Looking Toward Home

I wrote my first post as Miss July just before we left on our 40th wedding anniversary trip to Navarre Beach, Florida. Consequently, you’ve read a lot about Johnson history and the things I love about the Emerald Coast. However, today, I find my heart turning toward home. By the time you read this, I’ll be back on my beloved ridge in Little Rock, which makes me happy. I don’t care if it’s Hot-Hot-Hot-97-degrees-Hot there. You see, I’m an Arkansas girl through and through. I’m accustomed to it. In spite of the dog days of summer, I’ve been content to live in our beautiful state most of my life.

When we travel, we sometimes meet people who have formed an opinion of Arkansas without ever having stepped foot in the state. A few have made it clear that they think we’re backward and ignorant. Once we shared a table with a man on a cruise who laughed in my face when I said I was from Arkansas. When I was a young mother living near one of the Great Lakes, a woman asked in all seriousness if everyone really went barefoot here. She was a neighbor, and I can tell you she was less educated and refined than most of the people I know. Little did she know she was talking to the Shoe Queen. (I have a weakness for cute shoes, even devote a place on my blog to my love affair with them.)

Perhaps my worst experience was the evening I was entertained in the home of a transplant from South Carolina. She spent the entire evening criticizing Arkansas to several women who had recently relocated to Little Rock. I stayed long enough to be polite. Later when I heard she had moved back home, I was glad for all of us. I figured she must have been really homesick that night.

I was taught to be gracious, even when people are not. So in the face of such rudeness, I usually say that Arkansas is beautiful and full of lovely people—that they should visit sometime. But what I’m really thinking is Please stay away. We don’t need ill-mannered folks messing up our state.

Recently, it occurred to me that those who ridicule Arkansas are the ignorant ones. They lack experience. They’ve never watched the sunrise over Greer’s Ferry Lake, witnessed a sunset on Petit Jean Mountain or seen the mighty Arkansas River covered in fog. They couldn’t have ever driven through the Ozarks in the autumn or spring, floated the Buffalo, picked peaches at Guy or Clarksville, watched a crop duster swoop across a sea of soybeans or cotton. They surely never bumped their way along a dirt track bordered by pines so thick and tall you could almost break your neck looking up at their tops.

I’m certain they’ve never experienced the thrill of seeing ducks circle over rice fields, fished for trout, crappie and brim, dug for diamonds near Murfreesboro, rock climbed at Horseshoe Canyon Ranch or tasted a Bradley county tomato. They’ve never water skied on Lake Hamilton, visited the bathhouses in Hot Springs or camped in one of our state parks. They’re probably clueless about Crystal Bridges, the Arkansas Art Center, our excellent universities and so much more. Bless their hearts. They just don’t know.

But I do know. And as much as I enjoy our beach getaway, I’m a little homesick. I don’t care if it’s 97 degrees in Arkansas. I’m ready to get back to our cranky Lucy, audacious Max, and fraidy-cat, Timmy. I want to see my children and grandchildren, have dinner with our neighbors, visit Aunt Gladys—even do her laundry. I’m ready to get back to my Sunday school class and to meet the new preacher. I want to have lunch with my girlfriends, brunch with our Searcy group, go to the farmer’s market, even weed my flower beds and clean my house because all those things are what make it home. And I’m ready to be there soon.

In fact, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll go pack my bag right now, because that other Dorothy had it right. There truly is no place like home.

You make the going out of the morning and the evening to shout for joy. Ps. 65:8b