On its east was another apartment building owned and managed
by the same company. It was newer, unfurnished, and more expensive. I wasn’t
quite there yet, financially, and far from one of the fancy places with a swimming
pool.
I was happy, but I did have to drive to work. It was close enough
to Downtown that I could walk on a nice crisp fall day, but I had to find a to
place to park on most of the time. I chose a lot on East Sixth Street where a
person could park for 25 cents a day. It was six or seven blocks from the office,
but I didn’t mind. I procured a couple of rolls of quarters and was in
business.
Actually, I enjoyed the walk. On morning, as I stood at the
traffic light at Main and Fifth Streets, a man taking the morning air joined
me, both of us waiting for the light to change. I looked over at him and my
breath caught.
It was Arkansas Senator J. William Fulbright. He was one of
the few senators who had expressed concern about escalating the war in Vietnam.
He also enjoyed the reputation of a true statesman, having initiated the
Fulbright scholarship program that awarded thousands of scholarships to
American and International students each year, designed to promote international
relations. He was the longest serving chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee.
And he was standing alongside me, just another benefit of walking
the streets of a great city. I mumbled a hello. He nodded toward the two new high-rise
office buildings and said, “This is a becoming a nice city, isn’t it?”
I agreed as the light changed. “It’s an honor to see you,
sir,” I mumbled, so much for making a great impression. He took off in a slow “fast-walk”
and faded into the urban fabric, a giant among Americans. We mourn the
increasing dearth of his type.
On a more entertaining scale, I was walking on another day
when an old, beat-up car painted in the historic fashion of an Arkansas State
Trooper vehicle pulled up to a traffic signal. As its hood bounced on long-dead
springs, I looked inside. There, to my amazement, were actors Burt Reynolds and
Ned Beatty, along with Dinah Shore, who was the then-girlfriend of Reynolds.
Odd? Not really. I knew they were in town for the filming of
the movie, White Lightening. Still,
it made a morning walk more interesting.
Time passed. As I continued to learn my craft, a young, newly-graduated
young woman with long red hair and a royal smile was undertaking her first year
as a teacher in her hometown of Lonoke, Arkansas, about 20 miles from where I
lived.
As for me, as the year rolled by, I was keeping the sometime
company of an odd-featured woman who could sing like Carol King, drink beer like a sailor, and wasn’t
above providing additional benefits to special friends if and when she chose.
She lived nearby, on a small and notorious strip of neglected street that led west
from our apartment past a small white church, then past a row of modest but charming rental houses, eventually curving back to where Lincoln Boulevard transitioned into
Cantrell Road.
Riverside Drive I think they called it, a strange place out
of the view of prying eyes, maybe four or five hundred feet in total length, and strangely populated. It
would play a minor, but nostalgia-producing part in my life.
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| J. William Fulbright We won't see his likes again anytime soon. |
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