Arkansas Interlude

En route from Memphis back to Springfield early on Sunday morning, I stopped by a McDonald's restaurant in Marked Tree, Arkansas. As I carried my bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit, along with a much needed cup of coffee, to a table, I noticed a group of older men congregated at a table behind the napkin and fork counter. All were apparently planters, most probably retired. I have seen their counter parts in many areas of the country: good ole boys who meet regularly, sometimes everyday, to bond and exchange well-trodden information. Their appearances were typical: nondescript: jeans, baseball hats with advertising or cute phrases on them, heavy coats, big pot bellies, and unkempt hair. But two in particular caught my attention. One was overweight wearing an insulated hat and a heavy insulated coat. He didn't say much, only sat and listened to the others. Between his front teeth, he firmly clutched a long McDonald's stirring wand which he constantly waved up and down as though this helped him to concentrate. The other man had a leathery, weathered emaciated face which was permanently formed into either an exaggerated smile or a grimace. I couldn't tell which. A large knit cap was pulled snugly down over his head. His eyes were bright, resting just beneath the rolled up folds of the hat. The grin-grimace contours of his face presented the air that he was up to something, perhaps impishly tricking his listening audience.
This seemed important because his conversation was about the deceased country singer Hank Williams. As I devoured my biscuit, it occurred to me that only in rural Arkansas could I find a group of people remotely interested in a country singer who had been dead for over fifty years; one who had never been heard of by most of the younger generation. However, this group considered the information to be current stuff. It seems that he personally knew the man who was with Hank Williams the night he died of an overdose of something in the back seat of a car while on the way to a gig. His vicarious story affirmed that “other people” had told a lot of tales about Hank Williams' death, but his source had personally been there and knew the real facts about what happened. The other men commented on their approval of this event without bothering to ask how they could confirm that this was not just another fictitious tale.
The conversation went long. And when I left, I realized that this moment, this brief experience neither important nor monumental, is the fabric of which our conscious journey through the decades is made. This moment probably should have been forgettable, but I knew I wouldn't. These men and I would never again be in the same place or the same time. We had met without their realization, but they would be stored forever as part of my remembered experiences
A few months later, I again found myself in an Arkansas McDonalds, this time in West Memphis. As I ate my pancakes and sausage, I observed an aging farmer, coveralls, hat and all, sitting across from an equally aging black man. Both appeared to be in their late seventies; both ate bacon, sausage, and cheese biscuits. Both slowly drank their coffee between halting bites and conversed in low tones. What intrigued me was a reflection about their age and the history of this area to which they were clearly tied: long time artificial distinctions between a black man and a white man. Surely in their youth they would have been drastically separated by physical and ideological concerns, if not outright aliens to each other.
I have no idea what circumstances prompted their coming together. Age seemed to have washed out the foolishness of culture leaving only the vibrant contact and friendship between two human beings. Age had become an equalizer: youth, vitality, knowledge, and history reduced to the common denominator of what is essential in the social experience of man. These former things are transitory; what is not is the ability of men to reach out and understand each other. I realized that when we are in the grave our convoluted thoughts and opinions become nothing, even incredulous to another generation. This was a beautiful moment, and I left enriched, changed. Through the juxtaposition of these two relics emanating from a horrid past, I somehow saw a microcosm of what can be crystallized into a gem when our vain struggle to uphold pride, false heritages, and erroneous opinions fail.
Probably, they will all regularly meet at the same places, creating their own brand of meaning in lives, to an outsider, that could be classified as mundane. Interesting, they will never know they were noticed and have been the subject of a writing piece.

Satire On Ostentatious Etiquette

Inspired by a travel channel presentation on the proper way to have an afternoon tea, I relate the following instructions. “Grip the finger through the cup holder rather than gently clutching it with thumb and forefinger while the pinkie finger is delicately extended. Desserts: start at the top tier with the bread and scones, working your way systematically to the bottom and eating the chocolates last.”
The scene is intriguing: a concerned social worker is explaining the above process to a group of homeless men. They are crowded securely out of the piercing fingers of a brisk cold wind just inside the entrance alcove of an old retail store. Behind them, in front of the boarded door, a warming fire burns slowly within an upright, rusty barrel that shows the damage of many fires. The men look on with keen interest. There are four of them: Billy, tall, emaciated; Randy, short, lumbering with vacuous eyes; Marvin, an older man with heavy wrinkles; and Brad, average height but over weight, apparently well-fed despite his homeless state.
They are all routinely dressed cumbersomely to avoid the sharp winds of the downtown weather. Each has some type of hat on; two, in fact, Randy and Brad, wear the knitted style that fits the top of the head and covers the ears like a glove. Billy wears a thin baseball cap he has pulled down tightly to the tops of his ears, making him look like a little boy who doesn’t know how to put on a hat. Marvin has on a felt cowboy hat with the sides pulled down over his ears, like the wool flaps of an old World War II flight cap.
They seem interested by the presenter’s comments, grunting occasionally to encourage him. Somehow all this seems to make sense even though a delicate, expensive china cup is being used to demonstrate usage, and the presenter is dressed impeccably in neat attire. When the dessert segment is broached, one man comments about his ignorance in using donuts improperly. The social worker is ecstatic. He smiles broadly, an infectious smile that pervades the stinging air and forces the listeners, in turn, to risk breaking the icy plaster of their faces with a similar smile. Teaching has been successful and learning has been effected. The world has a future and life can continue as it was, unabated, unchanged through the centuries.

As A Conquering General

As a conquering general, prompting the courage of somber eyed men in the
drab of gray-green uniforms

A wavering line, ancient and steady but always fading quickly, always
rushing into history,

Supported by an idea worthy of the sacrifice of an interminable number of
lives.

The line appears, steadies, and gains through the years as it increases

It’s adherents through history standing at attention to the mere glimpse of its
undulating red, white, and blue.

The line has endured,

A sentinel of stars from George Washington, through dark days of destiny,
carrying us into the blazing, uncertain glory of a new millennium.

Joining with the transparent innocence of unquestioning forefathers, we
declare we will defend the emblazoned flag, a symbol of constancy, or
join the line in the dust.

A Tale of Essential Things

Constructed of soft, highly porous foam rubber descending from soft rounded apexes to comfortable flat bottoms that are connected by a resilient nylon cord, my pyramid shaped bright luminescent orange “Howard Light Hearing Protectors,” commonly referenced as “ear plugs,” hung on the peg board wall of my shop for years. They had originally been purchased to muffle the loud whirring sounds made by my table saw, jig saw, and router as I diligently worked weekends on fine wood projects. Easily accessible in a remote spot near the upper right hand corner of the pegboard, they were a colorful addition to the montage of iron gray, dull silver, and cold-black hand tools beside them. They looked good. I even kept the cellophane covers on them in order to prevent unwanted dust getting in my ears on the day when I would definitely have to use them.
That day never came because the diligent weekends of fine wood working never came. Usually, I had something to do that I felt was more important or decided that breaking out the tools was too much trouble; furthermore, the really fine wood came at a much higher per-foot price than I wanted to pay. Consequently, the elaborately carved Queen Anne pieces I had envisioned remained intricately designed only in the chemical configurations of my brain, where they cost nothing and where discovery of my inept wood working ability was unlikely. Eventually I no longer felt guilty about the money wasted on unused power equipment and no longer saw the obvious intrusion of the bright orange beside my hand tools. In effect, they disappeared.
Briefly, they came out of hiding a few years later when I hastily grabbed them on the way to a tractor pull and monster truck rally at the Memphis Pyramid. Inside the confines of the huge building it would be extremely loud, they said. I assumed the plugs would come in handy and slung the cord around my neck as I passed the shop. They actually looked chic as the individual plug members dangled across my chest, contrasting smartly against the red flannel of my winter shirt. Unfortunately, they weren’t much help. The vibrations and sounds of the huge equipment were overpowering. My teeth rattled clear to the permanent ridge formed on the crown of my head when the old country doctor yanked me into this world some decades before. Cupping my hands over my ears and the plugs at the same time helped only slightly, and I suspected that the foam rubber surface served only to store the sounds and amplify them through the point directly into my eardrums. Out they came.
About thirty minutes later, I considered trying the plugs again when a group of loud-mouthed truck ladies squeezed passed the back of the seat in front of me to plant themselves, bleached blonde hair, artificial tans, crude t-shirts, skin tight blue jeans and all, on the end of the row. From that moment on they were louder, more insulting, more obtuse, and more invasive than the mind-dulling howl and scream of tractors and trucks could ever have been. The offensive combination of their overly applied cheap perfume and miniature cigar smoke easily masked the burnt-oil smell of the machine smoke that by then almost obscured the main floor of the arena.
I think I knew one of the women. She didn’t appear to have aged much, but I was certain that I had seen her about twenty years before at the National Guard Armory in my hometown in Mississippi where the weekly wrestling matches were held. I was sure that she had been the one. Wearing a ragged pair of shorts with a big hole in the seat (she had scarlet red drawers), she had jumped out of the grandstands and onto the ropes when the Masked Red Demon was pummeling my hero, Rex Mobley, to a fine pulp. He had been working Rex’s right arm all night with horrendous wrenching twists. Rex could hardly use the poor arm and could barely fight because of the pain. At last, the Demon managed to get him on the floor and began his awesome work. Most sane people were, of course, dismayed and horrified, but this gal sided with the Demon. Holding to the ropes, she began yelling as loudly as she could for him to tear his Rex’s head off. I could see a sort of glazed effect on Rex’s eyes as he turned toward her for a moment. We were incensed, but fortunately someone (as I recall, it was my uncle) grabbed her legs pulling her away from the platform. She then lost her grip on the ropes, fell, and on the way down busted her bottom lip on the edge of the mat. After that she couldn’t yell at all, but insisted on staying to make a scene and further embarrass the entire audience. I know this was the same woman I saw at the tractor pull and monster truck rally.
That night, I re-hung my plugs on the board, and they stayed there for another six years until I came to Missouri. For some reason, I snatched them off the board and stuffed them in my brief case. Living temporarily with my daughter’s family of five young children, I soon found that the plugs I took for granted were indispensable. Crammed tightly into my ears until the pyramid shapes are transformed into a fat blob, they effectively fend off the incessant crash of violence on the cartoon channel and the continual verbal feuds of competitive siblings who sometimes resent each other worse than I resented the lady who caused Rex to lose that last match of the season so many years ago.
There is also serendipity. They may save my knurled hide. I realized that with the protectors in I can ignore my wife with immunity. If I remain clever enough not to look her in the face when she is talking, she can’t accuse me of deliberately not listening to her. For the first time, she can’t scold me for unconsciously tuning her out when she talks. The plugs are permanently essential.

Remembering The Wasteland

Green and gently rolling hills.
Snowy tops of noble mountains: towers, bulwarks, symbols of boldness.
Surfaces of sparkling, crystal seas
Turquoise waters casting their whitish foam upon coasts of silver sand.
Magnificent beauty, America.

Open lands; pure, undisturbed nature of unveiled serenity
Summer, when the yielding soil is rich toward struggling plants crying for life
fairyland of magic.
Winter, when the sky is a whirling haze of gray and a wonderland of activity.
My life in you has been full.

But rolling hills ended in cities.
Lucid seas washing against glaring beaches, splashing cruelly upon rotting moss-covered supports of harbor docks.
Golden sun ejecting, shedding its brilliant bursts upon filthy gutter-washed streets.
Grime filled allies
Decaying and stained billboards.
Faded wooden doors leading into musty darkness.
Poison of lives.
Prison houses of luring lights.
Kaleidoscopes of coruscating lights beckoning passers by.
Open cries and concealed ones.

Rain, grandeur in the emerald forest, beating harshly down upon metallic monsters
scattering smoke.
Rain washing uncleanness into the storehouses of squalor.
Streets cluttered with the filth and sickness
Darkened allies of grime, waste, and garbage.

People have hated their brothers.
Where is hope?

Reflection on Nativity

Effigies in miniature they stand illuminating, reminding of that grand memory, of that
starry night.
And, standing, they beckon, casting the imagination to that shepherd night of Bethlehem:
the stage, the lights, the manger; etching those passages into the course of history:
a mother, a moonlit chamber, a child in swaddling clothes.
Forced into the still night of the stable, into the realm of flesh; thrust from the radiance of
eternity.

It is a memory of that culmination of eternal counsel planted at birth into every human soul.
A memory running with us through the years to emerge with each Christmas season though it is
never quite far away.
A memory that, having changed all that precedes it, transforms, transfixes the meaning and
foundation of existence.
A memory transforming all that it touches, leaving nothing inert; changing the despair of pagan
man.
Grand entrance of a fathomless revelation!

All else is a facade; all else is mere illusion and divergence: music, colors (resplendent colors of
harmony: gold, green, red, crimson red, fluffy white, stringy sparkly silver), movement
(whirling and offsetting).
It is too earthy, too transient.

In the world of humanity, it creates only an illusion of that palpable arena of peace, of love,
of giving, and of brotherly love that cannot be universal here.
It is an ember lighting the night, flying outward...and is gone...
It rushes as quickly as the last feet of reeled celluloid from reality to ephemeral smoky memory.

But it is a glorious facade of white Christmas, silver bells, sleigh rides, snow-swept moonlit
panoramas, misty breath in the air, a mug of hot chocolate resting upon the hearth of a
brick fireplace.

The blackboard of every heart contains that marching memory, the estimation of value that
Christ places on every man.
He provides the good and the beautiful.
He gives purpose.
“In swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.”

Folding the cardboard animals, removing the straw, returning the borrowed doll cradle will not
erase the season, the memory.
Those relics—props—will ever transcend time and represent that starry announcement:
“A savior which is Christ the Lord!”