For those of you who haven’t read my “About Me” page in Main Event, I used to live in Rogers, Arkansas, from the time I was three years old until I turned eleven years old. Seven and a half years I was there in all. It was an interesting place to live… a fast-growing area, the home of several companies, including Wal-Mart, J.B. Hunt, Tyson Foods, Hudson Foods, and others. Still, I was surprised to see Rogers, Arkansas, which, when I was there, was one of those blink-and-you’ve-missed-it towns (though bigger than Stuarts Draft), featured in both Newsweek and U.S. News and World Report. Newsweek’s article focused on Hispanics’ plight in Rogers, where the citizens resented the Hispanics and how Mayor John Sampier (I am pictured with him here) got voted out of office due to his Hispanic-friendly stance. U.S. News and World Report focused on the growth of the area as a whole, discussing what’s going up here and there, and how much everything has changed with growth. However, the picture at left shows that no matter how much things change, it still stays the same. This view of U.S. 71 in Springdale, Arkansas hasn’t changed since the 80s, when we used to go this way before they built Interstate 540 (U.S. 71 bypass back then). I would specifically like to point out the “HI-WAY” liquor store in the middle right of the photo… my parents used to go to “County Line” liquor, which was down the street from this one, where they actually had a drive-through window for booze… not a Brew-Thru type drive in, but actually more like McDonalds, minus shouting into the clown (substitute one real human being for the clown). And like banks gave suckers, they always gave Carefree gum with purchases. Makes me feel somewhat comfortable in the thought that if I went back to visit, though there would be changes (as we would expect), things would still be somewhat homey…
