R. Key In Exile

What a great day. Sometimes dreams really can come true, and not even in Disney movies, but like for real. Been wishing really hard for it to warm up to early summertime temps, and voila, it's 84 degrees under sunny skies at the Mini. Windows down, sunroof open, radio cranked, sunglasses on. Oh yeah. "Hot town, summer in the city...."

I ran into an old friend the other day and we talked a lot about the old days and being from Arkansas originally and all, and he told me he'd like the opportunity to sort of guest host on this site sometime. I thought about it and though I normally reserve the views here for myself, and by the way the view from the 14th floor this afternoon is stunning. At any rate, I'd like to turn this over to an old friend, this afternoon, R. Key.

Nice to meet you. The name is R. Key. If you really must ask, the R. is for Robert and being from Arkansas originally, there are about a million Bobs and Bobbys and guys with middle names of Bob and I just kind of wanted to separate myself from the crowd, so I became R. Key. OK, there is the thing about my middle names as well. My Momma had a thing about old Francis Scott Key who wrote the Star Spangled Banner and the full name is actually Robert Francis Scott Key, and I don't even want to hear an inkling of a joke about that. As a kid I heard enough renditions of "Oh say can you see...." and jokes about "Hey Key! Written any songs lately?" to drive anyone crazy. Got into a couple of fights when they didn't take kindly to my responses to their lame-ass jokes. Anyway, it got shortened to R. Key. I've been happy with that.

As it happens, I also got the heck out of Dodge when it came to living in Arkansas. Seems that when I shortened it to R. Key, some older folks thought it sounded like Arky and started asking me stupid crap like "Yo Arky, how'd you get out of the zoo?" Seems there used to be this big honkin' alligator at the Little Rock Zoo. Someone caught it in Lake Conway sometime just after the deluge and by the time I was old enough to see him he was this 11 or 12 foot long critter that just kind of laid around and didn't move much. I always wondered if he was even alive. Maybe he was just a big stuffed alligator, and the zookeepers didn't want to admit that he died 75 years before. Anyway, I left. Nobody in Chicago ever makes R. Key to Arky references.

Funny thing about being from Arkansas, though. People make the most incredible assumptions about you. Been living and working in Chicago (Friends back in Arkansas call it "Living in Exile.") for the better part of 25 years. Sat in a bar a few years back with a girlfriend from Iowa and was shooting the breeze with some commodities trader and after a while he asked, "Where are you from?" Girlfriend told him she was from Iowa, and I told him I was from Arkansas and he called us liars. "No way. You guys are from New York or somewhere. There is no way you guys are from Iowa and Arkansas." Apparently, in the view of various sophisticates, people from Iowa and Arkansas are not allowed to be A. intelligent B. well-read C. reasonably sophisticated individuals who've seen a great deal of the world. Also, we're not supposed to read stuff like the New York Times. Go figure.

Specifically, when you tell people that you're from Arkansas, and they don't know you well, several rude assumptions come up. Usually they assume that you listen to country music. Thought I left that crap behind when I left Arkansas. I've seen the inside of any number of jazz and blues clubs and I like them. Enough said? Oh, and I like impressionist art, too. Shhh! Our little secret.

Then when you tell folks that you're from Arkansas, somehow people assume that you're some rube from the farm. Shit, I grew up in a suburb with a freeway running through the middle of it. There was an Air Force Base there and I know lots about B-52s and B-58 Hustlers, and sonic booms, and missile silos. Played Little League Baseball for the Martin Titans. (Martin-Marietta Company now. Maybe you've heard of them. They have lots of military contracts with the U.S. government. They saw to it that Titan II missiles were strewn about the countryside in my youth.) Don't know nothing about no friggin' farms. First farmers I ever knew were when I went to a college with an Ag Department.

Had a girlfriend from Central Illinois once and she must have had some pretty strange ideas of what Little Rock was, she of Bloomington, Illinois origins. We were both students at Southern Illinois University and we hopped in the car for Little Rock for a long weekend. I'd seen where she was from and I thought she needed to see where I was from. We came around the corner on I-40 and North Little Rock was laid out all flat and shit, and off on the other side of the Arkansas River you could see downtown Little Rock. Apparently she had no idea that Little Rock had a skyline. Hey, it's not Chicago, but there are 40-45 story bank buildings and shit. All I remember is that girl from this town of about 50,000 or so going "That's Little Rock? I thought. Well you know, I thought...." Like I said, it's not Chicago, but Little Rock-North Little Rock together is about 250,000 and that's a city, not a little farm community. Guess I grew up pretty much like everybody else in America, just with a Southern accent, that's all.

I guess the real kicker is, though, when you tell people that you're from Arkansas, a hell of a lot of people just assume you're a bigot and a racist. Black people get antagonistic. White people start saying really stupid racist stuff that makes you cringe. I just have to set that shit straight. Along with the dumbass jokes about Arky, and the Francis Scott Key references, I used to get into a lot of scrapes with the rednecks and the bigots. Couldn't put up with that. As I see it, people are just people. Some get born with white skin. Some get born with brown skin. Some get born with all kinds of shades in between. Don't mean shit. What's important's what's on the inside. Don't like bigots from Arkansas. Don't like bigots from Chicago either. As old Daffy Duck woulda said, "You're despicable!"

Anyway, thanks for letting me talk at you. Maybe I'll come visit again sometime soon. That's about it for today, though, for R. Key in Exile.