Yeah. Arkansas and the Arkansas River were gateways into Oklahoma and Kansas territories. On my mother's side it reads like something out of a McMurtry novel. My maternal grandfather came from Indiana, participated in cattle drives from the Big Bend to Dodge City with Charlie Goodnight, had a store in Dodge and then went to Oklahoma during the land rush. Had a farm, a ranch and a general store in an oil boom town just east of Bartlesville. He was an alternate delegate to the state constitutional convention and an officer in the local bank. Lost most of it in the Depression. He always had a new car until the crash. He suffered a broken back in an automobile accident in the mid '30s and died in the late 30s. Ten children in the families on each side, though my paternal grandmother was Granddad's second wife. He had three children, the oldest of whom was 18 when he married my grandmother. He was 40, she was 18 and the eldest daughter of his childhood friend from Little Rock, where he lived after his parents died.

As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."