Toad Suck and Monkey Run

QUESTION: What do the following three lists have in common?

LIST #1 – England, Scotland, Sweden, Denmark, Lebanon, Egypt, Palestine, Jerusalem, Damascus, London, Paris, Berlin, Warsaw, Dallas, Houston, Hollywood, Delaware, Kentucky, Kansas, Washington, Northern Ohio

LIST #2 – Ain, Alf, Aly, Amy, Apt, Ard, Bay, Ben, Coy, Day, Fox, Gid, Hon, Ida, Imo, Ink, Ivy, Joy, Kay, Keo, Meg, Rex, Roe, Rye, Tag, Tip, Ulm, Uno, Van, Wye

LIST #3 – Toad Suck, Oil Trough, Marked Tree, Booger Hollow, Greasy Corner, Turkey Scratch, Three Way, Lick Branch, Old Joe, Old Jenny Lind, Point Peter, Hog Jaw, Gum Log, Half Moon, One Horse Store, Number Nine, Twenty-three, Fifty-six, Morning Sun, Evening Shade, Possum Grape, Monkey Run

ANSWER: They are all towns in Arkansas.

Arkansas is known as the natural state. It's also the state where naming towns ranks very high on the Weird-O-Meter.

Many years ago, a Polk County schoolteacher sent out notices to suggest names for the new post office, requesting that they “write in ink” – thus the town of Ink came into being.

In 1811, a group of hunters camped along the White River near Batesville. They killed over 100 bears for their oil, a valuable commodity at the time. When they ran out of buckets to accumulate the oil they fashioned troughs to store it until shipment downstream could be arranged. Thus the community of Oil Trough was born.

On the bank of the St. Francis River in Poinsett County a large tree once contained slashes marking the best place for early settlers to cross the river. In 1890, the tree was washed away in a flood, but the town of Marked Tree still exists. Nowadays, most folks usually cross on the bridge.

In early America, “Boogie-man” was a term used by people who had the parenting skills of a head of lettuce and wanted to scare their kids. In the mountainous region of northwest Arkansas, the term was eventually changed to “Boogie-bear” and later dropped to “Booger.” Whoever named Booger Hollow obviously didn’t want any kids snooping around. They probably didn’t want any revenuers poking around either.

There was once a steamboat landing on the Arkansas River where a popular tavern attracted many river boatmen to suck whiskey until they swelled up like toads. The eventual name of the town, Toad Suck, was derived from a French term meaning “a narrow channel in the river.”  Since no one full of whiskey could understand French anyway, the name "Toad Suck" stuck.

Arkansas is a land of rocks. You will discover this if you ever try to dig a posthole for your mailbox. Thus many towns are named after rocks, such as Black Rock, Calico Rock, Flat Rock, Galla Rock, Gray Rock, Little Rock, North Little Rock, Sulphur Rock, White Rock, Rock Hill, Rock Springs and Rocky Mound. Madison County has a town named Rock – the guy who had the list of adjectives was probably missing during the meeting to name the town.

Like most other states in the USA, many town names carried over from the language used by the original Native American inhabitants to refer to the area. In Arkansas, these include Okolona, Ogenaw, Osceola, Pawheen, Wabbaseka, Washita, Watalula and Wampoo. If I'm not mistaken, Watalula means "white man move in and spoil the neighborhood."

It’s a strange world full of coincidences and synchronicities. I even know a woman from Scotland and Hollywood. Both are Arkansas towns but she is from the real deal. In Scotland, you’re born with a sense of honor. In Hollywood, you’re born with a sense of make-believe. In Arkansas, you’re born with a sense of raising chickens.

I've lived in Arkansas for many years now, a few miles outside of Salem in Fulton County. There is also Salem in Lee County, Salem in Pike County, Salem in Saline County and Salem in Ouachita County. Apparently, there's a rule in Arkansas that you can't use the same name for towns more times than you have fingers on your left hand.

In Arkansas, the value of your pickup truck goes up and down depending on how much gas you have in the tank.

If you think that’s weird, wait until you meet some of the folks who live there.

And be sure to drive carefully through Greasy Corner.

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Quote for the Day – “If all the businesses in town are run like country businesses, you are going to have a country town.” William Faulkner

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Bret Burquest is the author of 12 books. He lives in the Ozark Mountains with a few dogs and avoids towns as much as possible.

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The Magic of Water

There is magic on Planet Earth -- it's called water.

Water is a basic component of all living things on the planet. Two-thirds of the surface of earth is covered by water and the human body is made up of over 70 percent water. It's the essence of our being.

The human race cannot survive more than a few days without fresh water, which is slowly disappearing and will soon become the most precious commodity on earth.

Approximately 97 percent of the earth’s water is salt water, unsuitable for human consumption. Another two percent is frozen in glaciers and ice caps, primarily in Antarctica. The remaining one percent is all that’s available for residential, agricultural, industrial, and community usage, including keeping our cars washed, our public water fountains bubbling and our golf courses green.

Japanese researcher, Dr. Masaru Emoto, has done extensive experiments with water and concluded it has a consciousness. According to Dr. Emoto, water has the capacity to perceive and remember. It also has the capacity to communicate with its environment just like any other living organism.

In 1994, Dr. Emoto began research to measure the properties of water by using Magnetic Resonance Analysis (MRA), a technology used in alternative medicine to measure the ability of the human body to resonate (vibrate) at certain frequencies thereby becoming a natural healing agent.

He collected water samples from many parts of Japan, as well as from other places in the world. Each sample of water was placed in 100 Petri dishes and frozen. Utilizing a photographic microscope (magnifications of 200 to 500 times), photographs were taken a split moment before the frozen ice flakes began to liquefy.

After more than four years of observations and some 10,000 photographs, Dr. Emoto has concluded that "healthy water will show a complete hexagonal crystal structure while the chipping away and/or collapsing of crystal structures are not good signs."

He added that each water crystal seemed to be "trying to purify itself."

Not surprising to most country bumpkins, some of the water samples from urban areas show deformed crystal structures, whereas water from remote rural areas generally appears to have fine crystal structures.

In another experiment, Dr. Emoto placed distilled water between two speakers and played different sounds. Bach and Mozart created good crystal structures while heavy metal music had the opposite effect. In addition, the prayer chanting of monks resulted in superior crystal structures.

Dr. Emoto opined, "Musical vibrations contain positive and negative energies, depending on the information inscribed into them. Water reflects what it perceives."

He is convinced that water is influenced by its surroundings. For example, he placed a glass of water in front of a running computer for four hours and no crystals were produced. When he placed water near a television playing a movie with a positive storyline, good crystals were formed.

"Positive information results in beautiful hexagonal crystals, while negative information shows otherwise," Dr. Emoto observed.

If Dr. Emoto's findings are correct, positive thoughts can affect the quality of water in our own bodies, whereas stress (a cause of many illnesses) may be the result of the negativity (bad energy) we propagate in our body's water.

A positive attitude leads to good bodily vibrations -- a negative attitude wears you down.

“It is chronic water shortage in the body that causes most diseases of the human body." Dr. Emoto

In many places around the world water has become highly polluted. Dr. Emoto hopes to create an awareness of this problem and believes we can improve the quality of water simply by becoming more grateful of it.

This may sound like New Age nonsense but there was a time when it was believed that the world was flat. Then an astronomer named Galileo discovered that the world was round and revolved around the sun. In 1633, he was brought before the Catholic Inquisition, tortured, forced to renounce his heretical views, and imprisoned.

The proliferation of knowledge is a slow process on a planet where greed is good, more is always better and wars are memorialized.

But in actuality, everything in the universe and beyond is a single entity -- it's all connected.

I decided to test some of Dr. Emoto's theories on my own water. I hired a group of chanting monks and had them perform some heavy metal music. As expected, my water crystals became very schizophrenic – they were both delighted (by the chanting monks) and irritated (by the heavy metal music) at the same time.

Then again, I'm often delighted and irritated at the same time too. But I don't think I'm schizophrenic though, and neither does the other guy who lives inside my body. I deal with the outside world while he hides in the lower left quadrant of my cerebral cortex, snickering at me. Although he usually keeps a low profile, he tends to howl during full moons and Madame Blavatsky's birthday. Perhaps this could explain why I live alone in the middle of nowhere and talk mostly to trees.

Life is simple -- happiness is a choice, suffering is optional.

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Quote for the Day – "Purify your thoughts and everything will be well." Mahatma Gandhi

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Bret Burquest is the author of 12 books. He lives in the Ozark Mountains with a few dogs and where fresh water oozes from the ground, called "springs."

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