Life at Long Cabins at Lake Ozark

The Memorial Tree

noreply@blogger.com (Life at Long Cabins at Lake of the Ozarks) — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 15:04:00 +0000

Do you ever feel at a loss of what to do, no ambition, no goals, numb? With the murders of James and Zelma, the death of Aunt Rita, that's how we felt, and sometimes still feel everyday, from the time the sun slowly peeps out a good morning over the horizon till the sun slides back down out of our view. We had lost our purpose and were at a loss to regain it. We tried therapy, books, articles, advice, we took short weekend trips, trying to regain our perspective. Slowly, almost without our knowing, one interest began to take hold.

Charlie Brown no more!

Moon Flower

Peonies from Jim's garden

One day as we drove across the state back to the lake during one of our many trips to court for a case that has stretched from 1996, still running today, we stopped at a nursery along the interstate. Earlier we had talked of planting a memorial tree. We looked at a tiny, Charlie Brown looking Japanese Maple and took the poor thing home. We chose it because of Bill's dad's life-long habit of bringing home Charlie Brown Christmas trees. Then we added Knock Out Roses in memory of my dad, Moon Flowers in memorial to his parents. Then came old fashioned Day Lilies in honor of my mom and Uncle Floyd. China Boy and China Girl Holly Bushes arrived one spring in memory of Aunt Rita along with a grass.

Each spring we do fine tuning, making changes, moving this or taking out that. There are two things that have remained constant - President Cannas and Elephant Ear plants. These two plants originally came from Jim's garden. We have planted them every year since and given away hundreds. One year, the Elephant Ears grew so large we had to use a chain saw to cut them down in the fall. Another year one Elephant Ear plant bloomed a few small white lily looking flowers, a phenomenon so strange we discussed it with the St. Louis Botanical Garden people and area Master Gardeners. We finally came across one person who had also seen the same thing; she suggested it was an Elephant Ear that had reached it's life potential and would probably not live much longer.

Today we look at the flower bed often, fishermen and boaters float by to enjoy the colors and shapes, visitors compliment our lovelies, grandkids sniff them, cats fertilize them, deer sleep in them and nibble them. They are conversation pieces to remember our loved ones gone too soon, but not forgotten.

Knock Roses with Blue Fescue

Our Neighbor on the Other Side of the Gray Cabin

noreply@blogger.com (Life at Long Cabins at Lake of the Ozarks) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 22:56:00 +0000

My Dad, Raymond Frederick Sparks

My Aunt Rita F. Sparks Farnham

My Paternal Grandparents
Verna and Fred Sparks

My dad passed away in 1967. Thirteen years later with two young daughters keeping me busy, my mother passed away. It seemed unfair at the time, but God had a plan. My dad's sister, retired from school teaching early and took care of the girls so I could spend as much time as I could with my mom. Over the years after mom died, Aunt Rita became like a mother to me. After several years of taking care of my Grandmother, Grandpa and Uncle Floyd both had long since passed, my Aunt was free to do as she wanted. She decided to become my neighbor again and move to the lake! We had been neighbors back at the time my mom was sick. So, she purchased the house next door when it came up for sale. She told us how she wanted it to look and we remodeled it. Six weeks after she moved in, she passed away from colon cancer. I was devastated, my second mom had been taken away, Bill was still reeling from his parents murders and the trials - still going on yet today! We slowly came out of a fog and began to think about renting the two little cabins on each side to pay the taxes, insurance and upkeep. Thus, we slowly began to refer to them by color - Green Cabin and Yellow Cabin!

The Sun is Shining and I'm Remembering Dark Clouds

noreply@blogger.com (Life at Long Cabins at Lake of the Ozarks) — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 20:10:00 +0000

James and Zelma Long around 1947

Blame it on former Mississippi Gov. Barbour, these dark thoughts I try to push out of my mind on this sunny day ever since our lives changed in a matter of minutes in July of 1996. Have you ever given thought to how you feel about the death penalty in this great country we live in? A lot of people have an opinion, although the fickled finger of fate has never reached out and touched them. It's never struck them so hard they're scared to walk out of their home. It's never touched them so hard they fall to the floor and sob. It's never touched them so hard they pull the covers up over their head and refuse to move. It's never made them afraid to walk in a store. So, how do they know what they'd really feel? I'm here to fill you in - they may think they know, but they don't and please, God, don't let them ever find out. It's the worst kind of nightmare one can ever not awake from. Bill and I had this debate alot for awhile. He felt it was terrible for his parents who were murdered, execution style in the bedroom of the home they shared. I thought it was worse for my parents who both suffered the slow death of cancer eating away at their bodies until they were gone - both at an age much too young, since I am older now than either of them. But then it slowly seeps back in, my inlaws, they had to have been terrified, the kind of terrified where you wet yourself and you can't hardly draw a breath, you can't think to make sense of anything. The murderer admitted that in court. My father-n-law could not remember the numbers to open the safe. How would you feel if someone took away your loved one before their time, just because they wanted to? Years later, I have come to think it was harder on Jim and Zelma's children, the loved ones left behind. Once supposedly a close knit family, with the nucleus gone, their DNA scattered like particles of dust after a windstorm. Where before they got together and there was no hesitation to pick up the phone and call, now if a phone rings on a birthday from everyone once a year, it's a miracle, easier yet, text two words, Happy Birthday, and move on, relieved no voices communicated. That's the story of what happened to my next door neighbor's in 1996, six weeks after we moved back to the lake.

Jim studying for the horse track

Jim and Zelma being chauffeured by grandson, Jimmie.

Cabin Changes During the '80s

noreply@blogger.com (Life at Long Cabins at Lake of the Ozarks) — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 13:52:00 +0000

Shortly after the Green Cabin was finished, or as finished as it would be, Margaret and Roy started on the Gray Cabin. Before the paint was barely dry, a tornado blew through, destroying alot of their hard work. Being of perservering natures, they worked to put back the pieces. They would then move on to build a duplex next to the Green Cabin, later known as the Brown Cabin. Around 1982, Margaret and Roy decided to sell the Brown Cabin to Bill's parents, ending years of staying in the Green Cabin and listening to all the different levels of snoring from tired, alcohol infused bodies at night. By 1989 Roy had passed on to the big lake in the sky, leaving Margaret older and tired of walking on a slope. Bill still had fond memories of the Green Cabin and approached her to sell. Her only way to sell was if he bought the Green Cabin and her cabin, soon to become known as the Gray Cabin. The next years flew by with Bill's parents doing a major remodel to the Brown Cabin and Bill doing lots of cleaning, building seawalls, etc. 1996 brought about many changes, with the youngest daughter about to graduate from highschool, we put the old house in Versailles up for sale and set about work on a major face lift on Margaret's old home place. She had moved on to Sedalia, Missouri. The day after graduation we packed up and headed back to the lake! We had now lived in Laurie, Gravois Mills, Versailles, and now Rocky Mount. It seemed we had tried to circle the lake in a manner of speaking, actually we were just coming back to the spot where we had shared many great moments in time, ready to share more!

Changing Jobs, Changing Locations, Changing Times

noreply@blogger.com (Life at Long Cabins at Lake of the Ozarks) — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 12:41:00 +0000

When we first married Bill worked for Chrysler building vans in Fenton, Missouri. Some hard economic times were rapidly approaching our young family. By the time baby number two was born, Bill had been laid-off from Chrysler and he was doing odd jobs to supplement unemployment.

A family friend suggested he go to work in line construction and complete lineman training for a card. So, in the early '70s, he was a groundman rapidly finishing his classes and becoming a lineman. Traveling from job to job, it was hard to say where he would be going for the next job. Sometimes the job was close enough to drive, sometimes he lived out of the back of a camper and sometimes he lived in old hotels. It was kinda hard for us both, me with a baby and a toddler and him on the road.

In the summer of '82, he went to work on a job building new lines here at the lake. We were able to stay in the Green Cabin with the girls for weeks. It was a wonderful summer, the girls played in the lake everyday and when Bill would come home from work we would jump in the boat and go water-skiing. Bill was incredible on the water, he could salom ski and make it look effortless, he could pull the girls up on his shoulders and water-ski all over. Back then there was no boat traffic and no wave-runners to worry about.

On a rain-out day, Bill drove over to a local RE and applied for a job. Powers to be called the week before I graduated from Jefferson College, and one week later we packed our belongings in our old Ford pickup with cattle racks borrowed from my Uncle Floyd. We must have looked like a traveling comic show, but we were on top of the world - we were moving to the beautiful Lake of the Ozarks!

Possum Hollow Cove

noreply@blogger.com (Life at Long Cabins at Lake of the Ozarks) — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 13:25:00 +0000

By 1974, Bill's mother, a third grade teacher who liked her summers off, had rented a little green cabin on the Gravois Arm here at the lake. She rented from a couple named Margaret and Roy Thompson, also known as Tom Cat and Whipperwill in CB Radio language - used to communicate with others on the other side of the lake in the old days to avoid long distance phone charges. Margaret and Roy lived in one cabin, rented the green cabin and another cabin that was two levels added renting availability. Roy was one of the first dock builders to the lake and even engineered a pully cable boat lift system. They also sold gas for boats on the dock. They had an old wooden phone you would crank and they would walk down and pump your gas and give the fishing reports. If they weren't home, there was a box to put your gas money in. I guess you could say old Margaret and Roy were entrepreneurs of their time, for this all began back in the '50s.

By 1975, we were expecting baby number one and bored out of our goards. We decided to drive down to the cabin for something different to do. Word of caution, one probably shouldn't take long drives in the dead of winter to a place that has no phone and before cell phones have been invented - very uncomfortable and scary!

Five Years Later

noreply@blogger.com (Life at Long Cabins at Lake of the Ozarks) — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 12:04:00 +0000

As I previously stated, five years passed before I saw my future groom again. We ran into each other at a pool near DeSoto, Missouri where on Friday nights they had parties - it was kinda like a tiny Woodstock. As the stars sparkled against a black sky, I ran into Bill and he asked me to go for a motorcycle ride; the nerve of this guy. He begged; I relented. As young girls are inclined to think, I assume we are becoming an item. One Saturday morning my mom calls me from the shop she worked on Main Street to tell me she sees him ride by with a girl sitting beside him in his car. Bill has a lot of explaining and chasing to do. I recall telling him I hate him, but he didn't give up and we began a whirlwind courtship. Our first trip was to Lake of the Ozarks to his parents summer rental on Indian Creek in the Gravois Arm. It was the summer of 1973, the first time I met his parents was Christmas eve and by February, Bill convinced me we should marry and we did in March!

Fishing Buddies

noreply@blogger.com (Life at Long Cabins at Lake of the Ozarks) — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 13:59:00 +0000

Stinky and a grandie fishing. Below - Green Cabin.

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The Yellow Cabin

How We Came to the Lake

noreply@blogger.com (Life at Long Cabins at Lake of the Ozarks) — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 15:32:00 +0000

They say all things come full circle and for Bill and I, this is very true. Let me start at the beginning, "How we met." Bill's dad, Jim, owned a gas station, cafe, liquor store and bodyshop at the end of Flucom Road on Hwy 67. Bill worked at the gas station, along with his younger brother, Marty. I worked at the cafe and babysat for my nephew, his dad had the bodyshop. One day Bill asked me if I would like to go for a ride in his baby blue '63 ford convertible. Looking dreamily at this handsome older boy, I immediately agreed! In the car, traveling down the road, Bill began to shift gears when the entire shifter pulled out in his hand and I could see the road below us! What had I gotten into was my first thought and still the same thought today - it's always interesting - never dull. The next time I saw Bill pull into the station, he had another girl with him - his girlfriend. What a turd. That was the last time I saw Bill for five years. Tune in again for what happened next!