May 10, 2019. Biking the Streets of Trumann, 60 Years Later.

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May 10, 2019.  Biking the Streets of Trumann, 60 Years Later.  We are traveling again.  This time, we are headed to the Gulf of Mexico.  We will be in Seagrove Beach, a mile from Seaside, Florida for a couple of weeks.  We will then move to Gulfport, MS, for a week.  

I have shown you a few of the usual barns along the route from home to Paragould.  We intended to stay in Jonesboro, but discovered that this is graduation weekend at ASU.  It worked out very well, because Paragould is 15 miles from my grandparents' farm near Dixie, Arkansas, where I would spend 2-3 weeks each summer.  The fourth picture is the house my grandmother lived in after Grandpa Renard died.  The old two-room house I remember from my youth was torn down and this one was constructed on the same site.  

I added an extra day to our drive down hoping to bike the streets of Trumann, the small town in Northeastern Arkansas where I lived the first 13-plus years of my life.  That plan nearly imploded before we left home.  As I was loading the bicycles, I noticed the rear tire on my bike was flat.  Two weeks ago, the bikes were in the shop for tuning.  Among other things, the rear tire on my bike was replaced.  I expected the bikes to be in tiptop condition.

There is an unfounded rumor among my family and friends that I am not very handy.  Well, sit down.  I stopped at the Paragould Walmart and bought a size 26-inch inner tube and small air compressor.  After unloading at the hotel, I turned my bike upside-down in the parking lot and fixed it.  That's right, I fixed it!  After removing the old tube, I reset the wheel on the bike.  I filled the new inner tube to 90 PSI and peddled it around the parking lot.  I even rode it in front of the window in our room, so Annie could see that I fixed it.  Proud, I was.      

My older brother and I had a paper route in Trumann from the time I was in the second grade until we moved.  I biked the streets of Trumann delivering papers, meeting up with friends and, generally, using a bicycle as my principal mode of transportation.  

Annie Farkley was not excited about riding around Trumann.  To be fair, I was raised on the wrong side of Trumann.  The neighborhood north of Speedway was the poor part of town.  It was rehabbed in the 1970's, but many of the homes I remember are still there.  Most are run down and dilapidated.  

So, we began our ride at the community center which is across the street from the Scout Hut where I attended scores of meetings.  We stopped at the school and I took a picture of the football field where I was a two-way starter as an eighth-grader for the Trumann Junior High Wild Kittens in 1959.

The next picture is the house which now stands where our old house at 512 Kentucky was in the 1950s.  Dad gave our house to the First Baptist Church as a parsonage.  The house there now is 2-3 times larger than the one I was raised in.  

As we zigzagged the streets of Trumann, I took pictures of houses which were standing when I lived there.  Most are at the end or near the end of their usefulness.  Most are vacant, but a few are still homes for present residents.  

As we rode the streets, I overwhelmed Annie with information about this house or that, this building or that and what or who used to be on this or that vacant lot.  I was chattering along several times when I noticed Annie had fallen far behind me.  No problem, I just kept chattering.  The final picture is the old First Baptist Church.  It is the church in which I was baptized.  There is a new church now, but I was happy to see that the old one is still being used and kept up.  

After an hour or so, we reloaded the bikes on the rack and left Trumann.  I had a wonderful time.  Annie, not so much.  But, she was a good sport and I am lucky to have such a congenial traveling companion.  Thank you, Annie.  You gave me a great day!

We will be on the road two more days.  I'll be on the lookout for more barns.  For now, goodnight.