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Breaking new ground in Wilson, Arkansas

April 18, 2015 By Talya Tate Boerner

Back in December, I wrote about some of the exciting things going on in Wilson, Arkansas including plans for relocating the Hampson Archeological Museum. My post appeared on First Security Bank’s blog, Only in Arkansas. If you live in Arkansas (or you wish you lived in Arkansas or simply appreciate The Natural State), you should be reading www.onlyinarkansas.com. Take it from someone who worked in banking for years, a bank blog devoted to food and hometown happenings and sports and festivals specific to the state is a special and rare thing. Now on to news of the groundbreaking.

This is a follow-up to let you know the Hampson Archeological Museum groundbreaking happened last weekend. This is a big deal. According to Wilson Mayor Becton Bell, this groundbreaking marks the first new construction on the Wilson town square in 57 years.

First new construction in my lifetime.

If you aren’t from Northeast Arkansas, you may say you aren’t interested in the goings on of a small southern town in the Mississippi River Delta. Big deal, right? There are new buildings sprouting like weeds in Dallas as 10,000 people move into the Metroplex each month. Northwest Arkansas is growing like crazy, too. Whataburger is coming to Fayetteville. #CanIGetAnAmen?

But everyone should take note. While many small towns are fading, Wilson is doing it right.

And what a beautiful day for a groundbreaking.

An impressive crowd turned out to hear town leaders and visionaries speak.

The new state of the art facility will match the existing Tudor style architecture of other buildings along the square. It will be much larger than the current museum and include outdoor, interactive exhibits. The current building is cramped and houses only 10% – 20% of the artifacts from the nearby 15-acre Nodena site of Late Mississippian Period Native Americans (A.D. 1400 – 1650). Think of all that history in storage just waiting for us!

That’s rich Delta soil there, folks.

Times, they are a’changing.

I think Mr. Wilson and Mr. Hampson are both very pleased.

Grace Grits and Gardening

Farm. Food. Garden. Life.

[tweetthis]Times they are a changin’. Wilson Arkansas is doing it right. @FSBank @Artourism #Delta #HampsonMuseum[/tweetthis]

Come gather ’round people wherever you roam and admit that the waters around you have grown…If your time to you is worth savin’, then you better start swimming’ or you’ll sink like a stone. For the times they are a-changin’. – Bob Dylan

Musicial Pairing:

Bob Dylan, The Times They are a Changin’

Two Degrees of Separation

March 26, 2015 By Talya Tate Boerner

Everyone knows about Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, right? The idea that everyone is six steps away from anyone else in the world. I’m convinced that as the world has continued to shrink, six degrees has dwindled to something more like two degrees of separation. It seems to me that at any moment, I appear to be connected to most every person I come into contact with, and there’s very little separation. My husband thinks this is naturally occurring as I morph more and more into my mother. I think we are all connected, we just don’t take the time to find out.

I have two recent examples to prove my theory.

Example One. This picture was taken at the most recent Hemingway-Pfeiffer Writer Retreat I attended in Piggott, Arkansas last November. I met several new (to me) writers including Ruth, the lady standing beside me.

Hemingway-Pfeiffer Writing Retreat (Why did I wear a silly poncho on picture day?)

Ruth and I chatted quite a bit throughout the week. She lived in Little Rock. I had just moved to Fayetteville from Dallas. Somehow Baylor University came up.

I graduated from Baylor, I said. My daughter graduated from Baylor, she said. We discovered our Baylor years overlapped. Small world, we agreed.

A few weeks later, Ruth called me. Her daughter read through the anthology published after our retreat and recognized my name.

My daughter, Anne, roomed with you one summer at Baylor, Ruth said. And of course then it all came back. Anne and I were roommates in Alexander Hall during the summer Lady Diana married Prince Charles.

She (Anne not Lady Di) had long blonde hair, was an English major who planned to go to law school. And she did. She’s an attorney in Little Rock. WHAT are the odds I would attend a writer retreat with my Baylor summer roommate’s mother thirty-three years later?

Example Two.

Last week, I spent a few days in Texas. (If you missed my trip, you can catch up HERE but this isn’t a sequel so don’t feel compelled, even though I always appreciate the page views.) While in Dallas, I went for my annual physical because I don’t have a new doctor in Fayetteville yet. I’ve been going to my Dallas doctor for years, and my Dallas doctor has had the same nurse for years. The odd thing about this is that after all this time, I learned that my doctor’s nurse is originally from Arkansas. When she said, Oh I’m from Arkansas and I said, yeah, where? and she said well I lived in Blytheville, went to school in Luxora and was born in Osceola but I’m sure you’ve never heard of those towns, I nearly fell off the table. Because I was born in Osceola and had friends in Luxora and know Blytheville as well as any place on earth. Before I left, we talked about friends of friends, American Greetings (where lots of people worked), Big Star (the best grocery store), Erman Lane (the street to drive to get anywhere), and Bobby George’s liquor store (ahem)—things no one except people from there would dare know about. The same doctor (Dr. Fairley) delivered both of us only a few years apart. He was THE doctor in town.

Shared from Main Street Osceola Facebook Page

So perhaps right here, right now in the comment section of this post, we should all figure out how we are connected, because we probably are. And probably by way less than six degrees of separation. It’s a crazy small world, don’t you agree?

Grace Grits and Gardening

Farm. Food. Garden. Life.

[tweetthis]Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon? I think it’s more like two degrees. We are all connected. @hpmuseum [/tweetthis]

Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon

“Life’s journey is one big path with series of events. All these events are connected.”

― Lailah Gifty Akita

on researching and writing and keeping it real

March 2, 2015 By Talya Tate Boerner

When I decided hey, I’m gonna write a book, I had no idea the amount of research that would be involved. Researching. Writing. Sitting around eating Jiffy Pop helps me keep it real. It’s all part of the deal I made when I set out on this adventure. One leads to another, Sunday melts into Monday, and shockingly it’s March. A year later. And I’m still working on “my book”. What began as memoir has morphed into fiction and taken me on a path I never imagined, even though I’m the person doing the imagining. Crazy how that works.

The setting for my story is part of me. The place I grew up during the time I grew up. 1972. And even though I lived that time and place, research is a big part of my project. Making sure I have the description, sound, smell, feel of a specific place or object accurate for 1972, that’s imperative. I want my readers to see through my eyes. Feel what I feel. Taste the Jiffy Pop.

Mark Twain said Don’t say the old lady screamed. Bring her on and let her scream. That’s what I’m trying to do. Letting the old lady to scream takes work and time and research and remembering.

A sample of the things I’ve researched the last few days: Watergate, Chinese finger trap, phases of the moon in 1972, Memphis cotton trade, Mark Spitz. Just your regular, run-of-the-mill, 1970s stuff.

Sometimes I listen to seventies music while I write. Sonny & Cher. Tony Orlando and Dawn. Marvin Gaye. Yes I do. That takes me back to my groovy cassette player as quickly as anything. (I loved that thing. I hated that thing. It ate more tape than it ever played.)

Saturday I even made Jiffy Pop. Jiffy Pop was a weekend tradition at our house. Shaking that pan over the flame, hearing the kernels sizzle, then seeing the foil expand like a balloon (more quickly than I remembered) made that memory as real as it could be forty years later, plus it was a fun snow day activity.