The weirdest moment this morning was another one of those slow creeping realizations. Wearing Bose headphones that were given to me, I wasn’t listening to anything. I was only about thirty minutes into my long walk, heading toward the terminus of Leverett. Some kind of small animal darted out of the forgotten brush of Narnia a foot in front of me. I’m glad it wasn’t a dinosaur because I had no warning. I dropped my phone as my heart raced.
Picking up my phone, I kept walking after looking around for the phantom animal. The light breeze shifted and became much stronger. When the sound started, I presumed it to be something connecting to my headphones. Traveling overhead like the Doppler effect, the high metallic twang raced from behind me overhead and flew past. I pulled my headphones down and stopped. Nothing happened as I stood motionless in the middle of the road. Two steps after I started walking, the twang came up fast behind me. This time, the lack of headphones not only confirmed it with real but that it was loud and traveling fast. The muscles in my back tensed because instinct made me want to duck.
Looking up, I expected to see a huge power surge or crackling line of static running along the huge high voltage power lines overhead. Nothing.
As I neared the literal end of the road, I expected the smell of ozone or burned arc lighting. Nothing again.
I stopped and took a picture. One of the things that makes vampire walks so beautiful is that all the lights seem both bright and indistinct at the same time. If you look at the upper portion of both sides of my picture, you can see anomalies.
I’m sure my lizard brain wasn’t dealing well with whatever stimulus had just happened. I walked really fast and made a left, leaving the area as quickly as I could without running.
112/Garland was stunningly quiet and beautiful. I circled the 8 acre Agri Park several times because I didn’t want to leave the thundering insects or the peaceful quiet that surrounded me there. Not to mention the absence of strange electrical zooming overhead.
The rain came at 5:32 a.m.
PS Did you know that you’re five times more likely to be incarcerated in the United States compared to China? A random fact that doesn’t seem possible.
The summer afternoon baptism finally visited. A petrichor at first, followed by a gulley washer.
I made a wish, foolishly wishing for people to drink a big cup of live and let live. And to look out the window at the rain and realize that even though we are all seeing rain, it means different things to different people.
“You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.” Amy Lammot
If my ex-wife calls me a jerk, she earned the right.
If the friend I let down thinks poorly of me for failing to step in when I could have, that’s his story to share.
If I tell violent stories about my dad, they’re just as true as humorous stories about him.
If you had a toxic boss who drove you to near insanity, he or she can’t fault you for expressing it.
Every time I share this quote, someone discovers it for the first time. It’s liberating. But it also can be terrifying for people who’ve lived outside the bounds of kindness.
The Golden Rule perfectly encapsulates what we should strive for. Yet, people are surprised when we sometimes appropriately repay unkindness with healthy criticism.
Years ago, I doggedly started down the path of biographical discovery. Some of my family hated the idea. Although I suspected I knew why, years of intermittent discovery and revelation allowed me to piece together facts. Not innuendo or conjecture, nor the vague yet prideful assertions of some of my family.
It is true that behind reluctance, there is always truth. As an adult, I understand it. Who wants their dirty laundry floating around? On the other hand, open discussion of it with one’s children can be a learning experience – not to mention that acknowledging mistakes can be liberating.
I probably should have taken more care with this post. Finding another piece of the puzzle yesterday fascinated me, as the dots connected effortlessly.
Using both DNA and slipshod yet determined obstinacy, I peeled back layers. Not to malign or accuse people, especially if they were already gone. They could have just told me, or answered my questions, giving me a complex and informed view of the people who came before me. They largely chose misdirection and sometimes passive-aggressive hostility.
“Your family has a lot of damn secrets, X,” is something I’ve often heard. But what family doesn’t? A word of advice to those who choose secrecy? Be careful. There’s an idiot out there determined to find out. Curiosity has driven many people to morph from interested to detective.
One of my earliest memories is of standing in the back seat of a black or dark sedan. We were driving on a sun-filled day, heading to the water. My dad was driving. In the passenger seat was someone who should not have been. Years ago, my mom insisted that I couldn’t have remembered it. Then, she insisted it never happened. “Which is it? It didn’t happen or I couldn’t have remembered it.” Stunned recognition on her part that logically, she wasn’t making sense.
Over the years, I figured out we were driving to Clarendon to go to the water. As for the woman in the passenger seat, I’ll call her Susan. I grew up calling her Aunt Susan, even though she wasn’t my aunt. Aunt Susan was married to my mom’s half-sister’s sons.
son
In March of 1970, my dad was involved in a drunk-driving accident that killed Aunt Susan’s husband. Dad escaped accountability through what can only be described as “good old boy” connections.
He’d already been to prison in Indiana in the 60s. He swore he’d never leave Monroe County again. He moved to Indiana out of necessity after being a little wild for Monroe County. (Which is saying a lot.) He had cousins there, none of whom I grew up to know. That story was another one that required doggedness on my part to get to the bottom of. Just a few months ago, I finally got a little bit of my dad’s prison records. A couple of years before that, I went through thousands of pages of online news articles until I found news articles related to his crimes. The only reason I did it was because another member of my dad’s family indirectly acknowledged to me that they existed. That’s all it took to set me in motion. If she wouldn’t give them to me, I’d find them.
After Aunt Susan became a widow because of my dad, they started seeing each other. It was during that period that I had the memory of driving down a sunny road with them both. It would have taken place between late March of 1970 and before October of the following year.
I don’t know how it came up, but I had questions. Aunt Marylou knew everything. Whether she would repeat it or not was the question. After I started doing ancestry, I had a list of nine thousand questions. She answered many of them, including ones about Grandpa and Mom’s potential half-sister, who came about because of one of my Grandpa’s indiscretions.
One of my questions was about my memory of the summer day in the car with dad and Aunt Susan. “Oh, that was after your mom filed for divorce from your dad.” I was shocked. They obviously had not been divorced, at least not yet. She then went on to hit the high points of a little bit of the less-savory family lore that I was chasing.
Mom was livid. “None of that is true. None of it. It didn’t happen.”
I added the search for proof to my list years ago.
Later, a lot of it made sense. Mom invariably couldn’t resist ranting about past grievances. I do remember Mom drunkenly ranting about Aunt Susan. For reasons I didn’t understand, she didn’t want me to go to my Grandpa’s funeral. Some of that had to do with Aunt Susan. I’ll never know why now.
My brother Mike remembered much more of it than I did. He even recalled the night that Aunt Susan’s husband died as a result of the DWI incident with dad. His memory gave me the time frame we lived in the house right off of AR-39, something which had eluded me for years. That’s the same house we lived in when I almost killed myself pulling the trigger on one of dad’s hunting rifles. He’d left it on the bed unattended. (I’ve written about that incident before.) As a convicted felon, he wasn’t supposed to own guns, which is, of course, why he had dozens of them. Those laws were ignored back then, and especially in rural Arkansas.
My brother Mike also confirmed that my memories about living briefly in Wheatley were true. Of the scant memories I had of it, I remember having a picture of Jiminy Cricket on the bedroom wall, and of being deathly sick on Christmas when I was extremely young. That memory places us in Wheatley in December 1969. I would have been 2 and 3/4 years old. I FEEL like I have a bag of memories locked away. I can feel them floating around in my head.
Somewhere in the above time frame, we lived in another house in Brinkley. Mom went to bingo with her friend. Upon our return, the house had caught fire, allegedly due to an oven. I have strange, detached memories of that place too.
Mom lived in multiple houses that caught fire. My brother and I once calculated that we could remember living in at least a couple of dozen places by the time we graduated.
Off and on, I’ve been meticulously searching records online, often one dense page at a time, even in unindexed records.
It wasn’t until Saturday morning that I found the proof. Just one more click, and there it was. Proof that Mom had found out about another one of dad’s affairs, this time with one of the last people she could have expected. She filed for divorce in May and then dismissed it in October of the following year. I note with irony that the “number of children affected” is left blank.
Whether I should or not, I have to connect the dots. I now know the specific time frame that I lived with my grandma and grandpa. When I fell out of bed made of two chairs and stopped breathing. When some of my earliest and best memories were made. It took me years to learn that it was normal for people who felt traumatized to lose swaths of their memory. People sometimes mistake my dogged intensity for research as good memory. That’s totally inaccurate. Even with the memories I’m sure of, I tread cautiously.
I remember shortly after mom and dad got back together. Even though it’s largely irrelevant, we lived somewhere along Main near Spruce Street. I remember coming inside to see dad on the couch with his gallon jug of water. I remember him being grouchy from a hard day’s work. Of being scared to death of him. I did not understand that partial memory until this morning. I had been forced back into the house after being with Grandma and Grandpa, during which Mom reluctantly described it as a separation. She never admitted to me or anyone in front of me that she had filed for divorce. I’ve lost all memory of the massive, violent fights they had before and after.
The other big wow of all this is that my secret sister was born in May of 1972. Subtracting nine months from that means that the document I discovered also indicates that dad had another affair shortly before mom dropped the divorce. So when I had to go home to a place on Main Street in Brinkley, dad was having another child, whether he knew it or not.
As for dad, Aunt Susan wasn’t the last affair he had with someone he shouldn’t have. When we got burned out of City View in Springdale, we went to live with the widow of one dad’s cousins. He had an affair with her, too.
Shortly after my secret sister’s birth, we packed up and moved to Northwest Arkansas. I didn’t find out about ‘why’ we moved until the day I met my secret sister, almost five decades later.
We moved back to Brinkley for about a year while I attended 3rd grade. I don’t know why dad felt like his secret was safe regarding his daughter we didn’t know about. Dad operated a gas station across from the Lutheran church in Rich, off Highway 49. He tried making a go of it again in 1993, up until his death. He remarried mom exactly 29 years after he married her the first time. I constantly think about the year we lived in Brinkley, and about the fact that I had another sister just out of reach. Or about how differently our lives would have been had mom proceeded with the divorce.
The more I learn, the more I know how many secrets the Terry side of the family kept. It seems impossible that mom didn’t know more of them, but as my sister agreed, when mom was angry, she couldn’t resist screaming about whatever she could. None of us remember her ever mentioning our secret sister.
As for this original divorce filing, mom never admitted it.
I drove to Springdale and parked my car. I wanted to say something new. Instead, the phone started immediately. A young man walked on 71, talking way too loudly into his phone. I didn’t have to eavesdrop. Whoever he was, the last place he needed to be was out in public. And whoever was on the other end of the phone probably needs to be careful of being around him.
When I took the first picture of the Springdale administration building, for the first time in years I remembered going to vacation Bible School in the building. Somewhere around 47 years ago. That’s a sobering thought.
Passing what used to be Mathias plaza, I recalled the earliest memory I had of it. When I went with my friend Mike to the opening celebration decades ago, when a boot shop could make a fortune in a small town dedicated to rodeo and simple living. I don’t remember a lot of specifics other than scamming too much free candy.
Walking past the old AQ spot, seeing a monstrous car wash in its place. Decades of nostalgia washed away by modernity. Despite what many claim, AQ was never about the food. It was one of the few agreed upon destination restaurants, one I only got to visit when family made their rear visits to this isolated corner of Arkansas, before the interstate snaked its way through to us. Like its competitors Hush Puppy,art Maedtri’s, and others, it remains only in old shoeboxes of pictures. And though it seems you can bring back the name, you can’t bring back the amber-hued nostalgia of it.
Seeing the Harps plaza caught me off guard. It’s another place totally transformed. I stood and looked at the bright modern lights shining against the dark of the early morning.
Chills ran up my spine as I entered the North entrance of Buff cemetery. It is one of the dark places of Springdale. Everything is shadows. Most people wouldn’t want to walk such a huge cemetery in the middle of the night. I visited some of the names that matter: Jimmy, Ardith, Donnie, Julia, Bill. The bright red light in the background confused me. Of course I made my way around to see its origin. It’s part of someone’s memorial for their loved one. A decoration that no one other than me would see, wondering in the middle of the dark. Neither of the pictures I’ll include accurately capture how dark it is, nor how prominently the small little light projects across the curve of the hill holding all the graves.
Bluff cemetery is stunning in the hours of the vampire. Tall, old trees, filled with chirping insects, none of which are bothered by light. It’s been years since I’ve been here in the dark. I don’t know how I let myself forget how peaceful it is. A literal 360 of the night sky, one unaware of everything around it. I didn’t get spooked even once, not that I expected to. I’m not worried about the supernatural; pretty much everything we have to fear walks on two legs. And the most dangerous creature of all is a man convinced of his good intentions.
Maybe I’m not supposed to be walking around at that hour. The front entrance is closed. But if anybody would fault me for wanting to enjoy the place and visit markers of the people I once knew, I would ask them to visit the place in the dark, experience the cool breeze, and be surrounded by the insects and the huge sky above. These places call upon us to reflect in the daylight. In the dark, you don’t have to wonder where you will end up. All the joy and drama that was so important yesterday vanishes.
I did not realize I walked two miles in big criss-crossing loops in the cemetery until I exited.
I didn’t consciously turn the direction that I hadn’t planned. I hit the intersection of Sanders and Lowell before I even realized I went east. I wonder how many people even remember a corner store once stood across from the intersection of Mill and Lowell street? That’s another memory I had forgotten until now.
The moon shadows beautifully illuminated the old houses through there. The kind of houses that once defined Springdale. Sure, there were rich people, and we all knew where they prefered to live. The rest of us lived in houses like these. With porches, wood siding that probably never got painted often enough, accompanied by the sound of the trains that always passed through. Most people had a vehicle for hauling. The kind where you could put down the tailgate and have both kids and dogs jump into without a second thought.
It’s safer now. I think back to the times I huddled in the back of a pickup with my brother and sister. More than once we drove all the way to Brinkley, across the mountains and down the interstate long before it connected us to the rest of the world. I could tell you a dozen stories about some of those trips. Statistically speaking, in a multiverse of possible outcomes, I probably didn’t survive in any of the parallel universes. That last thought is the kind of foolishness my Grandma would have scowled at.
Then I came upon Randall Wobble, One of the most misspelled roads possible. The Fitzgerald cemetery sits awkwardly on the corner. Most people do not know the history of it, nor of some of the interesting people buried there. It’s been passed millions of time, just a blip on the periphery of people’s attention. Nor do they know how historically significant the nearby area is, cut by one of the oldest roads in the United States. Old Wire and Butterfield Stagecoach contain massive amounts of history that shouldn’t be forgotten. We may now have the interstate, but Springdale has the original artery of the nation, at least in this direction.
I walked the length of the now desolate Cargill property. I worked there for years, from the kill side to HR. I met housands of people there, including my wife who died. It was a place that needed almost everybody if they needed a job. You rolled the dice if you applied. It was the place that made Spanish a song in my heart. It’s hard to believe that when I applied there, the plant was only about 25 years old. 35 years elapsed since then, until its closure. It is a harsh reminder that nothing is permanent and that plans are what we create in an attempt to control the future.
If you want to know what Springdale might have become absent the interstate and forward-looking people, take a walk in the dark along Jefferson and keep going until you hit modern Huntsville Avenue. I’m not maligning the area. Without infrastructure and jobs, places like Springdale would have stagnated. Prosperity brings scissors, though. Old places have to get replaced, often taking some of the things the original residents cherish. Frankly, one stretch of the streak reminds me of a James Cameron movie. It’s hard to explain unless you were there with me. Trucks loading and unloading, lights, machinery buzzing and clanging.
The Berry Street and Emma intersection was wonderfully redone. It’s been a couple of weeks since I took a long early morning walk through downtown Springdale. The progress on the building on the old Layman’s property Is is amazing.
I put the “detour ahead” picture in because It’s a warning to remember that none of these beautification projects will work long term if there aren’t enough jobs or an economy that supports working-class families. This isn’t a political statement. It’s an economic reality that a lot of places have forgotten. The consequences squeeze regular people out of the place they never wanted to leave.
Emma is as beautiful as the last time. I look at all the new steel and glass places with appreciation. But my eyes seek out the familiar. Spring Street visually hollered at me as I passed, as did the neon horse guarding the old bank building.
I hope no one minds that I reiterate an old observation of mine: Springdale definitely has beauty, a nice mix of demographics, and plenty of things to do. But the logo that the Chamber of Commerce picked still makes me feel like that the Borg have invaded, leaving this logo behind as a warning.
As I neared at the end of my walk, a vehicle stopped at one of the four-way stops along Emma. You know the ones I’m talking about. You would have thought Springdale installed tire spikes, given the amount of complaining when the signs were first installed. The man inside shouted, “Hey, X!” I shouted back, “Hey, how are you doing?” It was dark, so all I saw was the silhouette of his face as he leaned slightly out the window. I have no idea who it was!
But it’s the perfect metaphor threading through the mass of words I’ve shared. Springdale is still a place where we can be neighborly, even in the dark on a deserted Saturday morning.
I hated for the walk to end. My legs were protesting and wobbling. A reminder that we’re supposed to do all things in moderation, whatever the hell that is.
Somewhere right now, there’s a man shaking his head, wondering what the heck just happened. It’s that thought that makes this prank such a good one.
A couple of days ago I posted about remembering my mission to prank. Earlier today I wrote about a hybrid incident of anger and laughter.
Coincidentally, this one happened less than thirty feet away from the last one. Or is it fewer? Who cares.
I had a book under the front seat of my car since two days ago. I didn’t know when the opportunity would present itself for me to pull a fun prank on someone. By the way, the book was a good one, given to me by a friend.
There were two people standing at the Razorback bus stop on Appleby. I retrieved the book from under the seat, got out of the car, and looped around across the street. Luckily, both the man and the woman were still waiting when I appeared on the opposite side of the street. I pretended to be lost in thought, when in fact I was using my peripheral vision to determine when there might be no traffic coming at either direction.
With my book in hand, I waved enthusiastically across to the two people.
“Hey John,” I shouted. The man looked up at me as I darted across the street with the book held up. It’s important that you know that I don’t know this man and unless I accidentally guessed correctly, his name is definitely not John.
I lowered the book as I drew close to him, still trotting.
“Janice told me I would find you here. She wanted me to give you this book, the one you wanted to read.”
The man looked at me in surprise but he did hold his hand out instinctively when I tried to hand him the book. He took it from my hand.
Without looking at him again, I took off running through the bushes and then through the parking lot and out of sight.
I wish I could have witnessed how he reacted and what he told the woman he was with. Assuming she asked. They weren’t ‘together.’ They were just standing at the same bus stop.
He is no doubt wondering who John is, and maybe why Janice somehow knew that John would be at the bus stop. I hope he appreciates the fact that I added a little surprise and confused magic to his otherwise boring wait at the bus stop.
If he reads the book, it is a quick read and quite enjoyable. There’s my book review, if you needed an excuse to read this post.
After work, I was standing two feet away from the trail spur. An older white guy on a bicycle started screaming. “On your f left!”
Actual screaming.
I waved and smiled out of habit.
It’s important that you realize I wasn’t on that side of the trail spur. I was standing on the outside. Which means I was on his right, in case you’re related to this guy and are accustomed to hearing upside-down world stupidity.
He stopped his bicycle. “Didn’t you hear me? Get the f*** out of the way!” He was a lot closer to me than he intended. I could have pushed him and toppled him over like a bad glass of chardonnay. leaving him entangled in his expensive bike.
I looked down at my feet, seeing that they were clearly in the grass and two feet away from the pavement.
Fire blossomed in my brain. “What the f*** are you cursing at me for? I’m not in your way or even on the trail spur.”
“When I tell you to move, get your ass out of my way.” He was angry. Like someone had stolen the bra he kept hidden under his bed.
“Sir, I suggest you depart with as much haste as you can muster. Because if you come closer to me or scream again, I’m going to tie your legs around your bicycle like a pretzel.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“No. I’m offering you the opportunity to become involuntarily limber. Now piss off.”
He called me a particularly interesting name as he started pedaling away. Because the crosswalk is 13 ft from the turn, the bicyclist did not have the right of way across the very busy road where people fly constantly.
He was so angry that he started across without looking in either direction. He was too busy screaming at me with his head turned.
Time slowed to molasses. The car coming down the hill screeched to a halt. If you guessed that the man spent several seconds shaking his fist at the driver and cursing her, you would be right.
As the guy on the bike pedaled the rest of the way across the street, the driver hit the horn and held it. The bicyclist jerked in surprise and once again stopped and recited a long list of curse words at the driver.
When he looked across to see that I was laughing, I expected literal fire to burst out of his head.
The weirdest noise filled my apartment. Even my cat lifted his head from atop his high perch on the sun-filled cat castle. I looked everywhere for the source – except for the very last place, where I found it. One set of my wireless headphones was beeping strangely. Assuming I was being pranked somehow or receiving an alien transmission, I let it beep.
Picking up my phone, I realized I had an odd notification icon at the top of my screen. It was one of the native Samsung apps, blaring that I had an important reminder. Opening, I saw that it was from a year ago.
“TIME TO PRANK! REMEMBER YOUR MISSION!”
I don’t remember the day, but obviously the September afternoon must have sparked a reminder that I needed to get back to basic craziness.
Let’s just say I cut through a place I wasn’t supposed to be. The light rain and cool breeze felt amazing as I crept through the early morning. I had to keep reminding myself that it’s still summer. Goosebumps popped up along my arms several times. Mostly it was from the breeze and the light rain. A couple of times it was from the swirling shadows and silhouettes. I had to also remind myself that as far as I knew, I was alone in the dark, and unaccompanied in my exploration. It felt like a late October night night.
The most beautiful moment happened when I took a street that I don’t normally traverse. The breeze blasted me, bringing the sound of insects and harmonious wind chimes. For some reason, I had to see the origin of the wind chimes. I was certain whoever owned them would have an oasis in the middle of and often overlooked apartment row. I was right. From the street, I could see that plants filled the stairs leading up. I could also see colored lights glowing from inside.
As I precariously climbed in darkness. I took a literal leap of faith that I was as close to the ground as I was supposed to be. Walking back around required at least a couple of miles. I didn’t mind the extra miles, of course. I just wanted to see something different.
When I came through the brush onto the trail, flashing lights filled the air. I held my phone up so that whoever I was approaching would know someone was coming out of the dark.
Someone had the misfortune of being pulled over at the very end of the street where it abutts the wildness. As soon as I got past them, I saw a pair of eyes looking at me from inside the brush of Narnia. I changed the setting to video. I did not capture whatever little creature was watching me. But I did get a kaleidoscope, courtesy of the police.
I scribbled in chalk my prediction for today’s game in a dozen places.
I got back to the apartment a little wet and a little chilly. I wish that some days I didn’t have to sleep at all so that I could explore the imaginary world of the darkness.
P.S. Parenthetically Speaking 