NWA

How do good places turn into bad places?

When I grew up it was like I lived in two different places without ever moving.  First, I lived in the Ozarks, and it was peaceful.  Over time, our part of the Ozarks in NWA (Northwest Arkansas) became something completely different.

I arrived in the Ozarks after my mother returned to live on the farm after leaving my father.  The Ozarks were a completely different world than Saint Louis.

A few days later Mom enrolled me in the local elementary school.  Most of the kids there made fun of me.  One of them in a heavy hillbilly accent said that I talked funny.

Soon, after that I got a lesson in what farm life was like that I would never forget.  This was definitely not the big city.

One of the milk cows was having trouble calving and the vet could not get the calf’s head to turn.  He wore arm length plastic gloves and had reached inside the cow to save the calf.

Uncle Ken and he looked at my smaller arms, then told me that I needed to reach into the cow to save the calf.  So, my hands went into the cow without any gloves, and they coached me on what to do.  The calf was saved, but it left me with a feeling that I will never forget.

However, the Ozarks were wonderful in so many ways.

The family farm was a world of its own and that world was enough for us.  It was like we belonged to the land as much as the land belonged to us.

We had a great variety of wildlife living on the farm that reflected the wild nature of the Ozarks.  You were constantly aware of the natural world.

Sometimes, there would be copperheads not far from our house or water moccasins would get in our house.  You could hear the coyotes yipping every night.

I would often see red wolves in the field near the creek in the morning.  There was a badger that lived in a gully just south of our houses.

There were black bears, cougars, and grey wolves in the woods on the mountain a mile or so west of our house.  Foxes and bobcats were frequently seen or heard as well.

There were plenty of the usual woodland creatures like woodchucks, raccoons, opossums, and skunks as well.  The forest abounded with a great variety of birds.

There were not just animals from the eastern forests, but also animals of the great plains as well.  Roadrunners ran in the ditch on the road opposite of our house and jack rabbits lived near the town where I went to school. 

Just south of where the jack rabbits lived was a swampy area that looked like it belonged in Louisiana.  Indeed, near the southern edge of the Ozarks was a canebrake that had canebrake rattlesnakes just like in Louisiana where my aunt lived.

This swampy area was at the base of a mountain that was topped with a shale desert.  Most of the water would run off the shale quickly when it rained, so effectively this little desert received only a few inches of rain a year. 

This was reflected by the wildlife and flora that lived there.  It was covered in cactus, and you could see the unmistakable trail of sidewinders in the dry dirt.

In fact, the Ozarks were full ecological islands like this.   Even on the farm, there would be little areas that were the only place where certain plants grew, and certain animals lived.

Grandpa told me that when his grandfather arrived in the Ozarks in 1865, that there had been even more variety.   The old-timers who had come to the area before Arkansas became a state in 1835 told his grandfather that prong-horn antelopes and prairie dogs had once lived there with the jack rabbits.

Indeed, one of the old houses in town from that time had elk horns by the front door.  Rivers were named things like the Elk River and the Buffalo River to reflect the wildlife that had been abundant there.

When I was growing up, there was a large bison (buffalo) ranch just east of town.  The prairie where they fed along the Illinois River dramatically gave way to the Boston Mountains on the edge of the ranch.

There were also more than fifty species of animals that were found nowhere else on Earth living in the Ozarks like Ozark Big-Ear bats.  The only other place with similar animals in some cases was the Texas Hill Country.

It was a grand land of springs, creeks, waterfalls, and rivers that was dotted with caves, caverns, bluffs and canyons.  There were fields where weasels popped, streams where river otters played, and rivers that beavers dammed scattered among the mountains.

There were also feral animals like razorbacks and wild goats.  Wild dogs sometimes ran in packs that had to be destroyed because they were far more dangerous than the native predators.

This added to the adventure.  We would stay out all night with the herd during calving season with guns to protect the newborn calves.

We would spend time in recreational outdoor activities.  The farm work kept us fit because we got more exercise by accident than most people in cities got with careful planning.

The weather added to the variety of the land.  Seasons were very distinct and often extreme.

Springs were usually rainy, but the mountains were painted with color from dogwoods and redbuds.  The tadpoles, baby salamanders, and baby turtles filled the streams and ponds while young lizards and snakes were crawling everywhere.

Some summers, it would be unbearably hot like we were in a very hot desert.  However, it was also a great time for canoeing, swimming, spelunking, and hiking.

Falls were usually spectacular as the land blazed in hues of red, orange, gold, and green.  The days were warm with crisp air and the nights were cool enough to be comfortable creating the perfect camping weather.

Some winters we waited through waste deep snow to break the ice with axes, so the cattle had something to drink.  We also went sledding, ice skating, and ice fishing as global freezing was all the rage at the time.

We had multiple tornadoes go through our farm.  Lightning struck the trees near our house on the top of the hill and things inside the house within a few feet of me were destroyed several times.

We would also fish, hunt and gather wild berries along with nuts to supplement the fruits and vegetables that we grew.  Every day in the Ozarks was an adventure!

It was about the people even more than the land.

Mom’s father, who I called Grampa took me with him to peddle apples to the Cherokee over in Oklahoma.  He could speak Cherokee, but many of his older customers could not speak English, so it was like going to another country in many ways.

His customers also had homemade food and drinks that I liked, but you could not find those things in stores or restaurants.  He instilled a love in me for Native Americans and their culture.

The Ozarks were full of people who had some Cherokee ancestry.  The Cherokee had started immigrating there around 1780 because they supported the British in the American Revolution, but the Ozarks were part of New France.  Then the area between the Arkansas and White Rivers was declared to be a reservation for them after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803.

When the US government sent out agents to tell them to move to Indian Territory in 1828, most of them simply hid out in the woods or sent out their light skinned, blonde-hair, blue-eyed, one quarter Cherokee grandson to tell the government men that there were no Indians in those parts.  Also, the Cherokee like Sequoia that had moved to the Ozarks as the Old Settler Cherokee were hated by many Cherokee in Tennessee and Georgia for moving away from the rest of the Cherokee tribe.

So, many of the Cherokee lived the rest of their lives in isolated communities in the Ozarks like Natural Dam.  Their descendants married with the European immigrants that came to the Ozarks after them.

So, many of the people near our farm were born on the land that they lived on.  They still lived by the Code of the Hills, which caused them to live in harmony despite differences in opinion about things like politics.

Like my great, great, grandfather, their ancestors had migrated to the area from the Appalachians after the first American Civil War in the 1865.  They brought the Code of the Hills with them.

The Code of the Hills was based on things like the Law of Patrick that the Scotch-Irish immigrants had  brought to the Appalachians from the British Isles.  Some of the code may have come from laws of Native Americans who lived there as well.

These Scotch-Irish immigrants had moved to the Appalachians because they found that they were more welcome by the Native Americans there than the English settlers of the plains who considered them to be biracial. They served as a bridge between the Europeans of the plains and the Native Americans of the hills through activities like fur trading that brought European goods to the Native Americans at a fair price.

The Code of the Hills helped people balance between respecting the rights of individuals with the needs of the community.  As long as everyone in the community abided by the Code of the Hills there was no need for government assistance or police protection.

For example, if I was out hiking and became thirsty, then I could go to the nearest house to ask for some water.  If no one was home, then I could drink from the outside spicket or go into their house, pour myself a glass of water, and leave the glass on their kitchen table.

No one locked their doors when they were not home out of fear that someone would steal their stuff.  The Code of the Hills said to leave your doors unlocked in case a neighbor needed shelter from a storm and to do no harm to those who gave you shelter.  Several times I found a neighbor that had taken shelter in our house, but they never did any harm to anything.

The man on the farm next to us had fell out of a tree when he was sixteen and his left leg had to be amputated below the knee.  In accordance with the Code of the Hills, his neighbors helped him with anything he could not do himself for his entire life.

Often that meant they sent the children or grandchildren to take care of him when they got older.  My brothers and I installed the insulation in his house one summer without expecting any payment from him.

The Code of the Hills took care of everyone – not just the good-looking and popular people.  When one of our neighbors, who was not very well liked, became seriously ill during haying season, his neighbors worked together to bale and store his hay while also taking care of his regular chores like milking the cows. 

Their wives helped his mother with things like cooking and cleaning.  This continued until he was recovered enough to take of things himself.

When the house of a neighbor burned down, Grandpa bought a pie Granny baked for $800 at the fund raiser to buy materials needed for a new house.  Other neighbors then worked together to build that house.

The Code of the Hills said that if you saw someone having trouble then you stopped what you were doing to help them.  It did not matter if they were friends, enemies, or complete strangers.

Also, anyone could go on anyone’s land to hunt, fish, camp, and forage.  The Code of the Hills required that you did not damage their property and alert them to any problems that you saw on their property.

The land that people owned was their land, however.  They could build the tallest and ugliest building on Earth on it, if they wanted.

Without anyone regulating them, each farm grew what their land was best suited for, and that the community needed.  So, the land was dotted with apple orchards, dairy farms, cattle ranches, hog farms, chicken houses, sheep flocks, goats, and all kinds of crops.

There were varieties of apples unique to the Ozarks like Ozark Beauty and Arkansas Black.  Foods like pan-fried chicken with chicken gravy, sorghum molasses, and apple dumplings were as much a part of the Ozarks as the land, wildlife, and people.

Smoked meats were such a part of the culture that my great-grandfather built a smokehouse before he built a house to last the generations like the House of Truth.   Can anything be more hillbilly than growing up with a smokehouse in your backyard?

People made their own barbeque sauce from ingredients that they grew themselves.  Ozark barbeque was the best I ever ate.

In fact, entire towns literally lived or died by their barbeque.  If it was good enough to get people to go out of their way from the interstate or main roads, then they stayed in business.  Otherwise, the only business that brought in outside revenue would go out of business and the town would collapse.

It was not just the homemade sauces, but the entire barbeque process.  It has several steps and can take a day to barbecue a chicken.  I still make Ozark barbeque (but not my own sauces) and many people have told me that it was the best barbeque they ever had.

Of course, some people ate things like smoked crawdads, frog legs, snakes, opossums, ground hogs, raccoons and the like.  If you wanted to know what the mystery meat was at their house, then you would look for the freshest skins that were being dried out on their porch.

Although there were disagreements over politics, the Code of the Hills required people to discuss their disagreements in a civil manner.  The people who abided by it were generally very patriotic but also very distrustful of the government.

So, the Code of the Hills made us free in a way that can only be understood by experience.  It provided a framework to let people be themselves while also taking care of each other.

However, the seeds of corruption were being planted.

Many of the baby-boomers resented the Code of the Hills and took off to live in big cities like Saint Louis and Los Angeles where they could do what their parents would never let them do.  However, they soon found that places packed with people who did not wanting anyone telling them how to live also had high crime rates.

So, they became worried about their children and decided to move back to the Ozarks.  They realized that they were better off living by the Code of the Hills after all.

So, their children became booners – city kids who had been transplanted to live in the boonies as they called them.  Many of them had divorced parents so they spent part of their life in the big cities and part in the Ozarks but came to never really fit in with either place.

So, the problem was that many of the booners had already been affected by a criminal mindset when their parents returned to the Ozarks.  Some of my booner relatives were already smoking marijuana by the time that they were eight.

My brothers and I were among the first of the booners.  Mom had divorced Dad before people thought it was cool.

Mom also began taking us to the Baptist church in town that my Grandma Remington went to.  I really enjoyed the stories from the Bible.

When I turned eight, I had to go to “Big people” church with my mother and Grandma Remington.  The preacher seemed to only have one “turn or burn” sermon that he recycled each week, but it put the fear of Hell in me.

The preacher said that all we had to do to avoid Hell was admit that we were not perfect because we had sinned against the Father of Truth (YHVH aka God aka THE LORD), believe that He had raised the Man of Truth (Yeshua HaMashiach aka Jesus Christ) from the dead, and ask Him to forgive us for not being perfect. 

So, I went down to the altar one Sunday as serious as I could be to be saved from Hell.  I felt relieved that I was not going to Hell, but nothing else changed in my life.

There was no concept in this church of the Spirit of Truth (Ruach HaQodesh aka The Holy Spirit aka The Holy Ghost) helping you to sin no more.  You were simply a saved sinner who could not help but to continue to sin.

Also, Mom got us a Children’s Bible with pictures in it.  She and Granny would read them to us before we went to bed.

The pictures had Jesus as a tall, good-looking, white skin man with blond hair and blue eyes.  This is what I thought he looked like until he appeared to me for the first time in dreams and visions when I was eight.  It turns out that the people who published our Children’s Bible were a group of white supremacists.

When I was ten years old, Granny needed a ride to her Methodist church in the country, so we started going there instead of the Baptist church in town.  When I had went there before there was a fiery old preacher that made sinners weep in repentance with his sermons.

However he had died, and a circuit preacher was assigned in his place.  This new preacher seemed to speak empty words that he did not really believe himself and drove off in his expensive car as soon as he was done speaking.

Not every church was like these two, but they were replacing the old style of preaching as the elder preachers retired or died off.  The best example of an old-style church was the Primitive Baptist church that Grandpa attended.

It had been built by settlers of the Mountain View community that had come from the Appalachians.  Like most communities in America, it had followed the congregational model that was part of the legacy of the Pilgrims.

As typical of rural America for most of its history, this same building was used as the public school until sometime after World War II.  It also served as the voting place as well as the seat of government for townhall meetings, draft registration, and the like. 

The concept of separation of church and state that later European immigrants injected through a subtle influence was unknown to them.  Like the Founding Fathers, this unconstitutional concept simply did not exist in rural communities - or even urban ones – for most of American history.

The Law of Patrick created by Saint Patrick was based on the laws of the Book of Truth (The Bible) including the ones that applied to everyone from the Law of Truth (Torah aka The Law).  These ideas had been continued in the Code of the Hills and were the embodiment of the American Spirit that made America great.

The Code of the Hills was not written down anywhere.  It was passed down from one generation to the next like the songs that they played.

The hymnals had only words, but the singing was accompanied by music played by some of the finest musicians that I have ever heard.  They could not read music, but they knew how to play hundreds of songs that they had learned from the previous generation via playing by ear.

Some played fiddles, banjos, mandolins, juice harps. and the like that had been handed down through the generations.  Others played home-made instruments like washtub bass, washboards, wooden boxes, shakers, jugs, and even a comb covered with a handkerchief.   The only instrument owned by the church was an upright piano that the community had purchased not long after the building had been built.

This Primitive Baptist church had to go from meeting weekly because there was no one to continue the old-style preaching that lined up with the Code of the Hills as the health of the elderly pastor began to fail.  So, they went to meeting monthly until the elder preacher could preach no more. 

Then they met quarterly until he died.  Then the doors were shut after more than a hundred years because the congregation would not tolerate preaching that was contrary to the Book of Truth.

So, it was not just booners that were corrupting the Ozarks.  It was salt that had lost its preserving power in the pulpits of the churches of the Ozarks.

As a consequence, Grandpa had us make a promise to him.

People leaving the Ozarks because they did not want to abide by the Code of the Hills was nothing new.  The main difference was that they previously had rarely returned to corrupt the Ozarks.

Grandpa had been estranged from his brothers for many years.  This impacted him greatly.

When he was young, they demanded that his father give them their inheritance.  So, Grandpa got the farm and they split all of the money that his father had saved up.

His brothers then moved far away from the Ozarks and spent their inheritance on gambling, drinking, and the like.  Afterwards, they came back and demanded that the farm be split.  However, my great grandfather told them that he was not going do any such thing.

When my great grandfather died, they demanded that Grandpa split the farm with them.  He refused and they did not talk to him until a couple of years before he died for not doing as they wanted.

So when I was twelve, Grandpa had me and my two brothers promise him four things:  1) we would never gamble, 2) we would never drink alcohol except for what he called “Methusical purposes”, and 3) we would never smoke cigarettes, and 4) we would never take drugs other than medicines.  He explained that “Methusical purposes” meant for the prolonging of life, so alcohol in cough syrup and the like was alright.

We all promised Grandpa to do this, even though it was a year too late for David.  I never forgot my promise to Grandpa and have never broken that promise (although I was tricked into unwittingly drinking alcohol once).

I only wished that Grandpa had given us a longer list of things to avoid.  It could have kept us out of a lot of trouble.

I had thought that David would now stop with the cigarettes and the like since he had made this promise to Grandpa.  I was wrong.

The corruption that was in the pulpits soon spread into other areas.

The bus driver when I first arrived in Arkansas carried a paddle to maintain order on the bus ride and that had worked quite well.

If he perceived any bullying going on, then he would make the bullies move to the front of the bus and sit in the seat right behind him.  He would warn them that they had better not do that again.

When one of them bullied someone again later, then he would find a safe place to stop the bus.  Then he would call the bully to the front and tell everyone that he would not tolerate this behavior on his bus.  Then he had the bully bend over and grab their ankles before he gave them several licks with the paddle in front of everyone.

However, the parents of the bullies began to complain that this punishment of their sons was unjust.  They insisted that their sons would never bully anyone, and the bus driver was just bullying them.

So, the bus drivers were no longer allowed to carry a paddle on the bus.  Eventually they were no longer allowed to even make the bullies sit in the front seat because that hurt the feelings of the bullies.

The result was that bullying increased on the bus every time more authority to deal with bullying was taken out of the hands of the bus drivers.  Soon, it was apparent that the riders had no choice but to protect themselves.

So, I began carrying a knife with me when I went to school.  This was not uncommon as most of the boys carried pocketknives.  Others carried hunting knives or jack knives.

Sometimes, people brought shotguns to school on the bus, so they could rebore the barrels in shop class.  Highschoolers had gun racks in their pickups with deer rifles that sat in the school parking lot.

This never led to any kind of violence as long as the school authorities were able to use paddles and public humiliation to maintain order.  There was no need for anyone to protect themselves and people were hesitant to use weapons when they knew everyone else had them.

However, that all changed when the drivers could only ask bullies to “pretty please” stop bullying people.  Grampa had not been able to do anything about the bullying on the bus and had told me to talk to the principal about it.   

The principal also did nothing about it after I told him.  So, I pulled out my knife more than once on the bus and put an end to bullying myself for at least a short while.

Of course, I was called into the principal’s office for pulling a knife on someone and generally getting into fights on the bus.  When I reminded him that I had told him and the other authorities about the bullying, but they had done nothing to stop it.

They knew that this was true and other students had witnessed it.  However, the parents of the bullies were bullying them by threatening to have them fired and sued in court if they did anything to punish their sons.  So, the principal told me basically just to take whatever the bullies did to me and not fight back. 

So, I was responsible for doing what the school authorities were too cowardly to do. So, I continued to carry a knife with me, but I never pulled it out again.  Soon the bullying on the bus came to an end.

(I learned later that the bullying stopped because David beat one of them up and told the rest that they had better not lay a hand on his brother.  It had never occurred to me that my brother would take care of me.)

When I started High School, there were new bullies beyond those on the bus.

Just like in Middle School, the principal was unwilling to do anything about it and wanted me to just take it to keep his job safe with the parents of the bullies.  These bullies were mostly from town and their parents were influential members of the school board or other social institutions of the small town.

This failure of the authorities to protect the innocent and punish the guilty was not just in the school systems but also in the criminal justice system of NWA.  It would have repercussions for years to come.

Shortly after that, Grampa died when I was sixteen. By this time, violent crime had moved into NWA.

Within a mile or two from my house, there was a body dump by a mob from one of the cities.  This mob also chained a policeman a tree in the national forest not far from my house and killed him with shotguns.

Soon the mob violence ended.  There were no arrests, but the Arkansas State Troopers in that area had a reputation of dealing out some Ozarks justice - no judge, jury, lawyers, or trial – just an execution.

If this mob had killed this police officer to send a message to the rest of the police, then they made a terrible mistake.  Soon, that mob was used for sending a message to any other mobs or gangs to not touch the police of NWA.

(The Arkansas State Troopers saw themselves as a family and the police in general as part of their clan.  So, they may have handled the murder of a family or clan member in accordance with the Code of the Hills.

The Code of the Hills allowed for a family or clan to avenge one of their own if they were certain of the killer.  Then the killer was hung on a tree until late afternoon.   Afterwards they were buried in an unmarked grave in the woods instead of the community graveyard to show that they had been cast out of the community.

However, if someone killed someone by accident then they could run to the nearest church where the sanctuary was literally a sanctuary for them.  The elders of the community would then determine whether or not they believed that it was accidental.

If the elders determined that it was not accidental, then the killer was handed over to the family or clan of the victim.  They were then executed for murder – usually with a shotgun, bowie knife, or rope.

If the elders determined that the killer was innocent of murder, then the killer was taken to edge of the hills with their possessions and told to not come back.  If they came back then the family or clan might avenge the slain and their blood would be on their own head.

Often the banished would end up in a border city like Kansas City or Tulsa.  Some moved to similar areas like the Hill Country of Texas.)

So, the criminals of NWA were genuinely terrified of the Arkansas State Troopers.  When another criminal killed the sheriff in another town years later, first thing he did was head straight west to Oklahoma, where the Oklahoma State Police arrested him.

He knew that if he was caught in Arkansas then his burnt body would be found in a deep ravine with three hundred bullet holes in his car.  The official report would state that he died in a car wreck while fleeing from a crime and that would be the end of it.

For the same reasons, there was no issue with rape in the Ozarks.  Fathers had an attitude of I have a gun, a backhoe, and a secluded place in the woods.

In like manner, a man who physically abused his wife or kids was likely to be tow-sacked by her family or clan.  The same was true if they neglected to work to provide for them as best they could.

Tow-sacking was throwing a large burlap sack (tow-sack) over someone followed by tossing a rope over the tow-sack that then was wound tightly around the tow sack.  The person who was tow-sacked now could not see or use their arms.  Then they were beaten half to death and warned to change their ways.

This usually happened at night when the abuser went out to the outhouse.  Sometimes the abuser was dipped in the outhouse pit after being tow-sacked to let them know what their neighbors thought about people who abused or neglected their own families.

After being tow-sacked, the abuser was placed on the front porch, then someone knocked on the door and left when they heard the wife coming to the porch.  It was then up to the wife to clean up and take care of the abuser until they recovered.

Since the Code of the Hills required the tow-sackers to help take care of the work of the abuser while he recovered, tow-sacking often occurred just after the Autumn harvest and planting were over.  This minimized the amount of work that they had to do to help the family of the abuser.  It also gave the abuser all winter to recover from being tow-sacked and reflect on changing their evil ways.

Tow-sacking had replaced flogging after flogging had been outlawed as a sentence in the courts.  Before that, abusers and neglectors were brought before a judge, who had them flogged in public for their mistreatment of their families.

However, someone who abused or neglected their parents ended up buried in the woods.  They were literal deadbeats.

So, the Code of the Hills made the Ozarks a very uncomfortable place for criminals and other ne’er-do-wells to live.  As a result, people of that mindset tended to move away as soon as they could - leaving everyone else to enjoy a peaceful life in the Ozarks.

However, this peaceful life faded as a rise in violent crime began due to booners bringing drugs into NWA.  The mobs and gangs saw NWA as a new market for the drug trade.  So, they soon began competing with each other for control of NWA.

As long as the criminals continued to be terrified of the police, then the violence was mostly between criminals.  However, like the bus drivers on the school buses, the police soon began to lose their ability to terrify the criminals.

So, the first time I heard of a drive-by shooting was when I was in high school.  Someone drove by the Whitewater Tavern in nearby Fayetteville and shot into it with a shotgun injuring several innocent people.  (This is what happens when you have hillbilly gangsters.)

The corruption that came from rejection of the Code of the Hills had led to rampant crime.

It was not just violent crime that led to people dying due to this corruption.  When I was fourteen, the best friend of my brother died from a drug overdose.

He was more like a brother to me as well.  He spent most of his time at our house and went on family vacations with us.

However, more people that I knew in NWA began to follow.  Some died from drug overdoses, while others committed suicide or died from alcohol related causes.

Sometimes it was the innocent who died as a result of this corruption.  Several of my teachers or their family members were killed by drunk drivers.

Drug dealing had become a very common way for booners to make money.  Most of the low-level dealers dealt drugs to fund their own addiction, but they often had enough left over that they could buy other things they needed without any honest job.

Some realized that they could increase their profits if they grew their own marijuana.  NWA was full of secluded places in the woods where this could be done.

Soon, farmers were having the DEA  (Drug Enforcement Agents) or local police knock on their doors to ask them about the patches of marijuana that they found growing in a secluded part of their land.  Most of them had no idea that it had been there before this.

So, no trespassing signs began appearing on fence posts.  However, it was impractical to put one on every post and they came down too easily, so a system of painting every fence post on the perimeter with a pinkish purple paint that mean no trespassing came into existence.

Now, law abiding people were no longer able to go onto anyone’s land to fish, hunt, or recreate.  Of course, the criminals ignored the law.

So, this system actually worked to the advantage of the criminals.  It was often law-abiding hunters who had first discovered their crops in the secluded places, but these hunters would no longer be going there.

It was not just booners involved with drugs.  The corruption that came from those in the pulpit rejecting the principles of the Code of the Hills had caused the locals to be influenced to imitate the booners.

However, not every booner sold drugs.  Jobs were scarce and wages low, but people still had a choice.

I needed money to help keep the promise that I had made to Dad shortly after their divorce.  However, I was content to stay on the farm until Mom found me a job.

When I got to the job Mom had found for me, they wanted me to work on Sundays.  I did not work on Sundays because Grampa had taught me to give one day a week to the Father of Truth.

However, Mom insisted that I take the job, even though it meant that I would not be able to go to church at all.  So, I was dragged out of church by Mom much to my surprise.  This eroded my sense of right and wrong further.

Soon, I was working as much as ninety hours per week to afford a car so I could drive to work.  It was hard, but I still kept my grades up.

I could have avoided working so many hours by selling drugs like some of my classmates.  However, I had promised Grampa to never take drugs and I hated what they were doing to my brother.

Even though some people made fun of me for my menial job as a dishwasher, one of my classmates encouraged me when I really needed it.  The classmate that I had beaten on the IQ test in sixth grade, told me that he admired me for doing honest work instead of selling drugs.

After high school, I went to the U of A (University of Arkansas) in NWA. 

Uncle Ken had wanted me to go to the School of the Ozarks in Missouri, but I had to take care of my mother and brothers.  Also, I was interested in Chemical Engineering, and it was not offered there.

When I started at the U of A, I soon found it was not a place where people were in pursuit of education for the betterment of mankind as I had been led to believe.  Education was really about number six or seven on the priority list for most of the facility and students.

There are scams of all sorts going on – including by the professors.  In one of my classes, one third of the material we were tested on was not in the textbook or covered in the lectures.  It was only in the old tests and those had to be bought from the Chemistry fraternity – at $100 for a complete set old tests for each test.

Playboy magazine rated the U of A as the number-one party school in the US while I went there.  The saying there was that the difference between a Suzie (sorority girl) and a whore was that a whore got paid.  Many of the girls not in sororities tried their best to compete with the Suzies.

The general corruption of NWA and that of the U of A fed off each other.  I soon wished that I could have gone to the School of the Ozarks instead.

During this time, there was no rest from the pattern of crime and death in NWA.  If anything, it got worse.

However, something wonderful soon happened to me.  My cousin Carl showed me in the Book of Truth that if I would surrender control of everything to the Man of Truth, then the Spirit of Truth would help me to go and sin no more.  More than that, his life showed that this really worked.

So on November 13, 1982, I took the deal.  The great news is that it was true!  When I came to the Man of Truth in total surrender, then the Spirit of Truth changed me completely .

I no longer found myself doing the evil that I hated doing and not doing the good that I wanted to do.  The Spirit of Truth living in me gave the power to obey the Father of Truth.

Soon, David moved to Indiana to live with Dad.  Then Mom moved to Missouri.

After graduation, Richard joined the army.  I asked him what he was going to do in the army, and he responded that he did not know but it would get him out of NWA.

I  had married my wife and soon we had our first child – who had medical problems.  I soon left the U of A, but I did not have an honest way to make a living in NWA.

So I enlisted in the US Air Force and left NWA.

On May 12, 1985, I began basic training in the US Air Force.  The Father of Truth used the US Air Force to nurture a heroic spirit in me.

Julie, my son, and my daughter born in Greece, Miranda, went with me after I left the US Air Force.  I was not sure where I was going to live, but I planned to move back to NWA because I still loved the Ozarks.

So, I drove down to NWA to meet David, who had moved back and was living in the farmhouse we had grown up in.  He told me about some more of his friends and business associates who had died from drug overdoses and the like.

I started naming off all of the people in NWA to myself who had died from drug related causes.  Then I did the same with those who had died from alcohol related causes.  Finally, I named off the ones who had committed suicide.

I found that I could name more than 10 people I knew personally in NWA who had died from drug related causes.  The same was true about those who had died from alcohol related causes and suicide.  On top of that, I could name three off the top of my head who had been murdered.

Almost all of them had died after I turned fourteen.  That worked out to be about one every three months.  This had become just part of living in NWA like the changing of the seasons.

While growing up in NWA I had never noticed what a rough place it was.  It was not until I lived in other places that I realized how much worse it was than most places.  It was a far cry from Greece, where a domestic murder made front-page news and all of Athens (over four million people) was in shock.

I had simply gotten used to young people dying from these causes in NWA.  This is what happens in a place where the authorities do not protect the innocent and punish the guilty. 

I realized that the Ozarks that I have loved growing up in was gone like the Code of the Hills.  NWA had replaced it, and I did not want to raise my children in a place like NWA.

So, how can NWA go back to being the Ozarks?

NWA like America needs to return to a better way to deal with crime.  It needs something like the Code of the Hills once again.

The Code of the Hills was based primarily on the Law of Truth.  The plans of the Father of Truth work because they are His plans.

The Law of Truth is holy and every commandment of it is holy, just, and good (Romans 7:12).  It was created for dealing with criminals (1 Timothy 1:9-10).

If someone breaks into a house at night and the owner kills them, then the owner is innocent of murder since they could not tell if someone was trying to kill them or not (Exodus 22:2).  However, if it is daytime where the owner can see that the person is unarmed and still kills them, then the owner is executed for murder (Exodus 22:3).

If someone is killed by the property of another, but the owner was not being negligent, then the owner is innocent of a crime (Exodus 21:28).  However, if the owner was negligent then they are executed - unless they pay whatever the family of the victim demands for them to not be executed (Exodus 21:29-31).

Someone who worship idols when they know to worship only the Father of Truth is executed (Exodus 22:5).  However, someone who abuses or neglects their own family is worse than an idol worshipper (1 Timothy 5:8).

If a man is a lazy drunkard who is rebellious and will not obey his parents, then they can have him executed so that those kind of people are cast out of the community (Deuteronomy 21:18-21).  The Man of Truth said that anyone who curses their parents in deed or word should be executed (Mark 7:10-13).

Someone involved in witchcraft is also executed (Leviticus 20:6).  So, anyone taking hallucinogenic drugs that are part of witchcraft will be cast out in the same way (Galatians 5:19-21). 

[The Greek word translated as “witchcraft” is “pharmakeia” which means drugs.  It was translated as “witchcraft” because hallucinogenic drugs like marijuana were taken by those who communicated with demons.]

If an engaged woman does not keep her virginity until marriage, then she is executed for acting like a whore (Deuteronomy 22:20-21).  If a man has sex with the wife of another man, then both of the man and the woman are executed (Deuteronomy 22:22).  If an engaged woman is where someone could help her, but she does not cry out for help when a man that she is not engaged to comes to have sex with her, then they are both executed because it was consensual (Deuteronomy 22:23-24).

However, if a man rapes a woman where she has no one to help her, then he is executed, but she is considered an innocent victim (Deuteronomy 22:25-27).   If a woman who is not engaged has sex with an unmarried man, then it is a shotgun wedding for them (Deuteronomy 22:28-29).

Sanctuaries that are not too far away are to be established where anyone who kills someone by accident can flee to from the family and clan of the killed person (Numbers 35:11-15).  If the congregation determines that they killed someone on accident, then they must remain in the sanctuary (Numbers 35:22-25).  If they leave the sanctuary and the family or clan avenge the one they accidently killed, then their blood is on their own head (Numbers 35:26-28).

However, if the killer kills someone on purpose, and then are caught before reaching the sanctuary by a member of the family or clan of the killed person, they are executed – without a judge, jury, lawyers, or trial (Numbers 35:16-21).  If the congregation determines in a trial that the killer has killed someone on purpose, then the killer is handed over to the family or clan of the victim for execution (Deuteronomy 19:11-13).

In other cases, a person can only be executed if it was certified by at least two witnesses (Numbers 35:30).  In those cases, the killer is to be executed with no option to pay a fine instead (Numbers 35:31-32).  However, if anyone made a false accusation against someone, then the penalty of the crime that they had falsely accused another of committing is to be applied to them (Deuteronomy 19:16-19).

No matter how any of these criminals are executed, their body is hung on a tree (Deuteronomy 21:22).  This shows that they have been cast out by the Father of Truth, but their body is to be taken down from the tree and buried late in the afternoon (Deuteronomy 21:23).

If someone steals something, then they must restore it to the owner plus more to compensate for the trouble that they caused to the owner (Exodus 22:1).  If they cannot pay, then they are put to forced labor, so the owner can be compensated adequately (Exodus 22:3-4).

For other crimes, like drunkenness, the judge can cause the criminal to be flogged for their crime in public (Deuteronomy 25:1-2).  However, the criminal cannot be flogged beyond recognition (Deuteronomy 25:3).

So, the will of the Father of Truth is that criminals be terrified of the police (Romans 13:1-3).  The police are to be greatly respected as His ministers and taxes are to be paid so criminals can be executed for crimes (Romans 13:4-7).

Civil laws must be reformed as well for NWA to go back to being the Ozarks.

The Law of Truth was also given so we could know to love people and treat them right (Romans 13:8-10).  It provides a framework that lets people be themselves while also taking care of each other.

If someone neglects to take safety precautions and the property of someone else is damaged, then they will pay the owner for the damaged property (Exodus 21:33-34).   Everyone is responsible for taking all necessary safety precautions to protect people from harm (Deuteronomy 22:8).

If the property of someone causes damage to the property of another, but the owner was not negligent, then the owner and the other person will work together to restore the damaged property (Exodus 21:35).  However, if the owner was negligent, then the owner will bear the burden of restoration alone (Exodus 21:36).

If someone does not respect the boundary of the land of another, then they will compensate the owner of the land for any damage that they have done to it (Exodus 22:5).  If they damage the land of another through negligence, then they will compensate the owner for any damage that came from their negligence (Exodus 22:6).

If someone comes across something that they know belongs to another person, then they must bring it to the owner if possible (Exodus 23:4).  Otherwise, they are to keep it safe and give it back to the owner when the owner comes looking for it (Deuteronomy 22:1-3).

If someone comes across someone else who needs help, then they must help them whether they are a friend, an enemy, or a complete stranger (Exodus 23:5).  They are required to stop what they are doing to help them (Deuteronomy 22:4).

Farmers are to let their land rest every seven years, so the poor along with the wildlife can eat whatever comes up on its own (Exodus 23:10-11).  Farmers are to leave the edges of their fields unharvested and not harvest their fields a second time to gather what was not ripe or missed the first time, so the poor can harvest it (Leviticus 19:9-10).  

Anyone who is hungry is allowed to go through any field and eat what they need before the harvest (Deuteronomy 23:24-25).  If anything is dropped during harvesting, it must be left on the ground for the poor to pick up (Deuteronomy 24:19).

Business owners are required to pay others fairly and never oppress the disabled (Leviticus 19:11-14).  Whoever takes advantage of the disabled will be punished (Deuteronomy 27:18).

Business owners are not allowed to oppress the poor and needy in their wages (Deuteronomy 24:14-15).  They must be honest in all of their business dealings (Deuteronomy 25:13-16).

So, can NWA ever return to being the Ozarks?

The Father of Truth has been giving me warnings since 1992 of judgements that would happen to America for rejecting laws based on the Law of Truth.  The only way to make America great again is to return to doing what made it great to start with.

Every single one of those events has come to pass after the warnings were ignored and the death of America is certain if we do not repent.  However, America is not going to answer the call of 9-11 and repent.

This is what the Father of Truth said to me on the day after September 11, 2001: "Since America will not repent of its sexual immorality, drunkenness, witchcraft, murder, and idolatry, the days are coming when they will say, 'Remember when it was just a few buildings'". 

It is certain that America has not repented of these things but has gotten much worse.  If the first part has come to pass, then you can be certain that the second part will.

Instead of recognizing that these things were warning judgments on America for rejecting laws based on the Law of Truth, people have formed all sorts of conspiracy theories instead of repenting for their evil.  Some have even denied that 9-11 ever occurred – despite the videos posted by thousands of firsthand witnesses who lost everything on that day or the physical evidence on the ground where the twin towers used to stand.

These morons are willing victims of the grand conspiracy of the Father of Lies (HaShatan aka Satan Aka The Devil) to keep them from repenting.  They are looking for any explanation that will allow them to continue in their rebellion against the Father of Truth instead of returning to living under laws based on the Law of Truth.

So, America has become a nation of fools.  The root cause has been the great deception that has been preached and taught by wicked men behind the pulpits of congregations of all sizes across America.

We were warned that in the days before the Tribulation, that this kind of evil would arise where traitors would be calling for the death of their own country as they progress in their evil (2 Timothy 3:1-4)!  This would be caused by people who loved pleasure more than the Father of Truth, so that they would call themselves ministers of the Gospel while they deny the power of the Gospel to cause people to cease from sin – and we have been warned to avoid them (2 Timothy 3:4-5)!

Some of these ministers of lies have grown huge congregations as people have flocked to hear the message that they want to hear (2 Timothy 4:3).  They preach a fable that there is no need for true repentance to be saved and turn people from the truth that there is no salvation without true repentance (2 Timothy 4:3-4). 

Some even teach the greatest fairy tale ever told that the Father of Truth is not the creator of everything.  Their congregations have gotten used to ignoring the story told by the evidence as they are ready to believe anything that lets them progress in their evil.

Some of them tell their congregations to go along with laws that are contrary to the Law of Truth to get along with the wicked men who made them.  They do not want their congregants to recognize that when this happens, the time for civil disobedience has arrived!

Anyone who does not warn others to turn from sin hates them (Leviticus 19:17).  This is why the Man of Truth said that we must preach repentance in his name to all people (Luke 24:46-47).

The truth is that every person on Earth is born with a deceitful and wicked heart (Jeremiah 17:9).  No one with a mind ruled by the evil desires of their flesh can keep the Law of Truth (Romans 8:7).

They must be given a new heart that can keep the commandments of the Law of Truth (Ezekiel 11:19-20).  That is why the Man of Truth said that no one can come into the kingdom of His father unless they are born again (John 3:3).

People need the Spirit of Truth (Ruach HaQodesh aka The Holy Spirit aka The Holy Ghost) to obey the Law of Truth (Ezekiel 36:27).  That is why every follower of the Man of Truth must have the Spirit of Truth living in them (Romans 8:8-9).

However, most people will not surrender control of everything to the Man of Truth (Matthew 7:13-14).  For that reason, their evil is just going to get progressively worse (2 Timothy 3:12-13).

So, NWA can return to being the Ozarks, but it is not going to do so anytime soon.  In fact, it is progressing towards destruction.

So, will NWA ever return to being the Ozarks?

These evil progressives are going to be allowed to continue down the path of destruction until the Man of Truth sudden ends their evil to keep them from destroying every living thing on Earth (Matthew 24:21-22).  Then the Father of Truth is going to destroy them for destroying the Earth (Revelation 11:17-18).

After that, the Man of Truth is going to make the Law of Truth the basis for the law of every nation on Earth (Isaiah 42:1-4).  He is going to execute judgement and justice in the Earth (Jeremiah 23:5).

The evil people who turned the Ozarks into NWA will be completely destroyed off the face of the Earth allowing those who humble themselves to obey the Law of Truth to enjoy a peaceful life in the Ozarks once again (Psalm 37:9-11).   The violent crime of NWA will cease in the Ozarks as well as the rest of the Earth and the natural predators will no longer kill anything (Hosea 2:18).

So, not only will NWA return to being the Ozarks, but the Ozarks will be better than it ever was under the Code of the Hills.  This is the will of the Father of Truth for the Ozarks and all the Earth.

This does not mean that you must keep the commandments of custom to be saved.  However, everyone must keep the weightier matters of the Law thru the Spirit of the Law to be saved.

Breaking the lessor commandments will not keep you out of his kingdom, but that will keep you from being great in his kingdom (Matthew 5:18-19).  Anyone who tells you that you can be part of his kingdom while breaking the greater commandments is a deceiver (1 Corinthians 6:9-11).

Are you willing to accept the grace of the Father of Truth that gives you the opportunity to repent of disobeying the greater commandments of the Law of Truth, so you can experience life with Him (Acts 11:18-19)?  You will not escape being destroyed with the wicked, if you neglect this great salvation that He has made available to yToraou (Hebrews 2:1-4).

So, surrender control of everything to the Man of Truth because you believe that the Father of Truth raised him from the dead (Romans 10:9-11).  Your faith must then be demonstrated by your actions, for the spirits of lies (devils aka demons aka unclean spirits aka gods) believe that the Man of Truth rose from the dead – and it terrifies them (James 2:19-26).

Come into the House of Truth!