Yesterday

A few days ago my kids and I made a trip to Benton, Arkansas to take my mom to visit her sister. The whole trip was for my mom. She got to spend time with her ailing sister while the kids and I plundered around Little Rock for a while. We visited the Clinton Library gift shop. It was cheaper than visiting the library itself. We drove by the library. Impressive in a strange sort of way. We drove around downtown Little Rock but I wasn’t impressed about that at all.

Later on we ate at Cracker Barrel (I had Chicken ‘n Dumplings, turnip greens and pinto’s. Yum!). Then we headed for the motel and tried to rest on the cement blocks Motel 6 uses for beds. Next day we picked mom up, said goodbye to my aunt, and drove down through Murfreesboro. This part of the trip was my idea.

My mom and dad grew up in Murfreesboro. When I was a kid we’d burn the roads up driving there weekend after weekend. I spent time with aunts and uncles and my grandma (my dad’s mother) in the summer. Those were the days.

Life was so much simpler then. The only bad memories of those times were the fussy nature of my grandma when I stayed for a week once and the day I jumped into a puddle of chicken poop with both feet. I was trying to get past it. I fell short! That was NOT a good day. I was around my son’s age then (he’s 8). I remember bawling like a baby while my big brother lifted me from the puddle and washed my shoes off in some water running through a nearby ditch. I refused to ever wear those brand-new tennis shoes ever again!

On this trip we made the rounds again. We went to the cemeteries where my grandparents, three of which I never knew, are buried. We drove by the “old place” where my mom grew up, just a stone’s throw from the chicken house where I made my leap into (instead of over) the chicken poop. We drove out to Narrows Dam and Lake Greason where my uncle worked for decades and where my family and I spent many a day fishing and swimming. We drove down the main drag to the square. It hasn’t changed much.

The old general store still has the same name on front and looks exactly like it did when I was a kid. The courthouse looks the same although its insides have been rebuilt. A cousin of mine works there as the county clerk. Said a “howdy” to her, first time to see her in decades. We didn’t have time to go to the Diamond Mine or the Caddo Village Burial Mound, quasi-famous local attractions I remember visiting as a kid.

The Dairy Dip is gone now. No more ice-cream cones for Grandma. The old store across the street from the old Murfreesboro Drugs is boarded up as is the old drug store. No more Pink Thing Popsicles.

We ate at a Mexican restaurant in a former Dairy Queen at The Curve where “The Curve” grocery, ice house and restaurant used to sit. Some things have changed. My kids bought bubble gum at Hawkins very similar to what I used to buy there. Except they gave thirty cents for a couple pieces that would have cost me two cents.

It was nice to drive past the old places and remember good times. The saddest stop was in front of my uncle’s house, sitting empty and almost haunting, across from the lot where my grandma’s house once stood. Uncle Jim and Aunt Noby are gone now, for several years, but the house sits as it did the last time I saw it over ten years ago, as it has since I was a boy. The camper trailer they used to leave at the lake for weeks to stay in while they were fishing is still siting in the shed built for it out back. Sad.

I rarely visit Arkansas and will probably never go back to Murfreesboro. I won’t because although the memories are a nice if melancholy experience the place and the people are so foreign to my way of life and thinking that I am closer to Martians than I am all those relatives up there. And I must confess that I don’t really like them very much.

One cousin (on my dad’s side) came to watch my dad die but didn’t stay for the funeral. Another cousin on my mom’s side took a pee in my yard and made fun of my home-built cabin when he came for dad’s funeral. Every relative I’ve ever known up there uses the “N” word to refer to African Americans even as they exemplify the most absurd of religious fundamentalist attitudes. I don’t know how they think and I don’t want to know. They represent exactly what the Buddha meant by ignorance and self-delusion.

I was innocent back then. I’m not now. I cannot any longer tolerate anyone who views another human being as inferior for any reason, especially because of skin color or national origin. I never noticed the prolific use of the “N” word and even used it myself then. Now I cringe with each mention of the word. My eyes are wide open. Theirs are squeezed shut.

I say a prayer of thanks that my dad moved the family far away from there before I was born. This town in which I live isn’t much better, though. I thank God that I have learned how to look beyond the ugly nature of selfish people and discover the truth of selflessness and kindness and the joy of freedom. I’m happy with the understanding of what Jesus really said.

It is distressing to me that so many people live an die in such a closed-minded way. It’s even sadder that they are beyond reach, living in their cloistered hillbilly world, completely enclosed and totally unwilling to consider or even listen to ideas foreign to their own. No doubt if they heard me use Jesus and Buddha in the same sentence, as I often do, they would think I am crazy.

But then there are times that although I shudder to think I could have been one of them I still envy their simple lives and the small world where they feel very safe. Whether they are a bit rebellious or strictly religious the old hymns of my youth define them: “Shall We Gather at the River,” “Jesus Saves,” “Amazing Grace,” “In the Sweet By and By.” Simple, beautiful, misleading, but still a solid foundation for them. It is I, not they, who looks to the heavens and ask questions. I would like to crack their heads open (metaphorically, of course) and pour in some common sense but they merely glance at me, maybe recognize an old relative (or not), quickly dismiss me as one of those strange people from the outside world, and give me not another thought.

No, I do not want to live in their simple world. I like complicated. So I drive down the old street one last time, remembering a simpler yesterday. I remember my dad, a man who lived in their world, not mine. I visit my brother who has one foot in each world and struggles with both. How strange, this thing we call life. How strange the universe.

Murfreesboro is an anachronism. It’s living history. It’s a foreign land I shall not ever visit again. It’s my past but not my future. “What dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil,” Hamlet muttered, “must give us pause.” Indeed. For all my enlightened knowledge and understanding it’s most likely that they, those strange beings from my past, will have the last laugh. It is likely they and I will meet again as we all cue up to enter that distant land they sing about and I make the object of speculation.

They will probably be as surprised as I will to see them. Could be. I hope so. It’d be nice to finally breech the wall of culture that has separated us and prevents us from knowing each other and discovering the beauty of kinship we can’t seem to find over here. Dad’s there with them now. Maybe on that day I can return to my youth and go with Dad and Uncle Jim over to that river they sing about and reminisce about the days we all cared more about fishin’ than we did about the way of the world.

Well, probably not but it sure is a nice idea.