An Arkies Musings

An Arkie's Faith column from the November 28, 2018, issue of The Mena Star. The warm sunshine filtered through the trees as we made our way from the trailhead to the Falls Branch Trail. It was a beautiful November day with temperatures in the seventies. After the second day of Thanksgiving dinner that couldn’t be beat, our family was excited to get outside and get some exercise. We had made plans to visit Garvan Woodland Gardens and see the Christmas light display. Since we were driving to Hot Springs to go to the gardens, we wanted to find someplace to take a short hike while we waited for the sun to go down. We referred to our book, Arkansas Dayhikes for Kids and Families, by Pam, Tim, and Amber Ernst. We chose to hike the Falls Branch Trail at Lake Catherine State Park. The book told us that the hike to the Falls Creek Falls “is an easy stroll along the lakeshore.” An easy stroll to a waterfall was just the hike that some of us older folks in the group thought sounded goo...

An Arkie's Faith column from the November 21, 2018, issue of The Mena Star. Matt McCabe is a tall, muscular man, standing 6-foot-2. He is good-looking, with blond hair and a big smile. He loves to talk about his city, London. McCabe had spent three years of his life thinking about London’s roads and landmarks, and how to navigate between them. In the process, he had logged more than 50,000 miles on a motorbike and on foot. He is studying to become a London taxi driver. To become a London taxi driver, he will need to pass a test called simply, The Knowledge. The Knowledge has been around since the 1800s. Taxi-driver candidates, known as Knowledge boys and Knowledge girls, are issued a copy of the Blue Book; a guidebook that contains a list of 320 trips around London. To be licensed as an “All London” taxi driver, Matt will need a thorough knowledge of all the streets, parks, hospitals, restaurants, places of worship, sports stadiums, hotels, club, theatres, museums, schools,...

An Arkie's Faith column from the November 14, 2018, issue of The Mena Star. I could hear the distinctive throaty rumble of Harley-Davidson motorcycles as they pulled up the driveway to my shop; an uneven, syncopated rhythm that sounded like potato, potato, potato, potato. The two bikers had been traveling on Highway 71 when they spotted the old cars at my shop and stopped to look at them. They enjoyed looking at the cars and visiting with Daddy and me. They were especially excited to see our right-hand drive 1954 Ford Popular that had been imported from England. As we visited with them, we learned that they were from the United Kingdom; one was from London, and the other from Belfast, Northern Ireland.  The bikers spent almost an hour admiring our old cars and visiting with us. When they were ready to leave, my Daddy asked them to sign his guestbook. Several years ago, he started asking visitors to our shop to sign his guestbook. Since that time, we have had visitors f...

Veterans Day is a day to honor the men and women who served in the United States Armed Forces.  In 1954, President Eisenhower published a proclamation in the Federal Register, instructing citizens to recognize Veterans Day on Nov. 11. He wrote: “On that day, let us solemnly remember the sacrifices of all those who fought so valiantly, on the seas, in the air, and on foreign shores, to preserve our heritage of freedom, and let us reconsecrate ourselves to the task of promoting an enduring peace so that their efforts shall not have been in vain.” The Department of Veterans Affairs has broadening that tradition of observance and appreciation to include both Veterans and Military Families for the entire month of November. According to the Department of Veterans Affairs Suicide Data Report, the veteran suicide rate averages 22 per day. Many more come home with significant problems as they try to return to non-military society. On this Veterans Day, please don't forget our...

My An Arkie's Faith column from the November 7, 2018, issue of The Mena Star. “Look over there,” my wife exclaimed, “there is a hot air balloon.” We were driving back to the house we had rented in Branson for the weekend. I pulled into a parking lot so that we could get a better view of the balloon and take some photos. As I got out of the car I noticed another balloon, and then two more. As the balloons drifted by, they were close enough to the ground that we could hear when the pilot activated the propane burner. The balloons seemed to be headed in the same direction that we were going, so we followed them. When we pulled into the driveway of our rental, we saw that a balloon was flying right over us. The balloon was low enough that the people in the basket saw us taking photos and waved to us, yelling “hello.” The balloon was made of brightly colored rectangles with a vertical yellow strip with the bold letters WWJD. After the balloons had passed over us, we got back in t...