My first house was north of War Memorial Park, about halfway up Van Buren toward Mount St. Mary. It was a fun place to live. I had cool neighbors. It was located pretty much in the middle of everything I did. Great deck, killer kitchen and comfortable front porch.
It was a great place to live back when the Razorbacks used to actually play games against real opponents here in Little Rock. It was likewise a great place to live back when you could also actually play golf at the currently unused green space formerly and wistfully known as War Memorial Golf Course.
But I digress.
My old neighborhood was a happening place whenever the Razorbacks played here. The narrow streets would become sclerotic with honking cars and rowdy football fans in varying stages of sobriety without regard to when kickoff was scheduled. I don't mean to suggest that Hog fans as a rule got as torn down as bad as your average LSU crowd back in those days. I do mean to suggest that a lot of folks obviously had beer for breakfast to help them prepare for a 1 p.m. kickoff.
I pretty much always had a ticket to the game, generally obtained in exchange for a parking place in my driveway. Or if I didn't have a ticket I would literally go stand in the southbound traffic heading to the stadium down Van Buren with one or two fingers in the air. Somebody always had tickets to get rid of. Like I said, it was a fun place to live.
Once upon a time, I was sitting on my porch swing at the old place reading a magazine on such a festive football afternoon when I noticed a Prius pulling in by my driveway. As usual my little street was lined with cars. The driver was obviously trying to squeeze it into an open spot between some fan's car and the driveway.
A portly fellow with a goatee in one of those Mexican peasant-type shirts got out. He walked around the car to make sure he wasn't blocking me in. I could see from my porch swing that he was not.
"You're good!" I called out. He nodded at the front bumper of the Prius and turned to face me. He stood in my front yard with his hands on his hips and a quizzical look on his face.
"Are you wearing a 'Tulane' shirt?" he asked.
Indeed I was. The words "Tulane Baseball" were writ large across my chest. "Tulane Football" was still pretty much an oxymoron back in those days. But the Green Wave baseball team was pretty good. I guess I wanted a shirt that could pass the laugh test.
"Did you go to Tulane?" he asked as he came up the front walk.
"Actually, I did," I said. "Law school."
The man looked at the ground and shook his head in a rueful fashion. This was getting different awfully fast. "I couldn't get in," he said. "And I was a legacy."
"I beg your pardon?"
"My father graduated from there. I was a legacy. I should have gotten in."
"I don't know how I got in," I heard myself stammer in reply. I was trying to lighten the conversation. However, there was a measure of truth to my response.
"Well, the problem was that I'm dyslexic. My grades were OK, but I didn't test well. But they didn't have programs for that back then like they have now. Maybe if they did ..." He paused. He looked away at the caravan heading for the stadium.
"Oh well," he said. "It doesn't matter."
I didn't say anything. I have always had a pretty good nut detector in my head, and it wasn't going off. I felt badly for the man. Then I felt badly for feeling badly. After all, I was not responsible for his situation. I didn't start this conversation. I didn't know this guy from Houston Nutt. So I just stood there on the porch with my arms across my chest in order to perhaps obscure the locus of the bad memories that he, for some reason, felt compelled to share with a complete stranger.
Finally he looked up. "Hey, you should come with me and sell programs at the stadium." Turned out that he helped sell programs at the Little Rock games to raise money for a local civic club he belonged to.
"It's really a good deal," he said. "You get in free. It's a lot better than selling drinks and stuff because you can watch the game and sell programs at the same time. Can't do that if you're downstairs selling drinks and stuff. And it's a great way to make new friends."
"Thanks," I said. "That does sound like a good deal. But I'm going to the game with my brother. In fact, he should be here any minute."
My visitor took the hint and started walking toward Van Buren. "Going with your brother. Nice," he said. "Well, come on down next home game. I can get you in."
I just smiled, nodded and kept my arms across my chest. Off he went to do his civic duty. To sell his programs and watch the game for free.
The Prius was gone when I got back home. I never saw its owner again. I now live on the other side of the neighborhood, a mile or so from where the Saturday football traffic and my former life used to be.
I still drive by the old house whenever I don't feel like messing with the traffic at Lee and Van Buren. Sometimes I remember the man who stood in my yard on that football Saturday and told, completely unbidden by me, his unhappy story of rejection. And who also invited me, just a guy on a porch, to come with him to the stadium that night. After all, hadn't he just told me that selling programs for his club was a good way to make friends?
It always occurs to me during those times when I replay in my mind that odd encounter of years ago that sadness and loneliness too can be legacies if you are unlucky enough. And that there but for random laughing chance, there but for pure dumb luck, went I.
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Arthur Paul Bowen is a writer and lawyer living in Little Rock.
Editorial on 10/18/2019