So, Arkansas.
On 1 June of this year, I have been in 45 American states. As we rolled across the southern reaches of Indiana on a grand continent-crosser, the call came in: a job, indeed a dream-job, in Arkansas.
Of the 45 states I had been in, Arkansas was not one. Had the call come in only hours earlier, we would have made a beeline for Little Rock, but it was too late--we had to continue on our trip.
So when the movers came two months later and we drove away for the last time from our comfortable home on a dirt road in a bad neighborhood of California, we leapt off into the unknown. I'm an Arizona desert lad, and my wife is a mountain girl from high in the Rockies. I had never lived east of the Continental Divide for more than 3 months at a time, and she had never done so at all. (Come to think on it, I still haven't. Not until early December, at any rate.) The South was terra icognita.
Indeed, I was not convinced that Arkansas existed at all. If it existed, why hadn't I been there? In fact, why hadn't anyone been there? I could hardly find a person who could report having been there since the 1970's, we drove thousands of miles without seeing an Arkansas license plate, and we never could find anyone at all who was actually from there. Arkansas, we soon found, was not on the way to or from anywhere. They charge so much for plane tickets from the West Coast to Little Rock that I can't believe anyone makes the trip. What were they hiding out there?
Well, a lot of green, for a start. And fire ants. (Nasty little creatures. How I hate them.)
There are bad drivers everywhere in this world. Some are worse than others. Arkansans are generally polite and well-mannered on the roads. But Arkansans have a special habit all their own: they are, in my estimation, the world's worst mergers. Between the missus and I we see, several times a week, a car wander into traffic oblivious to the prevailing speed. One memorable incident came on a rainy Sunday shortly after we arrived, when a car pulled onto the freeway from a dead stop on the shoulder. I was boxed in by a barreling 18-wheeler on my left, the road was slick, and I had no anti-lock brakes. We came within a few dozen feet of a lesson in airbag deployment. That's only the worst case in a long list.
Truly, though, it is not their fault. I know from years in visitor service that environment has a way of influencing behavior. Arkansas's roads were designed by drunk illiterates. Their understanding of traffic flow resembles the parakeet's understanding of economics. Arkansas is blessed with more insanely-designed intersections than I have ever seen in so compact an area. They exacerbate the problem by refusing to put signs up--they just paint small white arrows on the pavement. Usually, the arrows are not visible from where you need them, and often they are hidden under backed-up traffic right until the moment you enter the intersection and discover that your lane is turn-only. Successful navigation requires that you memorize whether it is the right or left lane that has been arbitrarily designated the through lane at each entrance to each intersection. Rapid, wild lane changes are a necessary evil.
I'm not in Arkansas right now. I'm in Alabama for training. College football, goes the cliché, is the state religion here. Auburn or Alabama--the locals are supposed to declare for one denomination or the other in their childhood. Arkansas is different; it's a theocracy. You're a Razorback, or you're a heretic.
Now, I never went in for college football. I hated ASU, the soulless diploma mill, even as I went there. Norwich, my graduate school, is more a hockey than a football school, and they don't exactly carry New England Division III hockey outside the region. The passion with which Arkansans devote themselves to Razorbacks fandom is astonishing. If I were to describe the sheer variety, not to mention ubiquity, of merchandise, I think the reader would take it for exaggeration. On game days, the population dresses in red.
But in all, I quite like the place. The humidity, though certainly uncomfortable at its worst, is usually not that oppressive. It is a real delight to have a whole range of shopping options close at hand, rather than the 90-minute drive we had in CA. I quite like having a paved road in front of my house. And there is a whole region of new highways and back roads to explore.
More to come, I'm sure.
Gook luck in your job. Cory was super excited for you when he heard. I too have never actually been to Arkansas. Although I use to have a pin pal who lived or may still live there. So I'm sure it exists. I've just never have a real reason to go. Good Luck.
Posted by: Arizona Girl | 26 October 2009 at 12:11
Ah, a lovingly written post reminiscent of the good-old-days of yore. Thank you, son, so much, for making my day (and Grandma's too, I'm sure).
We hope for more, tho I presume you're only writing because you're away from the fetching missus. For our sakes, she should often banish you to write for the rest of us (a couple hours a week ought to do it).
Posted by: Dad | 28 October 2009 at 12:36