Ward,
Sure. I just wondered why mentioning Arkansas ... showing it's part of
the developed world? (trying to be funny, seems not to work)
Well, if you go by the sequence from the Looney Tunes Cartoon, "Hillbilly Hare" (where Bugs Bunny calls a square dance, and has two hillbillies from
the Ozarks, beat the crap out of each other), you have to wonder. <G>
As a side note, the director, the late Charles (Chuck) Jones, was at one time, a square dance caller...and he was the Grand Marshall at the first National Square Dance Convention, held in Riverside, California, in 1951.
And then, there's the sequence in the 1986 movie "End Of The Line". Two grizzled railroaders (played by the late Wilford Brimley and the late Levon Helm), who had lost their jobs, because Southland Railroad was going into
air freight, at the direction of the son-in-law to the former president
(now the chairman of the board)...the son-in-law preferred planes to trains.
Well, as they are headed toward Chicago in this diesel locomotive, the exchange went like this:
Leo: You know, Haney, I was taking a shower the other day. And, I was
trying to remember the Pledge Of Allegiance. You know, the American one??
And, Hell...I couldn't get it to come to me.
Haney: Well, sir...grade school was a long time ago.
Leo: Yes, sir. That's what kept me out of high school.
When I was working in silkscreen printing 35 years ago, one customer
came in with a deal on muzzle loading and deer hunting (hunting is a
big thing here in Arkansas). Yet, he had muzzle loader spelled as
"muzzel loder". The artist and I "corrected it"...and the customer
had a fit. The owner of the company was standing right there, and I
blew a gasket.
I growled "And, they wonder why Arkansas' literacy rate is the lowest
in the country!! Stuff like this makes us look like a bunch of stupid,
dumb hicks!! If it would've said on the order that 'he wanted it that
way', I would've have said a word!!".
A former BBS Sysop in the area referred to the state as "Sasnakra",
which is Arkansas spelled backwards. This was when they said that
"gambling was illegal"...yet, they allowed betting/wagering on the
horses at Oaklawn Race Track in Hot Springs...and on the greyhounds
at Southland Park in West Memphis. Basically, it was "a double standard".
Many Arkansans (before Arkansas got their own lottery) would travel out
of state to Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, to
play their lotteries and casinos. That meant a bunch of money going OUT
of Arkansas.
I rarely play the lottery, but when I do, the max is ususally $5 a
month, and on the scratch tickets. I've lost far more than I've won,
and I have about the same luck in the Casino Games on the BBS.
August 15 marked 44 years since the family moved to, and settled in Arkansas...my late father's job transferred him and us here from the
Miami, Florida area to Little Rock, Arkansas.
Daryl
... Floggings will continue until morale improves.
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