Why does anyone go to Branson? That's where next year's family reunion is scheduled, and I'm gonna avoid it like the bilious plague that it is...

Y'know, people rag on Branson, but I can't really blame those country singers, I bet they got tired of dragging their asses across the continent and just wanted a home base. I've never been tehre but I wouldn't seeing some good country if I ever passed through town.

Branson is pretty dreadful, but the surrounding Ozarks are sublime. Come down here for one of our long Indian summers and do some canoeing on the Buffalo River, crawl through some limestone caves, hike around a state park or two. Really, if you are not a city person, or single, it is a good place to live.

Branson is not that bad. I liked it better before they started flattening the place for buses, though. The curvy hilltop roads with steep drops on one side always left me thinking I was going to die. I got to experience the feeling of salvation every summer without any bit of religion to cause it. (^_^)

The performers for the most part are happy living there, and it shows. I've seen more energetic performances from people some might not know are still alive than I have ever seen from people half their age.

All those busloads of grannies have ended up bringing better healthcare to the area, too, so no matter how one feels about tourists, there's definitely an upside beyond moving up from a subsistence living for the locals.

One of the best urban (what can I say? "non-woods"?) geocaches I have seen is in Branson, too.

I have a friend in L.A. who is afraid to go to Missouri. He thinks the whole place is like Deliverance. But, I guess I used to think L.A. was like a combat zone everywhere before I went out there. City people can be just as or even much more provincial than people out in "the middle of nowhere."

Of course, God only knows what I'd think of the place now. Moving from Tokyo to a "little" city of 1 million made me feel like I was back in a mini city, "like home." (^_^)

I saw Wayne Newton and Roy Clark in Branson, circa 1993.

You may ask, do I have a point?

The answer is No.