While Santa made his rounds around the globe, what hovered over us here in Arkansas was a torrential downpour, adding an additional 9 inches of rainfall to an already oversaturated earth.

Major interstate highway 67/167 flooded for miles, trapping unsuspecting travelers where they stopped in bumper to bumper traffic. State highways fared worse; to close an effected area meant an hour’s added detour around the flooding. Roads closed yesterday afternoon remained closed today. The water just isn’t receding.

Those hardest hit by the same storm that blanketed the east in snow were those living in low-lying areas. What was considered safe before Hurricane Katrina was subsequently reevaluated by FEMA to fall two feet below a safe flood margin.

In one particular sub-division in the sleepy community of Beebe, 30 homes remain flooded today under at least a foot of water. Last night, well into the wee hours of the morning, rescues continued until everyone was again safely standing on solid ground. Public servants became heroes yet again.

Continue reading "Arkansans' Flooded Christmas"...

"Wanna see the new truck?" Higginson's Fire Chief, Marvin Mathis, could barely contain his excitement. The new tanker truck has his fingerprints all over it. He went to the factory where it was built and knows the truck inside and out.

"Only if I can drive it," said I.  I've always loved learning to drive anything with an engine and wheels.

"OK. Hop up there. Get the bay door open."

Hop wasn't what I did - I climbed. Four huge steps up got me into the driver's seat, looking at a very different dashboard and controls. Ignition on the left, it was an automatic, but had only D, N, and R. Marv said that neutral was park.

With the bay door up, I eased the monster of a truck out of the fire station a whole 30 feet, the length of the truck, to park it in  front. Marvin had a lot to show off, so my adventure didn't end there.


The brushed stainless steel and the size of the equipment itself was mind boggling. The truck came with new air tanks, new everything. The size of the fill hose itself was huge, as is needed to fill the 2,500 gallon tank.

Spigots to shoot pressurized water came out all over the place on that truck. There was even a different place to attach a fill hose when getting water from ponds, creeks or rivers. It held a huge filter right inside the cap that took Marv two hands and quite a bit of oomph to unscrew.

"Oh man," I said, "anything with threads would goof me up." I should've kept my mouth shut because when Marv went to put that cover back on the fill spigot, he didn't do much better than I would lining those threads up.

"When we leave a scene to refill, we have a portable tank we can leave on site while the truck is gone," and Marv proceeded to flip up the latches on the long side of the truck. A huge, hinged door dropped down, and it took two firemen to unfold and set the canvas tank up.


That's Marv back there, facing me. The engineering, the sheer size and the incredible strength of this fire truck and all it's attachments will stick with me for a long time.

I now know more about what is behind fighting fire than I could ever have assumed, and believe me, TV doesn't come close to capturing what really goes on. The protective suits firemen wear are not only hot, but very heavy, and it takes a good deal of physical strength to maneuver while wearing one. Most of the equipment on the trucks take at least two men to use. Even the levers to release water took me two hands and a good leg brace.

I don't remember how much it cost for the tiny town of Higginson to buy this new truck, but after seeing it in action, it doesn't matter. It just isn't a consideration when it comes to saving lives.

Wednesday night, police arrested Curtis Lavelle Vance, 28, at his home in Marianna, and charged him with capital murder in the death of Anne Pressly. Vance was with a woman, three kids and "lots of extra ammunition." Police aren't saying what led them to Vance, but insist their evidence is based on very good police work, DNA testing and a scene profile.

Besides being a popular newsanchor at Little Rock's KHTV, Anne Pressly had a minor role in the movie "W" as a conservative commentator.

 

I want to wish you and your family a happy, peaceful, joyous Thanksgiving!

Theresa 

Six weeks into his tour in Iraq, an Arkansas National Guardsman called his wife at home while he hunkered down for cover during his turn at watch. He wanted to check to see if his wife got the flowers he sent her.

Instead, his wife's frantic voice told him that their home was burning, and 6 hours later, it burned to the ground. This photo is all that remains of that home - dirt and a concrete sidewalk - and what the soldier saw when he arrived back in McRae four days later for an 8 day emergency leave.

The fire happened in April, and the soldier's wife and four boys moved into the new double-wide mobile home she finally managed to have delivered and set up two weeks ago. She ran into more than a few roadblocks while buying the home, and solved every problem she ran into - alone. Everything the family now has was donated to them, and though the new house is pretty barren, the soldier's wife is making it into a home. It's the home the soldier will return to in December or January.

With so much taking up our attention - the sinking economy, the election, the speculation about what will happen now, gas prices, food prices, job losses - it's easy to forget about our soldiers still in Iraq and Afghanistan still risking their lives for their country, and for you and I.

To every mother, wife, father, brother or sister of a soldier, I thank you for your sacrifice, and give my thanks to your soldier when you talk to him or her again.

Read more of my thanks to our soldiers at A Bumpy Path.

It's nowhere near "politics as usual" in Arkansa's small communities that are surrounded by miles of cattle ranches and hay fields. It's about people with strong ties to home and each other in ways seldom seen these days. It's about life based on real, tangible values, ideals and mores that leave no one standing outside the reach of home.

This swing symbolizes yet another milestone of rebuilding a town mostly destroyed by a tornado several years ago; a tornado so severe that it laid flat everything in its path. The old school that was is now a beautiful, rambling campus of buildings and football, baseball and soccer fields. Somehow, the modernity of the new school only emphasizes the sense of small town community and a simple way of life. Though colleges tend to be a micro community within itself, this small town celebrates and applauds the successes of growth along with it, making the college as much a part of the town as everyone else. No one is left out. This swing and small play gym mark the beginning of a park snuggled in with humble, single family homes, giving the neighborhood kids a safe place to be instead of in the streets.

The two lane highway that runs through the center of town eventually meets up with other two lane highways, each intersection marking the way to get to other small towns. The countryside comes within inches of the solid line painted along the edges of the road. There are no shoulders, no room for driver error, yet they are the best maintained roads you will find. The road lines are always fresh, never faded, the weeds are bushhogged and the trees trimmed of loose branches. Between the network of paved, two lane highways are miles of gravel roads, painstakingly scraped and planed after every rain storm.

Soon, you'll come to another small town, this one with around 350 residents and no businesses to speak of, yet there is a town hall, a waste water system, a fire department and a police force of two part time officers. The tickets given to drivers speeding through the center of town results in enough revenue to keep its small infrastructure in place for the benefit of its residents. The town's mayor is a humble, quiet man with a sense of fairness and wisdom that would be the envy of any large city judge, if only those large city judges would take notice.

Mile after mile on these two lane highways is the beauty and wholeness of nature itself. As far as the eye can see is the size of graze for a herd of cattle with calves romping and cows grazing. A little further on is as large of a field dotted with hundreds of round bales of hay drying in the sun, waiting to be lifted onto flatbed trucks and hauled to huge storage sheds to be stored for the winter. Half mile driveways lead to the ranch homes and barns, with meticulously mowed lawns and tended gardens. Sometimes, what was a driveway becomes a dirt road that cuts between the home and barns to give access to more farms and ranches beyond. A glance toward the left or right while passing through a wooded area is often met by the return glance of ever watchful deer, herds of which sometimes join the cattle to graze in the open.

The C130s from Little Rock Air Force Base fly overhead several times a day, yet the loud roar of the engines doesn't detract from the serenity; instead they become part of it. The planes' competition are hawks, eagles and chicken hawks gliding on stilled, outstretched wings, and V's of geese passing through on their migration routes. It's not unusual to have to stare several seconds to decide if what is flying is a bird or a dragon fly or a monstrous, four inch horse fly.

Life is big here in Arkansas, and in ways that are far larger than life in any large city could ever be. Life surrounds you and makes you a part of it, makes you one with it. You are alive.

It's such a strange thing to think about, but it's true. To be kind and giving to others is something that is inherent in all human beings. Then why do we need to be reminded almost constantly of this? I dedicated my career to helping others, and I still need a good swift kick in the butt sometimes, which I promptly give to myself when I notice I've been lacking in that department. It's a part of us, it's natural, yet we find ways to bury it. In what? What could be more important? Is it that we are all so self-important that we don't have anything left to give to others after we prop ourselves up?

Read the rest of Remember, Kindness is Inherent....

S..l..o..w and easy, or zipzipzip?  Nah, I'm not talking about how crazy you drive on I-30. That's obvious!  What was on my mind this morning was the idea that we still haven't adjusted to having the Internet, and now that its growth has slowed, at least in the broadband arena, my dreams of meeting Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock are (sniff, sniff) done for.

The Arkansas Department of Human Services is in the spotlight of a local TV news station for undergoing the investigation of the deaths of four foster children within two months.  But, before you jump to horrified conclusions, take a moment to read a bit more about the situation than is in a 20 second news clip.

Arkansas Child Protective System Under Scrutiny

Have you ever wondered just why people lie?  I mean, what's the point? There are all sorts of reasons for people to lie, from the little white ones to the gigantic whoppers.  It's not as simple as you'd like to think, but it's always frustrating, and it always whittles away, if not outright destroys trust.  Here's an article that just might help you understand ...



What's Behind the Lies

Have you heard about Cuil?

Read a little bit about the new search engine on eyebald.

A Bumpy Path is a year old!

I've learned a lot this past year; a lot about blogging, and in the process, a lot about myself. Tonight's sunset is a good representation of this past year too. How fitting that nature supplied me with an illustration to my birthday post! Anyway, here's my trip down Memory Lane...

You can read the complete article here > > >

It's great to be a part of the All Arkie Army!

Theresa