Wondering — Best Place to Live for 4 Season Weather

[William Lessenberry]

The by far strangest city I went to was Little Rock, Arkansas. Can't even describe it.

Alan, as a 70 year native of Little Rock I was wondering if you could attempt to describe your experience here.
I honestly couldn't recommend moving here, it's really hot and humid from June to late September, but the northwest part of the state is much better. I've lived here all my life, so I'm used to it.
My state/city has been disparaged by lots of folks as being backwards, hillbilly, racist, and other ugly things, but I don't think it's any worse the other towns with the same size metropolitan area. Yeah, Austin is weird, but Little Rock??
BillL

[Alan Lightstone]

Alan, as a 70 year native of Little Rock I was wondering if you could attempt to describe your experience here.
I honestly couldn't recommend moving here, it's really hot and humid from June to late September, but the northwest part of the state is much better. I've lived here all my life, so I'm used to it.
My state/city has been disparaged by lots of folks as being backwards, hillbilly, racist, and other ugly things, but I don't think it's any worse the other towns with the same size metropolitan area. Yeah, Austin is weird, but Little Rock??
BillL

This was a long time ago, William. During the Clinton days. I really can't describe it except it just felt corrupt. And run by Tyson Foods. I've lived in the Midwest, Northeast, and South - in small towns and large cities. I've lectured in all 50 states. This certainly wasn't racist. That never crossed my mind. It just felt backwards. I got a similar feeling from some towns in West Virginia, yet other cities there were quite nice.

It also had to do with some of the questions I was asked when I did my medical lecture there. They just seemed way behind the times.

Anyway, I can't say a thing about Little Rock now. Haven't been there in probably 30 years. But back then ...

[Scott Winners]

as a 70 year native of Little Rock I was wondering if you could attempt to describe your experience here.
backwards, hillbilly, racist,
BillL

None of backwards, hillbilly or racist.

Unique for sure. I used to be a travel nurse in the lower 48. I lived in Chapel Hill, NC, and did a LOT of contract work in LA. My general route west bound was Chapel Hill to Fort Smith, AR in one day, with a stop for fuel in Little Rock, then Fort Smith to Gallup, NM on day two, then Gallup to Barstow, Ca on day three, and then I would leave Barstow about 10-11AM on day four to drive in to the Westwood/Venice CA area to end my trip.

I probably stopped for gas in Little Rock, AR 30-40 times in the decade I was a travel nurse. FWIW Alaska is, culturally, among the southern states, and as an alum of UNC-CH, I consider myself a southerner as well. I don't think Little Rock is anymore backwards, hillbilly or racist than anywhere else in "the south", including Atlanta, Chattanooga, Raleigh, Houston, Tallahassee, Louisville, Jackson, MS, Huntsville, or Anchorage.

Besides Little Rock, I have similar experiences in Amarillo, TX and Winslow, AZ. I think part of it is "sense of place." Little Rock is on a lot of geologic and meterologic edges, where the mountains meet the flood plain, where the prairie tries to reach over the mountain, where the hurricanes and tornadoes both try to get to but can't quite reach. I can easily imagine someone from Little Rock going to Saint Louis and feeling they were at too much risk from flooding, but also going up into the hills and feeling they were too far from the river, or going to Kansas and being too close to tornadoes or going to New Orleans and being too close to hurricanes.

With the rose colored glasses, Little Rock is just far enough away from all the scary things. A little piece of paradise if you don't mind hot summers. If I may, Bill Clinton was(is) able to be erudite and highly educated, but still have a down home personality.

There is just no place else in the US I have ever been to quite like Little Rock. It hadn't previously occurred to me to think of the 'strangest' city I have ever been too. I will have to stew on that one.

Once upon a time, I think it was 2003, I had a fashion forward girlfriend in Boston who insisted I buy a particular pair of shoes. They were current. I was at home in North Carolina a few months later with shoes from 20 years in the future, a few days after that I was in LA and saw the same shoes that I was wearing at the time in the window of a second hand store as yesterday's news. Overall I think the USA is a lot more homogenous than we might like to admit; we have the same movies in our theaters, the same restaurants, the same cars, the same TV shows, the same clothes with different sports team logos, all very cookie cutter. Little Rock (along with Fairbanks) is one of the very few cities I can think of that breaks that mold a little bit.

On the one hand, I am eternally grateful coach K's last game before retirement was an at home loss to the Tar Heels (woo hoo!!), on the other Little Rock is one of the last bastions I know of where individuality or community spirit trumps boring corporate extruded conformity.

If you don't mind hot, humid summers Little Rock might be worth a look as a place to move to.

[Tom M King]

While I was working on the garage doors yesterday, three slightly spectacular young ladies came by in a golf cart, wearing string bikinis, and asked if they could nude sunbathe in our Round Pen. The round pen is for training horses. It has 5-1/2 foot high solid walls, and is 20 meters in diameter with sand footing-not visibly exposed from the outside. It's been used for that before. Of course, no spectators allowed, but I remembered why I'm good with a little humidity.

[John Adank]

Gods Country-La Crosse WI