A Trip Back Home

We decided, my wife and I, to take a “spur of the moment” trip to my hometown of Pine Bluff, Arkansas today so I could mow some pasture land my brother owns, a part of the old home place. He’s not enjoying good health at present and isn’t even able to put diesel in his tractor. I took him some, fueled the tractor, and mowed the field while he and Brenda sat in the shade and talked. I can only hope that it wasn’t all about me.

I wasn’t bored. A portion of the field I was mowing once boasted the best homemade baseball backstop ever built by boys under the age of fourteen. It comprised sweet gum saplings sunk in the ground and backed by burlap feed sacks stitched together. Since the lads were better builders than batters, it held up to a lot of hard use. Each time I passed the spot, I could hear the sound of a ball pounding into burlap, oh, and, on rare occasion, the crack of a bat.

I mowed alongside an old stock pond that probably saw more youthful recreation per square foot than any patch of ground in America. It was partly filled with debris now. But the sight of a young boy sitting with his grandmother and begging to “pish” just a little more still shines through the dim past.

Across the field, I mowed along a dirt road that lead no place geographically but to amazing places in the minds of young boys: cowboy hideouts, Indian camps, unseen spots for smoking pilfered cigarettes, and a gathering spot for bemoaning the vicissitudes of childhood and the unfathomable allure of girls for older boys.

The family home and grocery disappeared long ago. To a person growing up there, though, key markings remain. There’s my dad’s favorite tree, still bearing the signs of white paint left from a trick my brother played on our nephew. There’s the road to nowhere, originally named “King’s Road,” after an African-American man who lived toward the end of it. That name didn’t suit the 9-11 addressing crew, so it’s now named after my family, over the strenuous protests of Sainted Mother at the time.

She was a stickler for tradition and truth. I still recall her “aghastness” when a group of yuppies moved onto a road near where she grew up and made the County change the name. To mother, it had always been “Hog-eye Ben Road” and should have remained so.

There’s the house across the highway from our homeplace, standing in the exact shape as it did over 70 years ago. In my brother’s yard, if one looks closely, he can see the remnants of the pipe where our pump house once stood, From there, one can triangulate, using the painted tree, to the location of our chicken yard, barn, wash house, and even the privy.

I finished the mowing and we left, deciding to “drag Main,” and see what was happening. The old town has suffered in modern times. There’s nothing more fun for the residents of “Sundown Towns” than to laugh at the old girl and the troubles she’s seen. I suspect it’s better, though, to live in a town full of problems and people who are willing to work on them, than in a town full of bigoted assholes.

One final joy, the old Community Theater still stands intact. In fact, we enjoyed a conversation with two nice young men doing some repairs to the flooring. When I was a kid, if you were white and had a quarter, you could spend an entire afternoon there. You paid ten cents to get in, ten cents for a box of popcorn, and five cents for a cup of soda. For that, you got a double-feature and four cartoons. You had to be white, though.

Still a handsome city.
My great-grandfather's
Civil War unit once defended
this street from attack
by the Rebs.

Folks are now spending big money in the city for projects that are available to all citizens. They are even beginning work on restoring the old Pines Hotel on Main. There’s lots of new building going on, some near the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff. A once distressed shopping center in our part of town now appears fully occupied. There are glimmers of hope everywhere.

Things change in this world, and they don’t change toward equity. It takes luck and hard work to provide livable and diverse communities. My hometown takes no back seat to any in terms of the latter.

Oh, and my brother was grateful for the help.