The Ozark Mountains region of the United States is a uniquely wondrous place.
Its characteristics make it fairly easy to compile lists of Ozarks-laced anecdotes similar to those of Jeff Foxworthy’s ongoing “you might be a redneck” bit.
For example:
•If you live in a place where the highest high temperature and lowest low differ by more than 70 degrees in less than a week’s time or more than 40 in 24 hours, you might be from the Ozarks.
•If your neighbor – who lives more than a mile away – stops by your house unannounced to give you a several freezer bags full of various cuts of pork from a recently butchered pig, you might be from the Ozarks.
•If you hear a female customer leaving the local pawn shop turn to the owners on her way out the door and say, “Thanks for letting me use the bathroom – I put the toilet seat back up,” you might be from the Ozarks.
•If you go to the local café on Monday and talk more about the price of round bales than the big game that was played over the weekend, you might be from the Ozarks.
•If you go to the local café and the two tables in the “no smoking” area have ashtrays on them and are located in the same room as the “smoking area,” you might be from the Ozarks.
•If you’re driving 14 miles to town to get a gallon of milk and see a young bobcat bound across the dirt road a half-mile from your driveway, three deer standing next to the highway a mile-and-a-half from your house and a bald eagle sitting on a tree branch three miles from home, you might be from the Ozarks.
•If a cement walkway on your property is coated with ice from freezing rain on one day, covered by sleet the next day and then buried by snow the next day, you might be from the Ozarks.
•If you’re a man and three of your most important possessions are your Muck boots, hunting knife and Chevy Z-71 pickup, you might be from the Ozarks.
•If you’re a woman and three of your most important possessions are your Muck boots, chickens and .22, you might be from the Ozarks.
•If your house is more than 80 miles from the closest mall, you might be from the Ozarks.
•If your house is more than 40 miles from the closest “four lane,” you might be from the Ozarks.
•If there isn’t enough cellular coverage at your home to make calls but there is enough to text, you might be from the Ozarks.
•If you know how to skin a deer and are a regular user of Facebook, you might be from the Ozarks.
•If your one-ton dually is worth slightly more than your house, you might be from the Ozarks.
•If you take your 6-year-old daughter to reading time at the library and the guest reader is wearing dirty overalls and a hat with a sweat-stained brim, you might be from the Ozarks.
•If you and your wife go to a big family reunion, and neither of you are related to anyone there, you might be from the Ozarks.
•If you don’t know the name of the third president of the United States, but you do know the name of the third baseman for the 1987 St. Louis Cardinals, you might be from the Ozarks.
•If you have both a smartphone and a folding knife with a five-inch blade secured to your belt in holsters, you might be from the Ozarks.
•If you have free-range chickens, but your dog is chained to a tree, you might be from the Ozarks.
•If you say you hate Walmart but get most of your groceries and household goods there, you might be from the Ozarks.
•If you’re happy you live in a place often referred to as “fly-over country,” and you like to repeat that phrase whenever the chance arises, you might be from the Ozarks.
•If your parents never taught you what to say in a job interview, but they did teach you how collect multiple monthly checks from the government, you might be from the Ozarks (just keepin’ it real).
But the reality is: If you live in one of the best places to live in the U.S., you might be from the Ozarks.
Doug Davison is a writer, photographer and newsroom assistant for the Houston Herald. Email: ddavison@houstonherald.com.