Thankful for Arkansas

Thanksgiving has long been my favorite holiday. It’s a day to eat too much, watch football games and exchange stories with family members. It’s also a day to remember the many things for which I’m thankful.

I’m thankful we’re nearing an election year so we can vote out the legislative Know Nothings (members who prefer to stoke fear and division rather than doing the hard work of ensuring that tax dollars are spent wisely and efficiently). We have the worst Arkansas Legislature of my lifetime right now, but we’re about to have a chance to change that.

I’m thankful for freedom of the press in Arkansas, which our governor and a number of legislators tried to destroy with their proposed gutting of the Arkansas Freedom of Information

Act. I’m thankful for reporters who still cover government at all levels even as a dark political cloud descends over our state.

I’m thankful for those of you who subscribe to this newspaper and read my columns. I’m thankful for a job that allows me to travel Arkansas, see interesting places, visit with colorful characters, eat in good restaurants and then write about what I’ve discovered. I have the best job in the state.

I’m thankful to live in a place where I can attend a Battle of the Ravine football game each November in Arkadelphia, watch the sun rise from a duck blind on the Grand Prairie and sample dozens of versions of duck gumbo at Stuttgart on the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

I’m thankful I can attend a concert in the Murphy Arts District in downtown El Dorado, have a dinner at Dondie’s on the banks of the White River at Des Arc, and buy a stack of used books about Arkansas at Dickson Street Bookshop in Fayetteville. I’m thankful to live in a place where I can cross the U.S. 62 bridge over Norfork Lake on a clear morning or go kayaking on the Mulberry River.

I’m thankful I can call the Hogs in Fayetteville, watch the thoroughbreds run at Oaklawn in Hot Springs, go to a winery near Altus, climb Pinnacle

Mountain, visit the most beautiful state capitol in the country and fish for smallmouth bass on the Caddo River in southwest Arkansas.

I’m thankful I can swim in the clear waters of the Kings River, combine fried chicken with spaghetti at the Venesian Inn in Tontitown, have Stanley Young fry me some catfish at Murry’s near Hazen and drink the mineral water at the Mountain Valley headquarters in downtown Hot Springs. I’m thankful I can take a slow walk through history at Mount Holly Cemetery in Little Rock, visit a sand blow in northeast Arkansas while contemplating the New Madrid Earthquakes of 1811-12, and get a sunburn on a White River sandbar.

I’m thankful I can spend Saturday mornings in the summer at farmers markets on the square in Fayetteville and Bentonville as the locals walk their dogs. I’m thankful I can try to finish a tamale spread at McClard’s in Hot Springs, eat a turkey leg at the Arkansas State Fair in Little Rock, have barbecue for breakfast at Jones in Marianna and sit on the east side of Mount Nebo while watching the sun rise over the Arkansas River Valley.

I’m thankful I can sit outside at Basin Spring Park in Eureka Springs on a Saturday evening while enjoying live music or take a boat onto Grassy Lake in southwest Arkansas to look for alligators. I’m thankful I can spend the night at the Crescent Hotel or Basin Park Hotel in Eureka Springs while thinking about ghosts, tour the Johnny Cash boyhood home at Dyess, see English Tudor architecture at Wilson, and read the many Civil War markers at DeValls Bluff before having pork barbecue at Craig’s.

I’m thankful I can see people wearing kilts at the Scottish Festival at Lyon College in Batesville, wearing hunter orange in the south Arkansas pine woods in late November and wearing camouflage in the flooded oaks of the Delta. I’m thankful I can attend a meeting in the infamous room behind the kitchen at Does’s Eat Place in Little Rock while eating a steak, watch the toad races during Toad Suck Daze in Conway and consume a huge ham steak and buckwheat pancakes for breakfast at The Pancake Shop in Hot Springs.

I’m thankful to be able to watch the rice harvest at Weiner on a fall day, go to Garvan Woodland Gardens on Lake Hamilton when tulips are blooming in the spring, and attend the St. Patrick’s Day parade on Bridge Street in the Spa City. I’m thankful I can have my photo taken while straddling the state line at the federal courthouse in downtown Texarkana, attend the Gillett Coon Supper each January, and then show up a few weeks later for the Slovak Oyster Supper.

I’m thankful to live in a place that has an all-tomato luncheon during the Bradley County Pink Tomato Festival at Warren. I’m thankful I can drive along the Talimena Scenic Drive when the leaves are changing in the fall, spend the day walking around Historic Washington State Park when the jonquils are blooming in early spring, and dig for diamonds at Crater of Diamonds State Park near Murfreesboro.

I’m thankful I can buy strawberry shortcake in the spring at the Bulldog in Bald Knob, gather wild blackberries in the summer along a dusty country road, and buy peaches that were picked earlier that day near Clarksville. I’m thankful I can sit on the levee during the King Biscuit Blues Festival at Helena, visit Judge Parker’s courtroom at Fort Smith National Historic Site, and attend a Fourth of July community picnic at Piggott or Corning. I’m thankful I can fish for bream on a south Arkansas oxbow during the day and gig frogs on the same lake that night.

I’m thankful for this unique place called Arkansas. rexnelsonsouthernfried.com.