June, 2012 painting

June, 1965 painting

Following the Niangua

The Beautiful Niangua River

Spring is about to merge into summer and I must say it has been amazingly beautiful. I have posted another painting to compare with another I painted in June of 1965. The suject is geese flying and the older one has three geese and the present one 47 years later has four. It is very warm this morning and I will take shelter in my room upstairs where my view is quite spectacular. I have decided to post more writing on  my journey to the Dawn of Prehistory, where my footprints may be found often along the way.

The Niangua River of legends, mysteries and folklore

The Niangua River the dominat force in its basin rises from its ancient cradle in Northern Webster County, Missouri, where it eventually flows into Dallas County where I reside, meandering past a vast array of rugged hills, hollows and magnific limestone bluffs. The Niangua loops at least three times through Laclede County, then flows into Camden County and is fianally buried in the Lake of the Ozarks. The direct distance overland or as the crow flies is aprox 45 miles, but follow the river on its sinuous course and the distance will exceed 140 miles. Many springs and creeks flow into the Niangua and were once cool and clear, nurturing an abundance of life. Sadly, however many are poluted at present and some have ceased to exist. Yet the Niangua survives to flow fleely to its destination. For those people who have not experienced a camp fire on a cold winter night, hunkered beneath a shelter of cedar boughs, sipping cowboy coffee, listening to coyotes along the river while anticipating the journey ahead or recalling days past where I stood at the entrance of Mckee Cave watching fog rise from its entrance where images gathered to be swept away, you may follow me. I have sat at the grave of the tall one, an acient Osage Warrier that would have stood seven feet in height and reflected on his life. I have observed as closely as I dared into the many secrets that abound along the Niangua and left without leving behind my presence. Salt Peter, McKee and Liga Caves are but a few of the sites I visited and found astounding discoveries. The secrets of the past remained where they fell or were buried, often representing unrelenting changes in fragile lifeways of a people plaugued by traumaic land and climatic upheavals. I have searched among the scattered remnants of lost civilizations and I too at times was lost in the obscurity of the dawn of man. In part my journey was an inherent disire for adventure. Adios