Family Foliage Tours

John Hendricks, a '74 Heavener grad, lives on the Ridge Road above Long Lake Hill, and he runs the Long Lake Resort. (Our e-traveling friends, John and Cynthia Inman, stayed there on the first leg of journey.) John takes the most awesome photos of our home land, some you can enjoy on their website: http://www.longlakeresort.com/
The picture above is one John sent to show me the first leaves that are turning on Cypress trees there at Long Lake. We are all anticipating a beautiful fall down at home this year! We have fabulous memories of the annual family pilgrimage, a foliage tour down by Three Sticks and over the mountain. I remember stopping every year at a place with a natural spring coming out the side of the mountain. I even have pictures of my boys at that special spot, but I can't remember where it was or what it was called. Harry thinks he could still find it. We also drove a bit out of the way to a place called Horse Thief Springs. That is where Mo and June fell in love, or at least that was what Mom told! We have pictures of them as teenagers at Horse Thief Springs on a double date with Jane Freeman and J. T. Teeter.

As we drove, Mother would count the number of different shades of red and orange and gold that we saw. Daddy would teach us what kind of trees we saw on the mountain, and we would vote for which kind was the prettiest. I remember the year that Judy was pretty restless about the family pilgrimage. She was really anxious to get it over and back home so she could hang out with friends. My parents didn't want to give up the annual family foliage tour, so they offered Judy the keys. I thought that was so cool!! Daddy had bought an old Falcon station wagon, so I loaded myself into the back of the wagon with all kinds of books because I was in first grade and Miss Betty had taught me to read that year!

It was probably not the year my parents remembered most fondly in all the years of our pilgrimage, but it is definitely the year that I remember the best!! Judy drove 60 miles an hour around those mountain curves. Daddy sat with white knuckles grasping the dashboard and didn't say a word for miles. Mother gasped every once in a while, and I laid in the back of the station wagon reading my books! I honestly thought this day was going to turn into a very bad scene - either the wagon would tumble off the side of the mountain or Judy would get grounded for the rest of her life! But what I remember most was one of my favorite memories of my Daddy, and one that probably helped shape my own child-raising years. Daddy yelled out, "If you look real quick, there's a pretty red one up here on the right. Zoom!!! It was there alright! I caught a glimpse of it. Look on the bright side, June, it's a great year for us. Judy can drive, and Kathy can read! We have so much to be thankful for!"

Well, just hearing Daddy say those words made Judy slow down a little bit, and I climbed over the seat to sit with Mother and count the different colors of the leaves. Neither of us ever balked about going on the family foliage tour again. It remained a tradition that we shared with our own kids for many, many years. Gosh, I think even now of all the things Dad could have said or done, but he said just the right thing that drew his family right back around him. I wonder how many colors we will count this year?!?!

The laptop dilemma

by John Inman

Cynthia’s suggestion of getting a wireless laptop so I could blog on our travels and check on our emails and bills and maybe catch a Yankees game was a great idea. Most of the RV Parks we would be staying in have the wireless signal, so I thought that would be a great idea. However, when we’re not in an RV Park, locating a place that has a compatible wireless signal is not so easy.

At Long Lake Resort we could access our e-mail in the parking lot by the office with no problem. The speed was to slow to get the Yankees game live on MLB TV. When we left Long Lake Resort, we went to Sallisaw to visit my cousin Marilyn and I finished my first blog and began to look for a place to send it. Marilyn said her son, home on leave from the military, also had a wireless lap and a place he found to send was in the parking lot at a Motel 6. So we went to the same motel and sure enough we got a signal, and were able to receive but couldn’t send. I thought it was because we had tried to send a photo with it. I just went inside and asked the girl at the desk if we could come inside to send. She said, “sure.” We tried one more time, and it still didn’t work.

We tried a couple truck stops without success. At another motel, the girl inside wasn’t near as pleasant. She said, “You must have a password. You have to rent a room, then you’re welcome to use it.” I said I didn’t think so and we were off to continue our search.

A Days Inn was our next stop and we decided if this one wasn’t going to let us, it just wasn’t meant to be. I went inside again to ask the desk clerk, who was more accommodating. She even gave us a security code. Maybe that was the key. Everything worked fine this time. Cynthia even took the time to log on to Facebook so she could check on her kids.

Now if we can only find a spot near Roaring River to send this!

Just Checkin' in

by John Inman

So many folks asked us to write a blog about our first extended RV trip after Cynthia’s retirement. OK, “so many folks” was actually two – Chuck and Jim. Of course, I will email this same thing to our kids, Karen, Tammi and Michael, but this is for all the Heavener bloggers who may or may not be interested.

First of all, we planned on leaving about 8 a.m. last Tuesday morning. We “finally” got on the road around 12:30 after having to fix a few things. We have to give a great deal of credit to Bobby at Nick’s Trailer Hitches for getting us on the road, and that’s all I’ll say about that. Anyway, we made it as far as Broken Bow, OK. Broken Bow? Yep, just about 3 or 3 1/2 hours up the road. We found a real nice little RV park, and Cynthia fixed a nice steak and baked potato supper. That, naturally, was the best thing to happen up to that point. We slept in the next morning, called Aunt Mable and told her we were on our way and not to expect us for a while. We drove as far as Smithville and decided to stop for lunch. It’s a good thing, too, because it started raining, or pouring, a few minutes later. Who would walk in but a couple of friends from Heavener – Don Frost and Lester Rowland? They said they were in the process of moving Betty Jean Ward, Herbert’s daughter, from Paris, TX back to Heavener. Thus, our trip to Heavener had “officially” begun. Stopping at a one-store town like Smithville (population, maybe 300 at best) and running on to someone from Heavener that neither of us had seen in a couple years was too weird. We finally made it to Heavener, went by to pick up Mable and went on to our destination at Long Lake Resort.

Long Lake Resort Is near Poteau (anyone from Heavener knows where Poteau is) and it’s a very nice, clean, well-maintained little place. I’ve thought all this time it was on the Poteau River, but it’s situated along Long Lake. The resort itself has just a few RV spots, a few duplexes and a few really nice isolated cabins. This time of the year, just after Labor Day, is not very busy. We pretty much had the place to ourselves. We took Mable back home and spent a nice quite evening in our RV. Cynthia took Mable to Ft. Smith the next day, but I stayed behind and watched ESPN’s Sports Center after taking a nice quiet relaxing nap. I thought to myself, “What a way to spend a vacation.” The next day, we went in to Poteau to eat at Western Sizzlin. There we ran into Bill and Sue Edmonds (Bill lived next door on 2nd Street) and an old high school friend, Tim Wise, whom I hadn’t seen since high school in 1965.

As the week wore on, we really began to love Long Lake Resort, its quietness and relaxation and convenience to both Heavener and Poteau. Cynthia says the gentle rain on the roof of the RV made for wonderful sleeping weather! We saw Mable a few more times, and on Tuesday went to eat at Warehouse Willie’s, a place Chuck told us about. Great place to eat, but big thick rib-eye steaks at $15.50 aren’t exactly my cup of tea. I had a great burger and Cynthia had the steak-filled baked potato. She had steak left over. Neither of us could have eaten the entire rib-eye dinner. Cynthia found a t-shirt in a little shop down the street that should elicit a comment from Kathy Bain Dunn and maybe even my friend George in Texas. Maybe I’ll picture it in a blog someday!

We broke camp on Wednesday and drove to Sallisaw to visit my cousin, the next stop on our journey.

Disregard Chuck's name at the bottom of this blog....it was easier to send it to him for up-loading, since we didn't have Internet access at Long Lake Resort. We'll get this figured out before next time, maybe.

Heavenerite Test

Are you a bonafide Heavenerite?
Choose the correct answer.
1. You call your evening meal
A. Dinner
B. Supper
C. Sunday’s leftovers
D. All of the above

2. Your favorite drink with your meal in the summer is
A. Iced Sweet Tea
B. Unsweet Tea with a slice of lemon
C. Green Tea
D. None of the above

3. You describe a person losing their temper as
A. Throwing a fit
B. Pitching a coniption
C. Having a cow
D. All of the Above

4. The adjective "Mess" is used when talking about
A. The bluegills you caught last week
B. The greens Granny is boiling on the stove
C. The fix you are in when you’ve asked two girls to the same party
D. All the above

5. When you say you’ll do something "directly"
A. You will do it right then
B. You won’t stop until you are done
C. You will do it when you get around to it
D. None of the above

6. When someone in the community has died you
A. Call Bullards and order flowers for the family
B. Fix up some fried chicken and potato salad and take it over to their house
C. Call your boss and take the rest of the week off
D. All of the above

7. You use the word "Fixin" to describe
A. What your brother-in-law is doing to your car when it is broke down
B. Something that you are considering doing
C. A mess you have got yourself into
D. None of the above

8. You use the term "holler" to describe
A. What you do when you tell the kids to come in to eat
B. The little open spot back in the woods where you lived before you moved to town
C. The condition of the old tree out back that has a hole in it
D. All the above

9. When you hear the term "Church Key" you think of
A. What the deacon carries in his pocket
B. Where you were late last Saturday night
C. Where you should have been
D. None of the above

10. When you say you are going down into the mountains you are going to travel
A. North
B. East
C. West
D. None of the above
　
Correct Answers
What ever you picked is the right answer but if you grinned even a little bit as you read through the choices then, Yes you are a "True son or daughter of Heavener"

wrote by colin with Peggy's help

Downhill Ride

Jackie Linville reminded me of my Pink Schwinn bike today. What a beauty she was! We rode all over creation, and once I even got the nerve to leave home on my bike. It was after school one evening when I left. I got all the way down by Dale Elliott's house before it started to get darkish, and I changed my plans! Another great adventure on the Pink Schwinn was to speed down a hill and jump a ditch. I'm not sure who put me onto this, but there was a ditch at the Grade School that was the best for hitting and flying into the air. Then you could land the bike right beside that big old tree close to 3rd base. The faster you hit the ditch, the higher you could fly. So we decided to start at the top of the hill on Avenue D, right there by Jim Hall's and Jackie Linville's houses. I flew as fast as I could down that hill, jumped the ditch, flew higher than ever before, and landed not beside the big old tree, but right smack into the big old tree - face first!! Can you imagine my Mother's reaction when I peddled up to Dr. Hogaboom's office with tree-burn completely covering the right side of my face? My "need for speed" probably ended that very day. I've never liked speedy roller coasters and never wanted to drive really fast - except that one time in Judy's brand new car! But that's another story!