Steve Mattison

Driving home from work today I noticed there was no traffic on the road at all. Matter of a fact, I haven't seen any pickups in their normal parking places at the cafes, watering holes, driveways, hardware store, barber shop or even at the local walmart. Why are all those pickup trucks missing and where did they go? Suddenly my mind flashed back to that big buck that walked across the road in front of me and I realized, it is the annual migration of adults and youth into the woods for deer season a ritual hunting rite in the Ozarks. Construction, service and contact all stops in this local culture, as far as the hunters go, during deer hunting season and that is why there are no pickup trucks in sight, anywhere. So if you need to get ahold of anyone of the hunter culture this time of year, you may as well just wait till the season ends and all the pickups come back, then you can get your work done again. I love the winter but after almost freezing to death hunting a couple years ago, I am letting those younger hunters have all the fun now.

You know that no one can imagine the cost that has been paid by every person who has served their country at home and abroad to keep this country free. Priceless is the only word that comes close in my mind and that is the value I have for each of you, thank you for your service to our country, it has made the freedom we have priceless, at a very high cost!!!

Made a trip to the license office yesterday and bought a replacement plate for my boat trailer. Not because it was expired, but because it was gone. When I discovered it missing I started looking around and found an old one with the stickers torn off of it lying nearby. Started me thinking, maybe someone wanted a plate with up to date stickers on it and decided to take mine and save themselves a trip to the bureau office. No way, no one in the Ozarks would do such a thing is my first response, but after talking to the friendly clerks at the Nixa office, it seems that happens more than I thought. So now what do I do? I thought about locking it in the cab of my truck while I am out fishing but that seems like a lot of thrash every time I want to go fishing just to keep from shelling out another $13.50 for a lost plate. So I came up with a better idea, next time the lake is too high or too low to launch safely where I am, I will go where it is safer and my trailer will not drop off the end of the ramp and knock my plate off. It could have happened you know, with the lake so high I couldn't tell where the ramp was in Cape Fair and dropped it off the side of it at least twice into Table Rock Lake. Or maybe it was that time by Galena when I put into the James River and it was so high there I lauched from the parking lot and no telling where the trailer went after it disappeared out of my rear view window that time the white bass were running. I guess I really don't know when I lost that tag but I would like to believe it was due to my eagerness to go fishing rather than some lazy expired tag owner. Truth be known, I probably won't launch in a safer place next time the bass are biting and will probably just try to figure out a better way of attach this one and hope it lasts longer.