Going south: The Observer reflects on 20 years in Arkansas

Going south: The Observer reflects on 20 years in Arkansas

The Observer was somewhere around Blytheville, hurtling southward into the Delta darkness, when the U-Haul began to chug.  It was the final few hours of New Year’s Eve 2005 and I was moving from St. Louis to Little Rock. But the underpowered truck I’d rented from a sketchy U-Haul outpost in East St. Louis didn’t appreciate the increased hilliness of Northeast Arkansas, at least not at the speed I was trying to maintain. I eased off the throttle …