Thank you, Gustav

You brought lots of wind and rain to Arkansas, but you also brought us refreshingly cooler temperatures.
It’s been an absolutely gorgeous weekend in Fort Smith. Perfect for football, front porch sittin’ and thinkin’.
I threw open a few windows today (thanks, Arkansas Glass and Mirror for my new windows) and turned all the fans on high. [...]

"You can hear a dog bark at 15,000 feet" – CNN.com

Um, I’ll stick with coffee on my front porch, thankyouverymuch…
Couch took off Saturday morning, riding a green lawn chair supported by a rainbow array of more than 150 helium-filled party balloons. He kissed his wife and kids goodbye, and patted their shivering Chihuahua, Isabella, before his ground crew gave him a push so he [...]

What’s a place without strawberry ice cream?

About forty percent of Haagen-Dazs 73 flavors rely on little bitty bees buzzing in the air.
And bees are disappearing.
But I’m burying the lead. The Associated Press story linked below reports that bee pollination is responsible for $15 billion worth of crops each year.
Edward R. Flanagan, who raises blueberries in Milbridge, Maine, said he could [...]

Are places too noisy these days?

This piece in Salon seems to suggest we’re way too loud for our own good.
For 50 years, if people didn’t like noise, and they had money, the solution has been: Move to the suburbs. Now we’ve made our suburbs noisy. They’re no longer quiet refuges,” says Les Blomberg, executive director of the Noise Pollution Clearinghouse [...]

Congress: A place for decency?

I’ve had the privilege of being on the house floor and soaking up the ambiance in that place. Even in the silence, I’ve experienced the wonder of how the nation’s founders hammered out the structure of our democracy. The men who met at Independence Hall in the summer of 1787 could not imagined how [...]

A gorgeous place in the Boston Mountains

Last week several of us got a preview of what dignitaries from across Arkansas will see late next week as they dedicate Lake Fort Smith State Park.

Visitor Center — looking from the back porch and fireplace into the meeting room. The view behind my back is lovely, with Lake Fort Smith serving as the [...]

Tim Russert Observation for America #3

October 22, 2007, the late Tim Russert addressed the Public Relations Society of America’s international conference in Philadelphia. In his memory, and as an effort to promote the tenets he enthusiastically practiced and communicated, www.tracyplaces.net is highlighting brief excerpts from my notes that Sunday afternoon in our nation’s birthplace.

Always the historian — looking for [...]