order. Skuzzlefark nodded knowingly when it was pointed out that the brass used in the handles of some of the revolvers showed them to be of Confederate issue. What a nob.
After a nice dinner where the trip learned a great deal about drifting, gigging, camping out and bluegrass music (it is also fair to say JT managed to bore even our hosts with questions of their fishing exploits let alone the rest of the group) the trip retired to the Hotel.
The night ended with a few bourbons and cigars around a campfire by the river near our Cabins as the group reflected on what had been a top notch day in a forgotten part of the world's biggest economy.
1 comment:
You coming to Deerfield Illinois or better still Libertyville???
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