The Sentinel-Record - HER - Hot Springs
FROM THE EDITOR:
May days. Play days. Whatever you want to do carefree days. The merriest of months arrived in the resort city with a bluster but promises balmier temperatures ahead.
Many Hot Springs denizens have put away their prom wear and prepare to don robes and mortar boards for graduation exercises that close one chapter of life’s journey and signal new beginnings.
Pre-nuptial parties in various venues around town are truly celebratory occasions. Couples exchange “I do’s” in ceremonial splendor or simplicity, after which mothers, fathers and beaming “grands” host dinners and receptions for guests who share these happy moments.
All signs point to summertime fun, to golf and tennis, to lazing on the lake. For persons who are innately curious and passionately imaginative, enthralling exhibits or activities await at Mid-America Science Museum. If rock and Bach sound intriguing, there’s the annual Hot Springs Music Festival, which trumpets its 2013 opening on June 2.
No matter the season, hospitality is always in vogue here in the Spa City and visitors never lack for something to see, do and enjoy.
Personally speaking, May offers an abundance of special memories that resonate more strongly with every passing year. My and Lynda Lindsey Hogaboom’s namesake, Melynda Muldoon Gidcomb, came into this world on a bright and cloudless Mother’s Day, a gift to us from our other childhood chum, Mollie Lollis Muldoon.
That precocious and charming little girl has grown into a gracious lady, loving wife, devoted mom, and dedicated teacher. Good natured and generous like her parents, I marvel at Melynda’s verve and energy, her eclectic interests, her ability to keep so many projects in play at the same time. She is a caring sibling to brothers, Scott and Matthew, and a doting aunt to their children.
I’m particularly grateful for her thoughtfulness to me as an adopted member of the family and the manner in which she and Jimmy have kept me close to their daughter, 5-year-old Mollie Margaret.
Like me, Melynda is a Hot Springs native and just as I do, she values our hometown’s colorful lore and diversity. She has heard me say many times over how her mother and I often encountered a tall, lean man who’d tip his small white cap to us during after-school bicycle rides on Woodbine Avenue. Now and then he would buy us ice cream cones at a nearby drug store. This courteous fellow turned out to be “retired” gangster Owney Madden (See Ask Liz on Page 30).
While our landscape is ever changing, my namesake and I are inexorably connected to this place that has brought us both immeasurable pride and purpose.