Successions of Somethings ~ Chapter Five

“Even the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself”

Psalms 84:3

“Oh, well you see none of us are originally from Arkansas -- well not really. Sonny and I were born here and our younger brother was born in California, but we were raised primarily in California. We have grandparents in both states, so it was easy for our parents to spend a few years here - then a few years there until Sonny started school. That’s when they decided to stay in California.

Mom and dad raised us in southern California in the town of Redlands. We loved it. Our house was in the middle of the orange groves and only a few miles from where Sonny, Gwenn, and Maddie lived. We spent most of our days together, and Sundays and holidays were always spent eating and singing together.

The house was a large plantation style house. It was a steel gray color with white trim. The porch was large and held large potted plants and a swing. Two picture windows looked out onto the porch, and the steps into the yard were wide and fanned out toward the bottom where they met the lawn.

A few years after moving to the orange groves, mom and dad started buying property in Arkansas. So, after I married, my husband and I started buying property in Arkansas too. We moved in the mid 90s and have been here since. Well, not exactly in the same spot we originally landed, but Arkansas nonetheless. When my husband and I divorced, we both moved to different locations to seek employment that was not offered in the tiny “Mayberry –Peyton- Place”. I took a job teaching journalism and speech at a small private high school on the south side of Batesville.

On most weekends the kids and I love to explore the river and different sites around town. We are especially fond of the river and try to make it back as often our schedules allow. One of our favorite aspects of this town is trying to snag paddle fish off of lock two. Sonny taught me to fish when I was young, but we never saw fish like this in California- paddle fish or spoonbills as some of my students called them are absolutely amazing.

It’s funny really- being raised in the city in southern California and then moving to a place where the idea of traffic is waiting ten minutes at the light. If only they knew… yes, it’s pretty funny to think back on my life before Arkansas and my life now. I mean, I still have some of my California ways, but sometimes I catch myself behaving as if I have lived in the country all of my life with bare feet and a fishing pole; meeting at grandma’s every Sunday after church for her friend chicken, and going to the Hutchinson Mountain fish fry every first Friday of the month. It didn’t take long after moving to the Batesville area to fall in love with the lifestyle here. My kids are happy, my job is wonderful, and now more importantly, my wonderful niece lives close, eats dinner with us most Sundays, and is such an amazing young woman.

Her parents moved about six months ago and although Little Rock is not far, Maddie makes sure she keeps her distance from them. It’s funny too, in all of the trips they have made to Batesville to try and see her, they have never stopped by my house. My sister-in-law came to town by herself once, because she wanted to see how old the kids were and how well they were doing, but that was at first and she paid dearly for that visit when she got home.

I stopped a few weeks after her visit when I was in Little Rock doing some shopping. She told me that they had been busy, but when Sonny left the room for a moment, she leaned over and quietly said, 'He was really angry that I stopped, so let’s not mention it again okay.' I thought I would explode. It was as if every hurtful thing that so-called man had ever done to me or anyone else just came to the surface and choked the air right out of me."