Post by artraveler on Jan 23, 2020 10:20:56 GMT -8
Nostalgia Tour
As I age, in the same town that I grew up. I walk or drive the streets and the changes are dramatic; yet to my veiled eye I see the streets, as they were in the 60s, shadowy as through fogged glass. If I concentrate, I can block in old places where I used to hang out. Some are long gone; others have been remodeled in keeping with the new and improved. Yet, I can still encounter them in my mind, I can smell the smells of youth, and taste the joys of liberty. I can still hear the voices of friends who have long passed. I still remain, silent guardian of a Southern youth that cannot ever be repeated. Growing up in the South in the 60s was a special privilege; without it I could never be the man I would become, the good and the bad. Dylan Thomas, wrote, “Do not go gentle into that good night, old age should rage with the coming of the night”.When my father moved back to Arkansas in 1960, we looked to settle in Scott county, Mena AR. That did not work out and we moved up the state to Fayetteville. At that time Fayetteville had a population of about 12,000 and the University of Arkansas was a sleepy college of about 5,000. It still had the small-town atmosphere. We had a functioning town square. Local businesses and national chains. The county courthouse was just down the street on College Ave. When I got my first driver license it was in the basement of the courthouse. It did not have my picture on it. Was just paper that could be renewed by mail with a fee of $2.00.
I went to Junior high school at the old Fayetteville High. The building was built in the early 1920s. It was a three-story building with a basement made from native rock and local bricks. I walked to school with friends and the school had a shooting club. About once a month, sometimes more often, we walked up College, turned on Center St. and walked past the center of Fayetteville carrying our long guns, past the courthouse, the post office, several banks and up the steps of Hillcrest Jr. High. The Principal was M. O. Ramey, we called him Mo, often met us in the lobby. He would ask if our weapons were unloaded as we placed them in our lockers. Guns and ammo remained in our lockers until after school and then we would travel out to the shooting range with one of the coaches, who had been an Army Ranger in WWII.
I got my first driver license and expanded my horizons to Dickson Street. In the 60s Dickson was the center of university social life. There were several restaurants that caught attention. The De-Lux Café had the most mouth-watering lasagna and the Corner had the best burgers. Further down Dickson was the news office. I had a friend who delivered the local paper, Northwest Arkansas Times when it was still a local newspaper, now long gone, bought out by the Arkansas Democrat.
Further down the street was Rogers Recreation, a misnomer as there was little recreation. It was a bar and pool hall. We were not allowed to buy beer, but the pool tables were open to all, 25 cents a game, side betting was ignored. Heading West on. Dickson was the old train terminal and the icehouse. The last passenger train passed through about 1965. The icehouse burned down in the 70s.
Just up the street was Uark Bowl. The Uark was one of the last bowling centers in the state with pin boys setting pins for bowlers. That changed to mechanical pin setters in 1962 and working as a pin boy was my first job aside from working with my father. We got 75 cents an hour and a discount on open bowling at 10 cents per line. I bowled in two leagues there and one at another house on North College, Ozark Bowl. Just inside the door was a shoeshine stand owned and operated by a Black man who went by the moniker Whisper. He did a great shoeshine and was the touch point for the local numbers racket. In 1966 I joined a traveling league and traveled all over the state from West Memphis to El Dorado. It was great fun.
Across the street was the Uark theater where many first run movies were shown. Both the Uark Bowl and the Uark theater are long gone. The buildings are still there but bowl has been turned into a wedding center and the theater has been turned into a soft goods store. About 50 yards up the street was the first of the fraternities, Kappa Sigma.
My father did work for the fraternities and sororities in the summer. It was good work and paid well. He referred to it as battle damage repair. In the frats it was simple repairs, replace a broken door, or window, repair a hole in the wall, about fist sized. However, the sororities were a different matter. One of the worst was Kappa Kappa Gama. The dining room had two swinging doors going into the kitchen. The doors were metal and hung in a metal frame. For reasons passing understanding, these girls had managed to pull the doors off their hinges and out of the frame. Upstairs in the sleeping area someone had used a dirty sanitary napkin to write on the wall of the restroom, “this is where Napoleon tore his bone a part”. Are women more gross than men? You decide.
Today in Wal-Mart I was thanked for service in Vietnam. I truly, appreciate the gesture, but it bothers me that the same people who thank me have not served themselves. There is a huge gap between the culture we defend, and the citizens. It has always been a rather small number, about 1/10 of 1% of the total population. Yet, it seems that families like mine are the exception. My mother and father, my father’s brothers and my mother’s father and her brothers, my grandsons, granddaughter and I all have stood guard on the wall; we sacrifice for freedom and to keep evil from our families. We stand a little apart from the culture we defend, loving it yet never truly a part of it. The scandals of President, Obama, and his predecessors along with the disgraceful behavior of Congress have left the American people openly distrustful of government both federal and state. The only institution that has maintained respect among the general population is the military.
I recall the decade of the 70’s; Nixon had been forced to resign, there were riots in the major cities, and all of the cultural institutions were in disrepute including the military. In many places’ servicemen were told not to wear their uniforms off post. All of our institutions were failing, and the country was in a funk.
It has been a good life, and absent major health problems I should have 10, perhaps 15 more years. I have watched the sun rise over the South china sea from China Beach. And watched the sunset over the Med. from the beach at Tel Aviv. I have listened to the snow fall in the remote mountains of Utah and even surfed the beach in Hawaii buck naked. I have stood in line at Katz Deli and savored the taste of pastrami that has been cooking since 1930. Have I seen it all? No, if aliens landed tomorrow and invited me to travel to another planet, I would go, not without some regrets but I would go.
Today, local and national government is a disgrace; yet the military is held in high regard. I don’t know if that is a good thing or not. It could be that, as the only national institution with a moral and ethical high ground people in and out of the service will look to the generals to solve the malaise. Is a military takeover possible? In a world where carpenters are resurrected anything is possible.