Christmas is Official

Posted on December 10, 2011 by Roger

The season has officially begun — Santa rode around town in a firetruck.

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With A Simple Can of Spray Paint …

Posted on November 18, 2011 by Roger

you too can start your own truck-lettering business.

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Plays Well with (some) Others

Posted on November 15, 2011 by Roger

When I was in fifth grade, I got sick and missed class for a few days. As she did for anyone who got sick, my teacher had my classmates make get well cards for me.

Ronald lived just up the street and we played baseball together. He was a friend.

He was concerned enough to bring me up to date on what the class was studying in my absence.

There was at least one classmate who didn’t consider herself a friend of mine. But she was smart — she figured that the teacher would probably just look at the front of the card so she made that nice.

On the inside, however, it was a different story.

And by the time she’d gotten to the back, she’d really hit her stride.

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Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site — Little Rock, Arkansas

Posted on November 4, 2011 by Roger

Our final stop (some of us were getting museumed-out by this time) was this new national park. In 1957, nine Black students attended the school in response to the Supreme Court ruling to stop segregaton. Governor Orval E. Faubus attempted to use National Guard troops to stop the students “for their own safety.” President Eisenhower called out federal troops to escort them to school. The school was shut down for a year, but several of the students returned and graduated. In the visitor center, I learned that the students were all volunteers. What they did took a tremendous amount of courage.

The school is still active, with about 2,000 students. One of them was getting her photo taken while we were standing in front of the school. I’m sure we were making her feel conspicuous, but that’s what she gets for going to high school in a National Park. It was an impressive building, even apart from the history.

An old Mobil gas station across the street from the school has also been restored and is part of the park. The visitor center can be seen in the second shot.

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Wandering Arkansas — Part Two

Posted on November 4, 2011 by Roger

On Friday, we had a few hours to kill before our flight home. We drove into Little Rock and parked downtown.

Our first stop was the Old State House Museum. Reproductions of two of Columbus’ ships, the Nina and the Pinta were docked on the Arkansas River behind the museum. We didn’t pay the $9 to go aboard.

We strolled along the river, past several works of “art.”

After lunch at the Marketplace we took a short trolley ride past Occupy Little Rock.

We also toured the MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History in the Arsenal Building. It was built in 1840 as part of a frontier military post. It served as the post magazine for a while, then was converted to officers’ quarters. General Douglas MacArthur was born in the building on January 26, 1880.

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