Monday Memories

How does one stay as busy as I at my age? It’s not hard. Just quit saying, “no.” Actually, I sort of like it. I pass a golf course every once in a while and ask myself, “What the hell?”

One of the things that keeps me busy is my continued relationship with Arkansas Municipal League. Not only are they fine people who do good work, but they pay me to visit some of the finest cities you can imagine. This week, they are paying me to go to north Arkansas and visit with the folks at Eureka Springs, AR. Going there, I get to pass through some towns where I’ve worked, including Harrison, Berryville, and Green Forest.

Harrison was the first vacation destination for our entire family, along with my Sainted Mother’s brother’s family. We took it when my little brother got old enough to travel, a long time ago. I can still remember, as we flatlanders hit the hills, my cousin JoAnn (Harris) Jacks singing “She’ll be comin’ round the mountain.” Good memories.

Berryville fostered a folk song based on a self-initiated travesty many years ago. Seems a prisoner in the town's old wooden jail devised an escape plan that involved setting his bunk afire without realizing that the entire local law enforcement group was off with a posse, I still remember the line from a tape I heard in college: “I’ll weep and wail, in the Berryville jail, Carroll County, Arkansas.”

But it’s Eureka Springs that can make my heart beat a little faster. That’s where my first serious girl friend was raised. Her name was Margaret (Moke) Hull. She stole my heart and I didn’t get it back until Brenda Cole sashayed by me in a parking lot in Little Rock eight years later.

In the interim, I passed Moke’s childhood home on a business trip to Eureka Springs once and saw her parents sitting in their front yard. I couldn’t help but stop and visit. They were kind enough to say that they might could have remembered me were they younger. "Mokie" achieved a PhD after she saw through me and practices somewhere in New York City. So much for common dreams. Things work out for the best. My clearest memory of Moke was of the time she and a college friend dressed in their best plaid skirts and silk blouses and performed Woody Guthrie’s “I’ve Been Doing Some Hard Traveling” at a gathering during the folk music craze of the 1960s. I don’t know why, but I still think it was kinda funny. I mean, hard traveling?” Really? Well, it was the 60s.

Anyway. I’m gonna have a fun week. Hope you do.

Ahh. Going to Eureka Springs.
Tough job, but somebody must.