Come about this time each summer I worked at SDC, and in the years that followed in college and on into my early radio career, I'd get the blues. Usually about this week in August, there would be a day or two or three when the temperatures cooled just a bit, and a gentle breeze came through...for me, it was the first reminders fall was coming and summer was about to end. Plus, each year in the second and third weeks of August, all my Young Life Christian group friends at SDC would be packing up and going home to get ready for the fall semester at college. The annual group tintypes would be made, and I too would be getting prepped to start fall semester at College of the Ozarks, or later at SEMO at Cape Girardeau. Then, talk would turn to football, days began to really cool down, and work at SDC was usually limited to the weekend or maybe a day or two in the week when classes were over. Mornings would be cool, but walking on Main Street at SDC was nice, as by mid to late September the fall crafts festival would be in swing, crafters like the apple butter lady would have a copper kettle with a batch cooking on a wood fire. The smell of smoke and the autumn leaves would be turning. Life would begin to slow down on park (except for Saturdays, which were always nuts) and at the end of October, Branson died. None of the tourist places were open, only the locals were going about their business. You could speed down Hwy 76 and throw a rock down the road and hit nobody. Town was closed down. This week each year really signified the beginning of the end of summer. Hmmmmmmm...memories.
