Denise White Parkinson

…how a small Southern town made a big noise.

By Denise White Parkinson

Suggins children of Arkansas in their natural habitat

Cast of Characters:

Jean Petite:
Art School grad arriving in Iron Gulch to open the town’s first Art Center

Colonel Crackerfrakkin:
Evil slumlord and owner of the local mining industry

Mrs. Crackerfrakkin:
Wicked wife of the Colonel; fancies herself an interior decorator

Laken:
The Greers Fairy – stirred up over plans to frack beneath Greers Ferry Lake

Tad McTacky:
Nephew of the Colonel; an artist who paints barnyard scenes– roosters a specialty

Lola:
Classless daughter of the Crackerfrakkins – had her name legally changed to Lola (from her given name of Gina Mae Crackerfrakkin)

The Suggins Children:
Little kids of the town that want the Art Center because they’ve never studied art in school

Reverend Chip:
Small-town preacher with big political ambitions; sucks up to the Crackerfrakkins

Rednecks 1,2,3:
Greek Chorus with banjos

She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named:
The Director of the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quandary

MC Fouke & Jazzquatch:
Disaffected youth of the Arkansas bottomlands

Hobo:
Refugee from the Not-So-Great Depression

Cernunnos:
Druidic forest deity: part man, part stag

MUSICAL NUMBERS

Battle of Iron Gulch (Rednecks 1, 2 & 3)

Iron Gulch, Keep On Mining (Rednecks 1, 2 & 3)

Pig in a Pen (Rednecks 1, 2 & 3)

Little Man Eulogy (Suggins Children)

Flow (MC Fouke & Jazzquatch)

Fault Line Blues (Hobo)

End of Days Blues (Redneck #3)

Battle of Iron Gulch Reprise (Cast)

PLACE:

Iron Gulch, Arkansas, the county seat of Dimrock County

TIME:

Summertime

ACT 1

SCENE 1

Setting: The Old Springs Depot, a historic train station next to an ancient coldwater spring in Iron Gulch, Arkansas.

At Rise: Laken, the Greers Fairy, hovers unnoticed over the Three
Rednecks as they lounge on benches by the depot. They have
a guitar, banjo and harmonica.

LAKEN:
Iron Gulch, population Not Many, is the county seat of Dimrock County, Arkansas. Its mining heyday came and went long ago. After the boom-and-bust, the area’s Vanadium Ore played out, leaving behind the steaming wastes of the Gulch.

Now there’s a new plan: Fracking for Natural Gas! Dimrock County is situated atop the area’s biggest shale play: The Dimwit Shale! Alas, the only uncontaminated water left in Iron Gulch is the fountain at the Old Springs Depot. The Depot was bequeathed to unsuspecting art teacher Jean Petite. She’s on her way to Iron Gulch right now, to claim her inheritance and turn the Depot into the town’s very first Art Center for Children. What could possibly go wrong?
(FLUTTERS OFFSTAGE)

SONG: BATTLE OF IRON GULCH – Rednecks 1,2 & 3
(to tune of Battle of New Orleans)
“In 2015 we took a little trip
With Colonel Crackerfrakkin in the shale of Dimwit
We mined all the ore, sludge leaked into the streams
And then we set to frackin’
And a-poisoning the springs.
We mined that ore and the sludge kept a-comin’
We fracked that shale til the water was aglow
We dumped that sludge where no-one was a knowin’
Down the Ouachita River to the Gulf of Mexico.

[Redneck #3: I thought the glow over the Gulch was the Second Coming, but turns out, it’s just radioactive waste from the mining sludge!]
{reprise}

We mined in the hills and we fracked in the valleys
We fracked in the bushes where the rabbits wouldn’t go
We mined all the ore til the water was a-glowin’
Down the Ouachita River to the Gulf o’Mexico.

[Redneck #3: Who coulda predicted that vanadium sludge makes people sick? Surely not the State Health Department – why, they’ve known about the radioactivity for years!

Redneck #2: They’s the ones that sent me the documents!]

We dumped our sludge in the creeks and the valleys
Making people sick like your Maw and your Paw
Frackin’ that shale til the air be a-stankin’
Aided and abetted by the State of Arkansaw…

REDNECK #1:
I ‘magine I best be getting back to the house.

REDNECK #2:
Aw, what’s your hurry?

REDNECK #3:
Yeah, what’s anybody’s hurry? That’s the thing about the Endtimes – you don’t have to rush around doing stuff no more. The Endtimes is all about stopping to smell the roses…

REDNECK #1:
Iron Gulch ain’t never smelled like no rose. There ain’t a single rose in this town. Daddy used to say: ‘Smell that, son? Smells like money! Our stink is our pride,’ Daddy always said. Remember back before they closed down the school cuz of the mold problem? The Iron Gulch Odors never lost a home game!

REDNECK #2:
The Iron Gulch Odors – yeah we had us a great football program, ‘cept for them shower room scandals. You were all-state werentcha?

REDNECK #3:
Hey y’all – lookee there, who is that walking down the tracks? Looks like Jesus a-comin!

REDNECK #1:
I can’t see that far without my glasses.

REDNECK #2:
Whoever they are, they’re wearing some kinda hat or shawl or something on their head. I can’t tell if it’s a dude or a lady.

REDNECK #3:
Is that a muslim head-thing, a jihad hanky, what’s it called?

REDNECK #1:
Definitely a furriner. Looks like they’re waving at us, should we wave back?

REDNECK #2:
Maybe if we all wave together – 1, 2, 3

REDNECK #1:
Shut up y’all – here they come –

[Jean arrives, carrying suitcase. She removes her scarf.]

JEAN PETITE:
Whew! It’s warm – um, excuse me, but is this the town of Iron Gulch?

REDNECK #1:
“Excuse you” – why? Did ya cut one?

REDNECK #2:
He means, did ya fart!

JEAN PETITE:
I beg your pardon – I –

REDNECK #1:
Beg? Now you’re beggin? Who do I look like, Colonel Crackerfrakkin? You ain’t got to beg me for nothing, ma’am!

JEAN PETITE:
It’s just that the train let me off way back there, and I had to walk the last mile to get here, and that sign says “Old Springs Depot,” but I’m supposed to be going to Iron Gulch…I’m a little tired and thirsty…

REDNECK #1:
Here, sit down, get a cup of water – this here’s the best water in Iron Gulch –

REDNECK #2:
This here’s the only drinking water in Iron Gulch –

REDNECK #3:
It’s a sign of the Endtimes.

JEAN:
So this is Iron Gulch, and this is the right train depot? [Takes a drink] Wow, that water is awesome, thanks! Oh, I’m getting some more! [drinks cup after cup] It’s ice-cold too! So refreshing!

REDNECK #1:
And while you’re getting a drink of water, we’ll sing you a little song about Iron Gulch. Ready boys? Ah one and a two—

[Bluegrass song to the tune Blue Moon of Kentucky]:

Iron Gulch, Iron Gulch, keep on minin’
Mine all the ore down in the ground
Iron Gulch, Iron Gulch, a-keep on minin’
Mine all the ore that can be found.
Well it was on a moonlit night, Crackerfrakkin done it right
Mined all the ore and more and piled it high
Iron Gulch, Iron Gulch, a-keep on mining
Frack the shale till all the springs run dry.

JEAN:
Oh my, what a colorful history… Maybe you knew my Great-Aunt Nellie? She owned this Depot and left it to me in her will.

REDNECK #3:
Miss Nell, yes she went home to heaven to meet her Lord Jesus Christ. She ain’t one o’them Left-Behinds.

JEAN:
My name’s Jean — Jean Petite.

REDNECK #1:
I’m Bobby, that’s Billy, and this here’s Buddy. So you’re the little lady Miss Nell left the place to! Well I’ll be darned. Say, aren’t you from the Big City?

JEAN:
I’m from Small Pebble – Aunt Nellie paid for me to go to college, and in return I agreed to come back and help her turn the Depot into Iron Gulch’s very first Art Center… but she passed away just a few days before I graduated.

REDNECK #2:
Graduated?

JEAN:
Yes, I have a Master’s Degree in Arts Education, and I minored in theater. Aunt Nellie’s lawyer sent me this key… [unlocks door and peers in] wow – it’s so roomy in here!

REDNECK #3:
I got me a degree too. I’m a 3rd degree black belt. Part of my survival training for the Endtimes.

REDNECK #1:
And I minered in ore ‘til the Vanadium played out.

REDNECK #2:
Speaking of mining, did you hear what Colonel Crackerfrakkin’s up to now?

JEAN:
Who is this Colonel Crackerfrakkin anyway?

REDNECK #1:
Ma’am — You sure ain’t from around here!

REDNECK #2:
The Colonel is a rich-ass cracker who won’t stop frackin’. He’s got drilling pads and gas wells up north a here, and now he wants to frack this very spot. We’re standing atop the Dimwit Shale, Ma’am! The biggest natural gas play in Dimrock County!

JEAN:
The Dimwit Shale?

REDNECK #1:
Hang on, Ma’am! – yep, feel that? There’s a tremor – bout a 3.4 I’d say – there’s your Colonel Crackfrakkin right now!

REDNECK 2:
Whenever we get a tremor, folks around here say, ‘there goes Colonel Crackerfrakkin a-rollin’ the dice.’ That weren’t no 3.4 — felt like a 4.1 on the rickety scale.

REDNECK #3:
“And behold, the seventh angel did pour out a fluid upon the ground, and the earth shook, and a third of the rivers did turn to blood—

REDNECK #1:
Stop with the Endtimer shit, will ya?

JEAN [emerges from Depot w/a broom]:
Was that an earthquake? I felt something shaking – But wait a minute, he can’t drill for gas here – it would poison the water – everybody knows that methane gas released by drilling gets into wells and ruins the –

REDNECKS:
You sure ain’t from around here!

JEAN:
Look, gentlemen, I own this depot now – I’ve got the papers to prove it– it’s going to be a beautiful Arts Center, for children’s programs and art festivals, classes, studio exhibits – I’m state-certified to teach –

REDNECKS:
Ma’am, this is Iron Gulch! Good luck to ya! We ain’t never had no art center here!

REDNECK #1:
The only artist in these parts is Tad McTacky – does he know you’re doing this?

JEAN: [sweeping breezeway of the Depot]:
Tad McTacky? I’m not familiar with his work – what is his medium?

REDNECK #1:
I’d say Tad ain’t no medium – he’s more like an extra-large.

REDNECK #2:
Yeah he’s a big ol boy, born with a full set o’ teeth, like a beaver—

JEAN:
I mean, what sort of art does he do?

REDNECK #1:
Oh– his paintings have that fancy glow – like that Thomas Kincade feller.

REDNECK #2:
I love me some Thomas Kincade – we’ve got one of his paintings out in our guest shed.

REDNECK #3:
Tad McTacky’s a pro – he studied art from that afro guy on TV.

JEAN :
You mean Bob Ross?

REDNECK #1:
Ain’t he a local feller? Didn’t he win the Draw Sparky contest?

JEAN:
I am definitely interested in local art and artists – could you put Mr. McTacky in touch with me? I’ve got to roll up my sleeves now and get to work fixing up my new home and business! I think I’ll call it The Springs Art Center – how does that sound? [exits]

REDNECK #1:
Colonel Crackerfrakkin ain’t gonna like this…

REDNECK #2:
No he ain’t…

REDNECK #3:
Well I’ll be — Art coming to Iron Gulch – it’s a Sign o’the Endtimes!
[exit]

ACT 1

SCENE 2

Setting: The exterior of the transformed Depot, with new signage, flowers, and easels displaying works by Van Gogh and Chagall.

At rise: Suggins Children enter and stand beside the Rednecks.

SUGGINS CHILDREN:
Miss Jean can we help? We wanna help!

JEAN:
Thank you! You guys have already done so much – would you like to water the flowers? [hands them the watering can] I set out some snacks – they’re inside on the table – help yourself! There’s some sidewalk chalk in this bucket if you want to make some chalk art, too.

SUGGINS CHILDREN:
Snacks! Sidewalk Chalk! Wow — thanks Miss Jean!
[exit thru doorway into Depot]

REDNECK #1:
You’re spoilin’ them kids, Ma’am.

REDNECK #2:
Spoilin’ em rotten!

JEAN:
But they’re such good kids – I’m writing a grant for an after-school program, so I’m getting ready to –

REDNECK #3:
Uh-oh, look who’s coming – it’s Tad McTacky and his entourage!

REDNECK #1:
Looks like the whole Crackerfrakkin clan is with him…

REDNECK #2:
AND Reverend Chip, that ol’ brown-nosing sumbitch. Actin’ like he’s the biggest hog at the trough!
JEAN:
Thanks for telling Mr. McTacky that I wanted to meet with him –

REDNECK #1:
Oh, we didn’t tell him nothin’! But we did write a song about him, ready boys? Ah one and a two:

[Bluegrass song, to the tune of “Pig in a Pen”]

I got a pig, home in a pen, and corn to feed him on
And Tad McTacky’s paintin’ him to hang on my shed wall.
I got a rooster home in the barn, a-crowing to the sun
And Tad McTacky paintin’ his portrait, paintin’ til it’s done

[Redneck #3: They say that every chicken in Dimrock County knows Tad McTacky!]

{reprise}

I got a cow home in the yard, a moo-in’ soft and low, oh
And Tad McTacky’s paintin’ her afore his next art show…
Tad, Tad McTacky, yeehaw!

JEAN:
I gather Mr. McTacky paints barnyard scenes…?

REDNECK #1:
He specializes in roosters, but he does all the livestock – he’s got a gift.

REDNECK #2:
His paintings hang over the best divans in Iron Gulch. The saying goes, ‘If it ain’t McTacky, then it ain’t art.’

REDNECK #3:
The sunsets he paints give off this intense glow – once, he painted a Jersey heifer o’mine against a flaming sunset and danged if she didn’t look like some cow right outta the Endtimes!

REDNECK #1:
You know what his secret is, dontcha? He collects the sludge outta the Gulch and mixes it in with his paints. All those heavy metals and iron oxides give his landscapes a sorta burnt-orange, oily rainbow sheen. They even smell like gasoline, mm — mmmm!

REDNECK #2:
When did you become an art critic?

COLONEL CRACKERFRAKKIN:
Hello boys – I came to greet the newest addition to Iron Gulch high society, Miss Jean Petite. So pleased to meet you — I was a great friend of your Aunt, young lady.

JEAN:
And you must be the Crackerfrakkins – welcome to The Springs Art Center.

MRS. CRACKERFRAKKIN:
My card – call me for your interior decorating needs, if you ever have any… It’s so kind of you to come all the way from the big city to our humble little town, and bring culture to the hills of Iron Gulch. The Reverend Chip came along with us to see your charming art shop. May I present our daughter –

REDNECK #2:
Howdy, Gina Mae – long time no see!

LOLA:
I had my named changed to Lola last year and you know it!

MRS. CRACKERFRAKKIN:
And this is our nephew: Tad McTacky, “Painter of Light”… surely you’ve heard of him, especially in the big city? Tad also happens to be the most eligible bachelor in Dimrock County!

JEAN:
So kind of you all to come – Actually, Small Pebble is not a very big city –

MRS. CRACKERFRAKKIN:
Nonsense! And you must let us help with your dear little Art Center, can we take a peek – Oh I see you have some of that hippie drug art up already…

JEAN:
Oh no, Mrs. Crackerfrakkin — those are originals on loan from the Wal-Mart headquarters in Bentonville.

[Suggins Children come out of the Depot, laughing and talking]

MRS. CRACKERFRAKKIN:
I swan to Jesus! I swan to my time! Git – Git! all of you, you Suggins Children – run along now and play in the Gulch. The grownups have important business to discuss.

LOLA:
You heard Mrs. Crackerfrakkin – ew, they probably have head lice, Momma!

[Suggins Children exit sadly]

JEAN:
Would you like a tour?

COLONEL CRACKERFRAKKIN:
I’m looking at your sign right now, and wondering why you ain’t a-calling it the Iron Gulch Art Center?

REDNECK #1:
Here we go.

JEAN:
That’s a great question. I really wanted a cross-promotional platform for the history of the springs and fountain, and also to suggest the act of knowing from an inspirational –

COLONEL CRACKERFRAKKIN:
Hold up there Ma’am, you talk as fast as a Yankee. First off, I got me a few ideas myself about this here Art Center. For one, would you like to sell it? Naturally, you could still run the place as my Art Manager. How does $80,000 a year sound?

JEAN:
What? Sir, I planned to run this as a non-profit organization! That’s certainly very generous of you, but—

COLONEL CRACKERFRAKKIN
Well then how about a tax deductible donation to your nonprofit organization? Say, $80,000?

JEAN:
Oh my God—
REDNECK #1:
Wait for it…

MRS. CRACKERFRAKKIN:
Obviously, if we are to become patrons of the Arts, we’d want to sponsor year-round exhibits of the entire McTacky oeuvre. Tad, show Ms. Petite your portfolio.

TAD:
My what?

LOLA:
Your paintings, you inbred idiot! Show her your art work!

TAD:
Okay Cousin! [produces several versions of a white rooster – in overalls, on a fence, in a sunset.]

[Rednecks whistle in admiration]

REDNECK #1:
Now that’s a Tad McTacky!

JEAN:
More than a tad, I’ll say… are these part of a series?

TAD:
A what?

COLONEL CRACKERFRAKKIN:
So it’s settled then.

[Mrs. Crackerfrakkin dumps the paintings off the easels and begins installing Tad’s work as the Colonel starts writing a check]

Now I wanna talk to you Ma’am about an exhibit I want set up in this courtyard area. See where this little park runs alongside the fountain? Crackerfakkin Industries will sponsor an interactive exhibit – an actual drilling pad and natural gas well – mighty educational for the kiddoes. I’ll donate back 10 percent of the profits from selling the gas, of course.

JEAN:
Of course…

REVEREND CHIP:
I hope you realize, young lady, the generosity being displayed by our very own Colonel Crackerfrakkin. I also need a word with you about certain, ahem, exhibits and whether or not they meet the Purity Standards of the Dimrock Endtimers All-American Church. For example, will you be having boobies on display here?

JEAN:
Wait a minute – I thought we might discuss board memberships or volunteer possibilities, but this is ridiculous! I can’t take your check – and I can’t tell you if there will be paintings of bare breasts in the gallery – and I certainly can’t – won’t — exhibit Foghorn Freaking Leghorn!

[Jean starts replacing the dumped paintings and tries to hand McTacky’s work to him, only to encounter Mrs. Crackerfrakkin blocking her way]

MRS. CRACKERFRAKKIN:
How dare you – you outsider! You ingrate! You have no idea of the art of Tad McTacky – he loves his subject matter inside and out – why I’ve taken his lunch out to the barn many a time and found him stroking a chicken til it hardly squawked at all! Never have I seen a man love a chicken as much as Tad McTacky! He paints from dawn til dusk – he was practically raised in a barn!

JEAN:
I can see that.

REV. CHIP:
We’ll just see what the Purity Squad has to say about your heathen, sodomite Art Center!

COLONEL CRACKERFRAKKIN:
I ain’t done with you yet, Ma’am. I aim to frack the hell outta the Dimwit Shale, and ain’t no fancy-pants Big City art lady gonna stop it.
[they EXIT]

JEAN:
I can’t believe these people – what planet is this?

[Rednecks play a slow, sad version of Iron Gulch, Iron Gulch, keep on mining…]

[CURTAIN]

ACT II

SCENE 1

Setting: The Gulch, midday. A place of strange lights and mists.
At rise: The Suggins Children poke around dispiritedly.

SUGGINS #1:
Granmaw says this place is haunted…

SUGGINS #2:
Granmaw needs to get offa that pipe!

SUGGINS #3:
Sure is stanky today. Miss Jean ain’t gonna like it when it kills all her flowers – ain’t nothing can survive Ozone-action level 13!

SUGGINS #1:
My daddy says it’s a sign o’the Endtimes!

SUGGINS #2:
Your daddy’s a Crackerfrakkin inbred!

SUGGINS #1:
You don’t know nothin’! I bet you don’t know the names of the Four Horses of the ‘Pocalypse! Cuz my daddy does!

SUGGINS #3:
Y’all stop arguing. What are the Four Horses of the Pocket Lips, anyhow?

SUGGINS #1:
The Four Horses come outta nowhere to trample everything and bring on the Endtimes! Wanna know their names? First one is called Pegasus—he’s got big, black, oily wings like a giant bat. Pegasus destroys the lakes. Next up, is Magellan—he’s in charge of destroying the rivers… Then you got Valero, that’s the one that finishes off the creeks and swamps.

SUGGINS #2:
But that’s only three horses of the Pocket Lips. You’re dumb!

[Suddenly, dead blackbirds rain down upon the Suggins Children’s heads. They stand stock-still in amazement then run into each other trying to get away. Two fall in a heap among the dead birds, while the 3rd one staggers offstage.]

SUGGINS #1:
Now whatcha got to say about my daddy!?

SUGGINS #2:
Aw shut up. Look at all these dead birds! Where’s Jolene?

SUGGINS #3/JOLENE [offstage]:
Over here – I found something – come help me y’all, it’s heavy!

[Sugginses drag the limp body of Laken, the Greers Fairy, into center stage and place gently on the ground]

SUGGINS #1:
It’s got wings – look! Where do you think it came from?

SUGGINS #2:
Do you s’pose there was one of them Raves out in the county somewhere?
JOLENE:
That ain’t a costume. I yanked on the wings real good wallago and they wouldn’t come off.

[Laken comes to, moaning]

LAKEN:
Water….Water!

JOLENE:
Let’s take it to Miss Jean! She’ll know what to do!

SUGGINS #2:
Cover its head, here come some more o’them blackbirds a-falling outta the sky!

SUGGINS #1:
It’s a sign o’the Endtimes!

[CURTAIN]

ACT II

SCENE 2

Setting: Interior of Springs Art Center, afternoon, same day

At rise: Jean paces back and forth talking on a cellphone

JEAN:
I’m telling you Mom, if it weren’t for the kids in this town–but they need this Art Center so bad – Mom? Mom? Can you hear me now? OOOHHH this Crackerfrakkin cellphone! Wow, this place is starting to get to me.

SUGGINS CHILDREN [offstage]:
Miss Jean! Help, Miss Jean!

JEAN:
What’s that you found? Oh my God, bring her inside [lays the Fairy on a couch] Jolene, get some water, quickly!

JOLENE:
Yes Ma’am!!
[Fairy drinks the water slowly reviving]

JEAN:
You’re going to be okay… I’m Jean, what’s your name?

LAKEN:
Laken – my name is Laken. Where am I?

JEAN:
You’re in the Springs Art Center in Iron Gulch, Arkansas.

LAKEN:
Oh wow. Thank you – I must have passed out.

SUGGINS #1:
Most people do first time they visit the Gulch.

JEAN:
How did you get here?

LAKEN:
There was an explosion – they were drilling sideways under my lake, and the fracking fluids spilled, and the next thing I knew, I was here.

JEAN:
Your lake? You mean, Greers Ferry Lake?

LAKEN:
Yes, my bad – I’m the Greers Fairy.

SUGGINS CHILDREN:
The Greers Fairy!!!

JEAN:
Jolene, run lock the door — let me know if you see anybody coming this way, okay? Now, Miss, um, Laken? I understand that you are some sort of Nyad or water sprite or…? Is there someone in your family I could call about coming to get you?

LAKEN:
I’ve got an uncle down in Fouke, Arkansas – but you wouldn’t want to call him. He’s rather unpleasant…

SUGGINS #1:
She’s talking about the Fouke Monster – my granmaw was in that movie, The Legend of Boggy Creek.

SUGGINS #2:
Granmaw needs to get off the pipe!

JEAN:
Kids, please! Laken, is there anyone at all that we could contact on your behalf?

LAKEN:
I would call my sister—but the Pegasus pipeline poisoned her lake and she’s been sick ever since…poor Connie! She’ll never be the same.

SUGGINS #1:
See? Even it knows about the Four Horses!

JOLENE:
Miss Jean! Miss Jean! Somebody’s comin’!

JEAN:
Laken, I’m terribly sorry but would you please step into the other room – I’ll handle this and then we can talk some more – Kids, please – don’t say anything until I figure out what’s going on.

SUGGINS CHILDREN:
Yes Ma’am.

[Enter Colonel Crackerfrakkin and Rev. Chip]

COLONEL C.:
Good day Miss Petite. How’s business?

JEAN:
Fine – at least, it would be fine if I could get a dependable cellphone or internet connection.

COLONEL C:
Oh, that. The cell tower was settin’ right on top of a big shale deposit, so I had to take it down and put a drillin’ rig up in there…

JEAN:
But this town needs to communicate with the outside world.

REV. CHIP:
And why would Iron Gulch want to do that? We’ve seen what your big city ideas can do – these children are being exposed to boobies!

SUGGINS #1:
Nuh-uh! We ain’t seen no boobies – all we seen is a fairy!

SUGGINS #2
Shut up! Miss Jean told us not to tell about the fairy!

REV. CHIP:
Just as I suspected – where is the Sodomite? Where are you hiding him, or It as I should say? Colonel Crackerfrakkin — these children are being introduced to alternative lifestyles at this Art Center! As soon as I’m elected, I’m a-closing it down!

SUGGINS CHILDREN:
Noooo!

COLONEL C. :
You hear that Miz Petite? We gonna close you down!

[Fairy bursts into the room in a blinding light]

LAKEN:
Get out! Out in the name of Clean Water! Get away from these children!

[She shoves them out the door and closes it]

LAKEN:
They won’t be back today.

JEAN:
How do you know?

LAKEN:
I just know, that’s all… I need to lie down… could you please get me something to eat? Some strawberries or pecans or something… [faints into Jean’s arms]

JEAN:
Kids – see what you can find in the kitchen, I’m putting her to bed – [exits]

JOLENE:
What’s a strawberry?

SUGGINS #2:
I dunno… what’s a pecan?

[exit – lights dim]

Digital film interlude: Dream sequence – Greers Fairy dances among scenes of nature vs. scenes of fracking, mining, and pipeline spills. Children dance to the original song, “Little Man Eulogy,” by Joseph Grundl:
When I no longer find a Mom & Pop to shop for sundries
My heart is broken, wandering lost
Singing the Little Man Eulogy.

When first the sailing ships arrived
From Far Eastern ports aplenty
The stevedores first heard my song
Singing the Little Man Eulogy.

(chorus)
I am one you must turn to
When the world is cold to you
And if you need a hand to hold
Tomorrow may never know today

His whip was woven of three cords
Omni Trium Perfectum
Father Son and Holy Ghost
Adeste fideles.
(repeat chorus)

[Curtain]

Act III

Scene 1

Setting: Iron Gulch, Night. Darkness and rumble of drums.

At rise: Residents take turns sitting up and speaking from their beds.
[kettle-drums rumble]

MRS. CRACKERFRAKKIN:
[sits up, turns on light]
Colonel, did you do that?

COLONEL C. :
Well, Sugar, in a manner of speakin’ – I guess you could say I did. That’s the sound of the Dimwit Shale getting fracked!

LOLA:
[rushes past wearing robe and cold-cream]:
Daddy I hate you! I’m trying to get my beauty sleep!

REDNECK #2:
[walks past w/a flashlight]
Looks like they’s been a lot o’sleepless nights at the Crackerfrakkins!

[lights off, rumbling of kettle-drums]

REDNECK #3:
[sits up and turns on light]:
Oh my Lord – if this ain’t the endtimes, they’s a-comin’ soon – I better run check on my beans!

[lights off, rumble again]

LAKEN:
[turns on light]
And so it goes.

JEAN:
What was that? Another earthquake?

LAKEN:
Don’t worry – it’s not going to happen tonight.

JEAN:
Huh? What?

LAKEN:
Go back to sleep, Jean. Sweet dreams….

[faint rumble, lights down]

[Spotlight falls on a hobo camp where Hobo sits on a log by a spent campfire, MC Fouke and Jazzquatch stand nearby]

(Song: Flow) MC FOUKE & JAZZQUATCH

We represent the youth
Betwixt and betweens
The ones getting busted for a broken machine
Yo, Moloch, hey man in the moon
800 pound elephant in the room
What’s this? What’s that?
You say you got something new?
You can’t trust the rust
When the bust has gone boom.

Hey, man, play us a song.

(Song: “Faultline Blues”)
HOBO:

Living on the fault line, biding my time
Second Great Depression and I don’t mind
I’m lonely, what’s to become of me
I was a thousandaire and I’m quite aware of my life.
Living on the fault line, walking that road
Quakin’ and a-shakin’ is taken its toll
I’ll never know why you went and looked at me
I’m a revolutionaire and I’m quite aware of my life.
[guitar solo]
Living on the fault line, biding my time
Sniffing the air and squeezing a lime
Hey Mister Charlie, you gotta give me more time
Because I’m living on the fault line
And I’m well aware of my life.

[Curtain]

ACT III

SCENE 2

Setting: Morning, Interior of Springs Art Center.
At rise: Jean and Laken wake up in a panic.

JEAN:
Wake up, Laken, please wake up – Oh My God – they’re coming!

LAKEN:
We’ve got to make a stand! Water is life! This is the last pure spring in the Natural State of Arkansas –the buck stops here. Speaking of buck — where IS the antlered deity of the Druids when you need him, anyway! Cernunnos, god of the Forest – where are you??

JEAN:
You’re delirious – sit down over here on the couch.
[Rednecks 1, 2 & 3 burst in – they doff their hats and bow to Laken]

REDNECK #1:
Colonel Crackerfrakkin’s a-coming, Miss Jean and Miss – um, well, they’re all a-comin up the road and we want to help.

JEAN:
What do we do? They might have eviction papers. Who knows what Reverend Chip came up with on his ridiculous Booby-witch-hunt!

REDNECK #2:
Reverend Chip ain’t the only hog at the trough!

[Colonel Crackerfrakkin, Rev. Chip and Tad McTacky swarm in, change out the art on easels with Tad McTacky’s rooster series]

JEAN:
What are you doing!?

REV. CHIP:
This artwork does not meet the Purity Standards of the Dimrock Endtimers All-American Church!

JEAN:
But that’s Van Gogh and Chagall!

REV. CHIP:
You best stop cussing me in French, young lady!

JEAN:
You people are impossible to deal with!

COLONEL CRACKERFRAKKIN:
That ain’t no way to talk to your betters, Ms. Petite! We got us a State Official that’s gonna certify our interactive exhibit from Crackerfrakkin Industries. Here she comes now!
JEAN:
Who is she? Laken, do you know who that is?

LAKEN:
Know her? I can smell her stench a mile away. She’s the most dangerous woman in Arkansas – “She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named” – the Director of the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quandary!

REDNECK #1:
Don’t look her in the eye, boys – she’ll turn you to stone!
REDNECK #2:
And then the Colonel will frack us all to hell!

REDNECK #3:
It’s the Whore o’Babylon all right!

SHE:
As a lawyer and appointed Director of the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quandary, I hereby certify this site as the new interactive, educational Hydraulic Fracturing Museum and jobs-training program of Dimrock County. Thanks to Crackerfrakkin Industries, this exhibit will showcase progress towards our ultimate goal: Total dominion over the Dimwit Shale play!

REV. CHIP:
Ahhhh! A Dominionist – Now we’re talkin’.

SHE:
Yes indeed — I discovered a little-known clause in the state’s annotated code that allows us to take this property via eminent domain, Ms. Petite – so clear out and take your goody-two-shoes art project back to Small Pebble. Leave Dimrock County to its fate. There’s nothing you can do to stop us – the public comment period closed [CHECKS HER WATCH] about ten minutes ago – BWAHAHAHAHAH!

JEAN:
You’re an evil witch!

SHE:
How else do you think I got where I am today? By my looks or my brains? Okay, Colonel, I’m done here. Where’s my payoff? I have to get back to an urgent meeting of the Oil & Gas Commission – we’re changing Arkansas’s slogan from “The Natural State” to something more realistic: “Land of Missed Opportunity.”

LAKEN:
Over my dead, wingless body, you abomination against Nature!
[GRABS PITCHER OF SPRING WATER AND THROWS IT ONTO “SHE”].

SHE:
What have you done? That’s pure spring water! I’m melting, MELTING! Ohhh what a world, what a world – all I wanted was a state-sponsored vehicle, a bottomless expense account and a golden parachute – now my beautiful evil plans are ruined, ruined…. [expires]

[TREMOR STARTS TO RUMBLE]

REDNECK #1:
That there was a 5.1 I tell ya!

REDNECK #2:
More like a 4.8 on the rickety scale!

LAKEN:
You’re both wrong – The fools have re-started the Pegasus Pipeline! It’s gonna blow!

[CRASH, LIGHTS OUT, EVERYONE FALLS TO THE FLOOR, SILENCE]

REDNECK #3:
[raises up slowly, grabs a guitar out of the rubble, plays to tune of “Folsom Prison Blues:”]
I see the Lord a-comin’
Descending from the sky
We trusted Exxon Mobil, and now we’re gonna die!
We should have gone with solar
And changed our sinning ways
But now the Lord’s a-coming
And it’s the end of days.

[Song: reprise: Battle of Iron Gulch

CAST:
We mined that ore and the sludge kept a-comin’
We fracked that shale til the water was aglow
We dumped our sludge where no one was a knowin’
Down the Ouachita River to the Gulf of Mexico.

[cast gets up and starts to sing faster, louder, and dance around]

We mined in the hills and we fracked in the valleys
We fracked in the bushes where the rabbits wouldn’t go
We dumped our sludge til the water was a-glowin’
Down the Ouachita River to the Gulf of Mexico.

[CERNUNNOS, Druidic horned GOD OF THE FOREST, enters with SUGGINS CHILDREN and they all JOIN THE DANCE]

Piping that oil through the creeks and the valleys
Making people sick like your Maw and your Paw
Frackin’ that shale til the air be a-stankin’
Aided and abetted by the state of Arkansas
Aided and abetted by the state of Arkansas!!!

REDNECK #3:
And the Game & Fish Commission!
The end.

By Denise White Parkinson

Actress Natalie Canerday

Natalie Canerday—stage and screen actress, comedienne, postmodern Southern Belle—is not so much elusive as just plain busy. Catching up with the divine Ms. Nat is a gratifying experience; only do not attempt to find her on Facebook, Twitter, or via email. “I don’t own a computer,” she confesses, grinning.

Ms. Canerday is therefore best appreciated in person, old-school, where her flashing dark eyes and smoky-molasses drawl can be fully enjoyed. Over the past two years, she has completed three films, a television pilot, two webisodes and a play about iconic Arkansas photographer Mike Disfarmer. Earlier this summer, she joined an ensemble cast for the Rep’s production of August, Osage County.

But as there is no use trying to rush Natalie Canerday (as we chat, she is making a cake from scratch) we must begin at the beginning: A native of Russellville (“God’s Country,” she interjects), Natalie got her first break performing at Dogpatch USA, the Ozark mountain theme park based on long-running comic strip “Li’l Abner.”

With news of the property’s sale to a motivated owner, generations of Arkansans are expressing hope of a hill-country renaissance. Natalie counts herself firmly among the optimists wanting the park to prosper, in whatever form it takes. Dogpatch was pure-D fun, after all.

“I was a senior in high school when mother saw they were holding auditions for characters at Dogpatch,” Natalie recalls. “I worked up a song from Oklahoma (‘I’m Just a Girl Who Can’t Say No’) and a few bars into it, I forgot the words!”

Instead of freezing in panic, she sashayed up to the man accompanying on piano. “I got behind him so I could cheat and read the words on the sheet music,” she laughs. “I began rubbing his bald head as I sang.” She won the part.

Natalie as “Moonbeam McSwine” posing next to Pappy Yoakum, circa 1981

As the youngest performer of the 1980 summer season, Natalie embarked on an adventure. For young’uns who did not have the good fortune to experience Dogpatch USA during its wild and wacky heyday, a brief intro: the 800-acre theme park near Harrison, Arkansas, based on Al Capp’s long-running comic strip, was a destination from the late 1960s until its closure in 1993. Since that time, the abandoned site has attracted intrepid photographers and indie filmmakers that venture into the hills to capture its eerily beautiful landscape.

But the summer of 1980 saw the place in full swing, with amusement rides, musical shows, non-stop roving skits and improvisational performance featuring characters led by Li’l Abner and Daisy Mae. (A thesis could be written on the significance of Li’l Abner’s and Daisy Mae’s archetypal foreshadowing of Jethro Bodine and Ellie Mae Clampett, but probably never will.) Harrison, Arkansas, and surrounding hamlets were amply rewarded for embracing Dogpatch’s hillbilly caricatures as tourism boomed, boosting the local economy.

By the time senior prom arrived, Natalie had been commuting to perform on weekends for over a month. After high school graduation she went full-time at the park. It soon became apparent that the summer of 1980 would go down as the hottest in Arkansas history. Natalie, with trademark enthusiasm, welcomed this trial by fire.

“I drove up in my ‘76 Monte Carlo,” she says. “They housed us in a little circular trailer park called Rock Candy Mountain—honey, it was smaller than any dorm room. All the performers stayed there. The others were in graduate school from Texas, Louisiana and elsewhere. At night, it was cool—they’d sit on the steps drinking, singing songs and playing guitar.” Natalie, all of 18 and away from home for the first time, was captivated by the atmosphere of laid-back creativity.

“That first year I was Dateless Brown—she carried a shotgun looking for a husband,” she explains. Lugging around a heavy antique rifle as a prop, Dateless Brown roamed the park searching for unwary little boys. “If they looked like they still thought girls had cooties, I’d come up to them and say ‘hey little feller, wanna get hitched?’ and make smooching sounds,” she says. The boys would run off screaming in terror and delight.

The following summer, five days a week, she portrayed Moonbeam McSwine, sort of a hillbilly Veronica to Daisy Mae’s blonde Betty. Every sixth day, Natalie played “Nightmare Alice,” the witch of Dogpatch. “I had so much fun—I carried a rubber snake and leather pouch full of potions and things, blacked out my front teeth,” she chuckles. “As Moonbeam, though, I was all pretty and made up.”

By the time Natalie entered Hendrix College she was “pretty wild,” she recalls. In the 1980s at Hendrix, however, that just meant she was in good company. She studied theatre but maintains that she learned everything she knows about staying in character during those sweltering Dogpatch summers, where heat stroke was a daily occurrence and the whole place, from town square to train depot and lake, was a theatre in the round.

“You could never break character, no matter if the train jumped the track (the heat kept loosening the rails) or if someone fainted,” she muses. “You couldn’t stop to tie your shoe, much less adjust your bloomers or wipe away sweat. Dogpatch was also the biggest influence on my accent—thanks, Al Capp!” She remains in touch with fellow character James White, formerly the Shmoo, now associate editor of the Harrison Daily Times. “We bonded because James was one of the few kids my age. He toured Dogpatch with the new owner, and wrote that it’s in better shape than he thought it would be.”

At Harrison’s annual Women of Distinction awards banquet, Natalie was invited to be guest speaker (“comic relief,” she interjects). The organizers wanted her to share how Dogpatch influenced her career. “Afterward, every single person came up to me with some kind of connection with or good memory of Dogpatch,” she recalls. “People in the region know that back in the 1970s-80s, Dogpatch was a bigger draw than Branson and Silver Dollar City. It really affected the economy when that place closed. At one point I even dreamed about buying Dogpatch. I wanted it to become an artists’ colony—the Sundance of the South!”

After performing in plays in college, joining the Arkansas Repertory Theatre and taking off a year to work, she received her Bachelor of Arts in Theatre from Hendrix. Her leap from the stage to the big screen soon came with roles in Biloxi Blues, Walk the Line and One False Move. When she joined the cast of a film written and directed by fellow Arkansan Billy Bob Thornton, she became part of the legend that is Sling Blade.

Winner of the 1996 Academy Award for best adapted screenplay, Sling Blade remains a cult classic. As the beleaguered mom in the movie, Natalie endured the abuse of her sinister boyfriend Doyle, played by Dwight Yoakam. Sling Blade’s cast, which also included Robert DuVall and John Ritter, was nominated for the Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Cast in a Motion Picture (1996).

The film October Sky followed, in which Natalie starred with Laura Dern and a teenage Jake Gyllenhaal. Eventually, returning to Arkansas and the stage was, for her, the natural thing to do—Hollywood could only compare for so long with “God’s Country.” She says, “I’ve filmed in nine states but my favorite is Arkansas. There’s a ‘let’s all pitch in and put on a show’ vibe here that you cannot find anywhere else.” She’s the go-to gal for the Arkansas Repertory Theatre and Murry’s Dinner Playhouse, and currently splits her time between film locations, Little Rock and the family spread in Russellville, home to her biggest fan: Mom. She lost her other biggest fan—her father—three years ago.

When her father Don got sick, Natalie says, “I literally dropped out of a play at Murry’s and came home and kept Daddy for the next five months. He lasted longer than anybody thought he would. I’m a Pisces; we’re natural nurses… but it was hard.” Her mother, Nancy Canerday, was in the audience for the Argenta Community Theatre premier of Disfarmer, written by Natalie’s fellow Hendrix alum Werner Treischmann and directed by the repertory’s Bob Hupp. Natalie stole the show as a downtrodden “ordinary woman” doing her best not to lose her sense of humor during the not-so-great Depression.

Despite a broken ankle sustained in a fall from Murry’s Dinner Playhouse stage, Natalie proved the show must go on by appearing in Valley Inn, a film shot on location in Hindsville, Arkansas. In the film, Natalie plays the innkeeper, starring with fellow Arkansas luminaries Joey Lauren Adams and Mary Steenburgen, who cameos with Kris Allen on a song he wrote especially for the film: “Love in a Small Town.”

with fellow Arkansas actor/producer Joey Lauren Adams on the set of Valley Inn

Writer/director Kim Swink, who grew up in the area, partnered with Arkansas producer Kerri Elder to tell a story of a town that, like so many rural areas, struggles to regain its footing after being stranded on the downside of a new highway. Just in time for the shoot, life imitated art: a couple bought the real Valley Inn and reopened its cherished restaurant—even the area’s legendary pie lady returned, bringing the Valley Inn Café back to its former glory. Currently touring the indie film festival circuit, Valley Inn is described by IMDB.com as “a love letter to small-town America.”

Natalie’s other recent films include The Grace of Jake, starring Jake LaBotz and Jordin Sparks, written and directed by Forrest City native Chris Hicky and shot on location in Forrest City in 2013; and All the Birds Have Flown South, filmed in Benton in January, 2014.

“The motel where we shot it was where the cast and crew of Sling Blade stayed,” marvels Natalie. “I texted Billy Bob to let him know I was having a flashback!” Written, directed and produced by brothers Josh and Miles Miller of Benton, the film also features Joey Lauren Adams and Paul Sparks of Boardwalk Empire. Afterward, Natalie headed for the Ouachita Mountains to film the television pilot Catch ‘Em Lane with world champion Bass Master Mark Davis, a native of Mount Ida.

As Natalie Canerday has matured in her craft, gracing Arkansas with inimitable style, the impish twinkle in her brown eyes has only deepened along with her voice’s uniquely husky purr. She can go from flirty to feisty to fierce in a split second, and everyone blessed to work with or know her adores her as a treasure akin to the Murfreesboro diamond. The following summation came to Natalie suddenly, while she was mixing the cake batter:

“I’ve been so very lucky… I’ve worked at Dogpatch; done Shakespeare, and I’ve stripped in a wheelchair live on stage. In films I got to be sweet and hateful; I got to die of neuropathy and have a cult following thanks to Sling Blade. I am the luckiest girl in showbiz.”

(photo of Natalie Canerday chilling at a shindig for the Hot Springs Documentary Film Institute taken by Dee, her blondest fan!)

Helen of the White River

A play in three acts based on the life of Helen Ruth Spence, 1912-1934

by Denise White Parkinson

adapted from my book

CHARACTERS:

Spirit of Hattie Caraway, first female Senator elected in the U.S.

Helen Spence, a girl from the White River Delta

Jasper, a tow-headed country boy

LC Brown and John Black, elderly men

LC Brown as a child (played by same actor as Jasper)

Miz Brockman, warden of Arkansas’s Women’s Prison, aka the Pea Farm (played by same actress portraying Hattie Caraway)

V.O. Brockman, her husband, assistant superintendent of the Women’s Prison
Will Brockman, their 20-year-old son

Frank Martin, 30-year-old trusty guard at Pea Farm; a convicted murderer

The White River, longest river in Arkansas (~700 miles)

The Tree: representing simultaneously the red cedar planted at Helen Spence’s grave, the shade tree in front of the Big House at the Pea Farm, and the tree beside the well.

Setting: Arkansas, from the Crash of 1929 to the ensuing Great Depression and afterward, since as the saying goes, “there’s always a Depression in Arkansas.” The stage holds a large panel on casters. One side of the panel depicts a river scene; the other side, a well. During the prison scene, the panel is hidden offstage or draped; for the scene at John Black’s place, a card table and chairs are present. In foreground, stage left, a tall tree remains throughout scene changes. Green cushions around the tree suggest flora.
PLACE:
An old well next to a tree in rural North Pulaski County, Arkansas, several miles from Arkansas’s Women’s Prison, aka The Pea Farm.
TIME:
Just before dawn, July 11, 1934
ACT 1
SCENE 1
At Rise: Music plays and fades, Claude Debussy’s “Maid with the Flaxen Hair,” as images from the White River project onto the walls: houseboats, steamboats, bridges, ferries, giant trees; a watercolor portrait of a Quapaw Brave. The spirit of Hattie Caraway enters stage right, in her hand a lantern uplifted in the pre-dawn darkness, searching. She does not notice Helen Spence asleep under the tree.
Hattie Caraway:
I swan to my time! You’d think after being in the hereafter for so long, my eyes would improve. I don’t even know why I came back here. I can’t change what will happen. It just hits me on the soft side of the heart to think of that poor young girl being hunted down like a wild animal. Even if she is what they call a River Rat, no child deserves ill treatment. When I was elected, I learnt right quick that even the first woman in the United States Senate gets treated like a common River Rat—at least in the halls of Congress. They sat me in the very last row of the chamber; called me “Silent Hattie.” Well what did those men expect, that I would holler down front from the back of the room like a heathen?
But y’all know from sitting in the back pew at church: you can see everything from there. And I saw it all: Senators absent for votes, showing up drunk, sleeping at their desks—during the height of the Great Depression! It was shameful. There I was up in Washington doing my level best to bring Mr. Roosevelt’s New Deal to Arkansas, and all the while, a terrible injustice was taking place back home. A poor girl thrown into prison, and for what? For taking the law into her own hands. Why, in our nation’s capital, I saw countless men day in and day out take the law into their own hands—and reward themselves handsomely for doing so. What was it that spiteful old hillbilly governor said? Oh yes, Governor Futrell, another fine Arkansas politician, he said, “The poor are not worth the powder and lead it would take to blow out their brains.” Guess what? I have it on good authority that Governor Futrell is going straight to perdition when he dies. In fact, he’s there already.
At least Helen Spence will die free. No prison can hold her. Ladies and gentlemen, if you happen to see a little lost houseboat girl with dark hair and big brown eyes—would you be so kind to tell her Miz Hattie Caraway sends her regards and will find her in the hereafter, on the other side, where there is no such thing as Time. Thank you.
[EXIT STAGE RIGHT]
[lights up] Sunrise reveals Helen asleep under the tree. She is dressed in the canvas pants and blue shirt of the field crew, with a red bandanna around her neck and a black felt hat currently in use as a pillow. The well occupies center stage. Jasper enters stage right, carrying a cane pole and some tackle.
Jasper
[whistling] Bet it’s one of them convicts run off from the Pea Farm. She don’t look too dangerous. Hey, wake up!
Helen
I was dreaming I was back on the river. Little boy, is the river right near?
Jasper
The Arkansas River ain’t too far from here.
Helen
I have to get home to the White River. It’s a long way… I’m so thirsty. Can you give me some water?
Jasper
Yes ma’am, I was coming to this well for a drink myself. Are you all right? Somebody after you?
Helen
[drinks from cup] Thank you—my daddy used to say, if you can’t get spring water, well water does just fine.
Jasper
[drinks from cup] I’m going fishing; guess I better head on.

Helen
Wait—what’s your name?
Jasper
Jasper.
Helen
That’s a funny name!
Jasper
Well it ain’t nothing to laugh at. Good day, ma’am.
Helen
Wait—Jasper. Don’t run off. You remind me of someone I knew back home. Pleased to meet you, my name’s Helen Spence. I got lost in the dark and I don’t have my medicine. Would you sit with me a minute while I catch my breath? [They sit on edge of stage, legs dangling]
Jasper
Medicine? You got a fever?
Helen
The doctor says I have to take the digitalis for my heart. I get weak spells—but it’ll be all right, once’t I get back on the river. I’m going to live with my Uncle. He’s got a houseboat near St. Charles. He’s a mussel-sheller, mainly.

Jasper
Is mussel a sort of clam?
Helen
Yes. Here—it’s the last one I have but I’ll be getting more soon’s I get home. They didn’t find it on me because I had it stitched into the hem. That way, I could always have the river near.
Jasper
What is that?
Helen
A pearl, a freshwater pearl from the White River. Help me stand up, I think I feel better now. [Faints]
Jasper
Now what the heck am I s’posed to do with a convict? And a dang pearl?
[lights down]

SCENE 2
Place
Arkansas Women’s Prison, aka “The Pea Farm,” a disgrace of an institution located in the countryside north of the Arkansas River, just a few miles the other side from Little Rock, the Capitol City.
Time
October 11, 1932: the day Helen comes to the Pea Farm, sentenced to prison for killing the man who shot her father.
At rise: Mr. and Mrs. Brockman are standing by the tree waiting for Helen Spence to arrive. Miz Brockman fans herself with a paper fan from a local funeral home.
Miz Brockman
I don’t know why we have to take her here. They should have sent her to the State Hospital for Nervous Diseases. Everybody knows River Rats are all crazy or degenerates or both.
V.O. Brockman
There’s been a lot of newspaper stories about this girl. She could be trouble.
Miz Brockman
Here come Will and Frank now. Let me do the talking. If she’s a pretty one you better keep your mouth shut, hear?
[enter stage right Will Brockman, Frank Martin and Helen Spence.]
Will
We brung you a present, Ma. She’s just a li’l cigar-nub of a gal, but plenty feisty.
V.O. Brockman
Come on boys, I think Ma can handle ‘er.
[men exit stage left]
Helen
Looks like the geese are heading back…
Miz Brockman
You will receive your clothes after you’ve been checked in and de-loused.
Helen
But I don’t have any lice on me, ma’am, I promise.
Miz Brockman
Nonsense. After the de-lousing, you will be assigned to a bunk and you will report to the line.
Helen
The line? Like a trot-line, ma’am?
Miz Brockman
This is a farm. You will be hoeing potatoes with the other girls.
Helen
Oh. Well I’m sure I can manage. I was picturing a trot-line, you see—back on the river, we—
Miz Brockman
Miss Spence, you are no longer on the river. You are at the state Women’s Prison, for killing a man.

Helen
Mr. George Hartje, the prosecuting attorney, says not to worry, that he’ll help me get a parole, he—
Miz Brockman
Try to understand, Miss Spence, none of that matters at all. What matters is: are you going to make trouble, or are you going to be a good girl? The fact that you are here suggests you are a bad girl. I cannot be your friend, but I can damn sure be your worst enemy. Don’t try me or your life will become a living hell, I promise you.
Helen
Yes ma’am.
Miz Brockman
And all your pretty pictures in the paper—all those stories on the front page—that doesn’t get you any special treatment here. Here, you are nothing—got it? Nothing except whatever we say you are.
Helen
Yes ma’am. Your house sure is pretty.
Miz Brockman
It’s one of the finest structures in the county. We have the only telephone for miles. But you won’t be making any calls. And believe me, the only part of that house you will ever see is the basement, and you don’t want to go there.

Helen
Why, what’s down in the basement?

Miz Brockman
Make trouble and you will find out, my dear. Now, come along to the showers.
[exit stage left]
SCENE 3
Place:
The White River at St. Charles, Arkansas. Two old men, LC Brown and John Black, sit at a table. John Black is very frail.
Time:
Midafternoon, autumn, 1978.
At rise: The two friends are having coffee.
LC Brown
Looks like the ducks and geese are heading back to the river.
John Black
Remember when we’s kids, the sky used to turn dark there was so many of ‘em.

LC Brown
Look here, John, why’d you call me out here again? It’s a long drive from my place and your cookin’ ain’t that great.
John Black
I wanted to talk to you about something. I’m dying, LC. Now, it ain’t so much about that. It’s about I need to tell you a secret’s been burning a hole in me for years. I never told anybody, not even my wife.
LC Brown
Well, all right John.
John Black
You remember Helen Spence.
LC Brown
We grew up together, how could I forget? What a shame that was. They say the trusty guard took the rap for killing her—they say he died in his sleep.
John Black
Frank Martin. Damned Drylander. I heard a different story.
LC Brown
You heard it too? After Frank Martin got paroled, he went around bragging he was the one shot the notorious Helen Spence. Then one day he goes to buy a loaf of bread at Cloud’s Grocery, and the lady behind the counter was from the river…

John Black
The lady sold him a different loaf, said it cost less but was just as good. Frank Martin ate dinner that night and never woke up the next morning.
LC Brown
The river got him.
John Black
The river gets its revenge. Back when Helen was murdered, the year after she died, the government started kicking folks off the river. They took it over, all right. Sank our houseboats, run us off where we lived and worked. Drove us into exile.
LC Brown
Yep, now it’s just a sandbox for the Corps of Engineers to play in. But John, Helen wasn’t notorious. She’s just a little river girl.
John Black
The newspapers and magazines wrote lies about her. Her picture sold a lot of subscriptions. LC, you moved away a long time ago, but for the past fifty years I’ve been volunteer caretaker of the St. Charles cemetery. Didn’t you ever wonder why? It was so I could tend Helen’s grave. It’s time for you to see where she’s buried. It’s right near the potter’s field. I planted a cedar tree to mark the spot—damn near 30 feet tall now. And take these home with you—I’ve been saving all these old photographs and newspaper clippings. I want you to have them.
LC Brown
Why me, John?
John Black
Hell, Brown, I figure if anybody can tell Helen’s true story, it would be you. Come on now, I want to show you where she’s been sleeping all these years. [Lights down on the men, lights up on the tree]
[CURTAIN]
ACT 2
SCENE 1
Place
The White River near the bend at St. Charles, Arkansas.
Time
Summer, 1929, a few months before the stock market crash.
At rise: LC Brown as a child enters stage right. He is a towheaded boy in similar, though different clothes than Jasper and wearing a different hat. He pokes around on the ground with a stick. Helen enters stage left, sits by the tree and waves to the boy. She has longer hair and is wearing a summer dress with white fishnet stockings.
Helen
Lemuel Cressie Brown, Jr., I see you! LC Brown, do you not see me in the shade? Plenty of room for two.
Little LC
My daddy is down to the houseboat talking to your daddy. I bet it’s moonshiners again.
Helen
I’ll have no truck with bootleggers! Sheriff Lem is a-okay in my book; you can tell him I said so.
Little LC
Helen, tell me a story.
Helen
Hmmm… Ever hear of the Jenkins boys? The Jenkins boys go to the Drylander church. Every Sunday, families come from miles around in buckboard wagons, like big shoeboxes on wheels. They hitch the horses up in the shade and if a baby starts to fussin’ in church, the momma just wraps the baby up and stows it in the buckboard. The baby sleeps all tucked away, til church lets out.
Little LC
I slept in a buckboard once’t, on a quilt pallet.
Helen
Well, one Sunday, Preacher Burton was sermonizing and there had been some babies fussin’ and they were all asleep out in the wagons. The Jenkins boys got together and decided they’d switch all those babies around. So when church lets out, folks head home for Sunday dinner only to find nobody has the right baby! They got to turn around and take ‘em all back where they belong. After a few Sundays of this, those drylanders got wise and start to checking their babies before they leave.
Little LC
Tell me another one about the Jenkins boys!
Helen
[standing to act out the story]
The Jenkins boys always sit in the back pew of the drylander church. One Sunday, Preacher Burton was sermonizing and those boys start to scuffing their big ol’ boots on the floor, drowning him out. Now, Preacher Burton doesn’t say anything, but the next Sunday he shows up to preach, he takes out his Bible and sets it on the pulpit. Then he pulls out his pocket watch and sets that down beside. Then Preacher Burton takes out his pistol and lays it down, too, and he says, “I come here to preach the word of the Lord. But if anybody in the back row wants to make noise, I’ll be happy to send him to Hell!”
Little LC
[Rolls around laughing]
Helen
I like the Brush Arbors down by the river, where folks go to get baptized. Seems better than an indoor church. Here, stroll w/me a bit. Shhhh, want to see something?
Little LC
What?
Helen
[holds open a little drawstring purse] Looky here.
Little LC
You got a gun in there!?
Helen
It ain’t loaded. But I got some bullets, just in case. Daddy’s been teaching me how to shoot. Want to see something else?
Little LC
Sure!
Helen
[pulls up her skirt a little ways to show a wad of bills tucked behind her stockings] – Daddy needed a place to hide his money. That’s $300! Hey, you hungry? Miz Dupslaff makes the best bread pudding. Let’s go—she always gives me some!
Little LC
Lordy! I’d kill for some of Miz Dupslaff’s bread pudding! [exit, stage right]
[lights down]
Act 2, Scene 2
Place
The river scene.
Time
January, 1931: the day Jack Worls is standing trial for killing Helen’s father, Cicero Spence.
At rise: Helen enters stage left wearing a red velvet dress with matching cape and rabbit fur muff, paces about alone.
Helen
Daddy, I wish I didn’t have to do this, but I’m praying you will understand. Especially now that you’re up in heaven with momma. I’m about to go in the courthouse. Today’s the trial. The deputies are telling me Jack Worls might get off scot free! I don’t understand it. He already admitted he shot you! He stole everything I ever loved… They won’t even let me go back to the houseboat, they say it’s not safe, but how can any place or anyone be safe as long as that no-good Jack Worls thinks he can get away with murder? Well he won’t get away, not today, not on the River. I promise you, daddy. [pulls pistol from inside the fur muff and exits stage right].
[The sound of three shots rapidly fired. Noise of people yelling, screams. Lights down.]
Act 2, Scene 3:
Place
The well beside the tree.
Time
Moments after Helen has fainted and is starting to come to.
At rise: Jasper fans Helen with his hat and offers more water.

Helen
I must have fainted. Look what they did to my hair… they cut it all off on purpose. It’s so when folks see you working in the fields, they know you’re a troublemaker that got punished. I used to have such long hair.
Jasper
I’ve got some deer jerky, you can have it. You need it worse than I do.
Helen
Thanks, I haven’t eaten since before…since yesterday morning.
Jasper
That’s because we got Oppression in Arkansas, and it’s making folks go hungry. If it don’t rain soon daddy may have to sell another one of our cows.
Helen
Back home, the drylanders always talk about a Depression in Arkansas, but you know something? We never go hungry on the river. It’s just fish fries, frog-gigging and swimming all summer long. That, plus hunting and trapping. River Folk laugh at hunting season—huntin’ season’s just what you use to flavor the meat.
Jasper
I sure hope nobody in that house over yonder sees us sitting here. Momma says the lady that lives there is a nosy ol’ busybody. She might turn you in to the… you know.

Helen
If she knew what goes on at that place, she might not be so quick to judge.
Jasper
Whenever my sister and I get to fussin’ and fightin’, momma and daddy say “y’all settle down now or we’re sending you to the Pea Farm!”
Helen
You ain’t just a-wolfin’! I know a lady who got sent to the Pea Farm for “keeping an unruly home.”
Jasper
I best warn momma about that. Why’d you get sent there?
Helen
They’re crazy folks at the Pea Farm—Miz Brockman—she’s the warden—she made the girls plant yellow daffodils in rows, right out in front of the Big House! The Big House is where they put you over a barrel.
Jasper
A barrel? Like a pony keg or a pickle barrel, you mean? But why’d they lock you up anyhow?

Helen
For killing a man.
Jasper
Oh. Was it an accident?
Helen
[stands unsteadily and paces] He stood up in court, lying like a dog. Jack Worls was his name and he shot my daddy in cold blood during a fishing trip. Cicero Spence was the best fishing and hunting guide on the White River, and the best daddy a girl could have. Jack Worls was a no-good. So I shot him in the Arkansas County Courthouse, in front of God and everybody. Because he needed killin’.
Jasper
That beats all I ever heard! Helen—we got to hide you somewhere!
Helen
Then, they tricked me into confessing I killed another man…
Jasper
You killed another man? What for?
Helen
I said I confessed to killing him—not that I did kill him. I wanted him dead, though, sure enough. He was an awful, horrible man who did bad things.
Jasper
How’d you get away from the Pea Farm?

Helen
I just climbed the fence. The guard watched me go. It was like they were letting me escape. Not like the other times.
Jasper
How many times you escaped?
Helen
Four? Five? I don’t quite recall. But each time they catch me they give me 10 lashes with the blacksnake and lock me in the cage. I need my medicine. Maybe if I lie down for just a spell…
Jasper
Helen, don’t go to sleep again! We got to hide you. Dang! Now, what the heck is a blacksnake?
[Lights down]
Act 2, Scene 3
Place
River scene with tree.
Time
1978, the day John Black shows LC Brown where Helen is buried.
At rise: The men are standing by the tree.

John Black
So they brought her body to the funeral home and those drylanders put her on display in the winder, like she was Bonnie Parker. Folks came from miles around to see Helen Spence, the outlaw girl from the White River.
LC Brown
I remember momma was madder than a hornet about them doing that. It was the first time I ever saw my momma cry. Some folks said Helen was pregnant when she was killed, but I don’t believe that. Just hateful gossip, is what it was.
John Black
It’s a damn lie. That funeral home had her in the winder. She looked just like she was sleeping, LC, it were the damnedest thing. We brought her to the cemetery and I planted this cedar tree where we buried her. Cicero Spence is buried over there, and Helen is here. [They bow their heads]
[Helen, dressed in a red-and-white-checked gingham dress, steps from behind the tree. The men do not notice her, as she is a spirit]
Helen
I know you, John Black—but I liked to not recognize little LC Brown! Time does such funny things to people. I see him now, though—those ears!
LC Brown
John, did you hear something? Someone laughing…
Helen
John’s my buddy. Every year, on my birthday, he takes a flower from each grave and strews ‘em all beneath this red cedar tree. He waits til after sunset to do it, and right before the sun comes up, he picks ‘em all up and puts ‘em back where they belong. My birthday’s February 23rd, so sometimes the forsythia’s in bloom. Thank you, John.
John Black
You’re welcome.
LC Brown
What?
Helen
I do wish those two could see the dress I made. It took me a month to sew the gingham into the lining of my uniform. But it makes a fine disguise!
LC Brown
I used to eavesdrop a lot when I was a kid. I remember hearing momma and daddy talking one night about Helen escaping from the Pea Farm. They were saying how when she worked in the prison laundry, she stashed away a bunch of them red-and-white checkered cloth napkins and stitched ‘em to the inside of her prison dress.
John Black
That she did… Miz Brockman, the prison warden, sent some of the girls up to Memphis to prostitute ‘em out. They were doing all kinds of devilish things to gin up money for the Pea Farm. When the bus stopped off in West Memphis, Helen asked to use the ladies’ room and went in there, turned her dress inside out and just walked away.
LC Brown
But they always caught her because they knew she would head for the river.
John Black
The river gets in your blood.
Helen
I headed for the river, to breathe it and swim in it and sleep on it and dream again. I couldn’t take another lashing. The Pea Farm’s got no shade—the land is dry as buckshot clay—and every city in Arkansas smells like a cement outhouse. Even the Insane Asylum was a better place to be than the Pea Farm—Miz Brockman sent me there once because I was running her ragged with escaping. But the doctor said I wasn’t crazy, and they sent me back to the Pea Farm and locked me up in the cage. Thank goodness the other girls smuggled in some paper, so I could write a verse about how I feel. I call it “Echoes”: [dancing and twirling]
Now this is no secret ambition of mine
It’s merely to occupy some of the time.
You can’t heal the heart with no work for the hand
So I pick up my pencil and do what I can.
I’d rather be plowing or chopping down brush
Or rowing a boat in your Arkansas slush
Or scrubbing the fleas from a tiny fox dog
Or sawing and hauling a big hickory log
Or dodging the ruts in a bumpy old Ford
With oodles of kiddies on each running board
And picking them up at each turn in the road
Til Lizzy called Henry to help with her load
Or riding the trail on an old lazy mare
Now and then chasing a cottontail hare
Here and there ducking a nut thrown at me
By a nibbling squirrel that will chuckle and flee…
So here by my window I dream of it all
When shadows like these come and play on the wall
And out of the wreckage I’m forced to confess
I might build again and perhaps for the best.
[exit behind tree, stage left]
LC Brown
John, you have my word: somehow I’ll make sure Helen’s story gets told. But what do I say if folks start asking me why you kept this a secret all this time? Were y’all in love? You and Helen?
John Black
We’s just buddies, is all. Ain’t you ever had a buddy?
[lights down]
ACT 3
SCENE 1
Place
The well. Jasper is kneeling by the tree where Helen lies in a faint.
Time
July 11, 1934.
At rise: Lights down as Mr. and Mrs. Brockman enter stage right into a spotlight; she is carrying some paperwork and a pen.
Miz Brockman
You boys better find her, is all I can say. I’m looking at a letter from Mr. A.G. Stedman, superintendent of the whole prison system—says right here, “She must not escape!”
V.O. Brockman
Don’t fret, we’ll get her.
Miz Brockman
She knows all about our Memphis business. That can’t get out—I don’t care if we’re crooked as a dog’s hind leg, we ain’t going anywhere. It’s up to you and Will to see we don’t go down for this. You better not let some slut put us out of our position—little river rat thinks she knows everything. I ought to lash her myself this time.

V.O. Brockman
There’ll be no need for that. Will’s got the pistol. We’ll get her, all right.
Miz Brockman
What about Frank? He ain’t the sharpest tool in the shed. Did you go over the plan with him again?
V.O. Brockman
I can handle Frank. You just stay calm. Be back as soon as we got her. [exits stage right]
Miz Brockman
You went and bit off more than you could chew this time, Helen Spence. [exits stage right]
[lights up]
Jasper
Please, Helen, wake up. They bound to be looking for you!
Helen
I feel much better. Thank you for setting with me, Jasper. I think I can make it now.
Jasper
But where to? How you gonna cross the dang Arkansas River? It’s a mile wide, ain’t it?

Helen
Maybe I can find somebody with a houseboat. Wouldn’t that be something! [takes another sip from cup] This here’s the best drinking water—you won’t tell on me will you, Jasper? You’re my buddy, right?
Jasper
Cross my heart and hope to… I promise.
Helen
Here’s a Yankee dime for your trouble [kisses his cheek]. Good-bye. [exits stage left]
Jasper
Dang it, momma’s gonna want to know where this pearl come from.
V.O. Brockman
[from offstage] Hey you! Boy!
[enter stage right V.O. Brockman, Will Brockman and Frank Martin, the posse from the Pea Farm. Will carries a pistol and Frank carries a shotgun.]
V.O. Brockman
Boy, we’re on the trail of an escaped convict. You see anybody come this way?
Will Brockman
Dad, he’s acting like he’s simple-minded. Let me beat it out of him. [grabs Jasper by the shoulder] Boy, I will shake you til your damn head rattles off if you don’t talk!
Jasper
No sir, I seen nobody!
Frank Martin
Look—he’s hiding something in his hand, Mr. Brockman.
Will Brockman
Drop it! [slaps Jasper] What is it?
V.O. Brockman
It’s a pearl, a mussel-pearl like you find on the White River. Come on, boys, she can’t be far. [Will shoves Jasper to the ground and the posse exits stage left].
Jasper
Please get away, oh please get away!
[one pistol shot]
Jasper
Helen! [pulls up knees, puts head down and cries]
[lights down; spotlight on the tree, music: Maid with the Flaxen Hair.]

The end

Buzzy in Cherry Creek

I am writing to state my opposition to the project proposed by Clean Line Energy Partners, LLC (“CLEP”), which has failed to meet criteria required for the Department of Energy (“DOE”) to participate in the Plains & Eastern transmission project (“Project”) under Section 1222 of the 2005 Energy Policy Act.

The studies cited by CLEP in its updated application fail to prove there is an “actual or projected increase in demand for electric transmission capacity” satisfied by the Project. This is reinforced by the Project’s lack of subscription in the form of Power Purchase Agreements (“PPA”) or other contractual obligations. Most significantly, the entire process for this proposed project has been discriminatory from the outset.

Specifically, for a project that would create a huge corridor that cuts the state of Arkansas in half, this project has denied participation of citizens that would be affected outside the proposed corridor, which as planned would cut across every major watershed in the state.

Just as with the negative impacts resulting from the previous largest eminent domain takeover of the state’s watersheds (the Depression-era establishment of the Lower White River National Wildlife Refuge, as well as the 1938 Federal “Flood Control Act” which resulted in dams along the Upper White River) this proposed project ignores impacts on Arkansans living outside the actual corridor route.

My family and countless others had their way of life destroyed, their homes taken, and their property destroyed or taken during the previous eminent domain takeover of the Great Depression, which resulted in degradation of the White River biome and extinction of native fish and mussel species.

When I reached out to officials at the Department of Energy to request public information sharing during the outreach process, I was denied. The official stated that the DOE “has done enough for YOU PEOPLE.” I was therefore unable to travel the hundreds of miles I would have had to travel to get to any of the public meetings concerning this ill-founded project. There were NO public information meetings within the southwestern quadrant of the state, nor were there any in the Delta.

For the Federal Government to discriminate against the citizenry of a state like Arkansas, a state with the highest rate of hunger and poverty registered nationwide, is a heinous act that echoes the injustices of a century ago. Withholding public participation concerning a project that will (like the previous eminent domain takeover) impact Arkansans outside the proposed corridor is therefore discriminatory.

It is an act emblematic of cultural and environmental genocide. This project should be abandoned before any further irreparable damage and harm is perpetrated upon the citizens of Arkansas.

I call for the DOE to refuse all support for this destructive, discriminatory and unnecessary project.

Sincerely,
Denise White Parkinson

****emailed to: Angela.Colamaria@hq.doe.gov on July 12, 2015

Casey made a birdhouse!

The nomadic life offers beguiling mysteries, but until one comes home, a full sense of homecoming remains unfelt. I never knew until now what home feels like, except for fleeting childhood memories of the White River and the old houseboat at Clarendon, our family’s summer place.

My great-grandfather’s houseboat made a cozy retreat, set up on the riverbank— a vacation home of fishing and campfires and cookouts. At least it was until the Corps of Engineers washed it away. The Corps exiled my family, the same as other families of River People.
Our city place in Little Rock was a red-brick Craftsman bungalow with a shiny green roof made of row upon row of semicircular clay tiles. We lived there thru the best years of childhood. The roof being so spectacular against the red brick (especially after a string of Pine Bluff rentals), my sisters and I promptly made up a song that went “Nipple roof, nipple house, dum-da-dum-dum nipple house!” repeated endlessly.

This was during the 1960s-70s. The neighborhood had been built during the Depression along the old trolley route, now disappeared under layers of asphalt. We liked to sit on the terraced front yard and watch cars go by—a purple car was worth 10 points back then.
My childhood home rented for all of $100 a month the whole decade we lived there. It was solid and familiar, but it wasn’t ours.

Now, after a slew of addresses over intervening decades, all of them rented (none for $100) Team Parkinson has come home to what our youngest named Parkinsaw. The house overlooks a creek: artesian, spring-fed from the mountain ridge above. The multi-level cabin is built above a waterfall that sends the creek (Cherry Creek) rushing downhill in an S-curve. So far, we count tadpoles, minnows and frogs in the creek. Neighbors say they have had to kill a few ginormous rattlesnakes over the years. They also mentioned bears… !

My husband is reborn, reinvigorated and filled with the zest, zeal, vim and vigor for which I married him and love him so, even more now that I see how happy he is to live in a place that he can call his and ours and our three children’s home.

Parkinsaw is a monument to the visionary family of artists that designed and built it more than a decade ago. The cabin and studio, linked by a trio of descending decks and patios, have come alive again after several years’ vacancy. The timing is all, says the bard! Gratitude is the attitude. (There’s no place like home, she typed, as the Hubbie downstairs began happily tuning his Strat in the Man Cave…)

Our youngest foretold of Parkinsaw one afternoon several years ago. We were at the dining room table in our old rented place, absorbed in making a village out of clay, just for fun. As we molded the clay into blue houses, green trees and red fences, I asked our little boy, “What’ll we name this place? Parkinsonia?” He thought a second. “Let’s call it Parkinsaw,” he said, and so we did. The Hubbie promised then and there to get the Real Parkinsaw.

After four years spent searching for the Real Parkinsaw, we had seen sharp disappointments—one forested property was to have a powerline cut right through the middle; another was located past a neighbor’s fencerow decorated with macabre mannequin heads, and so on – we considered giving up the ceaseless quest for a home, at least temporarily. There seemed no escape from the degradation of “renter,” the tyranny of slumlords.

And then the house on the creek appeared like a ship on the horizon. Finally, Parkinsaw is a reality, one that we strove for and achieved, that we can leave to our three children. What finer thing can life bestow than a realized dream?

As the waterfall’s endless music sounds below, the bass notes of a bullfrog blend with the splashes of our Lab mix jumping around in the creek. Buzzy the Wunderdawg, the gladdest rescue dog in Garland County, loves to fish for minnows where the pool deepens below a little cascade.

Buzzy loves Parkinsaw. Perhaps the only thing sweeter than realizing a dream is having a happy dog. If so, we are doubly blessed.

Buzzy in Cherry Creek

Today, driving out of the Ouachita hills to come to Little Rock and pick up the most important flashdrive of my life, I reflected on the wonderful folks I have gotten to know over the years, fellow lovers of Arkansas History.

The road back to the White River, my lost family history and the rediscovered photographs of the Arkansas Delta — it’s been a wild ride, thanks to my forever buddy LC Brown and our unsinkable muse, Helen Spence.

The most recent kind soul to add to the list is named Ken Hastings, a Little Rock-dwelling Brit who has worked for a quarter century at his craft: photographic restoration. At his workshop (Cantrell Video & Photography, which is stuffed with computers, printing machines and countless frames and mats, yet still conveys an aura of the workshop) Ken performs magic.

“I enjoy bringing history back to life,” he told me today, as we stood gazing at the prints he’s enlarged for the upcoming Heritage Month Exhibit “Delta Rediscovered: Arkansas County,” showcasing photographs by Dayton Bowers of DeWitt. Using a silver halide process on photographic paper (not sub-par dry or inkjet processing) Ken transmutes tiny, brittle, 3 X 5 photographs more than a century old, enlarging prints to 16 X 20 inches. DeWitt photographer Dayton Bowers, whose studio thrived from 1880-1924, can finally be appreciated! The resulting exhibit opens a window on lost worlds.

See for yourself in the juxtaposition of this magnificent image of a lost ceremony of the River People: the decoration of graves with White River mussel shells. View in person at the Museum of the Arkansas Grand Prairie in Stuttgart from May through August. This travelling exhibit is made possible in part by grants from the Arkansas Department of Heritage, 2015 Heritage Month program, and by the Morris Foundation.

The public is invited to an opening reception for “Delta Rediscovered: Arkansas County,” at Museum of the Arkansas Grand Prairie, from 5-8 pm Friday, May 22nd, at 921 East 4th Street, Stuttgart, Arkansas. For more information, contact Denise Parkinson, 501.276.6870.

who are these young, laughing dancers, fresh as springtime yet from another era?