1/17/2022

Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day! I am still in Hot Springs, Arkansas, which yesterday (after a terrible dinner and feeling that I had seen all there is to see at Hot Springs National Park) I sadly wrote off as being a ‘1-day town.’ Today I decided to put aside my humdrum mood from last night and dig a bit deeper into the community. And it has paid off! Hot Springs is not a 1-day town at all, but a quite livable small city with even more history to it than I knew.

This morning was a balmy 50 degrees, so I opted for a t-shirt and light jacket rather than my usual winter flair, and decided to Yelp some good restaurant spots in town so that I did not repeat the mistake from last night. I found a place called Best Cafe & Bar, which I must say really is one of the best cafes I’ve ever experienced. The second you walked inside, you felt that you were taken back in time, and the food, service, and hospitality were all fantastic. I ordered their creme brûlée French Toast and duck bacon and was not disappointed. Across the street from the diner was a large Catholic church and a school called St. John’s, which will feature again later in today’s story (the photo of St. John’s below is not mine).

After breakfast I decided to just drive around and explore the community and nearby lakes. The highways, city and lakes all look eerily like scenes out of Red Bluff, Redding and Lake Shasta back in California. There were even places with the same names as Red Bluff businesses, like a Scoops Ice Cream Shop and a Firehouse Pizza. I was having some serious deja vu driving around! It’s uncanny. Just look at these photos (also notice the price of gas, the one true indicator that I’m not in the North State):

And then, driving back into town I saw it: a sign commemorating another piece of history about this place that I did not know. The sign read, “Welcome to Hot Springs – Bill Clinton’s Childhood Home.” I did some quick Googling, and sure enough, Bill Clinton grew up right here in Hot Springs. Here’s a summary of what I found on Wikipedia (so take the history with a grain of salt):

William (Bill) Blythe III was born on August 19, 1946 in Hope, Arkansas – the son of a traveling salesman who tragically died in an auto accident three months before Bill’s birth, and his mother Virginia Cassidy. After Bill was born, his mother traveled to New Orleans to study nursing, leaving Bill in Hope to be raised by her parents. She returned to Hope in 1950 and married Roger Clinton Sr., who co-owned an automobile dealership here in Hot Springs. Taking Bill with them, she and Roger moved into a small home here in Hot Springs, and Bill’s name was changed to Bill Clinton, the name we all recognize today.

As I found out, the home that they moved into was modest and nestled in an otherwise ordinary middle class neighborhood. The home is located directly across the street from a small convenience shop and liquor store, which I guess lines up with Bill’s portrayal of his stepfather as a gambler and abusive alcoholic (the alcohol had to be bought somewhere after all…). Bill attended St. John’s Catholic School (from the picture above) and Hot Springs High School (they now call their high school Hot Springs “World Class” High School, which I suppose you can call yourself after minting a future President, but, I mean, it seems kind of pretentious…). While in high school, Bill was an avid reader and musician. This is where he learned to play the saxophone, and originally he intended to become a musician. But Bill changed his mind and decided to get into politics when two things happened in 1963. First, Bill was given the rare opportunity through being a Boys Nation representative to travel to the White House and meet President John F. Kennedy in person. And second, (drumroll) Bill watched a speech on tv in August of that year. It was a speech given by a great Christian man, an African American minister who had a dream that his four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. A speech about a dream that a nation sweltering with the heat of oppression could be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. It was, of course, the “I Have a Dream” speech. After hearing that speech, Bill decided that he would do more in life than just play the saxophone. He wanted to do work in law and public service, and so his future studies and career began.

I drove over to Bill Clinton’s old childhood home and snapped a photo of it, picturing him as a teenager sitting inside that house and listening nearly 60 years ago to Martin Luther King, Jr.’s great speech.

And you know what I thought to myself in that moment? First, I thought of the power of that Christian term that so many in today’s world have forgotten, but which Martin Luther King, Jr. regularly preached and exemplified: agape. Teaching others to practice agape can truly transform lives towards loving and serving others. It is a message that inspires and succeeds far more than hate, division, and divide and conquer strategies ever will; the kind of message that can even inspire a lowly music nerd in Arkansas to one day reach for the Presidency.

And then I had one more thought to myself staring at that small house: I thought to myself that if someone from a place like Hot Springs, Arkansas could do it, then so could someone from a place like Red Bluff, California. After all, they are pretty much the same place.

Cheers,

-Rob