Paris, Arkansas and Mt. Magazine

Winnie and I drove along Scenic Byway 22 for most of the morning and rolled into Paris, Arkansas early Monday afternoon. The Logan County Courthouse, which dominated the town square, was a looming vision of red bricks and white pillars. The square itself was on par with De Queen, which is to say hopeful without being cutesy. We walked into a little-bit-of-everything shop and Winnie dug around for a quilt.

As I picked up some postcards, I commented to the clerk on the beauty of the town, and she said "Thank you" the way you accept a compliment on behalf of your pet. When I asked her if there was an Eiffel Tower anywhere around, she gave me one of those looks that said You-Know-I've-Been-Asked-That-Question-3-Million-Times-But-I-Still-Don't-Mind-Answering and then replied, "We don't need an Eiffel Tower. We've got Mt. Magazine, the highest peak in Arkansas."

It wasn't long before Winnie had the convertible in low gear as we cruised on up to the base camp of Mt. Magazine. And the significance wasn't lost on us that while we'd had Jesus in cowboy boots the day before, we had Jesus on a motorcycle in front of us most of the way up.


We managed to check into the last campsite on the mountain, get our tent and bedding set up and squeeze in a climb to the summit of Signal Hill before the sun went down. After our summit (which was too densely forested to offer a view), we strolled out to a rock ledge where we could watch the sunset's afterglow. "This is better than the Eiffel Tower," Winnie sighed. I agreed completely.

On our walk back to camp in the dark, fireflies lighted the way. We slept while the insects frolicked and hummed, and rose early intent on driving long and far today. "We need to get moving," I said, and Winnie agreed, but as we hustled to pack up and get moving, fate again intervened.

"Listen to that!" Winnie said in a hushed voice, and the next thing we were doing was sitting in lawn chairs at a campsite across from ours, listening to live bluegrass played by an old couple from Paragould, AR. The mandolin player kicked off the introductions between numbers, saying "I'm Bob and this is Bonnie Lurleen Treece - that's T-R-Double E-C-E." Then he strummed on his Bill Monroe-signed, handmade-from-sawgrass-wood mandolin and gazed at his wife while he sang. "We've been married for 60 years," Bonnie Lurleen told us. "The first present I ever gave her was a guitar," Bob said.

In between songs we talked about education (they were both retired teachers) and traveling (they'd been to 49 states - "We just can't figure out how to drive to Hawaii"). They described Henry David Thoreau's hut, which they'd seen on a visit to Walden Pond, as "just a tiny little place." At one point, Bob got up and brought a tiny jug-shaped bottle full of some brown liquid over to Bonnie Lurleen and said, "Come on, drink this. I want you to sing with me on the next one." Win asked if it was Jack Daniels and they both giggled like teenagers. "Naw, it ain't liquor. It's something that's good for the throat, though. From Vermont. Vinegar and some other stuff."

And again, spontaneous and unexpected, we were in the presence of people we admired: friendly, harmonious, open as violin cases and happy to share some time and space. They even appreciated our mission to visit all the Parises, and in the short time we were together Bob giddily announced it to three other campers.

"Now I wanna play that one I like and you don't like," Bob said to Bonnie Lurleen. What she didn't like about it, I'll never know. The refrain was "More Pretty Girls Than One" and my favorite lines from the song went something like this:

I took my mama's advice

And married Bonnie Lurleen

And now I am a happier man

Than I ever could have dreamed