When I went on vacation this past summer I drove with my daughter to Missouri, where I was born. We had a cabin at the Lake of the Ozarks. This is not the cabin we had. It was an old army barrack, and rustic is not the word for it! We had an out house, and a hammock. The approach to the lake was different too. There was dark mud, which I get a whiff of now and then, and it takes me back, to a simpler time. They say you can't go home, and I guess that's true, only in your memories, of which I have only a few of that time. I was only 4, the last time we went to the cabin; we moved to CA the following summer, and I never went back to MO until 1990, when we had a family reunion. We went to the Lake but didn't try to find the cabin. I wonder who lived there at that time. This summer, I went to the county seat, a small town called Versailles, they call it Versayles, and got the address and directions. There are many little roads that run around the lake; it has many arms and our cabin was on one of the fingers. The terrain is very different from Lake County. The trees are tall, deciduous, ash, maple, hardwoods, and lush grass.
I was very excited when I found our old site, even though the cabin was gone, and a new one built. This cabin was probably as close in feeling to the one we had had as could be. I want to contact the owners, who live in Independence, and send them a picture of the one we had.
I wonder sometimes, if this is why I live in Clearlake...I have such a love of water. Maybe it is thanks to my early memories of the Ozarks. My roots are in Missouri. But I wonder where my life will be?
