Speaker 1: Eighteen fifty one movie did gets published. There's one mention
Speaker 1: of Arkansas, Arkansas always portrayed as crazy, violent, and stupid,
Speaker 1: only one line. I've waited my whole life for this opportunity.
Speaker 1: Perhaps this was even the primary reason for my birth
Speaker 1: and what some have called the creation state, the Bear State,
Speaker 1: my beloved Arkansas. If this is the last Bear Grease
Speaker 1: podcast I ever make, my soul will be satiated by
Speaker 1: the sweet nectar of having had the last word, by
Speaker 1: being given a chance to explain things that the world,
Speaker 1: in its frivolous pursuit of progress, has yet to slow
Speaker 1: down enough to understand. I'm quite certain this is the
Speaker 1: greatest place on planet Earth. But on this episode we're
Speaker 1: gonna talk about the Arkansas image. Say it was the
Speaker 1: most picked on state in America in the twentieth century,
Speaker 1: But there are a lot of other places kind of
Speaker 1: like us. So why we've been branded as a haven
Speaker 1: for barefoot, uneducated, feuding and poverty stricken folks gifted with
Speaker 1: an inferiority complex and defensiveness as part of our cultural inheritance.
Speaker 1: It's time we set the record straight and separate fact
Speaker 1: from fiction. We'll learn those characterizations weren't far from the truth,
Speaker 1: but they were oversimplified and myopically viewed by a nation
Speaker 1: who deeply wanted us to be that. We'll explore the
Speaker 1: power of regional identity and why Arkansas is still shaking
Speaker 1: its frontier image. We'll talk with doctor Brooks Blevins, doctor
Speaker 1: Jeanie Wayne, and doctor Bob Cochrane to understand the roots
Speaker 1: of this image, its impacts, both good and bad. And
Speaker 1: we'll have some surprised guests that will certainly shock you.
Speaker 1: We'll talk with the curator of one of the finest
Speaker 1: museums of American art in the country. We'll hear from
Speaker 1: the founder of Walmart. Yeah, I said, we'll hear from
Speaker 1: him directly, and we'll hear a never before released interview
Speaker 1: with none other than Arkansas's own first son, Bill Clinton.
Speaker 1: You think I'm kidding, but I'm not. And regardless of
Speaker 1: if you care anything about Arkansas, you're gonna learn something
Speaker 1: about the complexity of how things came to be as
Speaker 1: they are and how meaningful it can be to be
Speaker 1: connected to place. I really doubt, for real you're gonna
Speaker 1: want to miss this one. But before we start, I
Speaker 1: want you to take an inventory of the image of
Speaker 1: Arkansas that you have in your mind. What do you
Speaker 1: think when you hear about this state? Where did it
Speaker 1: come from? From the very earliest days, there has been
Speaker 1: this sort of defensive inferiority complex that is just it's
Speaker 1: almost part of your hair. Is someone who grows up
Speaker 1: in Arkansas, you just expect people are going to make
Speaker 1: fun of you. My name is Clay Nukeam and this
Speaker 1: is the Bear Grease Podcast where we'll explore things forgotten
Speaker 1: but relevant, search for insight and unlikely places, and where
Speaker 1: we'll tell the story of Americans who lived their lives
Speaker 1: close to the land, presented by f HF gear, American
Speaker 1: maid purpose built hunting and fishing gear that's designed to
Speaker 1: be as rugged as the place. As we explore, happened
Speaker 1: happened in Arkansas. Where else could it have happened? But
Speaker 1: the creation state, the finishing up country, a state where
Speaker 1: the soil runs down to the center of the earth
Speaker 1: and the government gives you title to every inch of it.
Speaker 1: Then it's air. Just breathe them and they'll make you
Speaker 1: snort like a horse. It's a state without fault. It
Speaker 1: is Jim Dogged, the big Bear of Arkansas. The Arkansas
Speaker 1: image has been brewed since the late sixteen hundreds, and
Speaker 1: it's still alive today. I'll be braving the river of
Speaker 1: stereotypes and honest to God truth to see which one
Speaker 1: makes it to the other side. My friend doctor Brooks Blevins,
Speaker 1: I think loves Arkansas as much as I do, and
Speaker 1: that's what qualifies us to speak so frankly and with
Speaker 1: such keen perception. And he says that the Arkansas image
Speaker 1: is associated with violence, ignorance, shiftlessness, laziness, with generous doses
Speaker 1: of racism, moonshining, clannishness, barefootedness, floppy hat in general cussedness.
Speaker 1: But in the positive column, our Canstans are known as independent, resourceful, nonconformists,
Speaker 1: close to nature, unpretentious, generous, and non materialistic. There are
Speaker 1: two sides to every story, and if I know one thing,
Speaker 1: it's this. Things are usually more complex than they seem.
Speaker 1: So I suggest that if you're not from here, you
Speaker 1: just listen and learn. This place is full of squirrel dogs, fortune,
Speaker 1: five hundred companies, banjo pickers, world class American art, a president,
Speaker 1: and some fine mules. By the time we get to
Speaker 1: the end of this, you might be wishing you were barefoot,
Speaker 1: grinning ear to ear, eating at fancy restaurants, and living
Speaker 1: the high life in Arkansas like me and Brent Reeves.
Speaker 1: On the last episode, we establish that prior to the
Speaker 1: Civil War, the newly formed state of Arkansas was branded
Speaker 1: to America as the Bear State, fueled by a firebrand
Speaker 1: comedic genre of writing that featured bear hunting called Southwest Humor.
Speaker 1: It portrayed eccentric Southern characters speaking in dialect and outlandish
Speaker 1: tales from what Jim Dog called the creation State Arkansas.
Speaker 1: The short story The Big Bear of Arkansas was published
Speaker 1: in New York City and had a virality that pushed
Speaker 1: everybody and their brother to start writing and even painting
Speaker 1: about Arkansas bear hunting, and this place was truly a
Speaker 1: haven for bear hunters. On our Death of a Bear
Speaker 1: Hunter episode, a man named Erskine was killed in the
Speaker 1: early eighteen forties by bear being made by dogs, and
Speaker 1: Native Americans buried his body in a shallow grave roughly
Speaker 1: twenty five miles from my house in Independence County, Arkansas.
Speaker 1: There is a community called oil Trough, where market hunters
Speaker 1: established a commercial bear rendering facility that shipped bear oil
Speaker 1: and hollow logs down the White River to the Mississippi
Speaker 1: and then to New Orleans to be burned in street
Speaker 1: lights and used by those Cajun chefs who preferred bear
Speaker 1: grease over other oils. It's recorded that nine hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty six bear skins and a considerable amount of bear
Speaker 1: oil were shipped in eighteen o six by a single
Speaker 1: company in the Rivertown, Arkansas Post. A traveling rider once
Speaker 1: described a bear hunter he saw in Hot Springs, Arkansas,
Speaker 1: in eighteen thirty four. He said the man was a
Speaker 1: singular fellow who shunned society, was dressed altogether in skins
Speaker 1: of animals he killed, and seemed never to have washed.
Speaker 1: He lived in the woods miles from the springs, and
Speaker 1: only visited when he had bear and deer skins to sell.
Speaker 1: This writer met another hunter near the Catto River. He
Speaker 1: said he was a genuine hunter, dressed in leather prepared
Speaker 1: by himself from the skins of animals he'd killed. He
Speaker 1: was going with his rifle on his shoulder and his
Speaker 1: dogs some twenty miles off to hunt bears. The man,
Speaker 1: although between thirty and forty years old, had never been
Speaker 1: out of his neighborhood and had no idea of the
Speaker 1: world beyond his own pursuits. This was the Arkansas that
Speaker 1: people wanted to talk about. But this backwoods romantic image
Speaker 1: of bear hunters would be the bright spot compared to
Speaker 1: what was about to come. Over the next two hundred years,
Speaker 1: Arkansas would become the most maligned and made fun of
Speaker 1: place in America. But why there were lots of places
Speaker 1: with poverty and hunting, Why Arkansas. Doctor Brooks Blevins wrote
Speaker 1: a book in two thousand and seven titled Arkansas Arkansas,
Speaker 1: How Bear Hunters, Hillbillies, and good old Boys defined the State.
Speaker 1: It's an incredible book. In the title, the first Arkansas
Speaker 1: has spelled correctly, but the second is spelled with a
Speaker 1: W at the end, the way the bear hunter gym
Speaker 1: dogget spelled at. In eighteen forty one, doctor Blevins makes
Speaker 1: a case that there are two arc and saws, which
Speaker 1: I think by the end of this you'll agree with.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about identity. Here's doctor Blevins. You're right, we
Speaker 1: don't allow anything to go unlabeled or unbranded, and we
Speaker 1: have a little shorthand ways of characterizing everybody and everything,
Speaker 1: and states were no different. You know, you think about it.
Speaker 1: Every state went through its frontier stage, and every state
Speaker 1: had these trappers and hunters and things like that at
Speaker 1: one stage in their development. But most states eventually get
Speaker 1: to sleught that off and go on about their business
Speaker 1: and modernize. But Arkansas because of the timing when it
Speaker 1: becomes a state right there and the kind of the
Speaker 1: heart of the Southwestern humor era when people were writing
Speaker 1: all these stories, because Arkansas in many ways and in
Speaker 1: many places still was kind of a frontier. When it
Speaker 1: becomes a state, it gets branded at that moment, and
Speaker 1: that brand really sticks with it for years and years
Speaker 1: to come. Doctor Blevins makes a strong case that the
Speaker 1: frontier image of Arkansas never really gets replaced, even though
Speaker 1: all states had a frontier period. But perhaps we've gotten
Speaker 1: ahead of ourselves. I think we need to go even
Speaker 1: further back to understand Arkansas's origins. We're gonna have to
Speaker 1: go way back. This is doctor Jeanie Wayne of the
Speaker 1: University of Arkansas. What does the name Arkansas mean? Well,
Speaker 1: it's It was the name that the group of Illinois
Speaker 1: Indians who were accompanying the Marquette and Joliette trek down
Speaker 1: the Mississippi River in the seventeenth century gave to the
Speaker 1: Indians that we know of as the Quapaw, but the
Speaker 1: way they pronounced it was something like Arkansas, and the
Speaker 1: French pronunciation, Oh really, so they were trying to say
Speaker 1: Qua Paul they were called. The Illinois were calling them
Speaker 1: what they believed their name to be. The French interpreted
Speaker 1: it as Arkansas of something like Kansa, and it became
Speaker 1: it was ultimately corrupted to Arkansas. What about I've heard
Speaker 1: Arkansas means land of the downstream people. That's the downstream people. Okay,
Speaker 1: that was the word that meant land of the people downstream,
Speaker 1: which was downstream on the Mississippi from Illinois, and the
Speaker 1: Illinois Indians considered then the downstream people because they were
Speaker 1: part of their their people at some point land of
Speaker 1: the downstream people. Even our naming by the Native Americans
Speaker 1: is suddenly dismissive. Our name is in relationship to an
Speaker 1: unnamed place upstream. We don't even get our own landmark.
Speaker 1: Or maybe I'm reading into this and it's just my
Speaker 1: Arkansas persecution complex talking. It's hard to know because this
Speaker 1: is the only people the Nucambs have had out into
Speaker 1: the known world since the early thirties when we arrived
Speaker 1: in the Washetaw Mountains of Montgomery County near the community
Speaker 1: of Bumblebee, Arkansas. And we all know that Bumblebee wings
Speaker 1: are too small for them to fly, but despite the
Speaker 1: negative press, they've made quite the name for themselves. So
Speaker 1: his Arkansas. It's believed Arkansas was first inhabited by Paleo
Speaker 1: Indians ten to twelve thousand years ago. In fifteen forty one,
Speaker 1: the Spaniard Hernando de Soto was the first European to
Speaker 1: set foot here, and not surprisingly, the old codre was
Speaker 1: looking for gold. He didn't find any, but he found
Speaker 1: substantial agrarian villages of numerous native tribes in Arkansas. He
Speaker 1: walked into a thriving civilization of what anthropologists called the
Speaker 1: Mississippian culture. De Soto declared himself the son of the Sun.
Speaker 1: He wreaked havoc on the tribes for the year he
Speaker 1: was here Before he died of fever. His body was
Speaker 1: wrapped in a blanket, weighted with sand and sunk in
Speaker 1: the Mississippi River. It would be over one hundred and
Speaker 1: forty years before another European dude would come here. In
Speaker 1: sixteen eighty two, a French guy named LaSalle found the
Speaker 1: majority of the villages De Soto reported completely gone, nothing
Speaker 1: but ruins. It's an incredible mystery, but it's believed De
Speaker 1: Soto and his six hundred men carried smallpox, plague, yellow fever, tuberculosis,
Speaker 1: to flu typhus, and measles to the tribes, nearly wiping
Speaker 1: them out. And tree ring analysis of that time shows
Speaker 1: an incredibly severe one hundred year drought that hit the
Speaker 1: tribes with a double wammy of crisis. Whatever happened, most
Speaker 1: of them were gone. LaSalle ends up in a small
Speaker 1: village of friendly Quawpaus and in sixteen eighty two makes
Speaker 1: the first European settlement here called Arkansas Post, just up
Speaker 1: the Mississippi River, on the White River. Why is this
Speaker 1: important to the Arkansas image? We're about to learn the
Speaker 1: French presence in Arkansas was very light, and the French
Speaker 1: hunters became dependent in their own way upon the Quapa
Speaker 1: for military alliance for agricultural goods, and they engaged in trade.
Speaker 1: They engaged in a kind of cultural blending. So yes,
Speaker 1: they intermarried. They intermarried. They again, the military alliances intermarried
Speaker 1: trade and there was a descriptive pray or word used
Speaker 1: to describe Matisse. Yeah, so the French and the Quapaw
Speaker 1: and they're them intermarrying the Matisse. It's unusual for us
Speaker 1: to imagine this, but there were times early on when
Speaker 1: the tribes accepted Europeans, helped them, and they even lived together.
Speaker 1: At Arkansas Post the cultural lines blurred in the extreme
Speaker 1: isolation form in what they called the Matisse. That's a
Speaker 1: French word which means mixed and in this case a
Speaker 1: unique blend of the French and Quapole. Do you remember
Speaker 1: how I said the Big Bar of Arkansas, Jim Dogget's
Speaker 1: philosophical doctrines sounded non European to me. Well, this is
Speaker 1: probably why some of the European backwoods cultures had one
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty years of deep Native American influence in
Speaker 1: the seventeen hundreds. However, this would backfire on the image
Speaker 1: of Arkansas, as Native Americans began to get a worse
Speaker 1: and worse rap in the colonies. A Frenchman named Francois
Speaker 1: wrote of the people at Arkansas Post quote, they passed
Speaker 1: their time playing games, dancing, drinking, or doing nothing similar
Speaker 1: in this as other things to the Savage peoples with
Speaker 1: whom they passed the greater part of their lives. A
Speaker 1: guy in Louisiana wrote about these people in Arkansas Post,
Speaker 1: and he said, these men consist of scum of all
Speaker 1: kinds of nationals who have become stuck here through their
Speaker 1: fondness of idleness and independence. Hardly do they know they
Speaker 1: are Christians. They excel in all vices and their kind
Speaker 1: of life as a real scandal. End of quote. And
Speaker 1: not to belabor the point, but Louisiana and Morris Arnold
Speaker 1: accused the hunters of Arkansas at this time of being murderers, rapists,
Speaker 1: and fugitives from justice, and as lazy, shiftless, given to
Speaker 1: excess drinking and laburtonage, and irredeemably lawless and a moral
Speaker 1: that gum that stings a little, but it might have
Speaker 1: been true. This was the beginning of the Arkansas image,
Speaker 1: all the way back in the sixteen and early seventeen hundreds,
Speaker 1: and things don't get better for Arkansas. Here's doctor Blevins.
Speaker 1: You know, first impressions are very powerful. That first impression
Speaker 1: can stick you with you for a long long time.
Speaker 1: And in many ways that's what happens to Arkansas. Its
Speaker 1: first impression on the national scene is of this kind
Speaker 1: of backwoods bear hunting place that's semi civilized, probably a
Speaker 1: little dangerous, and maybe, you know, not the funniest place
Speaker 1: to visit. And when it gets branded with that, what
Speaker 1: happens is for the rest of the nineteenth century and
Speaker 1: into the twentieth century, there's just kind of this continual
Speaker 1: piling on of imagery. The imagery just started piling on.
Speaker 1: And to give a very short version of European immigration
Speaker 1: into Arkansas, for one hundred years after the establishment of
Speaker 1: the Arkansas Post in sixteen eighty three, there was very
Speaker 1: little happening here until the late seventeen hundreds when the
Speaker 1: number of market hunters increased, and they were here in
Speaker 1: good number through the time when Arkansas achieved territorial status
Speaker 1: in eighteen nineteen. That's when the numbers of people started
Speaker 1: to increase. Just remember all that it's important. Trust me,
Speaker 1: this is a but people in Arkansas have to carry
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff, okay, and this is really important.
Speaker 1: Arkansas had a unique geography that created isolation. The Indian
Speaker 1: territory bordering Arkansas to the west created a border the
Speaker 1: Mississippi River to the east, the giant swap of the
Speaker 1: East Arkansas Delta and the challenges of the mountain regions
Speaker 1: of Arkansas created this unique geographic isolation they called the
Speaker 1: mill Pond effect. Arkansas was on the weights and nowhere,
Speaker 1: and typically the people who settled here were impoverished, indebted,
Speaker 1: running from something pretty wild. The opinions of people can
Speaker 1: be influential, especially when they have the powerful pen of
Speaker 1: identity scripting in their hand. A dude from Albany, New
Speaker 1: York named Henry Rose Schoolcraft was one such writer. He
Speaker 1: was a young grainhorn geologist that came to the ozarks
Speaker 1: of Arkansas in eighteen eighteen looks at the possibility of mining.
Speaker 1: Nobody remembers or cares about the minerals he found here
Speaker 1: because he didn't find much. But my word, did he
Speaker 1: ever brand the state. He was kind of a punk.
Speaker 1: Here's doctor Blevins on Schoolcraft. He wasn't the first explorer
Speaker 1: from outside of Arkansas to come through and write about
Speaker 1: the place and publish it and for people to read about,
Speaker 1: but his was probably the most notable. He comes through
Speaker 1: in eighteen eighteen and eighteen nineteen, so well before the
Speaker 1: state very sparsely settled. He spends almost all of his
Speaker 1: time in the Ozarks and the northern third of the state.
Speaker 1: And Schoolcraft is he's a New Yorker and he's college educated.
Speaker 1: He's sort of a budding geologist. But he you know,
Speaker 1: he writes this report of his travels through the Ozarks
Speaker 1: and it's published just to come years after he does
Speaker 1: this trip. He writes some very very negative things about
Speaker 1: the people that he came into contact with. Not all
Speaker 1: of the people, but for the most part, he's very
Speaker 1: very negative. Well, probably most famously, Schoolcraft visits a family
Speaker 1: by the name of Welles in northern Arkansas, probably you know,
Speaker 1: somewhere in the mountain Home vicinity. And he has nothing
Speaker 1: whatsoever good to say about the Wells family. I mean,
Speaker 1: he really, he really hammers them pretty good. He calls
Speaker 1: the children abundantly greasy and dirty. They're all dressed in buckskin.
Speaker 1: And he says of the mother of the family and
Speaker 1: the children they could quote only talk of bears hunting
Speaker 1: and the like, the rude pursuits and the course enjoyments
Speaker 1: of the hunter state where all they knew and for him,
Speaker 1: you know that, I mean, there were no books in
Speaker 1: the house. There was there was nothing that reminded anybody
Speaker 1: of civilization there, and so he was completely repulsed by
Speaker 1: the food, by what they were wearing, by what their
Speaker 1: house looked like, by the fact that all they could
Speaker 1: talk about was hunting. I mean that's what their life
Speaker 1: revolved around. Yeah, I mean there were you know, there
Speaker 1: were all kinds of hides stretched out on the house,
Speaker 1: and you know, it was just their entire lives were
Speaker 1: repulsive to him. I wish Schoolcraft would have just stayed
Speaker 1: in his lane and wrote about rocks and mountain erogeney,
Speaker 1: keeping the cultural anthropology to the people who know a
Speaker 1: thing or two about human life. Dirty sap sucker. He
Speaker 1: called Arkansans a wild, semi civilized race of backwoodsmen. As
Speaker 1: judgy as Schoolcraft was, he made some interesting observations. He wrote, quote,
Speaker 1: the hunter, although habitually lazy and holding in contempt the
Speaker 1: pursuits of agriculture so far at least as is not
Speaker 1: necessary to his own subsistence, is nevertheless a slave to
Speaker 1: his dog, the only object around him to which he
Speaker 1: appears really devoted to him. All days are equally unhallowed,
Speaker 1: and the first and the last day of the week
Speaker 1: finding him alike sunken unconcerned sloth and stupid ignorance. That
Speaker 1: was a little harsh, bro And in deep human history,
Speaker 1: hunter gatherers chose not to partake in large scale agriculture
Speaker 1: because they hunted for food and they were saving their
Speaker 1: energy for the hunt. Secondly, you got the dog thing
Speaker 1: partially right, but it's not the only thing we're devoted to.
Speaker 1: But goodness, a good hunting dog is hard to beat.
Speaker 1: Another thing Schoolcraft noted as unusual was the violence, which
Speaker 1: would become a big part of the Arkansas image. He wrote, quote,
Speaker 1: without moral restraint, brought up in the uncontrolled indulgence of
Speaker 1: every passion, and without regard of religion, the state of
Speaker 1: society among the rising generation in this region is truly deplorable,
Speaker 1: and their childish disputes boys frequently stabbed each other with knives,
Speaker 1: two instances of which have occurred since our residence here.
Speaker 1: No correction was administered in either case, and the act
Speaker 1: being rather looked upon and is a promising trait of character.
Speaker 1: End of quote. You guys know that my annoyance with
Speaker 1: Schoolcraft is partly tongue in cheek. It sounds like he
Speaker 1: witnessed some bad characters, but he wasn't the only one
Speaker 1: who saw it. The Englishman Thomas Nuttall spent some time
Speaker 1: in the Ozarks before statehood, and he said, quote, the
Speaker 1: population in this territory is but too favorable to the
Speaker 1: spread of ignorance and barbarism. The means of education are
Speaker 1: at present nearly proscribed, and the rising generation are growing
Speaker 1: up in mental darkness and have almost forgot that they
Speaker 1: appertained to the civilized world. End of quote. What's interesting
Speaker 1: is that not everybody was as hard on Arkansas as
Speaker 1: these two city slicking punk elites. Our good buddy, Frederick
Speaker 1: Gerstalker spent six years in America, and much of it
Speaker 1: in the Creation State. His perception of Arkansas was vastly
Speaker 1: different than Schoolcraft. He said, quote, I have traversed the
Speaker 1: state in all directions and met with as honest and
Speaker 1: upright people as are to be found in any part
Speaker 1: of the Union. End of quote. He was here about
Speaker 1: twenty years after Schoolcraft, so maybe some people of higher
Speaker 1: character showed up, or Schoolcraft was looking for fault. When
Speaker 1: leaving the state, Gerstalker said, quote, of all I had
Speaker 1: seen in America, Arkansas was the one which pleased me
Speaker 1: the most. I may perhaps never see it again, but
Speaker 1: I shall never forget the happy days I passed there.
Speaker 1: There were many a true heartbeats under a coarse frock
Speaker 1: or a leather hunting shirt. Perhaps most famously, Washington Irving,
Speaker 1: America's first well known author, passed through, and he wrote, quote,
Speaker 1: the inhabitants have none of the eagerness for gain, the
Speaker 1: rage for improvement which keep our people continually on the move.
Speaker 1: He said, they quote resided in a contented state of poverty,
Speaker 1: worked little, they danced a great deal, and the fiddle
Speaker 1: was the joy of their heart. End of quote. As
Speaker 1: he left Arkansas, he wrote quote, as we swept away
Speaker 1: from the shore, I cast a wistful eye upon the
Speaker 1: moss grown roofs, and the ancient elms and the village,
Speaker 1: and prayed that the inhabitants might long retain their happy ignorance,
Speaker 1: their absence of all enterprise and improvement, their respect of
Speaker 1: the fiddle, and their contempt for the almighty dollar. End
Speaker 1: of quote. Schoolcraft, not all and Irving were all here
Speaker 1: during Arkansas's territorial period from eighteen nineteen to eighteen thirty six.
Speaker 1: It's easy to see the direction this is all going,
Speaker 1: but it's just getting started. Remember that inventory that you
Speaker 1: took about Arkansas. You might be seeing the breadcrumbs of
Speaker 1: your modern ideas about us leading you way back. And
Speaker 1: I know that there's been a lot of information to
Speaker 1: process here. But in Arkansas, our intellects have to work
Speaker 1: double hard to overcome our ignorance. So we're used to
Speaker 1: fast thinking sage calculations and doing this intellectual calculus on
Speaker 1: the fly. If you need to pause and rewind, feel
Speaker 1: free to. So back to our story how Arkansas became
Speaker 1: the most belittled state in America. In eighteen thirty six,
Speaker 1: we became a state, but we weren't ready. We only
Speaker 1: had fifty two thousand people, no infrastructure, not much agriculture.
Speaker 1: But something was a brewin here's doctor Blevins. And the
Speaker 1: only reason it becomes a state so quickly is because
Speaker 1: politicians in those days compromisers, tried to maintain peace in
Speaker 1: the country by maintaining a balance between slave states and
Speaker 1: free states in the US Senate, and Michigan was ready
Speaker 1: to join the Union as a free state, and Arkansas
Speaker 1: was the closest thing to a slave state that might
Speaker 1: be ready for statehood in eighteen thirty six, so they
Speaker 1: kind of crammed them together and push them through, and
Speaker 1: so Arkansas prematurely really becomes a state. Arkansas prematurely becomes
Speaker 1: a state. This is very important for our future. And
Speaker 1: this was an interesting place socially. Arkansas was divided on
Speaker 1: being a slave state, but politics and money went out.
Speaker 1: The short version of a very complex story is that
Speaker 1: the Delta had the farms, the money, the slaves, and
Speaker 1: the political power and the highlands people of the Ozarks
Speaker 1: and Washatas where the poverty stricken Hillbillies. That becomes synonymous
Speaker 1: with the national image of Arkansas. And we'll get into it.
Speaker 1: But the word hill didn't show up until the twentieth century.
Speaker 1: It's a relatively new word, created as a derogatory slur
Speaker 1: by people not from here. And I'm about out of
Speaker 1: breath from all this talking. It ain't easy being from
Speaker 1: Arkansas and having to know all this stuff. Here's doctor
Speaker 1: Wayne telling us yet another reason we got the shaft
Speaker 1: for coming in as a state prematurely. And it showcases
Speaker 1: what Americans hate, poverty and financial woes. What are you
Speaker 1: going to tax if they wanted to tax, what kind
Speaker 1: of economy is there? Farming economy? The wealthiest people are
Speaker 1: those planters growing up in Southeast Arkansas. And boy, those
Speaker 1: guys could control the political lovers well enough to make
Speaker 1: sure there were no taxes on them. So where's the commerce,
Speaker 1: Where's how are you going to support yourself? Who's going
Speaker 1: to write the check, who's going to pay the rent?
Speaker 1: So we get in deep trouble right away. Both banks
Speaker 1: go bankrupt. Arkansas is in debt at the beginning, but
Speaker 1: then a couple of years after it's it's a state,
Speaker 1: it's it's an impossible death. And that is really that's
Speaker 1: not cleared up until the eighteen nineties. Eighteen ninety eight,
Speaker 1: I believe this news was going out to America and
Speaker 1: Arkansas was just kind of this like backwater place with
Speaker 1: corrupt politicians and people in bad debt. You aren't gonna
Speaker 1: how are you going to get anybody to invest in
Speaker 1: Arkansas at this point in time. In the eighteen forties
Speaker 1: and eighteen fifties, we came into statehood with nothing to tax.
Speaker 1: We started banks and the banks immediately failed. And what
Speaker 1: do you think that did for the people of Arkansas.
Speaker 1: It was generations before some people ever put money back
Speaker 1: in the bank, which added to the slow progress of
Speaker 1: this place and doctor Blevin's book Arkansas, Arkansas, which I
Speaker 1: now require as mandatory reading to be my friend. He wrote, quote,
Speaker 1: Arkansas has provided an antithesis to a variety of American illusions,
Speaker 1: the idea of American exceptionalism, the blind faith of progress,
Speaker 1: America's starring role in some cosmic providential plan. In this
Speaker 1: rendering of the Arkansas image, the arkansawyer becomes a nonconformist
Speaker 1: who consciously or unconsciously rejects the tenets of an American
Speaker 1: narrative of the puritan through progressive continuum, like ce Van
Speaker 1: Woodward's post Civil War Southerners who learned to live for
Speaker 1: long decades in quiet Unamerican poverty and learned the equally
Speaker 1: Unamerican lesson of submission. End of quote. Did doctor Blevins
Speaker 1: just say that Arkansas debunked the idea of American exceptionalism?
Speaker 1: I think he did. But because doctor Blevins is one
Speaker 1: of us, it's okay. The Arkansas image carries with it
Speaker 1: a healthy dose of non conformity. But maybe that's not
Speaker 1: all bad. This is one of my favorite quotes. A
Speaker 1: twentieth century writer. What said quote died in the wool
Speaker 1: Ozarkers are proudly primitive. Their isolation is a religion and
Speaker 1: clannishness of virtue. They're the most backwards and deliberately unprogressive
Speaker 1: region in the United States. End of quote. Now this
Speaker 1: next one hurts a little. A writer named C. L.
Speaker 1: Edson wrote, quote, A people willing to foot it one
Speaker 1: hundred miles through month to get nowhere founded Arkansas and
Speaker 1: achieve their aim. Arkansas has its own popular motto, and
Speaker 1: it's this, I never seen nothing, I don't know nothing,
Speaker 1: I got nothing, and I don't want nothing. The dirt
Speaker 1: ball went on to write, few can read in Arkansas,
Speaker 1: and those who can don't. Every old southern state has
Speaker 1: produced a few scholars except Arkansas. No man of first
Speaker 1: classed intellect was born in Arkansas, lived there, or even
Speaker 1: passed through the state. End of quote. What a punk.
Speaker 1: Those are some strong words, mister Edson, and me and
Speaker 1: Brent Reeves will fight any of your living ken right
Speaker 1: now if they've got the gall to show up down here.
Speaker 1: I'm just kidding. We thrive off this stuff. We're used
Speaker 1: to it. It's kind of what made us who we are.
Speaker 1: And we're back to the drawing board and have yet
Speaker 1: another layer of powerful branding. In the eighteen forties, the
Speaker 1: widely popular story of the Arkansas Traveler came out. Here's
Speaker 1: Doctor Blevins. A little bit later, you've got the birth
Speaker 1: of the Arkansas Traveler. It's The Arkansas Traveler becomes a
Speaker 1: popular play in the nineteenth century, where you have this
Speaker 1: sort of sophisticated urbane traveler who ventures into somewhere in
Speaker 1: the back country, you know, depending on who's telling the story. Anyway,
Speaker 1: they venture into the back country and they encounter this
Speaker 1: squatter at a log cabin and he's sitting there sawing
Speaker 1: away on a fiddle, trying to play a song, and
Speaker 1: he can't remember the rest of the song. And then
Speaker 1: there's this humorous back and forth between the traveler and
Speaker 1: the squatter such you know, gems as which way does
Speaker 1: this road go in the squad and the squatter says, well,
Speaker 1: I've been here twenty years and it ain't never went nowhere,
Speaker 1: and you know that, why don't you patch up your roof?
Speaker 1: And the squatter says, well, when it's raining, stu wet
Speaker 1: to patch it up, and when it's dry, don't need
Speaker 1: patching that, you know that kind of you know it's right,
Speaker 1: These are I mean old old comedy bits that go
Speaker 1: back you know how many who knows how many centuries,
Speaker 1: but they're kind of plugged into this new fresh territory Arkansas.
Speaker 1: So you get this Arkansas Traveler legend that turns into
Speaker 1: a fiddle tune that becomes very popular, it turns into
Speaker 1: that play, it turns into paintings that are that are
Speaker 1: still you know, popular, and you see those are around today.
Speaker 1: So you got a name of Arkansas's baseball team, but
Speaker 1: right the Little Rocks baseball team, the Lers, the University
Speaker 1: of Arkansas student newspaper, the Arkansas Traveler. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: that that sticks, and I guess Arkansas may still do it.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure, but you know they used to hand out,
Speaker 1: you know, these Arkansas Traveler Awards to people, you know,
Speaker 1: and kind of you've become an honorary Arkansas Traveler if
Speaker 1: you do something good for Arkansas or they want to
Speaker 1: honor you for something. But you know, that's again age
Speaker 1: old comedy stuff right there. But that sticks with the state.
Speaker 1: And this is before the word hillbilly comes into popular usage,
Speaker 1: which is only around the turn of the twentieth century
Speaker 1: when when that comes in. But so Arkansas is already
Speaker 1: strongly associated with what we would consider hillbilly culture come
Speaker 1: the twentieth century. It's also around the turn of the
Speaker 1: twentieth century when you start having these cheap joke books
Speaker 1: that are published, and the most famous of all those
Speaker 1: cheap joke books is on a Slow Train through Arkansas
Speaker 1: and on the front, you know, you know, you got
Speaker 1: this kind of book titled that, Yeah, there's there's an
Speaker 1: old joke on a slow train through Arkansas. And the
Speaker 1: thing about it is, if you if you actually get
Speaker 1: the book and look at it, it's a very very
Speaker 1: offensive book, but not necessarily the people from Arkansas. It's
Speaker 1: it's racially and ethnically and religiously offensive. But the fact
Speaker 1: that the guy who wrote it decided to call it
Speaker 1: on a slow train through Arkansas and have the artwork
Speaker 1: on the cover depict these kind of hillbilly characters in
Speaker 1: Arkansas suggests that by the time the book comes out
Speaker 1: in the early nine very early nineteen hundreds, Arkansas is
Speaker 1: already shorthand for humorous. Yeah that was that was branded
Speaker 1: in and this guy was jumping on the band. He's
Speaker 1: taking advantage of whom any guy what a dirt ball?
Speaker 1: Right Once upon a time in Arkansas, an old man
Speaker 1: sat at its little cabin door. Anything with that a
Speaker 1: tune that he'd liked to Hugh Johnny, tune that he
Speaker 1: fleyed by. The Arkansas Travelers story has multiple potential sources,
Speaker 1: but it started off simply as a story that branded
Speaker 1: us big time. There's a famous painting fiddle tune. Arkansas
Speaker 1: Traveler was the name of a national paper published out
Speaker 1: of Arkansas with the national distribution of eighty five thousand
Speaker 1: in eighteen eighty seven, and in nineteen thirty eight there
Speaker 1: was a Hollywood movie that came out called The Arkansas Traveler.
Speaker 1: It's the name of our only pro baseball team. And
Speaker 1: the student paper at my alma mater of the University
Speaker 1: of Arkansas, Go Hogs, is the Arkansas Traveler. And then
Speaker 1: that dad gum joke book. Yeah, Arkansas from you know,
Speaker 1: from those earliest days when it when he gets branded
Speaker 1: as the Bear State, that becomes some version of that,
Speaker 1: some version of the backwoods hillbilly state becomes its brand
Speaker 1: become it's what everybody in the country knows about it
Speaker 1: really for the rest of the century. You know, it
Speaker 1: shows up in in Mark Twain's writing, you know, that
Speaker 1: there's there are kind of these backwoods crazy characters from
Speaker 1: Arkansas who shows up, and a lot of literature and
Speaker 1: it's almost always Arkansas is it's this backward place that
Speaker 1: never really modernizes like other places. It never gets beyond
Speaker 1: it's it's frontier stage. And that really you know, continues
Speaker 1: into the well into the twentieth century. Arkansas maintains its
Speaker 1: place as kind of the the bud of a national joke.
Speaker 1: Were there other states in the South that had that
Speaker 1: quite like quite like Arkansas? If you're if you're from Arkansas,
Speaker 1: you know, there's the old thank God for Mississippi line,
Speaker 1: which which I've heard people say many many that usually
Speaker 1: comes into play when you're looking at statistical rankings, because
Speaker 1: if anybody's going to be below Arkansas, it's maybe Mississippi.
Speaker 1: We're fighting for fiftieth place. And didn't they like reference
Speaker 1: Arkansas as inside of those cartoons they are there? They
Speaker 1: do that with other SATs. Yeah, well, the one I
Speaker 1: think you're thinking of, it's it's a Warner Brothers cartoon
Speaker 1: from nineteen fifty called Hillbilly Hare and it's bugs Bunny,
Speaker 1: oh Ken Hillbilly Hare. I know they referenced the Ozarks.
Speaker 1: But in that cartoon Hit Bugs, Bunny travels to the
Speaker 1: Ozarks for some reason, you know, he pops up out
Speaker 1: of the ground and he's in the Ozarks, vacation in
Speaker 1: the Ozarks, so quiet, so peaceful, so far from hum
Speaker 1: in danger, so huh. And he gets in the middle
Speaker 1: of this feud between you know, two feud and families.
Speaker 1: They're all bearded and barefoot and overalls, and they got
Speaker 1: you know, shotguns with muzzles on them that are longer
Speaker 1: than the people themselves. Who crew and just who might
Speaker 1: you be? Might be Teddy Roosi belt but I eat
Speaker 1: hey durn foh, what's our idea of time? Knox and
Speaker 1: the rifle Barron just call me freck Ocean. You know,
Speaker 1: it's very very it's funny, and it's stereotypical and all
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. Well, one of the things you
Speaker 1: find is that by the twentieth century, Arkansas and the
Speaker 1: Ozarks becomes kind of interchangeable in a lot of ways
Speaker 1: in myth making and imagery for the nation. Even though
Speaker 1: the Ozarks only makes up roughly a quarter of the
Speaker 1: state of Arkansas, when it comes to the image of Arkansas,
Speaker 1: in many ways, it's very much tied up with this
Speaker 1: kind of Ozarks hillbilly image. Thank God for Mississippi. I
Speaker 1: actually like Mississippi a lot. That's where Bear Grease, Hall
Speaker 1: of Famer Hulk Callier lived, The Ozarks and Washatas. Arkansas's
Speaker 1: mountainous regions make up about one third of our state,
Speaker 1: but in the twentieth century, the national Arkansas image takes
Speaker 1: a notable turn to depict the poor white highlanders and
Speaker 1: leaves out African Americans, Delta farmers, and Native Americans still
Speaker 1: in Arkansas, the trend was completely based on America's appetite
Speaker 1: for entertainment and intrigue. For some reason, the poor white
Speaker 1: mountain folk were what they wanted to talk about growing
Speaker 1: up here. I didn't realize we were special until I
Speaker 1: was older and started traveling. And without a doubt, I
Speaker 1: am very defensive of Arkansas. Doctor Blevins says that defensiveness
Speaker 1: is part of our cultural inheritance. Doctor Blevins brought up
Speaker 1: Mark Twain's work. And here is doctor Bob Cochrane with
Speaker 1: two major American novels with references to Arkansas. Do you
Speaker 1: know what they are? Okay? One of them is Mark Twain,
Speaker 1: which won't surprise you at all. But in Huckleberry Finn,
Speaker 1: you remember the two fraudulent guys that go around putting
Speaker 1: on the Royal nun such show. They know they're just
Speaker 1: two bombs, but they try to take yokol. And there's
Speaker 1: a place where Arkansas shows up in Huckleberry Fame. So
Speaker 1: when he's putting up a placard advertising their hoochie Guccie show,
Speaker 1: you know, and that's what it is. I mean, there's
Speaker 1: no they have not the show. They're two guys they
Speaker 1: don't have, you know. Then they couldn't do a burlesque
Speaker 1: show if they wanted to. But they put up a
Speaker 1: sign and whatever else. It says down at the bottom
Speaker 1: they say women and children not admitted. And then the
Speaker 1: guy turns the prince tends to the dukes. Is there?
Speaker 1: He says, if that don't get them, that don't bring
Speaker 1: them in. I don't know Arkansas. And so he's referring
Speaker 1: to this specific line. You know that the suckers will
Speaker 1: think there must be something, you know, risque in the
Speaker 1: show just by that line, just by the no women
Speaker 1: and children that admitted. So here's what I'm really saying.
Speaker 1: Arkansas's reputation as a state this would have supported it.
Speaker 1: And there's one even more famous. It's Moby Dick eighteen
Speaker 1: fifty one. Moby Dick gets published. There's one mention and
Speaker 1: one only in moby Dick. Yeah of Arkansas. And what
Speaker 1: it does is make us look bad. That's no surprise
Speaker 1: to you. They love doing that. And here's how he
Speaker 1: did it. Here's how he did it. He it's in
Speaker 1: one sentence. The phrase itself is uh like an Arkansas
Speaker 1: duellist is the phrase where Arkansas comes in. And the
Speaker 1: person who is described as being like an Arkansas duellist
Speaker 1: is Captain Ahab, the monomaniac, you know. And it's he
Speaker 1: is right under the bus, that under the bus, under
Speaker 1: the whale in this case, because he is at that
Speaker 1: moment lunging with a six inch knife at the whale.
Speaker 1: This is when the harpoon gets wrapped around him and
Speaker 1: he's carried down by the whale to his death. But
Speaker 1: it's it's made very explicit. He's trying with a six
Speaker 1: inch blade, I think is the word. He doesn't use
Speaker 1: the word knife to reach the fathom deep heart of
Speaker 1: the whale. That's that's exactly an idiotic thing to do.
Speaker 1: Dumb thing to do, dumb and violent. So Arkansas was
Speaker 1: portrayed as crazy, viol and stupid. Only one line, wow,
Speaker 1: and Arkansas duelist and a duel in that time would
Speaker 1: have been common language for a shootout, right, like you
Speaker 1: would just would would have a conflict and we would
Speaker 1: go have a duel in the street. Which there was
Speaker 1: a legislator killed in the state capital of Arkansas. I
Speaker 1: mean that's not terribly unusual. Poland the guy who wrote
Speaker 1: the Peate Wetstone things, he killed somebody in a duel.
Speaker 1: He killed Governor Pope's nephew. Governor John Pope's nephew insulted him.
Speaker 1: They had to challenge him to a duel. They were
Speaker 1: they were distressingly common duels in those days. They loved
Speaker 1: to go to places where police jurisdiction was a little
Speaker 1: bit in doubt, like islands in a river, is this
Speaker 1: in this county? Here is this in this state? Right?
Speaker 1: And so you know police jurisdiction would be a little
Speaker 1: bit hazy maybe, yeah, I mean that was part of
Speaker 1: the image of Arkansas. It was that these people were
Speaker 1: having duels at the drop, you know, so and you
Speaker 1: know they're all carrying booie knives around and yeah. In
Speaker 1: eighteen thirty seven, State Representative Joseph Anthony was killed in
Speaker 1: a knife fight by the Speaker of the House John
Speaker 1: Wilson at the Arkansas State House and another pair of
Speaker 1: legislators went to an island on the Mississippi River for
Speaker 1: a pistol duel and one of them died. This was
Speaker 1: a wild and violent place. We're gonna skip ahead in
Speaker 1: time to some stuff from the twentieth century. The heyday
Speaker 1: of the hillbilly in American media was in the nineteen
Speaker 1: thirties and forties. There were movies, plays, songs, jokes, but
Speaker 1: leading the charge on the national scene was radio. It
Speaker 1: was huge and there were two men by the name
Speaker 1: of Chester Locke and Norris Goth from my hometown of Mina, Arkansas.
Speaker 1: They had a wildly popular national radio show called Lomon
Speaker 1: Abner that ran nationally for twenty three years from nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty one until nineteen fifty four. I better in my
Speaker 1: life order run him out of town. Oh, he'll come
Speaker 1: to a Shamshire granddam. Abner just ain't used to having
Speaker 1: a lot of money and inch when they Shorter went
Speaker 1: to his head, and he's going to kill somebody with
Speaker 1: that cornhesion. Shets backing and back sheet and keeps punching
Speaker 1: night children the back with his walking keen making him
Speaker 1: go faster. Nineteen thirty three, Lom and Abner were receiving
Speaker 1: fifteen thousand fan letters per week from people hoping to
Speaker 1: connect with these two lovable characters. Their comedy show depicted
Speaker 1: life in the mountains of Arkansas. They spoke of peculiar
Speaker 1: neighbors and sticky situations, but overall it portrayed the Arkansawyers
Speaker 1: as funny, quirky, but noble. In nineteen thirty seven, Lom
Speaker 1: and Abner moved to Hollywood and starting seven movies. These
Speaker 1: guys were a big part of Arkansas's He'll belly image
Speaker 1: being exported to the country, but they didn't create it.
Speaker 1: They just inherited it from the last two hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty years. But America couldn't get enough of Arkansas. Moving forward,
Speaker 1: here's Doctor Blevins on the state's Inferiority Complex and the
Speaker 1: Ozark Mountain, the hillbilly themed theme park called dog Patch
Speaker 1: USA that operated near Harrison, Arkansas from nineteen sixty eight
Speaker 1: until nineteen ninety And No, you can't make this stuff up.
Speaker 1: You know, when I wrote Arkansas Arkansas several years ago,
Speaker 1: by far the funniest job I had in writing that
Speaker 1: book was writing that little chapter on the state's inferiority complex,
Speaker 1: because the funniest characters in the book to me were
Speaker 1: the folks in Arkansas who got got their backs up.
Speaker 1: You know so much about people making fun of them.
Speaker 1: And I think from the very earliest days there has
Speaker 1: been this sort of defensive ferriority complex that is just
Speaker 1: it's almost part of your heritage, part of my heritage.
Speaker 1: Is someone who grows up in Arkansas, you just expect
Speaker 1: people are going to make fun of you. And so
Speaker 1: many people and it was almost always people from Little Rock.
Speaker 1: They were they were the ones who were most upset
Speaker 1: about this because what they would do. It wasn't that
Speaker 1: they were trying to defend everybody in Arkansas. They were
Speaker 1: trying to defend themselves and if they had to throw
Speaker 1: the rest of us under the bus to do it,
Speaker 1: they would do that. When when they were talking about
Speaker 1: founding dog Patch USA theme park in the late sixties,
Speaker 1: there were, you know, people in Little Rock who were
Speaker 1: upset about that. You know, their response wasn't, well, you
Speaker 1: know where all of Arkansas is modern and we don't.
Speaker 1: We're not like these people in dog Patch. And their
Speaker 1: idea was, you folks in the Ozarks, don't be dragging
Speaker 1: us into into this stuff. I remember my aunt Terry,
Speaker 1: God bless her, taking us to the dog Patch theme
Speaker 1: park in the late nineteen eighties. All I can remember
Speaker 1: is the log ride in all the overalls. Man, it
Speaker 1: was cool. I think that's where Brett Reeves was born.
Speaker 1: Here's more from doctor Blevins. And one of the things
Speaker 1: I did this was back in I think it was
Speaker 1: back in two thousand and seven. I did these internet searches.
Speaker 1: Not very scientific, but it's about as scientific as I
Speaker 1: could get. I just because I remember thinking one day
Speaker 1: I had almost finished the first draft of my book
Speaker 1: Arkansas Arkansas, which is all about, you know, the image
Speaker 1: of Arkansas, the hillbilly sort of image of Arkansas. And
Speaker 1: I remember thinking, one day, what if I'm writing this
Speaker 1: entire book at how the image of Arkansas came to
Speaker 1: be and what impact it's had on people of Arkansas,
Speaker 1: and nobody really cares. It's not even an issue anymore
Speaker 1: in the twenty first century. What if it doesn't even matter?
Speaker 1: And I'm the only one sitting around thinking about this.
Speaker 1: And so I sat down one day and I started
Speaker 1: doing these like Google searches where I would do exact
Speaker 1: phrase searches and I'd do like Arkansas hillbillys in quotation marks,
Speaker 1: and I would do hillbilly from Arkansas and quotation marks.
Speaker 1: And then I would plug in the names of other
Speaker 1: states and I would do Georgia, and I do Alabama,
Speaker 1: and I do New Jersey or just just whatever, and
Speaker 1: and and I remember being so relieved at the end
Speaker 1: of that day because in that I would count like
Speaker 1: the hits that each of these phrases God, and sure enough,
Speaker 1: Arkansas was still the hillbilliesst state according to the Internet
Speaker 1: in two thousand and I remember, I remember, right, I
Speaker 1: can remember that moment, sitting in my in my office
Speaker 1: and just almost doing a dance because we're still the
Speaker 1: hillbillyist state. And I mean even, you know, we're smoking
Speaker 1: Kentucky and West Virginia and in this competition, and I
Speaker 1: even broke it down like it did the math by
Speaker 1: per capita, and you know, Arkansas just blew everybody away
Speaker 1: in terms of its affiliation with the word hillbilly in
Speaker 1: two thousand sets. So I mean even it survived even
Speaker 1: into the twenty first century. You know, those rude Let's
Speaker 1: go all the way back to those Bear state images
Speaker 1: that we've talked about. I mean, that's how strong that
Speaker 1: connection has been that even Walmart can't remove us from,
Speaker 1: you know, the number one spot that even Crystal Bridges
Speaker 1: Museum of American Art, you know, one of the great
Speaker 1: art museums of the world. Now, in case you're wondering
Speaker 1: why you could feel doctor Blevins and I grinning ear
Speaker 1: to ear when he said Arkansas was the most hillbilly state.
Speaker 1: Let me explain something. I'm very proud to be from
Speaker 1: a small, humble place, and most of us are comfortable
Speaker 1: in our identity. And I have deliberately chosen to focus
Speaker 1: on the positives of our culture, because there are bad
Speaker 1: things too, But I'm proud to be from Arkansas. In
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty four, in essay was published in American Mercury magazine,
Speaker 1: written by an arkansawyer by the name of Eugene Newsome.
Speaker 1: I think he had some good advice for us. He said, quote,
Speaker 1: I say, breed up a race of razorbacks, as the
Speaker 1: Texans are doing with their long horns. Fire the old
Speaker 1: caplock muzzloader at the neighbors once a week, give the
Speaker 1: inquiring stranger directions to possum trot and goose ankle, and
Speaker 1: give him a sample of Uncle Rape's last run of
Speaker 1: corn squeezings. If Arkansas is ever gonna amount to anything,
Speaker 1: she's got to advertise the very characteristics she's been shushing
Speaker 1: for a hundred years. What Arkansas needs to do is
Speaker 1: not look, dress, talk and think like and be indistinguishable
Speaker 1: from other states. She needs to uncurl her little finger
Speaker 1: from the teacup and proclaim her known and recognize honoriness
Speaker 1: to the wide world. End of quote. The Arkansas image
Speaker 1: we've described as strong and deep. However, it's partly a
Speaker 1: product of a voracious American media stereotyping people, exaggerating the truth,
Speaker 1: and feeding people what sells. We're not all lazy, but
Speaker 1: I do like to take naps, we wear shoes most
Speaker 1: of the time. A lot of us do have cood
Speaker 1: and squirrel dogs. That's just the truth. But we also
Speaker 1: have four oh one k's health insurance, clean and tidy homes,
Speaker 1: and like going to fancy restaurants. And we're appropriately impacted
Speaker 1: by fine art and literature. Our governor, Sarah Huckabee Sanders,
Speaker 1: our first female and youngest governor, just signed in one
Speaker 1: of the most progressive education reform bills in the country.
Speaker 1: This is happening place, brothers. Doctor Blevins just brought up
Speaker 1: the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. I think we
Speaker 1: should check it out and see if this place lines
Speaker 1: up with the Arkansas you may have pictured in your
Speaker 1: mind at the first of this podcast. I'm sorry. I'm
Speaker 1: at the Crystal Bridges Museum in Bentonville, Arkansas. Tell me
Speaker 1: who you are. My name is Mindy Pisa. I am
Speaker 1: the curator of American Art, so I oversee the early
Speaker 1: American collection here at Crystal Bridges. But I'm also the
Speaker 1: director of Research and Fellowships, and we have a great
Speaker 1: research program that also attracts scholars from not only across
Speaker 1: the country but internationally to come to Crystal Bridges and
Speaker 1: study art. Let me ask you this put this museum
Speaker 1: into context for me. Pretend like I know nothing and
Speaker 1: where some of the treasures of American art are at
Speaker 1: across the country. And you don't have to be diplomatic,
Speaker 1: But how good is the Crystal Bridges Museum on a
Speaker 1: national scale for American art. It's in the top tier.
Speaker 1: And I say that as of course someone that works here,
Speaker 1: but also someone that I have my PhD in American
Speaker 1: art history. I have been studying American art for a
Speaker 1: long time. I've worked here for eight years for an
Speaker 1: American art museum. Some of our comparatives might be the
Speaker 1: Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, the Smithsonian American Art
Speaker 1: Museum in Washington, tendc. Now they have had a long, long, long,
Speaker 1: long history that we haven't had. But our collection is
Speaker 1: recognizably competitive with other American art museums. Last year's seven
Speaker 1: hundred thousand people visited Crystal Bridges. This is an incredible number.
Speaker 1: But I want to let y'all into a little bit
Speaker 1: of that high aluten big city drama. When all this
Speaker 1: incredible art ended up in the Ozarks, some of those
Speaker 1: fancy folks on the coast weren't that happy. So the
Speaker 1: rumor in Arkansas when Crystal Bridges came into Arkansas eleven
Speaker 1: years ago. We loved it, we loved the hype of
Speaker 1: it was that the art community was a little upset
Speaker 1: that some of this world class American art ended up
Speaker 1: in the po dunk state. Of Arkansas, and we loved
Speaker 1: it because Arkansans love when we're picked on just a
Speaker 1: little bit, but we show the world that we're the
Speaker 1: real deal. Is it true that some people were like
Speaker 1: saying that stuff shouldn't be in this place? Of course
Speaker 1: I would call them doubters, you know. So again, if
Speaker 1: you think of the coasts as being elite art world locations,
Speaker 1: they have long histories. Of course they have a lot
Speaker 1: to be proud of. And they would say Arkansas, where
Speaker 1: is Arkansas even located? Let me help if you don't
Speaker 1: know where Arkansas is. We're almost in the center of
Speaker 1: the country, which will learn as incredibly helpful if you're
Speaker 1: planning to build a global retail empire. The world headquarters
Speaker 1: of Walmart are in Bentonville, Arkansas. More on that in
Speaker 1: a second. Mindy and I are standing within arm's reach
Speaker 1: of a very famous landscape painting showing a spectacular scene
Speaker 1: of green forested mountains. There are two men standing on
Speaker 1: a bluffy crag overlooking a pristine valley. Landscape. Art seems
Speaker 1: to be all about lighting, and this painting almost glows
Speaker 1: with realism. But it didn't show up here without some drama. Okay,
Speaker 1: So tell me about this one. So this painting is
Speaker 1: by Asher B. Durand. It's called Kindred Spirits. This is
Speaker 1: the painting really that prompted the public announcement of Crystal Bridges.
Speaker 1: And I'll tell you why. So the painting had been
Speaker 1: housed and owned by the New York Public Library forever.
Speaker 1: Asher B. Durand was an important landscape painter early in
Speaker 1: our history of American art. And the two figures that
Speaker 1: are represented one as Thomas Cole. He's the guy with
Speaker 1: the hat and the portfolio under his arm. He is
Speaker 1: widely considered the father of American landscape painting, and American
Speaker 1: painting really felt like it came into its own with
Speaker 1: landscape because what we had land didn't have big buildings
Speaker 1: or we had landscapes, we didn't have Greek ruins, you know,
Speaker 1: all the things that would point to history in Europe
Speaker 1: was not found in the United States. So this is
Speaker 1: widely recognized as a hugely important painting for American art.
Speaker 1: So people were upset that it came here. So New
Speaker 1: York Public Library was deaccessioning some works. Now it's their fault,
Speaker 1: it's not our fault. It's not as if we went
Speaker 1: shopping off of their walls, so that means it was
Speaker 1: for sale. It was for sale, and it went to
Speaker 1: a silent bid through one of the big auction houses
Speaker 1: in New York, and that this closed bid wasn't so closed.
Speaker 1: And it very quickly leaked that Alice Walton had purchased
Speaker 1: the painting, and everyone was up in arms, especially in
Speaker 1: New York. Can you tell us how much it costs? No,
Speaker 1: I can't because everything here is priceless, good answer and irreplaceable.
Speaker 1: If I will so closed bid, Alice buys the painting.
Speaker 1: People are up in arms because they think it's going
Speaker 1: into a private collection in the quote middle of nowhere
Speaker 1: in Arkansas, never to be seen again. Now, Alice was
Speaker 1: just making her museum, building the collection, and as she
Speaker 1: would say it, she didn't think anyone cared what she
Speaker 1: was doing, just down in Arkansas, buying some art, making
Speaker 1: a building, normal stuff for us, just normal stuff, you know,
Speaker 1: wasn't very public. And when everything just exploded, it was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: it's time. So she used the controversy around the acquisition
Speaker 1: of this painting to announce her intentions for crystal bridges.
Speaker 1: This kind of sounds familiar the humble billionaires of Arkansas
Speaker 1: just minding their own business and people starting to get
Speaker 1: cranky about it. It's not our fault if we have
Speaker 1: good bear and duck Hutting's spots and have some of
Speaker 1: the richest people in the world. Yeah, you just heard
Speaker 1: the name Alice Walton. This is the daughter of the
Speaker 1: founder of Walmart, Sam Walton, the true Arkansas hero. As
Speaker 1: we walk away from the Kindred Spirits painting, we're heading
Speaker 1: to the painting. I really came to see. It's spectacular.
Speaker 1: Are there any pictures here? Oh, there's there. That's what
Speaker 1: I'm actor right there. I just saw it. So I
Speaker 1: have a copy of this painting hanging in my living rooms,
Speaker 1: a certain like a color when I bought from you guys. Yeah,
Speaker 1: years ago I ordered this and had it professionally framed
Speaker 1: a little smaller than this. But tell me that what
Speaker 1: this is and who who did it? Sure? So this
Speaker 1: is Arthur Fitzwilliam Tate. It's called a Tate fix. So
Speaker 1: it's bear hunting in early winter. It's a large painting
Speaker 1: framed in a gold frame. We have a hunter in
Speaker 1: buckskin really in a compromise sort of heated position, leaning
Speaker 1: back on his arm with a big black bear claws
Speaker 1: out ready to pounce on the hunter. This is an
Speaker 1: incredible painting called a Hunter's Life a tight Fix. It's huge,
Speaker 1: the lighting spectacular, and it shows a buckskin clad hunter
Speaker 1: with a bowie knife drawn in a hand to call
Speaker 1: brawl with Ursus Americanus. There's blood in the snow and
Speaker 1: in the background his hunting partner is taking aim at
Speaker 1: the bear, hoping to save his buddy's life. This was
Speaker 1: painted in eighteen fifty six, and the scene is strikingly
Speaker 1: similar to the one Frederick Gerstalker described in his book
Speaker 1: Wild Sports in the Far West, which was published just
Speaker 1: two years before at eighteen fifty four. It's strikingly similar.
Speaker 1: We did a whole podcast on this story called Death
Speaker 1: of a Bear Hunter. We already said it before, but
Speaker 1: bear hunting was a hot pop culture topic in the
Speaker 1: mid eighteen hundreds. Hunting is deep in the American identity,
Speaker 1: and I'm very proud that this painting is front and
Speaker 1: center at Crystal Bridges. Good job, Mindy and miss Alice.
Speaker 1: I want to jump back to doctor Blevins. He has
Speaker 1: an astute observation and wants to introduce us to a
Speaker 1: unique Arkansan. You know, in In twenty eleven, Crystal Bridges
Speaker 1: Museum opened up. I think they opened on eleven, eleven eleven.
Speaker 1: That was their big thing. November eleven, twenty eleven, they
Speaker 1: opened one of the great American art museums. I guess
Speaker 1: it's probably the greatest in terms of a collection of
Speaker 1: American art, American made art today. And I love the place.
Speaker 1: I've been there several times. But what you saw was
Speaker 1: all of a sudden in the national media there there
Speaker 1: started to be this kind of almost a rebranding of
Speaker 1: Arkansas just because and of the ozark just because of
Speaker 1: this one thing that happens, you know, this one big
Speaker 1: important cultural institution. And it's just a year or two
Speaker 1: later that I believe his name is Joe Wilson, Yes,
Speaker 1: Joe Wilson founds the Squirrel cook Off World champions in Bentonville, Arkansas.
Speaker 1: And it's almost as it's kind of the even things out.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, you get all of this kind
Speaker 1: of progressive sided publicity because of Crystal Bridges, and it's
Speaker 1: almost as if he realizes, hey, this is not what
Speaker 1: we're about just yet. I mean, we're still We're still
Speaker 1: in Arkansas. We're still in the Ozarks, and there are
Speaker 1: still people who kill and eat squirrels, and so you
Speaker 1: get the you get the squirrels Joe Wilson and the
Speaker 1: World Champions Squirrel cook Off. Yeah, it's kind of It
Speaker 1: brings restores kind of an equilibrium in a way, and
Speaker 1: it reminds people that what Arkansas has been known for
Speaker 1: all of these generations, long before there was a Walton
Speaker 1: family in Bentonville, long before there was a Crystal Bridges.
Speaker 1: Joe Willson is in his late forties. He's got a
Speaker 1: big curled mustache, and he's often wearing a black cowboy hat.
Speaker 1: Joe is a well respected man in Bentonville, but the
Speaker 1: beat of his drummer is slightly different than many of
Speaker 1: the urbane newcomers to this place. Walmart and the company
Speaker 1: Tyson Foods, also found in Northwest Arkansas, which is the
Speaker 1: largest meat producer in America, have truly brought the world here.
Speaker 1: It's pretty incredible. I want y'all to meet my friend
Speaker 1: Joe Wilson. We're overlooking downtown Bentonville, so interesting enough. The
Speaker 1: lady right over here in this corner is where the
Speaker 1: downtown people sit. Who I don't matter, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: free will. So last week I met her in the
Speaker 1: crosswalk and she asked when I was bringing the Squirrel
Speaker 1: Cookoff back to downtown Bentonville. She wants to meet on that.
Speaker 1: So the story of how we got to downtown Bentonville,
Speaker 1: it's pretty simple. I was witnessing the change. I've seen
Speaker 1: the change all around us, switching over from pickup trucks
Speaker 1: to BMW's and Tesla's, and you know, I think there's
Speaker 1: a stereotype of what Northwest Arkansas is Arkansas in general,
Speaker 1: and it really dealt with people like me and you, Clay.
Speaker 1: I think people come here thinking they're gonna see me
Speaker 1: and you or guys that act and look like us,
Speaker 1: and they're hard to find. You know, it's been something
Speaker 1: that's slowly being erased. To find a chicken fried steak
Speaker 1: in Bentonville is a hard thing to do, but you can.
Speaker 1: You can find something pretty dang fancy, and there's nothing
Speaker 1: wrong with that. I think my kids have a better
Speaker 1: opportunity of knowing culture, knowing art, all of that. They
Speaker 1: have less of an opportunity to see the stuff that
Speaker 1: me and you've seen as kids, and that was knowing
Speaker 1: what was going to stick you in the Woods right
Speaker 1: knowing what was gonna make you itch how to cook
Speaker 1: and clean a squirrel. Those things are kind of disappearing.
Speaker 1: So I brought the Squirrel cook Off to downtown Bentonville
Speaker 1: on the square right here to kind of rub it in,
Speaker 1: you know, and to give people the opportunity to see
Speaker 1: who we are. And you know, it wasn't just the
Speaker 1: redneck guy. We had chefs coming out, We had teachers, doctors,
Speaker 1: had people travel from all across the world to see
Speaker 1: us cook squirrel and so what started off as me
Speaker 1: kind of rubbing them, I think they really enjoyed one
Speaker 1: Saturday out of the year to give us the opportunity
Speaker 1: to showcase that traditional Ozark lifestyle. This man is a genius.
Speaker 1: Joe Rogan ought to have Joe Wilson on his podcast
Speaker 1: for Real. The World Championship Squirrel cook Off will be
Speaker 1: in late September twenty twenty three, and I'm planning on
Speaker 1: being there. The diversity of people this event brings in
Speaker 1: is astounding. It'll blow your mind. A lot of what's
Speaker 1: happening in Northwest Arkansas right now revolves around Walmart. And
Speaker 1: say what you will about him, but the ozark Er,
Speaker 1: Sam Walton simply gave America what it wanted. So don't
Speaker 1: hate the player, hate the game. And around here, saving
Speaker 1: money to live better sounds like a reasonable idea. And
Speaker 1: I will let you in on a little secret. If
Speaker 1: you want to go to the finest Walmart stores on
Speaker 1: planet Earth, come to Northwest Arkansas. The closer you get
Speaker 1: to the Home office, better they get. Here's Joe talking
Speaker 1: about mister Sam. We're inside of the original Walton five
Speaker 1: and dime store on the Bentonville Square. And I told
Speaker 1: you that we were going to talk to mister Sam.
Speaker 1: Stand by, Yes, so you're inside is Sam's first store.
Speaker 1: But a lot of people don't know Sam Walton was
Speaker 1: a hunter. Sam Quell hunted, pheasant hunted. The property where
Speaker 1: Crystal Bridges was was a place that you know, coon
Speaker 1: dogs ran through there. His truck that's inside the museum
Speaker 1: has a dog box in the back. Sam Walton as
Speaker 1: a hunter, I think that's what he wanted to be
Speaker 1: known as because all the images you see, I mean
Speaker 1: there was tons of images in here of him carrying
Speaker 1: a rifle through the woods with brush fans on the
Speaker 1: dog food. Old Roy named after one of his dogs.
Speaker 1: So Lords West Arkansas has had a long, long history
Speaker 1: of hunting, and Sam Walton's a huge part of it.
Speaker 1: Sam Walton has a hunter. It's a big part. I
Speaker 1: hope it's part of the museum when we build it back.
Speaker 1: Mister Sam used to carry his muddy footed bird dogs
Speaker 1: with him on his jet and often had a shotgun
Speaker 1: in his truck when he went to work. They're currently
Speaker 1: remodeling the Walmart Museum. It's a pretty neat place. Joe says,
Speaker 1: he wants to take me down the street to meet
Speaker 1: mister Sam. I'm not exactly sure what he means. We
Speaker 1: walk a block down the street to the temporary location
Speaker 1: of the Walmart Museum and he introduces me to a
Speaker 1: kind lady named Lisa. I'm going to introduce you, do
Speaker 1: my buddy. This is Clay Newcomb. Yeah, nice to meet you.
Speaker 1: I'm Clay's got a national broadcasted podcast. And I just
Speaker 1: walked into the old five and dime. And now he
Speaker 1: had some questions. He was going to ask, mister Sam, here,
Speaker 1: can you tell me what this is? This is? It's
Speaker 1: a hologram with a little bit of it magic. This
Speaker 1: is an actress portrayal of mister Sam. And then the
Speaker 1: wonderful company that created this for us. They used facial
Speaker 1: mapping to put mister Sam's face on the holiday. So
Speaker 1: we're looking at a it's a it's a. It looks
Speaker 1: like he's in like a little room and he's just
Speaker 1: right here by us, and his face is moving a
Speaker 1: little bit. It looks real, looks like a real man
Speaker 1: standing it. This is a state of the art hologram machine.
Speaker 1: It feels and looks like we're talking to a real man.
Speaker 1: It's bizarre. Mister Sam died in nineteen ninety two, and
Speaker 1: it's rare to find anybody here that didn't respect Sam
Speaker 1: Walton as a kid. I vividly remember my grandfather lew
Speaker 1: and Nucom from Bumblebee, Arkansas, who was a peer in
Speaker 1: age and fellow Arkansas bird hundred to mister Sam speak
Speaker 1: incredibly highly of Sam Walton and Billy Graham. He placed
Speaker 1: these men at the same level. Lisa has a microphone
Speaker 1: in her hand and she's about to ask mister Sam
Speaker 1: a question. Do you think that mister Sam knows the
Speaker 1: name of the nut that comes off of an oak tree?
Speaker 1: I know he did in real life, but what do
Speaker 1: you think he would call? Do you know what the
Speaker 1: name of that nut is that comes off of an
Speaker 1: oak tree? An acorn? I couldn't think of I'm seeing
Speaker 1: I would I'm from northwest Arkansas. Okay, I think that
Speaker 1: kind of fits into what you're after. Well, you're so,
Speaker 1: there's two versions of the same thing on one would
Speaker 1: be called an acorn, like you said, and the other
Speaker 1: one would be called an akern. Do you know the difference?
Speaker 1: See my memo would sell use an acorn? Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: telling you your code switching on us. Listen, because all
Speaker 1: this all this Walton money, your code switching on us,
Speaker 1: pull it out of your Arkansas heritage calling it an acorn?
Speaker 1: Are you ashamed of or absolutely not. I'm very proud
Speaker 1: of my home. I'm very proud of my heritage. Um,
Speaker 1: it's just that people look at you like you're crazed
Speaker 1: if you say things like that, like ketty womp us fringet?
Speaker 1: Have you ever heard the expression? Key? Doug, We dug
Speaker 1: right into the interior and we found what we were
Speaker 1: looking for. So does Sam know anything about Old Roy Steel? Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's ask Yeah. Yeah, we'll see what he says. Okay,
Speaker 1: mister Sam, can you tell us about Old Roy Roy
Speaker 1: was a setter, probably the most overrated bird dog in history.
Speaker 1: He was a merchant, a hunter at all. He would
Speaker 1: point for having for his hand. But he was a
Speaker 1: great tennis dog. He would go with me to the
Speaker 1: tennis court and lay there, and whenever the ball went
Speaker 1: out of the court or over the fenced or whatever,
Speaker 1: he would go chasing after it and bring him back
Speaker 1: to me. And the associates and the customers got a
Speaker 1: kick out of visiting with him in the stores. And
Speaker 1: once we put his name in picture on our private
Speaker 1: label Bigra Fruit, he had sold tons one year alight
Speaker 1: became the number two dog fruit the Nmmerica. And remember
Speaker 1: we all may sell it in Walmart. That's so good.
Speaker 1: Lew and Nucom loved to feed his bird dogs some
Speaker 1: old roy dog food. But he wouldn't have tolerated a
Speaker 1: bird dog pointing rabbits. That's another story. There is one thing,
Speaker 1: though that we have not talked about that's leaving a
Speaker 1: glaring hole in the modern history of Arkansas. Boy, this
Speaker 1: some treacherous waters. Bill Clinton. I don't know a person
Speaker 1: that probably would get behind Bill Clinton politically right, but
Speaker 1: he's someone that I don't find a lot of people
Speaker 1: wanting to talk bad about in the state of Arkansas. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was like our he was like our our one
Speaker 1: guy that made it to that's right. Yeah, because people
Speaker 1: are still pretty defensive of him, like they probably wouldn't
Speaker 1: talk real bad. That's might have been my experience anyway. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think Bill Clinton's a good example of that. I mean,
Speaker 1: he certainly the most famous person from Market. I guess
Speaker 1: Johnny Cash would give him a pretty good run for
Speaker 1: his money. But but on the world stage, I mean
Speaker 1: we got Bill Clinton, and uh yeah, whatever your politics are,
Speaker 1: there's there's still a part of you that's proud that
Speaker 1: here's this small town boy from Arkansas who made it
Speaker 1: to the White House. And that's just something that you
Speaker 1: don't expect us to do. I've told y'all before that
Speaker 1: my dad went to the same high school as Bill
Speaker 1: Clinton and Hot Springs, Arkansas, a town in which Market
Speaker 1: bear hunters used to roam the streets and buckskin well.
Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety three, shortly after Clinton took office, he
Speaker 1: made a visit to Hot Springs and randomly, Juju Nukam
Speaker 1: and my little brother Tyler, who was eight years old
Speaker 1: at the time, we're walking downtown and believe you or not,
Speaker 1: they ran into the President of the United States, Bill Clinton.
Speaker 1: My little brother had a talk boy recorder with him.
Speaker 1: Do you remember those anyway, Here's what happened. It's short,
Speaker 1: really short, but the world has never heard this unreleased
Speaker 1: interview of Bill Clinton. Clinton's down ry yeah, yum kum
Speaker 1: Tom heard grade class and mina and this is a
Speaker 1: neat machine. I've never seen it before. H Tyler, yum
Speaker 1: yum to my tum. Tyler's always had a way with words.
Speaker 1: When we've dug the cassette tape out after thirty years,
Speaker 1: it was corrupted and about half of the full interview remained.
Speaker 1: But Tyler asked Bill Clinton to say hi to his
Speaker 1: third grade class and Mina, Arkansas, and he graciously did.
Speaker 1: Tyler then boldly asked the President of the United States
Speaker 1: to repeat, saying Hi Tyler, We'd better listen to that again.
Speaker 1: Clinton's down ry yeah yeahm Q my Tom, third grade
Speaker 1: class and mina and this is a neat machine. I've
Speaker 1: never seen it before. Hi Tyler, that's some good stuff.
Speaker 1: Good job, Tyler. Did you catch that Clinton and Johnny
Speaker 1: Cash might be neck and neck for the most famous
Speaker 1: Arkansans yep, The Man in Black was born in Kingsland,
Speaker 1: Arkansas in nineteen thirty two, and we're pretty proud of that.
Speaker 1: I'm still trying to understand why myself, Joe Wilson, and
Speaker 1: doctor Blevins and so many others are interested in staying
Speaker 1: true to the original Arkansas image, even with its flaws.
Speaker 1: Here's doctor Blevins. Well, you know, it all comes back
Speaker 1: to that old nineteenth century division between the Enlightenment and
Speaker 1: Romanticism and it and still today. You know, there are
Speaker 1: people who are going to take schoolcraft side and who
Speaker 1: are not gonna want to have any anything to do
Speaker 1: with the hillbilly image of Arkansas or the people who
Speaker 1: still kind of make that relevant in some way as
Speaker 1: part of the image of Arkansas. And then they're going
Speaker 1: to be the people who are excited about it and
Speaker 1: who are glad that that not everybody is just sort
Speaker 1: of lining up and running willy nilly into this progressive
Speaker 1: future that awaits us. That some people are kind of
Speaker 1: holding back and still doing things by the old ways.
Speaker 1: Can you can you have both? Yeah? Yeah? And I
Speaker 1: remember years ago in class, I think I was working
Speaker 1: on Arkansas, Arkansas when this discussion came up. One of
Speaker 1: my classes, but I remember we were talking about the
Speaker 1: state's hillbilly image, and I remember one of the students saying, well,
Speaker 1: at least they know who we are. And his point was,
Speaker 1: if you're gonna have an identity, you're gonna be known
Speaker 1: for something. It's better to be the hillbilly state than
Speaker 1: to be all of these sort of vanilla cookie cutter
Speaker 1: states that don't really have any image at all. At
Speaker 1: Least they know who we are. I think that's pretty profound.
Speaker 1: A deep longing of every human is to simply be known,
Speaker 1: and sometimes we don't get to choose what we're known for.
Speaker 1: It chooses us. I do not understand the psychological complexities
Speaker 1: of why humans naturally becomes so attached to place. I
Speaker 1: don't fully understand why I love Arkansas so much. I
Speaker 1: suspect it's deeply biological and has helped us survive. And
Speaker 1: it probably has something to do with the incredible natural
Speaker 1: beauty of our mountains, the clear water of our highland streams,
Speaker 1: and the enchanting rivers and lowlands of our delta, throwing
Speaker 1: the hospitable character of our people, many of which have
Speaker 1: an intangible charm unique to the creation state, and if
Speaker 1: I'm being honest, I'm quite certain Arkansas must be the
Speaker 1: best place in America. Loving place makes us curious, it
Speaker 1: makes us explore, it makes us protect, it makes us
Speaker 1: value that place, and it can empower us to live
Speaker 1: the best life that we can possibly live in that place.
Speaker 1: But I think to take home for this whole discussion
Speaker 1: is that you may live in a trailer park in
Speaker 1: rural America or in an urban ghetto, but you can
Speaker 1: thrive there. You get to interpret first to yourself and
Speaker 1: then secondly to the world out the place you live
Speaker 1: by displaying who you are. Where we're born doesn't fully
Speaker 1: define us, but we can use it to positively shape
Speaker 1: us or negatively shape us if we let it. And
Speaker 1: I hope you love where you're from, because it doesn't
Speaker 1: have to be perfect, but it is where you're from,
Speaker 1: so I'd suggest make the best of it. In closing,
Speaker 1: I'd like to thank America for all the jokes, and
Speaker 1: you're welcome for all the laughs that are expense because
Speaker 1: in the end we're having the last laugh. Living the
Speaker 1: high life in the creation state, the Bear state, with
Speaker 1: all our fancy art making state of the art holograms
Speaker 1: of our heroes We've got our World Championship Squirrel cook Off,
Speaker 1: our black Bear Bonanza, and the Razorbacks have the best
Speaker 1: coach in college basketball, Eric Musselman. One day they'll make
Speaker 1: a broad statue of him as big as Jerry Clower's
Speaker 1: Cadillac and coach, Please don't take some big job, Duke
Speaker 1: or some school out in California. There's no doubt that
Speaker 1: we love this place, but we've certainly got a lot
Speaker 1: of things to improve on it. But that's the thing
Speaker 1: about Arkansas is we never really thought we were perfect.
Speaker 1: Jim Doggett said we were, and we believed him, but
Speaker 1: we knew it was kind of an exaggeration. In Arkansas,
Speaker 1: we don't take ourselves too seriously. We're not too concerned
Speaker 1: about the hottest trends, and I find our Kansas to
Speaker 1: be accepting of people with good intentions and a willingness
Speaker 1: to work to better their lives. In the end, we're
Speaker 1: just okay being our Kansas. I'd like to close with
Speaker 1: a song from our own Johnny Cash. I think there's
Speaker 1: a message here. Well, my daddy left home when I
Speaker 1: was three, and he didn't leave much jamw and me,
Speaker 1: just his old guitar and empty bottle of food. Now,
Speaker 1: I don't blame him because he running head, But the
Speaker 1: meanest thing that he ever did was before he left,
Speaker 1: he wasn't named me Sue. This poor man's dad named
Speaker 1: him Sue and then abandoned him looking. And then one
Speaker 1: day he meets up with his dad. He said, son,
Speaker 1: this world is rough, and if a man's gonna make it,
Speaker 1: he has got to be cough. And I know I
Speaker 1: wouldn't be there to help you along, so I give
Speaker 1: you that name, and I said goodbye, and you you'd
Speaker 1: have to get tough or die. And it's that name
Speaker 1: that helped to make you strong. Yeah, he said. Now,
Speaker 1: you just fought one of a fight. And I know
Speaker 1: you hate me, and you got the write to kill
Speaker 1: me now, and I wouldn't blame you if you do,
Speaker 1: but you ought to thank me before I die, for
Speaker 1: the gravel and your guts in the spit in the eye,
Speaker 1: because I'm the son of a that named you Sue. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel like I can hear Arkansas saying You've got
Speaker 1: the right to be upset for the image I've portrayed
Speaker 1: of you over the years, but you ought to thank
Speaker 1: me for the gravel in your gut and the spit
Speaker 1: in your eye. All I've got to say is, long
Speaker 1: live the Arkansas image. I can't thank you guys enough
Speaker 1: for listening to Bear Grease. We put our heart and
Speaker 1: soul into this thing, and we appreciate y'all following along.
Speaker 1: Leave us a review on iTunes and share this podcast
Speaker 1: with some of your friends this week. And I can't
Speaker 1: wait to talk about this on The Render all those
Speaker 1: Arkansas next week, and y'all can join into in the conversations.
Speaker 1: Your state ever been made fun of?