Icicles and Arkansas

Growing up in Louisiana, I never drove a car in a hilly area until my first wife Gail and I moved to Fayetteville, Arkansas. We owned a 1967 Mustang and soon bought a 1962 Ford truck. Both vehicles had manual transmissions and when winter arrived, I learned that I was not as good a driver as I thought I was.

Nestled in the Ozark Mountains, Fayetteville is a gorgeous place, and was the inspiration for the fictional town of Brannerville in my novel A Gathering of Diamonds. Spring, summer and fall it is gorgeous. It is even more gorgeous amid winter snows that fall with regularity – fine for someone from Arkansas but treacherous for a Louisiana flatlander. I found out as much the first time that it snowed.

Gail had sent me to the store for a loaf of bread. Snow had begun falling an hour before in cold wet clumps, the narrow street that we lived on already coated with ice and snow as I backed out of our driveway. I cruised carefully down the street until I reached the first intersection.

Every cross street in Fayetteville, it seems, is either up or down a grade. When I reached the first one, I had trouble negotiating the gearshift and clutch to get up the grade. The snow had turned dry and was falling in sheets, making it difficult for the wipers to keep the windshield clear. The grade was not even that steep but it took me two tries to clear it and turn right onto a busy crossroad.

Arkansas drivers are used to the slush and ice and blared their horns at me as they raced past, oblivious to the near whiteout condition of the weather. Creeping along, I finally made it to the grocery store, deciding to stock up while there – a lucky thing, as it turned out as we ended up snowed in for two days.

I was only in the store for ten minutes or so, but found the windshield iced over when I returned to the truck. Having seen little snow during my lifetime, I did not have an ice scrapper in the truck. At that time, I did not even know such a thing existed. Thankfully, a Good Samaritan lent me one and showed me how to use it.

Need I mention that I did not have gloves, or heavy coat, either? By now, the streets were white, as were the trees and all the houses. Before long, I had one of the front wheels hooked over a curb and try as I might, I could not get it loose. I was on a side street, away from traffic, and about two miles from my duplex.

Finally giving up trying to free the truck, I left it on the side of the road and hiked home with the two bags of groceries that I had bought in my arms. Gail stared at me in disbelief when I came in the door, icicles hanging from my hair and eyebrows.

“What happened to you?” she asked.

“Arkansas,” I answered, wondering what the next years had in store for us as I put away the groceries in the kitchen.

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