Exile on South Main Street...April 14, 2001

Ain't nothin' but a Hound dog, Laughin' all the time!

On St. Patrick's Day the Miles' Files left your minds "standing" in the middle of Hazel Street in Newport circa 1959, one of those bodacious streets paved in the memories of so many who walked along its tree shaded path in days gone by. I often feel the influence of Hazel Street tugging on my heartstrings. It is obvious that many of you also feel that "tug" from the hometown neighborhoods of yore. Your replies have told me so. Old Dog John Purdy served as a magnanimous distribution agent for the last copy of the Miles' Files that mystically fell from my keyboard. Within hours of tapping the "send" key, I was receiving replies touching on your memories of days past in our hometown of Newport.

Peggy Gardner Watson ('57) and littermate Kathy Foley McKee ('70) both recalled moving into the apartment building at 412 Hazel Street (my first home) as newlyweds in 1961 and 1970, respectively. Glen McHaney ('58) and Rick Blanton ('59) remembered their friendship with Mike Travis, Freeman's older brother, after reading about my "get together" with Freeman and Mike Stephens, two pals from neighborhood past. Other recollections and words of appreciation came from pre-1970 Hounds David (and Marian) Hodges, David Hare, Jamie Umsted, Billie Duncan, Marvin Thaxton (Gail's dad) and grand friend Jimmy Toler (a Hazel Street refugee like me). Messages of remembrances from post-1970 Hounds came in from David Gray, Mary Lynn Pinkett, Kim Hout, David Black, Leon Nicholson, Patti Forrester and Lee Gardner.

And, of course, the loyal littermates from the Class of '70 frequently offer encouraging words. Since the previous Miles' Files I have heard from Paula Jones, Kathy Spann, Dinny Bullard, Freeman Travis, Cherry Lou Smith, Gail Thaxton, Clay Wright, and Margaret Ann Gillihan. Margaret Ann's message causes me to step back into the present as I ask all of you to place her brother Thomas (Class of '64) in your prayers. Thomas suffered a broken leg several weeks back and has experienced some severe repercussions following surgery. I am hoping that this writing finds Thomas resting comfortably at home in the care of family. I know that Mike Stephens has visited Thomas often during his hospital stay, which provided Margaret Ann some comfort (there's that Hazel Street-Laurel Street neighborhood connection again). While in the present with prayer on my mind, I offer updated news that both Mary Wynne Parker and Darlene Black (Joe's wife) have recently completed their latest rounds of chemo treatments. Both remain in excellent spirit and are tackling routine life challenges. Where do they (we) go from here? Continued thoughtful prayer from the loving circle of NHS Class of '70 mates and other friends coupled with the tremendous courage exhibited by Mary Wynne and Darlene seems to be the best medicine.

Now, where do we go from here? Back to 1959, of course, to revisit the "exile on South Main Street." To be in exile is to be separated from one's homeland either voluntarily or forced. The Hazel Street neighborhood was my homeland. Everything I knew was within two small blocks of 412 Hazel. I had walked one block south to kindergarten at the home of Mrs. Martha Wise. I walked to the first grade at Walnut Street School just a half block west. Harris Hospital where I was born and where my mother had worked prior to my arrival was one block north with the Hazel Hotel where we would go for snacks right next door. The post office where we walked to mail letters to my grandmothers was across the street from the hotel. Sunday school at the First Methodist Church on Laurel Street was a half block east and one block north. And the Lion service station my dad was managing was immediately across Third Street from the church. A neat little package of all that was important to a seven year old. But my parents purchased a house on South Main Street and my "exile" was initiated.

Seven come Eleven! Being the son of a gamblin' man, a shout of "seven come eleven" seems appropriate to mark my youthful years in Newport. On the come out roll of the dice in a game of craps, seven and eleven are the "winners." My first seven years were spent on Hazel Street, the next eleven found me on South Main Street. Both neighborhoods were big winners for me! In a vision of coincidence, one of my favorite Rolling Stones' songs, "Tumbling Dice," can be found on their album "Exile on Main Street." Music personalizes the times in our lives. We each have our own "soundtrack" of experience.

On arrival at 1100 South Main Street (the corner of South Main and Erwin) in early 1959, I quickly found I was no stranger in a strange land. My exile was met by the open arms of friends. Four members of my first grade class at Walnut Street School lived within a block of my new house. Jenetta Ashley was right across Erwin Street. Donny Appleton, David Sibley and Ann Gardner all lived on Walnut Street a half block east. This new neighborhood of mine proved to be a Shangrila for all of us who lived within its friendly confines.

The 1100-block of South Main and South Walnut was the southern-most block in Newport with the levee serving as the south boundary of the town limits. Many secret play areas could be found on each adventure "over the levee." The levee itself was a wonderland, as we would slide down its slopes on sleds when it was covered in snow on winter days or in cardboard boxes over the slick green grass of summer. Donny's dog Puppy and my dog Spats accompanied us everywhere during early days in this new neighborhood. And it was a relatively new neighborhood in 1959. There were no mature trees on South Main, as I had known on Hazel Street. As a matter of fact directly across the street to the west from my house was Gay Lacy's bean field. The usually muddy terrain was known to "eat" the shoes right off the feet of little kids as they crossed the field on their way to the levee. I am certain that two pair of my shoes are probably still mired somewhere in that hallowed ground.

Right behind my house were two large vacant lots facing Walnut Street that were the ultimate sandlot for baseball and football and games of Red Rover and Kick the Can that were played until dark thirty almost every day. But the factor that made the South Main neighborhood so welcoming was the same factor that had made my Hazel Street neighborhood so comfortable - it was the families who lived in them. I have already mentioned the Ashleys, the Appletons, the Sibleys and the Gardners who all had a child who was in my first grade class. Donny Appleton, David Sibley and I seemed to be inseparable throughout our days in the Newport schools. Donny and David both had older siblings (Jimmy, Jane and Rosemary Appleton and Robin Sibley) whom I admired. I am sure we were often a bother to them, but what are little brothers and their friends for anyway (remember Beaver Cleaver and his pals).

Other families in the immediate neighborhood with older kids when I arrived there included the Parsleys (Sue) who lived directly behind my house facing Walnut, the Heards (Georgeann and Maureen), the Tims (Marian), the Jones (Buddy), the Laufers (Sandra) - all on Walnut Street. The Ridleys (Susan and John) lived on Erwin, the Jowers (Carol and Jimmy) and the Browns (Lynda) lived on Garfield. This is the same Brooks Brown family who had lived at 412 Hazel and moved prior to our leaving the same apartment building. The Rogers (Roseanne and George), the Wombles (Coy) and the Lamberts (Doug) all lived on South Main. Families with kids just a few years younger included the McDonalds (Kathy and Lauren), the Iveys (Terri) and the Conditts (Lee and Bob). Of course Jenetta Ashley, Ann Gardner and I had younger siblings to contend with (Jerry Ashley, Lee and Walter Gardner and sister Lana Miles).

The Appleton household was sandwiched in between that of my mother's Aunt Ann Gray with whom my mother lived when she came to Newport and that of my mother's cousin Artemis Gray Lancaster who owned the drive in movie theater in town. Her daughter (and my cousin) "Little" Art Fallert ('61) often found me tagging along with her and her friend Pat Battles to the movies or to the Farm Drive In. I was happy to play the role of "little brother" for her much to her chagrin I'm sure. "Little" Art had a swimming pool that was a great gathering place for kids and family. Not long after my great aunt Ann Gray died in 1963, her son C. R. and his family (John, Ginny and twins Linda and Brenda) moved into that house.

While Hazel Street was a stable neighborhood with periodic comings and goings from the apartment building in which I had lived and the few boarding houses, South Main was a developing neighborhood. Playgrounds became houses. I witnessed new houses being built on the land across the street that had been a bean field. Coach Bernis Duke and his family built a new home there. The Harris' (Dan and Ruth Ann) and the Lacys (Gay, Melinda, and Elaine) moved into new homes. Later the Ivys and the Lehman Smiths would build new homes near my levee crossing entrance at the very end of South Main Street. Then the Houts built a new home on the ultimate sandlot behind my house. As the neighborhood matured while I was growing up in its midst, fellow classmates Laura Benish and Kathy Spann moved onto South Main to join Jenetta, Ann, Donny, David and me. The McDowell's (Brian, Tim) also moved into the neighborhood across from Purdy's Flower Shop.

So many fond memories can be found in the back yards of the houses in that South Main neighborhood as well as in the ditches and the hollow trees on the "other side" of the levee surrounding it. I learned to ride a bicycle right in front of the Parsleys house on a bike loaned to me by a friend (I can't remember if the bike belonged to Donny or David, but it was it not mine). I remember endless games of whiffle ball in the Ashley's back yard. I remember Jimmy Appleton taking Donny and me to Memphis to see the only professional hockey game I have ever seen. He bought us both a replica hockey stick. I remember David Sibley and I straining the ditches around the levee for those little green backed turtles that we would carry to the Sterling Store in buckets to sell for a nickel each and then the store would resell them. We used the proceeds to buy baseball cards. I remember walking down the aisle at graduation from Newport High School in the spring of 1970 with my South Main neighbors Donny Appleton, David Sibley, Jenetta Ashley, Ann Gardner, Laura Benish and Kathy Spann and my Hazel Street neighbors Mary Wynne Parker, Mike Stephens and Margaret Ann Gillihan. I remember ... I remember ... I remember ... My mother still lives in the house on South Main. I go back there and remember!!!
This is a good weekend for remembering. Yesterday was Good Friday. Jesus hung from a cross for our redemption some 2001 years ago. He died, was buried and on the third day He rose from the dead. Tomorrow we will celebrate His rising on a day we call Easter. Welcome Happy Easter! Welcome the memories this happy day brings back to each of us. Let it be a time for renewal of friendships lost. Let it be a time for remembering Hounds past and Dogs gone.

Today I am forever young. Today is my birthday! Forty-nine years ago today I made my entrance onto this earth at a small hospital on Hazel Street, Newport, Arkansas. I had fun on Hazel Street for seven years then journeyed to a house on South Main Street where the fun increased over the next eleven years. Seven come Eleven! As Mick Jagger screamed the words to "Tumbling Dice". "Don't you see the time flashin' by. You got to roll me and call me the tumblin' dice. You got to roll me." For the times I remember and the times I've enjoyed, there is no doubt that if you were to "roll me and call me the tumblin' dice," I would come up seven or eleven on the come out roll. Roll the dice! Seven come Eleven! When the dice stop tumblin', I'm sure they will be nestled up against a curb on Hazel Street or South Main Street with seven or eleven "smiling" up at us.

While I'm looking for directions to Memory Lane, I'll just be Miles from Nowhere, guess I'll take my time ... See ya when I get there.
joe