Arkansas

Most people think of Arkansas as some sort of hillbilly sanctuary…they can almost hear the banjos of Deliverance playing.

Some laud (or despise) it as the home of Ceegar Bill Clinton. A few know it as the once biggest hub of cocaine and arms trafficking in the US (Clinton again and his buddy Tyson -from the chicken company again), according to many accounts. But at the end of the day, the general consensus (from people who have never been there) is Arkansas is some kind of redneck and hillbilly-ridden backwater, thankfully out of  the way of the Mainstream.

Well, I rode through Arkansas this fall, and it was definitely not what I expected. I came in from the southeast corner, at Texarkana. After riding across the Texas panhandle, the place looked lush, almost tropical. Riding up through the west end of the state (through the Oachita Mountains) I saw some of the Deep South scenes people expect…but I also rode through some nice country, through quaint villages, an odd mix of rich and poor (not separated like in most places, but mixed freely along the tree-clad roadsides). I met a lot of nice people, no different than you or I (except perhaps for the accent, which can be a little thick in places).

 

The riding was tremendous; sweeper turns, mixes of tunnels through trees and occasional vistas, lots of short elevation gains and losses. The Arkansas Highway Department (or traditional usage) planned the roads well, almost as if they had motorcycles in mind. You could keep up a decent (albeit semi-slow) speed and still have it be fairly fun (due to the rising and falling sweepers, disappearing into the trees and opening on the hilltops).

I was thankful I could ride without a helmet. By skipping Oklahoma, Kansas, and those type Nazi states, I had avoided having to wear a helmet since I left Colorado. That’s why I came so far east, into the Occupied Zone, where life is more uh…regimented. So I rode with the wind (or rain) blowing free through my hair, glad to be in a relatively free state.

I wish I had taken more pictures of the place. The fact was, I was enjoying the ride too much (and hurrying towards a rally in Fayetteville) to stop for many pictures. It was nice and leisurely, though. The mountains are older, more like foothills in the Rockies, but mountains nonetheless. Since I’d seen mostly wide open plains since leaving New Mexico, it was a treat to see the mountain skylines. I’m a mountain boy from the start, born and bred. It was real nice.

Blue ridges and shades of color revealed a succession of hills and valleys, mountains, and dales. Light dappled through trees and refracted rain and mist into a series of hues any painter would love. The graceful paintbrush of Nature had done its work well here. I rode, and I smiled, through rain and sun, coming ever closer to the Blues, Bikes, and BBQ festival, and a meeting with some fellow Misfits, Nomads, Wanderers.

Fayetteville (north of Fort Smith) seems to be a section of modern America set in the northwest corner of the state, amidst the Ozark Mountains. Its proximity to Wal-Mart headquarters has brought in a plethora of Yankees, outsiders, and new ideas and attitudes. As home of the Razorbacks (and the University), it is a center of modernity…and of modern problems.

I liked the town though, and it seemed like every biker in the state (and a few from surrounding states) had come to the rally. Although fall, the weather was nice, and as the front had moved out, sun bathed the proceedings, pleasantly warm but not too warm (which I could easily imagine it being, in summer). The town was a nice mix of modern and traditional, with a lot of cool old brick buildings in the downtown area.

The rally itself was nice. Not a ton different than any other rally, but somehow the people seemed a lot more into it than those I had noticed at Sturgis. The cops (while present, in fairly large numbers) were less intrusive than Sturgis, and seemed more friendly. There was rootin’ and tootin’ going on til all hours; those ole Razorbacks partied with a will, going at it in a style that would do any bike rally proud.

 

A couple odd incidents failed to mar the experience for me:

1. Having been camping by the side of my bike, I entered the rally with a six-inch sheathed Buck 119 hunting knife by my side. After exchanging pleasantries while waiting for the light to change, the cop at the street crossing (from parking lot to main venue) asked me if anyone had spoken to me about the knife at my side. I replied no, but added that I always checked knife up.com to make sure I knew the local laws. The cop replied that yes (with a tone that implied no) the knife was legal….then added if (and I assumed only if) he thought I was using it for its intended purpose. I looked around, for this part of the rally was held on the ground of the University, near its stadium. Hmm, there was no need to be hunting or camping here, so any other purpose of the knife must seem nefarious to a suspicious (or hyper-alert) cop. Either way, the knife’s presence seemed to (lol) make the well-armed cops nervous, and identify me as someone who would bear watching. I asked (hiding my rising incredulity, and suppressing my rising indignation) if he…wanted me to…the cop nodded. He wanted me to take off the knife at my side. I thought for a moment about the J-frame (and the doob) in my pocket, considered well, and said (with a bright, helpful smile)…sure, I’ll walk on back (in the heat) and put it in the pack on my bike. The cop’s demeanor instantly returned to Good Ole Boy. He smiled and said it was nice to see a cooperative and polite biker. I smiled and said aw, shucks. But it sort of rankled a bit, when I thought of it later. Self-preservation be damned, I let that cop (partially) disarm me, despite the protections of the Constitution of the United States. But in the end, that cop (and his buddies watching, who he surely told about it later) knew I was just a Good Ole Boy too, not some devilish, black-hearted rebel with a sack of weed and a jar of hash oil, or a pistol in my pocket without a license. Not some evil bastard from Colorado, a Green and White spreading the poison of cannabis, bound to undermine their society and everything they held dear. I guess it was good for them to see me as a Good Ole Boy, but the price was…what? politeness? a slight knuckling under to authority? (is there any such thing as a slight knuckling under?) Either way, it was an odd experience, and indicative of the growing trend in the US to see carrying weapons of any sort as some sort of threat to society, not as an inherent right guaranteed by our most basic legal document. I didn’t expect it in Arkansas, where people generally seem to use and carry (and accept) weapons as a fact of life, as tools and implements, rather than as evil and dangerous objects.
2. During the rally, the word was passed around (from the rally organizers, I presume) to the vendors that any vendor caught selling rebel flags or anything with the word rebel on it would lose their non-refundable deposit, and be asked to leave (costing them thousands of dollars of lost profit). I’m not sure of the veracity of this (having heard it secondhand), but I do know vendors who normally carried such things no longer had them on display. Well,. of course I bought me a do-rag with the rebel flag as soon as I possibly could. How dare they! Now I am a western man…I don’t get embroiled in the north-south, black-white nonsense. We don’t roll that way in the Cool State. But by golly, the minute someone tried to squash freedom of expression, I had to resist. Hell, if they’d have said the African colors so many racial extremists on the African American ‘side’ wear was illegal, I’d have bought one of them. For the fact remains…the right to free speech depends on the right to free speech for all. Once you start limiting speech, or trying to make certain speech a ‘hate crime’, you tread down a Gestapo-ridden path. I just won’t have it, or support it. I will actively rebel against it. For fuck’s sake, I’d wear both a Dixie flag and a Black Panthers patch, if someone tried to tell me I (or my fellow Americans) couldn’t.
3. One vendor (who is fairly well-known on the ‘circuit’) told me later that a young woman came to interview him at his tent during the rally. He sells an assortment of things, fur stuff, cool buffalo helmets and other Native American headgear, and other various biker things. The woman interviewed him, seeming to take interest and be positive. Yet later, an article by her came out in some newspaper (local Fayetteville or University) describing how this poor, innocent ex-Marine, who treats all people the same, as far as I know) as being a hate-monger and danger to society, a divisive element…an anachronism…just because he sells rebel battle flags (or something along those lines; look it up). Arkansas had recently removed the Stars and Bars from its state flag, I believe, under pressure from extremist groups bent of limiting freedom of expression to keep a segment of the populace from being ‘offended’). It was tricky journalism, at best. The girl didn’t directly ask him about those issues, or get his answer as to why he had the flags, just blindly characterized him as some African-American, equality and liberty-hating rebel scum……So while Arkansas is a pretty dang cool state, and I like the people there (in general), it has its problems, just like the rest of America. I suppose being part of Dixie and the South and the Bible Belt, those problems are amplified. Thank God we don’t have them to that degree in the Cool State. No time for that here…there are only 86,400 seconds per day, and a ton of mountains and plains to explore, a ton of weed to mellow those aggressive or thin-skinned people out. Although I had previously vowed never to go to such divided and potentially oppressive and regimented states, after my experience there, I will look forward to going to another rally there next year. This time, I hope not to be working, but just riding and having fun the entire time.
4. So that’s it, a quick glimpse of Arkansas, through my hurried pen (I am killing time waiting for my brother).
5. BIKER BROTHERS AND SISTERS…RIDE FAST AND TAKE CHANCES. If YOU LIVE WITHIN A FEW STATES OF aRKANSAS, i’D RECOMMEND DOING IT ON THE WAY TO aRKANSAS, TO MEET ME AT THE NEXT bIKES, bLUES, AND bbq RALLY (OR WHATEVER ORDER THOSE bS ARE IN).
9. vERSION tWO…
11. tHE rOAD BURROWS BETWEEN TUNNELS IN THE FOREST, IT ZIPS PAST LIMESTONE LEDGES, INVITING, AND PAST LITTLE DELLS AND HOLLERS, VALLEYS AND NOOKS. iT SLIDES PAST A VARIETY OF HOUSES…ABODES IN VARIOUS STATES OF REPAIR FACE THE ROAD, THEIR FRONT PORCHES FACING THE HIGHWAY dIXIE FLAGS FLY ALONG WITH us FLAGS (OR ALONE) AT VARIOUS HOUSES. i SEE A BLACK AND WHITE us FLAG, WITH A BLUE STRIPE IN THE MIDDLE TO SIGNIFY…WHAT? sOME OF THE CURIOUS STARE AS i RIDE BY, A REBEL KEPI HAT PERCHED ON MY HEAD, MY BIKE HEAVILY LADEN. i LOOK AS HILLBILLY AS THEY DO, IN MY WORN cARHARTTS AND (REALLY A TWO-LANE ROAD THROUGH THE WEATHERED FACE. a COUPLE OF THE HUGE THORN i GOT AT THE ROADSIDE IN tEXAS STILL PROTRUDE FROM THE EYELETS OF MY COMBAT BOOTS. i MUST LOOK A SIGHT.
12. tHE STATE LOOKS A SIGHT AS WELL…ABANDONED BUILDING SPEAK OF GHOSTS AND POVERTY, OF PAST OCCURRENCES PERHAPS BEST LEFT UNSAID. uNSPOKEN. a SERIES OF SMALL TOWNS DOT THE PATH, CAUSING ME TO SLOW DOWN LEST i MEET THE LOCAL mAN IN A WAY i DON’T WANT TO. bUTTERMILK PIE AND HAM THAT ALMOST MELTS IN YOUR MOUTH BECKON AT TINY VILLAGE RESTAURANTS AND GENERAL STORES. tHE TOWN NAMES RING OF THE EXOTIC, OF NAMES AND PLACES UNKNOWN. mY FAVORITE LITTLE TOWN IS OARK, A TINY VILLE WHICH WOULD REQUIRE AN ENTIRE BLOG TO EVEN HINT AT…rIDING INTO THE STATE ALONE, i RIDE OUT ACCOMPANIED BY ANOTHER oZARK NATIVE, A COOL COUNTRY BOY CALLED cODY (OR cOOKY, DEPENDING ON WHO YOU ARE AND THE EXPERIENCES YOU SHARED) FROM MISSOURI. hE’S HELL-BENT IN SEARCH OF PIE AND SCENERY, ON A QUEST FOR MORE CURVES, MORE TURNS, DISCOVERY OF EVERY UNKNOWN ROAD ON THE PLANET. hE’S A CHARACTER WHO IS ALMOST LARGER THAN LIFE, AS ARE THE OTHER NOMADS WITH WHOM i OCCASIONALLY RIDE. bUT FOR NOW, IT’S ME AND cODY/cOOKY, ZOOMING THROUGH VERDANT TUNNELS, SWOOPING UP AND DOWN HILLSIDES, CAREENING AROUND CURVES AND CORNERS. EVENTUALLY, WE RIDE (RELUCTANTLY, FOR WE ARE BOTH mOUTNAIN mEN) OUT OF THE MOUNTAINS, AND ONTO THE PLAINS, FERTILE WITH COTTON AND WHATEVER ELSE CROPS GROW HERE. wE LEAVE THE SECRET MEANDERINGS OF THE BACK ROADS, AND COME ONTO THE INTERSTATE, WHERE WE ROLL HELL BENT FOR LEATHER TOWARDS THE mISSISSIPPI AND mEMPHIS (cODY HAS SOMEHOW CONVINCED ME, IN HIS EASY YET IRRESISTABLE sOUTHERN WAY) TO REVOKE MY VOWS AND CROSS INTO oCCUPIED tERRITORY, EAST OF THE mISSISSIPPI, WHERE A MAN IS FORCED TO WEAR A HELMET AND SUBMIT TO CHECKPOIINTS ALONG THE iNTERSTATE, ILLEGAL SEARCHES AGAINST THE fOURTH aMENDMENT, AND RACIAL DIVISION, POVERTY, AND IGNORANCE. a PLACE WHERE YOU CAN GO TO THE PEN FOR A LONG TIME FOR HAVING A SINGLE DOOB IN YOUR POCKET, BUT WHERE THEY MIGHT (IF YOU ARE WHITE) DISMISS THE FACT YOU HAVE A PISTOL IN YOUR POCKET. IF NOT, IT’S THE CHAIN GANG AND YEARS OF HELLISH CONFINEMENT. hELL NO, i DON’T WANT TO GO THERE, BUT A SENSE OF HONOR COMPELS ME, AND i RIDE OUT OF aRKANSAS THE OPPOSITE OF HOW i RODE INTO IT…APPREHENSIVELY. gONE WAS THE MAGIC OF NEW PLACES, AND FACING ME WAS A HUGE AND GROWING STORM, AND THE FACT THAT i WOULD HAVE TO PUT A HELMET ON. dAMN ANY STATE WHO WOULD FORCE A MAN TO DO SUCH THINGS. suCH THOUGHTS DISTRACT ME FROM THE GROWING AMOUNT OF TRAFFIC ON THE INTERSTATE. wE ARE BACK IN THE TYPICAL aMERICAN PANOPLY OF REST STOPS AND RUSHING, OF mCdONALDS AND bURGER kINGS, TRUCK STOPS AND MOTELS…ALL THE SAME ACROSS aMERICA, WITH ONLY THE INTERVENING ‘SECENERY’ BETWEEN STOPS DIFFERING.