THE USUAL NOTE FROM LB: From the summer of 2002 to the spring of 2010, Gwen the Beautiful and I were the proud and often exhausted owners of a beautiful Ozarks property we called Cloud Creek Ranch.
In many ways, the ranch was paradise. But it was a paradise with a price that started going up before we even knew it existed. Here’s another Monday musing about our adventure and the lessons we learned.
Oh, and if y’all detect any irony, please believe me when I say it comes straight from the universe and not your kindly Uncle Larry B.
by Larry Brody
In my never ending search for a reason behind the mysterious goings-on here at Cloud Creek Ranch, I’ve been taking a long, hard look at the land itself.
Especially at The Mound.
That’s the little rise in the clearing in front of our main house that’s the highest spot on The Mountain. It looks very much like the mounds marking windswept areas of earth over ancient ruins that I’ve seen at sites in Arizona and Utah.
My neighbors tell me this area always has been a great spot for amateur archeologists to explore, and you know what that means.
Yep, I’ve begun looking in earnest for signs of a lost past.
And I’ve found them too.
My first discoveries were stone arrowheads. Then I found a large axe head and a stone carving of a turtle that’s an excellent likeness of the snapping turtle that brings so much excitement into our dogs’ lives whenever they go down to the pond.
But what cinched the conclusion that The Mound is more than a hump in the earth was when Doug the Dog Breeder came over and his GPS unit gave me The Mound’s precise latitude and longitude.
I ran that by some researchers who correlated the location with what’s already known about ancient civilizations all over the world, and our Mountain fitted right into the distribution pattern.
According to cutting edge scholarship, whatever’s below The Mound is exactly where the spiritual center of a long lost city should be.
Although it sounds impossible, everything I know about Cloud Creek Ranch says the spiritual center theory is true.
The way I hear it, strange things often happen at such locations, and a pattern of inexplicable sounds and sights was established here long before Gwen the Beautiful and I arrived:
Voices from nowhere—
Wispy critters tantalizingly appearing just at the edge of view—
Unexplained singing and drumming—
That’s what ran off the previous owners, who created this clearing and built the house.
Shortly after I got this information I was contacted by the Paradise Historical Society. Miz Jayne, the Secretary of the PHS, asked me to speak to the group, and I was delighted to do so because it gave me the chance to share what I’d learned.
A couple of weeks ago I presented myself at PHS headquarters, received a warm greeting from the wizened Miz Jayne, and told the dozen or so members in attendance what I’ve written here.
I figured that at worst they’d laugh at my speech as more crazy fiction from Larry B. And at best they’d be astounded and delighted and give me some clues about what to do next.
But in a universe where the Unexpected rules, the reception my words received was one I’d never anticipated.
Utter silence.
No one spoke. No one asked a question. No one responded in any way.
“Dude, you are so bombing here,” one part of my mind said to the other.
To which the other could only reply, “Not only don’t they believe you, they don’t care.”
As a public speaker I was a dead man. Time to creep out gently, into the good night…
As soon as the meeting was over, I bolted for the door. Felt like I was barely escaping with my life.
In my disappointment with myself I started thinking about ways to find out for certain whether the Sacred Center theory was right, and decided to call Dwayne the Earthmover about the availability of his backhoe.
But before I made it out to the parking lot Miz Jayne stopped me. “Hope you’ll join us for refreshments,” she said. “Don’t those cakes smell good?”
I mumbled something about having to go. Miz Jayne looked at me closely. “How old did your experts say the civilization on your mountain was?” she said.
“Um…8000 years,” I replied.
“They might be a little off,” said Miz Jayne. “We’ve got some of our own artifacts in the back room. Archaeologists told us they date back 10,000 years.”
“Why didn’t you say something about this while I was speaking?” I said.
“We didn’t want to hurt your feelings. You were so proud of your discovery.”
“Then why’re you telling me now?”
“I may be a hillbilly, but I know that look on your face,” Miz Jayne said. “Can’t let you go out and do something as dumb as excavating your whole front yard.”
And at that moment the cakes smelled very good indeed.
