Arkansas?!?

Well I've been living in Hot Springs, Arkansas for almost 3 months now and I must say I reallly like it! Who'da ever thunk it? Arkansas? Hillbillies? Bible thumpers? Actually Arkansas is a BEAUTIFUL place, full of charming, genuinely nice and even intelligent people... Did I mention they were genuinely nice? Not nice like "I'm gonna pretend to be nice cause I want something from you" but nice like "I'm really interested in you and isn't it a beautiful day today..."

There's a lot of charming things about the south too... Like saying "Y'all" instead of "Yuze guys", being able to choose between sweetened vs. unsweetened ice tea, eating grits, me-maws, pa-paws, and having mild winters. OK it's the bible belt but everyone needs their addiction...

In 3 months I've met some really great people in Hot Springs, including folks from all over the world and a cadre of artists and musicians who have relocated from New Orleans. In October, Hot Springs hosted the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival and it was one of the best film festivals I have ever been to (and I've been to a bunch). The festival brought some great films and a whole host of characters to town, transforming this sleepy hollow into an international hub of cosmopolitan sophistication.



On normal days, Hot Springs seems like a town that is just a shadow of its former self. Once a wild and booming town during the mid 1900's, with visitors from all over the world coming to enjoy its famous bath houses and Vegas style night life and gambling. Al Capone spent a lot of time here, and all kinds of stories exist about him. You can tell it was a wild and crazy place, with big money. The town began to recede into itself in the late 50's when they stopped gambling and the bathhouses closed due to the advent of modern medicine and prescription drugs. Hot Springs has never really come back to its former glory. This is the kind of place that Bill Clinton knew when he went to high school here in the early 60's. One finds all kinds of beautiful, majestic old buildings that attest to the former glory of this place. They now lie either abandoned or quickly deteriorated under the humid weather and oppressive summer heat. A friend of mine calls Hot Springs the "City that time accidently left in its pocket when it did its laundry".



Apparently, Hot Springs has quite a long history. Besides being the only city in America located INSIDE of a national park, it was also the first national park created in the United States, founded in 1832 by none other than Andrew Jackson. Some people think Jackson had some nefarious reasons for setting up the national park, but I wasn't there and couldn't say for sure... Still the story of Hot Springs told by some Indian elders is an interesting one, to say the least. But this kind of story is rather typical of the types of experiences I 've been having here. Let's just say that there's a lot more here that seems apparent on the surface.