I’ve been living here in Arkansas for the better part of twenty-five years. How did I get here? I married a native who wanted to be closer to her aging parents and I had no familial attachments in Texas, so here I am.
In October we went to Wisconsin, and while driving through rural areas I felt something was off. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, until we were driving through a small town whereupon I had my eureka moment, exclaiming to Mrs. Odesio, “Arkansas is a shithole!” In retrospect, perhaps shouting eureka would have been better.
What I eventually figured out is I wasn’t seeing evidence of poverty and decay in rural Wisconsin like I had grown accustomed living with in Arkansas. Drive through rural Arkansas and you’re going to see trailers or dilapidated houses on properties filled with junk. Go to small towns and you’ll see homes and former businesses in decay or flat out ruin (or big towns like Little Rock).
What I witnessed in rural Wisconsin is people who took care of their property. Wisconsinites living in older homes tended to take care of those homes. When I drove through small, rural towns, buildings had businesses and not bullshit businesses like flea markets or thrift stores. I think I saw a handful of dilapidated barns but you can’t swing a dead cat in rural Arkansas without hitting one.
Funnily enough, my sister and her family moved here from California a few years back specifically to get away from all that woke nonsense. She hasn’t adjusted very well, and after a recent trip to Colorado she came to the same conclusion, “Arkansas is a shithole.” Now she’s looking to relocate because she wants my niece to have more opportunities than what’s available here.
Maybe this is all a bit much for a thread about PBS. But Arkansans, and I include myself, have the state we asked for. If PBS is going away, well, it’s what we wanted. I argue the same thing about the United States as a whole and Donald Trump. We’re getting what we asked for. Arkansans, and I include myself, are accustomed to living in a shithole.
