The Least We Can Do

My An Arkie's Faith column from the June 16, 2021, issue of The Polk County Pulse.

The sun was beginning to come up as I drove into Little Rock. A faint yellow-orange glow forced its way through the overcast sky. For the past two months, I have been going to Little Rock very early in the morning to pick up the auto glass that I need for my business. My supplier no longer delivers to Polk County, so I have to make two trips a week to Little Rock to pick up my glass. I had a large order that would more than fill my truck and a busy day scheduled when I made it back to my shop.

As we started to load the truck, my supplier’s software system was slow. The warehouse employee enters each piece of glass into the software to bill me and take the glass out of inventory. What should have taken just a few minutes dragged on for half an hour. I was getting restless thinking about the long drive home and the customers who would be waiting for me. Finally, with every slot in my rack filled and with four side glasses and five cases of urethane crammed in the cab of my little truck, I was on my way home. There was barely enough room for me in the S-10, and it wasn’t easy to shift gears. 

After driving for an hour, I needed to get out and stretch my legs and use the bathroom. I pulled off the road into a busy gas station, parking in the only space available. As I got out, I noticed the sign on the door of the vehicle next to me. It said, “Elmer Beard, Poet.” A spry, older gentleman was walking towards the car. “Are you the poet,” I asked? “Yes, I am.” We exchanged pleasantries and talked about the weather. “Let me give you a copy of my book of poetry,” my new acquaintance said. “I would like that,” I answered. “I am a writer and have a copy of my latest book in my truck. Would you like to trade?” Both of us had to move things around in our vehicles to get to our book. We each signed our books to each other, and after exchanging phone numbers, we went on our way. As he was leaving, Elmer’s final words to me were, “If I come to Mena, I will give you a call.”

As I was driving home, I thought about my interesting encounter with Elmer. He had been so polite and upbeat. He seemed like a man who enjoyed life and lived it to the fullest. It was such a chance meeting at a random gas station beside the road. But Elmer had made a deep impression on me, and I couldn’t get him out of my mind. If I had been able to load my truck without the software issues, I would not have been in the right place at the right time to meet Elmer. But I was thankful that I had. I couldn’t wait until I had time to sit down and read his book. 

That evening, I sat in my favorite turquoise Adirondack chair on my deck and started to read Elmer’s book of poetry. The cover has a photo of Elmer in an old Ford pickup from the early sixties. The title is “Let Reason Roll: Race, Religion & Reflections. I was intrigued by the author title at the bottom of the book; Poetry by Elmer Beard The Octo Griot. From the book, I learned that Elmer is in his eighties. Octo is the Latin prefix for the number eight, so that part made sense, but what about the griot. A quick internet search led me to the answer. The Oxford Dictionary lists the definition of griot as “a member of a class of traveling poets, musicians, and storytellers who maintain a tradition of oral history in parts of West Africa.”

As I read his poetry, It seemed like I began to know him as a man. Elmer has a way of exposing his inner self through simple words. He tackles tough topics with gentleness and the insight of someone who has gained wisdom from his life experience. The friendly, unassuming black octogenarian grew up in the small southern town of Chidester, Arkansas. He earned degrees from Arkansas Baptist College and Henderson State University and spent many years as a teacher. He ended his teaching career as an adjunct English professor at Arkansas Baptist College and National Park College in Hot Springs. In addition, Elmer made a difference in his community by serving for sixteen years on the Hot Springs City Council.  

As I finished the book, I kept going back and rereading one short, simple poem titled “The Least We Can Do.” Elmer’s words kept going through my mind as I longed for a world that followed the simple concept of the poem. “I am who I am. And so are you. Courtesy is costless. The opposite is expensive. Respect is deserved. The least we can do. Is be kind and gentle. Regardless of values. Or our experiences. That’s the least. We can do.”

People who are kind and gentle have the potential to be rude or proud, but they have deliberately decided not to behave that way. They have intentionally chosen gentleness. That takes more strength than it does to treat others harshly. In his book Grace for the Moment, Max Lucado offers a pledge that we could all make our own: “Nothing is won by force. I choose to be gentle. If I raise my voice, may it be only in praise. If I clench my fist, may it be only in prayer. If I make a demand, may it be only of myself.”

For us as Christians, it is the least we can do. Galatians 5:22,23 (KJV) says, “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.” Gentleness is a fruit of the Spirit. When we see harshness and hate for others among Christians, we can see that they are not living in the Spirit. “Just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, so you can identify people by their actions.” Matthew 7:20 (NLT)

Gentle Reader, gentleness is a strong hand with a soft touch. It is a tender, compassionate approach to others, even those who are different from us. “Kindness, peace, love—may they never stop blooming in you and from you.” Jude 1:2 (VOICE) I leave you with the words of the Octo Griot, “I am who I am. And so are you. Courtesy is costless. The opposite is expensive. Respect is deserved. The least we can do. Is be kind and gentle. Regardless of values. Or our experiences. That’s the least. We can do.”

Tulip Mania

T is for Tulip Mania.  Originally cultivated in the Ottoman Empire, tulips were imported into Holland in the sixteenth century. As the Dutch Golden Age grew, so did this colorful flower. Tulips became popular in paintings and festivals. In the mid-seventeenth century, tulips were so popular that they created the first economic bubble, known as "Tulip Mania".

Everyone began to deal in bulbs, essentially speculating on the tulip market, which was believed to have no limits. The true bulb buyers began to fill up inventories for the growing season, depleting the supply further and increasing scarcity and demand. Soon, prices were rising so fast and high that people were trading their land, life savings, and anything else they could liquidate to get more tulip bulbs. Somehow, the tulips enjoyed a twenty-fold increase in value - in one month!

Needless to say, the prices were not an accurate reflection of the value of a tulip bulb. As it happens in many speculative bubbles, some prudent people decided to sell and reap their profits. A domino effect of progressively lower and lower prices took place as everyone tried to sell while not many were buying. The price began to dive, causing people to panic and sell regardless of losses.

Dealers refused to honor contracts and people began to realize they traded their homes for a tulip bulb; panic was prevalent throughout the land. The government attempted to step in and halt the crash by offering to honor contracts at 10% of the face value, but then the market plunged even lower.  No one emerged unscathed from the crash. Even the people who had locked in their profit by getting out early suffered under the depression that followed.

From 1634 to 1637, an index of Dutch tulip prices soared from approximately one guilder per bulb to a lofty sixty guilders per bulb. By the peak of tulip mania in February of 1637, a single tulip bulb was worth about ten times a craftsman’s annual income. 

Today, Holland is still known for its tulips and other flowers, often being affectionately called the "flower shop of the world." Tulips are cultivated in great fields of beautiful color, and tulip festivals abound throughout the country in the spring.  The Dutch people took their love of tulips abroad when they settled, and tulips and tulip festivals are now found in New York and Holland, Michigan, where the connection to their Dutch roots is very strong.

The photos in this blog were taken at Garvan Woodland Gardens in Hot Springs, Arkansas.  Each spring when the tulips are in bloom, the gardens are covered with over 150,000 tulips that  line the walkways of Arkansas' premier botanical garden.

The peak tulip viewing times at the gardens are March 15 through April 1. Garvan Woodland Gardens are beautiful any time of the year, but I think that the tulip season is the best.  We make sure to visit the gardens during tulip time each year.

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Tulip Extravaganza

Every spring Garvan Woodland Gardens in Hot Springs, Arkansas has a tulip extravaganza.  150,000 tulips line the walkways of Arkansas' premier botanical garden.  Every year that we can we visit the gardens during the tulip extravaganza.  Last Sunday was a perfect day for a visit.  The weather was perfect as we walked the tulip lined trails.

There were lots of beautiful flowers besides just tulips.  Garvan Woodland Gardens is beautiful any time of the year, but early spring is really special.

If you are ever visiting Hot Springs, Arkansas I recommend a visit to Garvan Woodland Gardens.

Dress Barn

One of my wife's favorite places to shop is Dress Barn.  The first Dress Barn was opened in 1962 in Stamford, Connecticut.  There are now over 800 locations in the U.S.

We live in a small town in rural Arkansas with limited shopping opportunities.  When we do go shopping we make a day of it and travel to either Fort Smith or Hot Springs which are both over 80 miles away.  When we make these shopping trips my wife likes to stop at Dress Barn.  I enjoy not going in to the store and instead like to sit in the car in the parking lot.

One day while I was sitting in the parking lot, I took a photo of the Dress Barn Store and posted it to Facebook and said, I'm at my favorite place - The Dress Barn Parking Lot.  I received many likes and comments.  It became expected for me to comment on my favorite thing.  Comments such as, "who needs the NFL playoff games when you have the Dress Barn parking lot" and "no place I would rather be than the Dress Barn parking lot.

Last fall we attended our 40th high school reunion.  While we were visiting with old friends, they insisted that we go to the Dress Barn and take photos.  We really didn't have time but we did it.

When we are travelling I make sure to stop by any Dress Barns that we come across.  This year I have been to Dress Barn parking lots in Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana, Colorado and Oregon.  My dear wife puts up with my little obsession even though many of the Dress Barns we have stopped at she hasn't even been inside.  During a recent visit to Oregon I stopped at three Dress Barns but she didn't shop at any of them.

While in Oregon we stayed at Glenedon Beach near Lincoln City.  I had several Facebook friends point out that there was a Dress Barn in Lincoln City.  I posted a beautiful sunrise photo and got the comment, "What, no Dress Barn in the proximity?!?!"

How many Dress Barn parking lots will I eventually visit?  I don't know. With over 800 locations I will be kept busy for a long time.

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Postcard

Recently while I was looking around an antique store, I came across this postcard.  I don't collect postcards, but there was something about this one that interested me.  The first thing was the subject matter.  The scene, Dam on the Ouachita River in Hot Springs, Arkansas, no longer exists because of the Blakely Mountain Dam that was built by the United States Army Corps of Engineers in the early 50's to create Lake Ouachita.  I'm not sure of the date of the postcard, but it has to be before 1952 because it could be mailed for one cent.  Although the subject matter and age were interesting, what really grabbed my attention was the correspondence on the back.

It says, "Well I am still alive yet of course you know it is pretty hard to kill me.  How are crops out there.  I tell you if you come down in Arkansas and look at the land I bet you get back on the first train.  My I never seen such land.  I wouldn't stay down in Arkansas if they would deed me the whole state."  It just tickled my funny bone.  Never has a person been so unimpressed with Arkansas.  I'm quite certain that the writer of the postcard didn't settle in Arkansas.

Water

W is for Water.  As in too much water.  In our area on May 30th there were severe thunderstorms, tornadoes, and heavy rain.  My wife and I were on our way home from Little Rock when we encountered the storms. We stopped in Hot Springs and waited in a Walgreens store for about an hour until the Tornado Watch expired. As we traveled home we saw where a tornado had crossed Hwy 270. Crews had cut trees so that traffic could pass but power lines were still down.  We listened to the scanner and heard about tornadoes in our county. When we reached Mt. Ida we were under another tornado watch, so we stopped at the Dairyette to wait out the storm. I took this video of the heavy rain from the front door.

We arrived home safely, but not before seeing tornado damage near Oden.  The next day we learned that the heavy rains had caused flooding in the Y-city area and that there had been loss of life. In the early morning hours, Scott County Sheriff Cody Carpenter and Arkansas Game and Fish Officer Joel Campora lost their lives in the line of duty. Both men died attempting to save the lives of helpless people trapped in a flooded home.

Last weekend we drove up to Y-city and saw some of the damage that the flood caused.  A gas station was damaged and a church had floated off of it's foundation.

The May 30th flood was not the first time that I have been in close proximity to a flood that caused loss of life.


Thursday evening, June 10, 2010, I traveled to Glenwood to pick up a load of windshields. As I traveled I was watching the weather because there were supposed to be storms on the way. It was raining lightly but I had returned home before the it started raining harder. After I had made it home, the sky turned a green color and we were a bit nervous, but when we checked the TV and internet we found that we were not under any watches or warnings. Soon after I got to work Friday morning, My wife called me and told me that there had been terrible flooding at the Albert Pike Campground with many dead and many missing. The Caddo and Little Missouri Rivers had flooded during the night.


The Albert Pike Campground is located about 45 minutes from Mena over gravel roads deep in the heart of the Ouachita Mountains. Twenty people including eight children lost their lives in the flood caused by up to nine inches of rain that fell in the early morning hours, catching many campers at Albert Pike Campground off-guard.



The park is situated in a valley between two heavily forested hills, near the Little Missouri River. The "Little Missouri" usually has a water level that is so low, it looks more like a creek. People can easily wade across the river. That fateful night the Little Missouri got hit with 8 to 9" of rain within a very short period of time. The water level went from 3 feet to 23 feet from midnight to around 3:00am.





A U.S. Forest Service spokesman stated that it would have been impossible to warn everyone at a the Albert Pike campground that a flood was coming because cell phone service is spotty and there are no sirens in the sparsely populated area. Some parts of the valley are so steep and craggy that the only way out is to hike downstream. Any hikers who had taken cars to the campsites would have been blocked at low-water bridge crossings that are inundated when the rivers rise.


The raging torrent poured through the valley with such force that it peeled asphalt off roads and bark off trees. Cabins dotting the river banks were severely damaged. Mobile homes lay on their sides.


The first time that I was close to a tragic flash flood was on July 31, 1976, while we were living in Loveland, Colorado. A violent rainstorm sent a rampaging wall of water through Big Thompson Canyon. The massive flood killed 144 people. My wife and I along with my family had been picnicking along the banks of the Big Thompson River that afternoon. When it started to rain we packed up and drove home through heavy rain. We didn't know there had been a flood until the next morning.


Events such as these floods always bring questions to my mind. Why do these terrible things happen and why have I been spared? I don't have the answers as to why so many tragedies happen. I do know that ever since sin came into this world through Satan there have been terrible tragedies. I suppose that Adam and Eve asked "why" when Cain killed his brother Abel.

The only promise that a Christian has in this life is that there will be trouble. Our trouble free existence will be in Heaven where God will wipe away all tears.

Why do bad things happen? Because we live in a sinful world. I know that's not the kind of answer we like, but there is no better answer available.

I am eagerly looking forward to the day when "God will wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there will be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away".


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