Also thanks for your service to this country!!!!

In Eureka, you were even closer to beautiful Bryant, named for that famous coach from Moors Bottom, Arkansas. I’m only kidding. I don’t know who it was named after; but, as far as I am concerned, it was named after a famous coach who later hailed from Alabama. Eureka is a great place also. You missed the famous campsite on the Trail of Tears though where the prayers really counted, tears caused by the mismanagement of our government of a valuable resource in respect to the native American population, but our government has become famous for mismanagement. Just look at a certain website and its cost. Read a certain law, and the tears will flow.

Today there is not much at the Trail of Tears except a sign and the story of what happened as General Andy Jackson escorted the native Americans to the Oklahoma territory, which was to be their new home. The area is pretty much pristine. It is beautiful. One can only imagine the way that it must have looked to them as they treked westward toward and unknown, desolate, and strange land. At least it must have seemed unknown, strange, and desolate to them since most of them had come from Tennessee, North Carolina, Florida, and other states in the Southeast. Forced migrations of a defeated people are always sad; however, many native Americans were not involved. Many elected to settle in the communities of the white man, inter-marry, and assimulate into the dominant white culture. Our Uncle Stillman, I believe, was half Choctaw. I believe his mother was full Choctaw. I don’t believe either one ever saw Oklahoma, much less the Trail of Tears. It must have been a very rough life for a people whe did mainly hunting and a little farming in a strange, semi-desert where mainly buffalo once roamed, which had largely been decimated before they arrived. But a few survived. When I was studying biblical linquistics and languages in Norman, Oklahoma at the University of Oklahoma, I met several Cherokee, Seminole, Apache ladies who still spoke their native languages. They were hired by the University part time as teachers to give us practice in learning their particular language from a linguistic perspective to practice our linquistic skills that would be valualble in developing a written language spoken by other peoples around the world that had no written Scripture. Although I never went on a Wycliffe mission field for reasons that I do not have the space or the time to enumerate, I did get a good feel for what it would be like to learn an unwritten language linquistically and to translate the Scriptures into it. It was a good experience. I was surprised to learn that these ladies were very much Christian. Perhaps the White Man did some good after all. Every group of people has some jewels even though the vast majority may be evil.