Number 878: The Farthest Man From Home: De Queen

So then I started looking for De Queen Arkansas.

By the way, Chad and Michelle told me about the pending Ashdown class reunion next year and I would really like to go but that seems impossible for me to attend the way things are now.

A few days ago I was trying to remember when we lived away from De Queen and I am not so clear on that anymore.

I know that we moved to California for a brief period and then we lived in McAlester Oklahoma and back in Antlers Oklahoma for brief periods and I remember those places because I went to public school briefly in those places.

Recently I started thinking I was in public school in Santa Ana California during 1973 and I was thinking of that recently when I watched again the DVD for the 1973 film "The Last Detail."

I'm fairly certain I even found on the map the place we lived in Santa Ana.

I have no idea if this is correct, and I am not going to ask my (surrogate) mother because I generally distrust her on everything now, but I think this is where we lived:

Well, the hell with it. I was going to go back and find that place again the Google overhead view map but I didn't find it immediately and what are really the chances that placed we lived in 1973 is still there? I looked at the Google streetview and it didn't look terribly old but still that was 40 years ago. I have no idea if they would have torn it down by now and built over it.

The reason I was thinking of that was because of that scene in that 1973 film "The Last Detail" where they are getting drunk in the parking garage. One time, my surrogate mother and her husband, the United States Marine, invited some of their friends over to our apartment. They were drinking Knotts Berry Farm wine, I think it was called, and unless I am very much mistaken, my surrogate mother offered me a cup of it. I drank some more when they were out of the kitchen and then I was drunk and she said I was embarrassing her guests, who did not have children. I am pretty certain that was during the winter of 1973. I remember that winter because I had a new raincoat and I was wondering if it would rain because I wanted to wear that raincoat out in the rain but people told me that there was very little rain there and usually only in the winter and one time it did start raining but I was disappointed that there wasn't much rain.

I looked at the Google overhead images of that place because I remember railroad tracks and I remember getting in trouble because a woman told my parents one time when I climbed onto the cars of a freight train that had stopped and I got in a lot of trouble.

That courtyard is very distinctive to me. Something seems backwards about it though. Maybe that is just something about the nature of memory. I doubt those physical memories even exist in my brain anymore although I am far from an expert on human memory. My guess is that old memories are sort of similar to photocopies. The old memories that exist now in my mind, my guess is, are copies of memories I made because I remember times when I thought of those memories. So I remember details only in the form of remembering a memory. As with photocopies when you copy over and over the output begins to exhibit artifacts.

And so as I wrote earlier today the reason I am writing about some of this stuff is that I hope feelings of nostalgia from the memories in my mind that I consider normal will help me sort of rewire the memories I have in my mind from the 1990s that are blocked by the security drug. As I said earlier, I have some memories of the 1990s but those are managed memories created by not consuming the security drug during certain periods of time and that was so that I would not have a completely blank memory of the 1990s and that is because if I had suddenly woken up with a blank memory then that would cause me to question my memory more, not to mention I would have had nothing to do.

So anyway, I think I went to the second half of the second grade in Santa Ana California and that I went to the first half of second grade in De Queen Arkansas and I attended the entire first grade at De Queen.

So then I think we moved to McAlester Oklahoma and I think I went to the first half of third grade in McAlester Oklahoma and then a short while after that we lived back in Antlers Oklahoma and I went to school there too but I am not clear on if that was second or third. I think I went to part of the third grade in De Queen too and then I attended classes there all the way through the eighth grade. After the eight grade finished we moved to Ashdown Arkansas and I attended 9th grade there until graduating from there in the 12th grade.

So I started looking at De Queen Arkansas and I have avoided Facebook for many years but I decided to look closer at it, especially after my earlier scathing report on that severe racketeering organization that I am certain has left those rat-bastards trembling with extreme fear every time the mainstream media outlets flash a global news alert to the quivering masses of the world that I have just posted another scathing report on my public blog.

Ah, the first person I looked up: Kendra Rogers. I wish I was a better writer at describing how much I liked her back when we were just children. I think I have mentioned her before in my journal. I think I wrote about the time she placed a tack in my seat in Mrs. Godwin's class and she was laughing about how I screamed when I sat on it and I objected that I had not "screamed" and that just didn't sound manly enough.

I was looking for Lisa Card too, another kid that I liked a lot when I was a youngster, but I don't see anything listed for her.

Then I found Renee Logan's Facebook page. I remember her well too. There was once some kind of charity fundraiser or something for our class and she and I were the two chosen from our class and I remember we were sitting on bales of hay in the De Queen elementary school auditorium. Later I would wonder about "Logan's Run" and I am not certain when I first saw that film. I want to say that we were aware of it when attending De Queen elementary school in 1976 but I am not certain if I saw it in the theatres when it premiered or any time soon afterwards. I have no idea when I first saw it. I might have read a book based on that story if one was available. I remember a teacher around that time taking away from me a copy of "THX 1138" I was reading and that I had brought into class.

So anyway, from Renee Logan's page I downloaded the class photos she posted of us.

I downloaded the photo's she posted there of us in the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th grades.

The photos are small and blurry and I cannot tell if I was in that second grade photo. Maybe not. The photo seemed instantly familiar to me though. Or it might have just been the shawl the one girl on the left side front is wearing. I either remember the photo or I remember her wearing that to class. I think that is Teresa Purvine but I'm not certain. If I am in the photo, and it's hard to tell because it's blurry, then that might be me standing on the lowest bench in the second row from the floor-level and on the photo-left. Not certain though but there is a lot familiar about photo and I guess that is because I remember looking at it in a collection that I guess my sister still has. I do remember a lot of those kids in that photo.

In the third grade photo I think I am the kid that is second row down from the top row and photo-right. I am pretty certain that is me standing there in my Cub Scout uniform shirt. That seems familiar that I wore that shirt for the class photo. I dropped out of the Scouts and I never did move up to Boy Scout. That teacher is familiar and I can almost remember her name: Mrs. Van Webber? Can't recall for certain. I guess that's me in that photo. Not certain. Can't remember if there were different classes of third graders back then. There might have been only one third grade class and so that would mean certainly I am in that photo. I recognize some of the kids in the photo.

That 4th grade photo seems to have me in it again wearing my Cub Scout uniform shirt. As with all those photos the quality is too blurry to even read the plague the one kid is holding and I am referencing the title of Renee Logan's Facebook posting. The photo is really too blurry to say for certain but that is familiar to me, sitting there in that photo wearing my Cub Scout uniform shirt.

The 5th grade photo is most certainly one with me in it. I am very certain that is me in the first seated row and third from photo-left. I think that is Terersa Purvine to my right. Beth Collins maybe seated on my left. Diane Mathevosian is standing behind me. Lisa Card is photo-left and holding the plague. Kendra Rogers is on the top row and photo-right and standing next to Mrs. Godwin.

Mrs. Godwin. I sure did like her. I remember one time she told me in class that I didn't have to write my CB handle on the top of my homework.

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