Search

[shuckin-son]

Hi all, I have spent way too much time the last few days reading all of this. This is my first post, and probably no others will be this long. I have been going to SDC since the mid-60's, but have a different perspective than most here. My mother has been working at the Fall Crafts Festival for 42 years in a row. At one time we had four generations in the booth, the oldest generation has passed, the fourth generation is about to produce a fifth generation, which will surely grow up at SDC like so many have. I believe my mom is the senior person at the fall festival. Violet Hensley started a year or two before my mom, but Violet missed a couple of years when her husband died. Many here have seen and known my family for perhaps decades, but in my adult life, I was always the guy that blew in for setup-teardown and a few days in-between.

My mom is Jewel Sanders,  "the cornshuck doll lady". My sister Susie Sanders-Everhart has been there nearly every time as well. Youngest sister Sherry Sanders-Walters has only missed a few.

My family grew up farming, my dad is third generation grain/cattle farmer in Central MO, north of Columbia. Jewel was always intensely creative, some of the best memories I have are of her always making things, always busy with everything. My dad, Nevelle Sanders is very clever (though he will always be self-deprecating), very wise, and makes a good balance to Jewel's flights of fancy. The two are a wonderful couple, and are coming up on 60 years of marriage!

My recent memories of SDC are of the all-night setups, the oddity of seeing every street packed with cars/trucks at night, the M/C guys working third shift every night to make it good for the next day. In the fall, I think they hose down every street, every night. The fall foliage will be very slippery when left for the guests the next day.

Here are some of my random memories, in no particular order.

When I was a kid, we started out as tourists. I was fascinated with the glass blowers, Grandpa Brown seeming to dip his hand into the boiling candy to "pick up a sample", and hand it to us. It took us years to figure out that he cupped a bit of cold water in his hand, dropped it into the taffy and pulled up that freshly solidified sample. Last fall, we saw his wife, she is so cool. I don't know how old she is now, but I thought she was old in the 1960's. She is probably very old now, but you can't tell it by talking to her.

As an adult, I became mechanically oriented (it was the decades of farm work), but one of my personal lures over the decades is the Slow Tom Mill. While the real mill had all sorts of belts and gears pretending to turn it, the stoic simplicity and reliability of Slow Tom still makes me stop and watch for a few cycles. It's just basic physics, and as long as the water keeps running, it will keep doing it.

The suspension bridge puzzles me to this day, when people can't walk on it? As long as I can remember, it's easy to get the rhythm and just spring along with it.

As a child, I remember the tree house only as Herman the Hermit's.  Now that I'm old(er), I don't ride the rides as much. When I was young, the Lost River was good for sparking with the other craftsmen's daughters. In the dark part....... 

The rising table in 'dine in the mine' never happened to us, but it was always fun watching That Spot for their reaction. In the early 80's, I was taken with Big Jack's sandwich at Mary's Pies so much, I would buy four of them to take home. One quarter sandwich was a good lunch.

Wayne Milnes (undertaker, street scenes, Sammy B. Good, Mechanical Man, Corncrib Theater, Hatfield Haint, and more) is one of the funniest humans ever to draw breath. Every day, all day at SDC he never broke character. If you ran into him at the employee lounge, he still crossed his eyes at you and made goofy sounds.

Terry Sanders (no relation) drew a lot of his basic character from Wayne's early improvs. To this day, when we go see Terry at a show, he will call my mom up on stage and make up something about his long-lost relative. Terry is one of the hardest-working men in show business!

The Corncrib Theater was a long-time favorite for my family, and my mom's later business of cornshucks was called The Corn Crib. We were real farmers, and there used to be wire-mesh corn cribs on our farm and all around, so it seemed fitting.

Wayne and Shad were so good together. Even back then, when the 65 and 76 junction was a 4-way stop in downtown Branson, there would occasionally be a loud car go by the Corncrib Theater. Wayne and Shad would both drop their line in mid-sentence, make a big gazing "left to right" while following it, then drop back into the next line when it was gone.

The cave has always fascinated me. I grew up on the Missouri prairie, and once wanted to dig a cave on our farm. My dad, knowing that black dirt doesn't do caves well, let me use his best shovel and wear myself out for a few days trying. He even helped fill it in, when three feet was all I accomplished. The cave guides are a unique breed, another kind of showmen all of their own. Unlike performers in any other show, they have to be keeping an eye on their audience for signs of claustrophobia, shortness of breath, trying to gauge who is really afraid of the dark, etc.

No matter how large a monument man tries to build to whatever all the things that men build monuments for, the caves silently and gracefully always overcome with their sheer grandeur and beauty. Most of this beauty has existed for millions of years, back when the dinosaurs were pups.

I am a musician of sorts, and auditioned for the first piano player in the saloon's first season.  I was primarily a player by ear, and flubbed the audition by not practicing enough. Oddly enough, my sister Susie is a great ragtime player and plays from music, she probably would have done better.

I thought i was deeply in love with Jana Henleben for years. She was great in the Corncrib Theater, saloon girl, street character, etc. I never spoke with her, even when she picked me out of the audience at a Hatfield Haint show to be on stage. I recall I did something silly, and everybody on stage ad-libbed from it. She smiled, and then it seemed like the right thing to do at the time after all.

My dad retired from farming about ten years ago, and hired Horse Creek to drive 250 miles to play at his retirement party.

For a few years, my dad Nevelle and I had a booth making miniature bales. We started in the DeepWoods area, did it on the square one year, and also hired a friend to run it a season or two. There still is a sub-miniature baler in my mom's booth in recent years, Nevelle operates it.

Since we are flatlanders, it takes us a few days to get used to traversing the hills. I can't remember their names, but in the 1980s there were twin sisters that were citizen/employees. They were probably in their 70's at the time. They grew up there, and they just zoomed up and down SDC's hills all day. They made our calf muscles hurt just watching them.

I enjoyed watching some of the Youtube vids that you guys have found, thanks for linking to them. In the 60's one with the two crewcut young boys, I believe that marshall is Ralph L. Hooker. There was a book by him available in the print shop, Born Out of Season. He was a true old-time pioneer and actual lawman. His book is full of stories about his life. Later in life, he was a marshall at SDC, and according to his book, his Colt 45 hogleg had live rounds. He was also a sharpshooter. In his book he said that he fired his gun once at SDC. There were some young men being extremely rude and loud, and making fun of some girls. I haven't read it for several years, but it went along the lines of he tossed the young man's hat in the air and shot it. In the street. At SDC. I don't believe that would work today. The young men became very quiet and polite.

I loved the River Rats. DA, Greg,  and Richard only vaguely recognize me because of me only being there occasionally, and mostly during the festival, I am "that guy that kind of looks familiar".  The Smith Brothers offshoot was great. Whenever I see DA, I ask him to play the Smith Brothers' big hit, "If You Hurt Me, I Will Kill You". He always looks puzzled, and mumbles something about maybe next time.

Forum members here that are employees have another whole set of behind the scenes memories than I do. Regular guest have another whole set of experiences, that I haven't had for a long time. I'm glad to find this place. My mom has been online for 20 years, she is quite an internet junkie, I will have to get her on here as well.

Some of my best times now at SDC are just sitting and people-watching. I'm not up on what all the new rides and sections really are. As long as I can hear the train whistle, smell some woodsmoke and hear bluegrass, that makes it for me.

Another amazing thing about my parents? Even though we never have been "real" employees, we get some of the discounts. Many shows give a comp pass or a discount to the music shows. A couple of years ago, my parents attended TWENTY FIVE SHOWS during the festival. This is when they are in their 70's, this is AFTER they have put in a twelve hour day.

The title of my post, is from my mom 20 years ago. We had put in a long day/night setting up, and decided to see a show. My mom, in her exhaustion told the girl at the ticket counter: "Yes, we work at Silver Dollar City. We are Craftival Festmen".   It's been a long running joke in my family.

[tinmann620]

Excellent "read"!  Thanks for sharing and welcome to the group!

[rubedugans]

Awesome post ShuckinSon. I agree, at first when I found the site, there was so much that I HAD to read! It was everything I had seen, or thought about, or experienced. It is always exciting to hear other stories from a different perspective about the park. Welcome to the group!

[SteamFreak]

I really enjoyed this post, thanks so much. I love the line about "hearing the train whistle and smelling the woodsmoke" that's where I always get my first smile of the day.

[sdcforever]

Excellent post!  Thanks for contributing!  It was great reading about the behind the scenes of the craftsmen.  I can totally relate about the suspension bridge--it's easy for me since you just have to match the rhythm of the bridge.  I don't understand why so many people have trouble walking it either!

[History Buff]

Hey shuckin-son!  You'd  probably recognize OldGuy.  Check out their website.

[shuckin-son]

Thanks to all for the comments and email, you all have some good stories also, post in the forum so we can all read! History Buff, I did recognize Oldguy, though I don't think we met. Here's some more random things about SDC, Branson, and the area in general.

The craftspersons (to be politically correct) are an odd bunch. The fact that they are there at all proves that they are an unusual mix of creative people, showmen and adventurers. Some of them travel from all over the country, to stay in a campground for six weeks while working the Crafts Festival. When you take a wildly creative bunch of people from all over the country and put them together, funny things happen, many practical jokes take place.

One longtime craftsman was Roger Sandstrom, from Seymour, Missouri. Roger has passed on now, but was a big, hearty Svedish guy, that carved spoons, forks and salad bowls from wood. He carved them by hand, and they were very beautiful. Roger generated a pile of shavings, that he was very proud of. The night cleanup guys would clean them up, and Roger would leave signs, "please leave the shavings".  Near the end of the festival, when everybody was getting a little wacky, my mom instigated a good joke on Roger. His booth was naturally supplied with finished products. My mom (and other guilty parties) hid his display pieces, and replaced them all with styrofoam and plastic equivilants: plates, bowls, spoons and forks. Roger's precious pile of shavings was hidden and replaced with a big pile of styrofoam packing worms! Now it looked like Roger's craft was carving utensils from wholesome, natural styrofoam!

Another integral part of SDC is Rex Burdette. Like many former performers at SDC, he is now a behind the scenes guy; he travels the world to scout talent for upcoming festivals that feature international talent. Rex and his family used to dance (clog) at the old Bob-o-link theater. Rex has told many funny stories about the culture clash about having international performers at SDC. Some German performers tried to hide beer in the woods, the ones from France would change clothes wherever they were.

My parents were (and are) always thinking about New Stuff. They were mightily impressed with the original Corn Crib Theater, and embarked on a plan to bring a Toby show of sorts to my home town one November, after the city had closed. This was in the early 1980's, before the Christmas at SDC. They arranged for Shad, Molly, Wayne Milnes and Rex with his whole family to drive for 5 hours to put on a show. They rented the local high school, being as it had the largest (and only) auditorium in our small hometown of 3200 people. They advertised locally, and when the night came, there was a huge snowstorm, and there were only a handful of people attending. The whole crew spent the night at my parents' house, and THAT was the only time I saw Wayne break character. We stayed up all night talking and joking.

Rex's sons (John and Gene?) went on to have a show in Vegas, Country Tonight. Daughter Yvonne is still in the area, in recent years I heard she was working in real estate. Youngest daughter Lisa I have heard is working at SDC somewhere. Rex's wife Helen was perhaps the most energetic dancer of them all.

While for me Branson has always meant SDC, too much of the world now only knows it for the music. The shows are quite a phenomenon. While Nashville is famous for country music and recording, there are many more live shows in Branson. The Presleys and The Baldnobbers had been doing it for decades, but Roy Clark started it all with the big names. The musical talent that resides in Branson is staggering. A funny thing is that the musicians over time rotate from show to show, there is rarely a fixed band that stays together. Shoji Tabuchi started out as a back-line fiddler at several shows and has of course worked his way to the top in Branson. He actually speaks very good english.

A secret musical treasure is present in Branson, that you will never see a billboard for, or see a commercial for. You will never hear them on the radio, they will never ever have a hit record. After all the night shows get out on the strip, the hardcore musicians that still want to play get together for a late-night jam. It's just a thrown-together bunch of some of the best musicians in the world, getting a chance to play what THEY want to. It's the guitar player from one show, a couple of guys that play horns from another show, a bass player from another show. They are called The Horn Dogs, and in my book one of the best shows there. There aren't any stars usually, and the music veers more to rock n'  roll and Motown music. They play at a couple of different places, it changes. You will have to ask around for the current venue. It's a late show that starts after all the others are done, and usually goes until 1 am, depending on the venue that they have landed in. My parents are in their mid 70's, and it's not unusual to see them out there in their 1880's garb after a day at the festival, then dinner, then a regular show, THEN dancing late-night to funky music at The Horn Dogs. Highly Recommended.

My family has a place near Blue Eye, Missouri acoss the Long Creek arm of Table Rock. Blue Eye is a tiny town, and unusual in that it straddles the Missouri/Arkansas line. When I was pretty small, we went to the store for gas or something. I noticed a handbill of a band playing somewhere nearby from Delaware. I remember thinking "why would a band from Delaware be playing in Blue Eye? They later were very famous, rock and roll fans will recognize George Thorogood and the Delaware Destroyers. When I was a child, I didn't understand the concept of touring, and that they could be "just passing through", I thought they drove from Delaware to Blue Eye...

Watching the Youtube vids of people walking around Table Rock Dam reminded me of last year, when Missouri had way too much rain. The lake was fuller than it ever had been. It was very strange to look down on the other side at Point Royale, and see the water lapping at Andy Williams' house. All the floodgates were open full, and there was a zillion million cubic feet of water per second being released, and it wasn't enough. There were emergency floodgates on the north side of the dam that were closed. Someone pointed out that they were only for last resort, to save the dam if the main floodgates couldn't handle the water. The emergency floodgates have never been opened, but it was pointed out that if they were opened, it would then flood most of Branson, and said that it would put water up to the second floor of the Skaggs Hospital in Branson.  I had never realized, but maintaining the level of water can be very political. The amount of water you get can be regulated by dams way up or downstream of you.  How do you decide who to flood, if it comes down to it? Do you destroy a town or something downstream so you can preserve your stuff locally?

While this was going on, I stood on the south edge of the dam, and could feel the ground shaking from the immense volumes of water pouring under my feet. It was gray and cool, and it was starting to rain. This was pretty scary, the dam carried the power to obliterate the town of Branson, here it was full and shaking, and I was watching it rain.

[Coaster]

Thanks for sharing your memories! That is what makes this forum greaaaaaaaat! 

[Zephon]

What a great perspective, shuckin-son.  Your stories bring back a lot of memories for me.  Your sister, Sherry, and I were good friends way back when.

[cornshuckdoll]

Hi...this is the cornshuckdoll---mother of shuckin-son who has been posting lately. This is an awesome site...I am eager to participate. Silver Dollar City is in my blood and heaven only knows when I will have sense enough to quit...My husband and I are not too far from the 80 year old mark, but I don't see quitting in our near future, as long as our health permits. We have met so many great folks (guests of SDC) as well as employees and fellow craftsmen. I hope the memories of SDC days live on through sites like this.

[shuckin-son]

Zephon, we saw Sherry yesterday, she (nor we) can't figure out who you are. She did correct me, in that she has not missed one season. There were a couple of summers that she worked in the mill. Also, welcome to my mom (cornshuckdoll), finally got her on here. Give us some more stories, cornshuckdoll!

[cornshuckdoll]

Here  we are in rainy Branson, preparing to spend the next 48 hours setting up our  booth for the upcoming 2 months at SDC's Harvest Festival...Susie and I have worked steadily for the past ten months making our dolls, etc to sell and now we're ready for the last harrah...shuckin-son is here also for the setup...our cat Smokey is looking forward to this two months in the Ozarks...he is a 16 pound Tonkinese. His favorite spot at home is in our workroom curled up in a box of shucks we are working with...he is especially fond of the red ones! Our van we use to transport SDC merchandise down (this is it's 20th year and our 42nd year at SDC) was packed to within 4 inches of the roof from front seats to back windows...Smokey rides in a pet carrier part of the time, but prefers my lap...before we traveled 5 miles, he found that little 4 inch space and popped through it and was back in the depths of the loaded van. I could visualise him getting stuck and us stopping at a vets for tranquilizer to get him out. He finally made his way back out, but he was obsessed with getting back in the middle of that load for the next 250 miles. Enough of my rambling...gotta get some shut-eye before the big rush..cornshuckdoll