Youth

We had lunch, Brenda and I, downtown at EJ’s at 6^th and Center in Little Rock yesterday. We enjoyed it, as usual. I sat watching westward through the plate glass. Gosh, there have been some changes since I first wandered into Little Rock. There was the high-rise some of us still call “The TCBY Building.” I think some bank owns it now. The building we were in has been there a long time. It’s a handsome building, still extant in a time when we don’t build many handsome buildings anymore. They call it the Moore Building. I think it was where Draughon School of Business stood for years. Brenda’s grandmother graduated therefrom, perhaps from a different address.

Past the high-rise, to the west, still stands the fine structure that housed the Downtown YMCA. That’s where my life changed from a 240-pound heart-attack prospect to a marathon runner. Diagonally, across Broadway from the YMCA building, stands a motel. It began as a Holiday Inn but has suffered from remodeling and new owners since.

It remains the site of one of my most memorable Little Rock experiences, and I’ve had a few. This one “takes the cake,” as my Sainted Mother used to say.

See, when the Holiday Inn at 6^th and Broadway first appeared, the rooms boasted balconies. From them, folks on the Broadway side could look out to the west. They watched a busy commercial street by day and (this incident I’m about to relate took place in the 1980s) a largely deserted trafficway after the afternoon rush hour.

That’s when it happened, maybe six-thirty in the afternoon or so. I decided to finish off a long day with a run. It was in the early spring and the outdoors beckoned. I donned my running outfit in the “Y” locker room and walked out onto the northwest corner of the intersection, across Broadway diagonally from the Holiday Inn.

That’s when I heard it, the commotion and all. Oh, did I mention that it was the time of year, near school closing, when the high school clubs from around the state took their annual field trips to the state’s capitol? It was, and from hence the noise of screaming, giggling, and taunting.

I looked up and saw, over the empty street, kids standing on most of the balconies, raising the sort of rumpus that only the young and energetic can muster. They were staring at one particular balcony and chanting something like, “Now, now, now.”

It took less than a minute to realize their intent. A young boy, wearing only his “tighty-whities” and a pillow case over his head, ran onto the balcony, threw up his hands in a Richard Nixon “victory sign,” turned around, wiggled his behind, and ran back into his room.

This energized the crowd quite significantly.

More chants produced another exhibitioner. And, by the way, they paid no attention to me at all. I just stood there, trying to remember how it felt to be that young and daring. Another youth ran onto another balcony and repeated the act. Then another.

Enthusiasm breeds escalation I suppose, for the next performer wore only the pillow case. I guessed that he was what they call, down in Cleveland County, “a bank-walker,” or the only boy who will get out of the pond naked and strut along the banks while the rest hide in shame. Anyway, pandemonium rose. I thought I had seen it all.

But no.

Believe it or not, the next exhibitioner was of a different sex. I could tell from the exposed mammilla. May I say, without censure, that they could have competed easily for the glory of a world’s title? I considered turning and beginning my jog. “We aren’t going to top that,” I thought, as the pillow case and lacy-pink panties disappeared from the balcony.

Was I wrong or what? It must have been mania that only a crowd can produce. I’m talking of the mania that can make a grown man say something ridiculous or fledgling strive for unheralded glory. Yes, dear reader, a pillow case next appeared with the head of a nubile young woman thrust into it with no other article of clothing preventing the world from witnessing the same view as its first ever of that body.

I stared as several more applicants for “daredevilress of the day” appeared in different forms and tints. As Jimmy Buffett would say, “The crowd went berserk … .”

That was enough. The realization came instantly that I might have a hard time explaining to the authorities, should any be called to investigate, why it took me so long to realize what was happening. I started up Sixth Street. Soon, I was within view of our state’s capitol and couldn’t help wondering to myself as I fell into a comfortable stride.

How could our state produce such happy and audacious young people?

Nice view of the Moore Building.
I've seen many interesting
views since I came to Little Rock.