grace grits and gardening

ramblings from an arkansas farm girl

Visiting Heber Springs, Arkansas

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visiting heber springs arkansas

A couple of weeks ago I spent some time in Heber Springs, Arkansas. It was my first visit to this charming town in the central part of the state. Not sure how that’s even possible.

When I visit a new place, especially if I’m traveling alone, I explore. I search for the library and I seek out the old historic cemetery because to me, cemeteries are a way to connect to the town. I walk the downtown area to see the architecture. Heber Springs gets a big checkmark for having a courthouse in the middle of the town square. Yay!

Walking is the best way to discover a place. Driving through, you miss all the things.

Y’all, Jitterbug Coffee House was fantastic!

Heber Springs, Ar

After getting my green tea fix, I searched for the lake.Continue Reading

when I think of Alabama…

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When I think of Alabama

When I think of Alabama, I think of Carlene, my mom’s college roommate, and her son Gary, and how we visited them a long, long time ago, and while I want to say it was summer it couldn’t have been because of the clothes we wore. Those memories are preserved forever by faded polaroid pictures. I thought their house was amazing mainly because it was two-story.  We took turns riding up and down the street in their neighborhood in Gary’s go-cart which was a new experience for my sister and me. Big wheels keep on turning…

When I think of Alabama, I think of Roll Tide and Bear Bryant and his houndstooth fedora that classed up the sidelines every Saturday and college football for years. He was born in Arkansas, you know.

I think of Harper Lee and Monroeville and Scout and Atticus and Boo and Dill and the tree that held gifts.

I think of Hank Williams.

And Alabama Shakes, my new fav.

gulf coast

I think of the trip we made that summer, Continue Reading

Nineteen Seventy Something

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Looking toward Cottonwood Corner

I grew up in Nineteen Seventy Something. I know I sound extra old when I reminisce about my good old days, but hey, I’ve been somewhat immersed in that time period. Writing a book will do that. The Delta is an interesting place for me. It’s the place I feel comfortable and at home, the place that fits me and knows me best. For so long it was my entire world—our house on Highway 140, that yard my sister and I mowed every single week, those fields that represented our livelihood, our clouds floating above it all.

Change in technology and social culture sort of sneak up on us. I notice the difference most vividly when I’m home in the Delta because that’s where life was so simple and basic in the beginning.

1970 something.
I remember working on my cartwheels in the front yard while waiting and waiting and waiting for WHBQ to play my favorite song on the radio. And I knew the moment I turned off my radio, my song would play next! That’s exactly how things worked back then.

I had this radio…

my 1970s radio

photo from morgueFile

 

Somehow I think we’ve lost something now that we can Shazam a song and download it in an instant. Of course I love Shazaming a song and downloading it in an instant (and I don’t miss that radio in the least), but still…there was a certain spirit involved in spending weeks and weeks trying to understand a certain song lyric and not being able to play it on repeat.

Am I the only person who thought the lyrics to Blinded By the Light included “wrapped up like a douche”? (I had no idea what douche meant, but I thought it had to do with s-e-x and wouldn’t sing that word very loud.)Continue Reading

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