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My Journey of States-18 Arkansas

8/15/2018

 
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A WRITER'S WIT
“The Arkansas River is ‘the saddest little river / That you ever saw,’ sings Stellrita, the black domestic who dominates the lives of three generations of the family of Zero MacNoo, McGehee’s fictional counterpart in Boys Like Us and Sweetheart. ‘Nobody writes books about it, / Nobody here’s got nothin’ to say. / ’Tain’t ’cause it ain’t worth mentionin’, / It’s just nobody smart stays.’”

Peter Gregory McGehee
Born October 6, 1955 in Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Died September 13, 1991 in Toronto, Ontario

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P. McGehee
MY JOURNEY OF STATES is a series in which I relate my sixty-year quest to visit all fifty states in the U.S. In each post I tell of my relationship to that state, whether brief or long, highlighting personal events. I include the year of each state's entry into the union and related celebrations. I hope you enjoy my journey as much as I have. This is the eighteenth post of fifty.

Arkansas (1967-68, 2009, 2010, 2012)

PictureArkansas River
​Why do natives of Arkansas pronounce the state the way they do but call themselves AR-kanzuns, and not Arkansawyers? (I think we know why.) Why is the river whose headwaters begin in Colorado and pass through the state of Kansas called the AR-Kanzus River, but when it reaches Arkansas it becomes, well, you know? One state’s denizens feel superior to the other’s because each group feels it is so right. I know, because I’ve lived among both camps. Several people on my block in Wichita had relatives in Arkansas, and a couple of others moved to Northwest Arkansas to retire.
 
My first trip to Arkansas came in the late sixties when, once again, my college choir’s annual tour ran through that state. We sang at a civic auditorium in Rogers to a fairly large crowd. We stayed with a host family I cannot now remember anything about.

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​My second encounter with Arkansas came over forty years later when I obtained a two-month residency at the Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow, located in the northwest quadrant of the state. It was the first time since college since I’d lived alone. Ken flew up for a week to stay in the area. I would write in the mornings in my one-bedroom suite at the colony (where guests were not allowed to stay) and then we would meet up at his motel in the afternoon to sight see. Over thirty inches of rain fell during that two-month period; it must have rained at least fifty percent of the time, including much of Ken’s visit, so we didn’t get to see much. He’d attended the University of Arkansas for his MFA, so he was well acquainted with the area, but it had changed a great deal. Northwest Arkansas now boasts over 525,000 residents, larger than some self-contained cities—and its character seems largely suburban sprawl.

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​We returned in 2010 and 2012 to visit a friend who had once lived in Lubbock. At that time we went to visit the Crystal Bridges Museum. It was in May before the weather became hot and humid, and weather was beautiful.
 
Arkansas bears the distinction of being the nation’s twenty-fifth state, who celebrated its centennial in 1936. 347

If you missed earlier My Journey of States posts, please click on a link:
1-Kansas                13. New Jersey
2-Oklahoma        14. Delaware 
3-Texas                   15. New York
​4-Louisiana         16. Connecticut
5-Missouri           17. Colorado
6-Illinois
7-Indiana
8-Ohio
9-Pennsylvania
10-West VA
11-Maryland
12. Virginia
NEXT TIME: My Book World
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    Richard Jespers is a writer living in Lubbock, Texas, USA.

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