The Perfect World in the Midst of the Madness

            Park Neighborhood is a small older neighborhood that makes people think of simpler times. It is located on the Sparta exit in Ozark Mo. When driving through, one feels as though they are witnessing life though the 1950 or 1960s. Every house is a bright color with a different color door. Although it is only a half a mile off the highway, it is silent and peaceful. during the holidays, one house can be playing Christmas music and if someone is standing outside it can be heard from the other side of the neighborhood. A resident of the neighborhood named Cathy, has lived in the same house for the past 50 years. She says that “I would never move. It is the most family friendly neighborhood that holds some of the most honest and loving people.” She can sit on her porch all day during the spring and summer months and have every person that drives buy gift her with a smile and a wave. The road leading to the neighborhood feels like it is in a small town, but just ten seconds later one can feel as though they are in the middle of the country. The roads are placed on beautiful scenery which many families take full advantage of with taking family walks and bicycle rides.

            Although it feels like a small-town neighborhood, it is extremely convenient to get anywhere that one needs to go. Within three minutes one can drive to many stores such as Walmart and Lowes. There are also over 25 different restaurants within a five minute radius.

            Many of the residents that live in the neighborhood have jobs in in Springfield and say it is an easy commute that is far enough away from their Jobs to where they feel as though they are getting away but close enough to not dread the drive to work every day. Once could say that this neighborhood is the perfect world in the midst of the madness. �

The Lives Within

Personal story blog about Cathy Womack

Personal story blog about Cathy Womack

Life is a beautiful thing especially when you spend it with someone you love. From stolen kisses as a teenager, getting married and holding your babies together to finally, growing old and enjoying watching the world from your own front poach. 

This is the Story of Cathy Womack. Cathy has lived in the park neighborhood for the past fifty years. She moved here from Kansas with her husband Richard as a young woman when they had first gotten married. Richard had found a job working for a meantness company. They moved to the neighborhood in 1980 and decided to start a family. Womack had two sons and a daughter and raised them all in the house that she currently lives in.  They had children of their own and now one of her grandchildren live with her. 

“Sometimes I come home and sit in my drive and look at the outside of my house and think about all of the things that me and my family did together and how I wish that I could sit with Richard one more time on that front porch.” Womack said. Richard died five years ago, but served his community every day up until the day of his death. He had taken over the maintenance of the community well and checked the chlorine levels in the water every day for fifteen years. This kept the drinking water pure and good to use. This service also saved the neighborhood thousands of dollars because everything he did was volunteer work. 

“When he passed, it was a huge loss for me and to the community, we were going to have to pay to have someone go out to check the water every day but thankfully Richard taught me how to take care of the well house myself and I have for the past five years.” Womack said. She is currently 75 years old and it is getting hard on her to do her part in serving the community with the water. This being said, she can only hope that she can hand over the responsibility of taking care of the water to someone who is as passionate about helping their community as her husband was for all of those years. 

Conflict in the neighborhood

Water Bill

In the state of Missouri, the average monthly water bill costs between 20-35 dollars. This is if a person uses about 50 gallons of water daily. Park Neighborhood’s residents can only dream of ever paying this amount. 

             The small neighborhood called park neighborhood has seven different houses using one well. And each of these residents are having to pay 70 dollars every single month, and that is despite how much water they are using. That is just a set price. Now some may look at this as a good thing is they use a ton of water, however people like Jenny Stephens who lives in the neighborhood is not thrilled with the situation. She gave us this quote, “My family and I are hardly ever home, and the only water we ever use is simply to take a five-minute shower in the morning and to boil something if needed. We also choose to buy bottled water for our drinking water, so it seems unfair that we have to pay the same amount as the person across the street that waters their yard every other day,”.  

            The reason for the high prices for water every month is because the neighborhood was behind on payments for a couple years and is now having to pay an individual to come out and check the water’s chlorine levels every day. Because of this people are having to compensate. 

            Cathy Womack who is the resident in charge of paying the well and how comes to take care of it says that if people would have just simply paid on time in years past then we would have had enough in savings to bring the price down but the state the requires you to have at least 5-6 thousand dollars in repair funds and at one point we were at below zero. 

            “Once we get that savings back up to at least five thousand then the water bills should begin to go down,” said Womack. 

            Park neighborhood has currently 4 thousand dollars saved up and is on its way to lower prices and happier residents. 

The Thief in The Night

The Thief in The Night

It is 3 a.m. when you are suddenly awakened by the sound of something being messed with outside your house. You convince yourself that it is just an animal next to the house but there is something in the back of your head giving the possibility that it might be something or someone else. The next morning before going to work you see that the gas cap of your car is thrown on the ground carelessly, and when you get in your car it is empty.

            This is the setting that many members of Park neighborhood have found themselves in over the last week. Residents are saying that they had filled up the day before and they wake up the next morning and their gas cap is always off. Rob Mcdanials is one of the five people who have been affected by this act and is blown away that something like this would happen in his neighborhood. “I have lived in this neighborhood for 50 years, and have never seen anything like this happen. It definitely makes me feel like I need to be better prepared for any situation” Mcdanials said. 

            Park neighborhood is a much older neighborhood with many of its residents being over the age of 70 years old. This makes it an easy target for people to come at night and take what they want, because most of the people living there would not be able to do anything even If they did witness someone stealing. Rob Mcdanial’s wife Mary Mcdanials said that “knowing that there are people that close to their house at night is very eerie and makes me feel extremely vulnerable.”

            Park Neighborhood’s neighborhood watch has been notified about the situation and is keeping an eye out during the day, however Cathy Womack who is a long time resident of the neighborhood felt like more needed to be done, so she took matters into her own hands. Womack notified the Ozark Police department and requested that they do a patrol of the area at least one a night.

            Authorities have agreed to help look after the old neighborhood in hopes of finding the individual who is coming in and stealing in the night. If you are in or near the neighborhood and witness something unusual, authorities have asked that you call 911 so that they can come out and take care of the situation. This will help to keep the old neighborhood the peaceful place that it has always been.