The Lights Of Nostalgia 

I chose an odd place to walk this morning. What we called highway 68 until 1988, 38 years ago. Sunset Avenue and 412 replaced the antiquated designation because modernity requires that we erase. 

I parked at Denny’s. Years and years ago, it was the home of one of the biggest machine shops in the region. Before the interstate, when the fields and narrow roads defined everything. My family lived on 48th Street, in a small house and then a trailer, both owned by the family member who employed my dad. Across the street, a little house would become Shirley’s bar. The convention center now sits in a spot that holds a lot of locked memories for me. This was before the corridor of 48th Street was cut in half by the curve of the interstate. 

Almost 200 stitches in my head, nearly blinded by acid, a 70+ ft. tree that beckoned me to climb it, an almost forgotten tornado that pulled off the attachment to our trailer, and a lot of violence. But there was a lot of adventure, too. Springdale was an entirely different place then, trapped in amber and more isolated than people would believe.  

I walked the length of old 68 / 412 this morning, stumbling a couple of times because of the atrocious patchwork of sidewalks. Past countless buildings and places such as the Malco theater. My brother and my cousin Jimmy were there with me on the Christmas Eve it opened. It’s hard to believe that almost 50 years have passed. 

Even though there is a lot of city light now to blemish your view of the night sky, across the street from the All American steakhouse is still one of the best places to get a 360° view of the panoramic sky at night if you’re in Springdale. That spot sits in a bowl that almost no one notices is there. You almost have to be a walker to appreciate it. 

I knew walking that stretch would unlock a lot of memories for me this morning. Businesses like Applebee’s come and go, historical flickers of presence that can only be appreciated if you’ve been around long enough to understand that entropy reigns and laughs at the idea of permanence. 

I’ve walked so long that this sky is now transitioning into a luminous pink haze on the horizon.  Much in the same way that my unlocked nighttime memories are fading. 

The picture I took as I looked back toward the interstate would have been almost completely dark 50 years ago. For the briefest moment, I even remembered what the house looked like that once stood where the Phillips 66 station now stands.  It’s proof that our brains have entire vaults of images and information that for some reason have been tucked away. I would take both horror and delight in remembering a lot of mine. 

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Driving aimlessly back toward home, I stopped at one of the ponds that’s always beautiful early in the morning.