Back from our first road trip, Jim gave the notes we made to the drafting crew and I wondered what waited next. This world of urban planning was interesting. I felt it would be even more so with a larger city. I didn’t have to wait long. Tom came in next day and wanted to know if I wanted to go to the City of Hope the next night. They were going to consider a proposed urban renewal program.

It sounded good to me. I had gone to work for a city planning firm in the final years of a long period of trying to repair urban decay through massive governmental intervention. One can decide for one’s self how successful it was. By the beginning of the 1970s, the effort had been expanded to countless government assistance programs, attempting to create what was then called “The Great Society.”

A person can demean the results, but in the current age of avarice and greed, that person would be cold-hearted indeed to demean the intentions. They came straight from The Sermon on the Mount, perhaps one of the most beautiful and inspiring works of literature in the western world. It has largely fallen out of favor in both the secular and religious worlds, unfortunately.

Anyway, off we went to Hope next afternoon, back down Interstate-30 past Malvern, then Arkadelphia, cities that were to become as familiar to me as my own home town. We passed where you turned off to go to the small community of Gurdon. One day, far into the future, I would meet a fascinating man from there, who had earned a PhD and spent a career teaching at Columbia University in New York City. He would later retire, move back to Gurdon, and become mayor. He once taught me to do a “Subway Fold” with the daily newspaper

 I’ve met some interesting people in my work.

A funny thing (funny now, not then) happened on the way there. I hadn’t been paid yet and had a dollar and twenty-five cents to my name. Just out of Benton, Tom says to me “We’re running late and had better stop and grab something to eat up ahead at that Stuckeys.”

Fine with me, until he said, “Dammit, I forgot my wallet. You have any money?”

"A little."

“Good. I just want a hot dog and something to drink. Got enough for that?”

“Sure.”

I checked the price of a hot dog and drink carefully. Just enough cash. I handed him my fortune. What did I want? "Oh nothing, I had a big lunch and I’m trying to lose some of the weight I put on when I quit smoking."

We started on, with him munching the hot dog and me looking out the window. A hot dog had never smelled so good in my life, nor has it since.

We arrived in Hope on time. City Hall was a fine old building. The meeting room took up part of the ground floor. Still does. Hope was a “city-manager” city. That meant they used a professional city manager and the governing body was a “board” instead of a council. I seem to remember that the city manager was named Garland Meadors or something like that. It’s funny how you remember things about your first time at something.

The Board members, mostly middle-aged, were all white and all male. This was despite the fact that half of the city's population was female, and the same percentage was what they called "Colored, or Negroes" back then, Change came slowly over the years. As for then, it hadn't even begun.

Back to the meeting. There was a fair crowd in attendance for a meeting with no controversial items on the agenda. That doesn’t happen much these days. They approved what Tom had come for and we headed back. I was sure glad that he was anxious to get home and didn’t mention stopping to eat again. So far. So good.

The old days. Today's new buildings
look like they are made from
plastic shipbuilding parts.