As I mentioned in an earlier post (see: Arkansas Traveler), not long ago I forayed into the hills of Arkansas in search of my musical roots. No traveling to the Bahamas to find Joseph Spence, or to the workfarms of Texas and Louisiana to find Leadbelly, nor even to Clarksdale Mississippi, to find some few remaining relatives of Robert Johnson's "good friend" Willie Brown (see: Crossroads.. "run, you can run, tell my good friend Willie Brown, run you can run, tell my good friend Willie Brown, but I'm standing at the crossroads, believe I'm sinking down") for me. Uh, uh. I went into the deep dark hills to find the hometown of the greatest band ever to come from their hometown, both named Black Oak, Arkansas. Yes, THAT, Black Oak, Arkansas, complete with Ruby Starr prancing around the stage scantily clad and cascading red locks squealing, "Go Jim Dandy!"
It turned out to be quite a search. We found the Black Oak Church. We found the Black Oak Cemetery. In fact, I think we passed that damned Church five times as we criss-crossed North West Arkansas looking for the actual town. We finally accosted an Arkansawyer and his big ol' dog, as they came up to the road to get the mail. (looked like a brand new Sears Catalog!). He seemed a mite suspicious. When we asked if we were anywhere close to Black Oak, his first response was something to the effect of, "Whut you wanna find Black Oak fer?". Like we needed a reason. We proceeded to make up some elaborate lie, involving some dear old friend of mine who was from that town and asked me to look up some kin. I believe that's the right term. Not to be confused with ken. Which is of course never to be confused with Barbie. He asked us if we had people buried in the Black Oak Cemetery, to which I replied, "Not yet." When he finally decided to be what passed for helpful in his neck of the woods, he asked us WHICH Black Oak we were looking for. "There's TWO?" I asked. "Yep," he replied. "You gotta be fuckin' kidding me!", I ALMOST replied. I had by this time learned that folks in Arkansas just plain do not cuss or swear. This was quite an adjustment for me. Folks wherever I have been have always cussed and swore. (Hmmmm... could it be me?). At any rate, I was able to choke back the F-word just in time. So he proceeded to give us entirely undecipherable directions to the town itself. Not only could we not understand the terms he used for land forms, his accent was so thick we were unable to understand even ordinary words. (I fuckin' hate that!). We decided to follow his directions anyway. That, I think is when we discovered it was apparently possible to approach the Black Oak church from MORE than four directions. One would think that would cover it, but we passed that church over and over all day. Were it not for the logistics involved, I could have sworn (if I wasn't in Arkansas) that they were actually picking the church up and moving it down the road to our next turn, over and over again. Those Arkansans, what nuts. They'll do anything for a good joke.
So, while I have no pictures of the town of Black Oak (or even the church) to share with you, I do have pictures of some of the sights we saw on our grand adventure that day.
And just for the record. By way of research for today's blog, I called up the BAND Black Oak, Arkansas on Rhapsody Player and I'm listening to them right now. Against all my memories and expectations, I was completely flabbergasted (not a swear word) to discover that THEY REALLY DON'T SUCK ALL THAT BAD. Could have knocked me over with a Razorback.
Dr. Girlfriend and me in front of a historic site. This building was the VERY FIRST WAL-MART. I know, you go all kerflunkt, don't you. While nearby Bentonville is famous as the corporate headquarters of the evil empire, the actual first "Wal-Mart" store was in Rogers, in this very building. .
You may have to look closely at this picture.... see it? Yep, that's a buzzard. We saw LOT's of buzzards as we circled aimlessly in the hills. I really hated to disappoint him. .
We were looking for someplace to have lunch... but I was thoroughly perplexed by this sign.
Dr. G, doing her very best Vanna White. (ah, but who remembers Carol Merrill in this day and age? "Yes, Monte, I'll take door #3.... what did I get? The lady? Oh, the tiger. Shit.)
No visit to Fayetteville is complete without eating soul food (or, "good country cookin') at Mama Deans.
The fare.
Mmmmm, mmmmmmm, so good going down.
Speaking of which...(okay, bad joke). I just had to stop for this. But I must say, Shirley (quit calling me that!) was more tease than please.
This guy obviously has never heard the admonition "slow traffic keep right." We tried to ask him for directions to Black Oak, but he stubbornly refused.
So we tried the information center. But apparently we came after closing time. (Like, 20 years after closing time).
But at least we were able to avail ourselves of the facilities......
So, though we never found Black Oak, Arkansas, what's there to say, but, everything came out alright in the end.
I do believe the word is spelled "dawg".
I reckon them folk were just bedazzled by the glare off your jetsettin' sunglasses. us country folk don't get to mingle with city folk much, and our speech is always adversely effected by the seering glow of culture.
Now come on Vladamir, you have a lovely, syrupy, perfectly understandable North Carolina accent. Don't get so defensive in support of the backwoods Arkys. They'd as soon slit yer throat as look at ya. Well, probably not, they all seemed like wonderfully nice people. The fellow with the "dawg" was just a tad suspicious, but in the end cooperative, in his own way. We just really couldn't understand a word he said. Remember, I'm from Nebraska, we got some accent's here, too. I'll never forget the time I was in Minnesota and was complimented on my "beautiful Southern accent." Anyway I had no intention to insult country people. And thanks for reading my blog. I didn't know y'all had letters yet in yer neck o' the mountains. Damn, next y'all be cipherin!
if i could respond to this in shape notes...i totally would. the letterin' folk came through here not 'long 'go. they had some sort 'a 'pressin machine...made voodoo markins' on deerskin. they nailed sumthin to the church door, but weez scared to see whut it was, so we torched the place. threw in a few local witches for good measure. harvest is comin' ya know.