LITTLE ROCK — Forget
Shark Week. Last week in Arkansas was Ghost Week.
The Discovery Channel feebly tried to extend its brand
while everybody else has moved on to other monsters. (You can go to the
network’s Web site, upload your photo and see what you’d look like as a
shark. Or for a low-tech simulation, imagine your grin with a jagged row
of triangular teeth.) Newton County yawned over news of Barack Obama’s
family skeletons there. The grandson - with a prefix of five “greats,”
that is - of an early Ozark blacksmith doesn’t seem likely to become a
Northwest Arkansas Favorite Son, at least judging by the aloof replies
Matthew Cate collected around the Huntsville town square.
At the barber shop, Huntsvillians sounded like they
were trying to practice the art of saying nothing when what you want to
say isn’t nice. Surnames withshorter-than-average degrees of separation
from the senator include Combs, Hargis and Holt.
Here’s something we’ll come out and say: We like the
idea that Jim Holt, the former Arkansas senator with a particularly
hardline and merciless view on illegal immigration, could be related to
someone whose middle name is Hussein.
Meanwhile, the Mystery Machine - wait, that was the
groovy van from Scooby Doo - we mean the MRV, or Mobile Research
Vehicle, of the paranormal detective agency Spirit Seekers - pulled up
to the state Capitol for an overnight lockin.
This we know for sure: On its Web site, the group
posted a photo of its truck, complete with a cartoon ghost wearing a
jaunty yellow bandanna and holding binoculars, parked outside the
building, with “additional evidence” to be added later.
This, members of the Spirit Seekers - a
cheerful-sounding ghost squad based in Roland - say they know for sure:
A gentlemanly ghost roams the Capitol halls, tipping his hat to
strangers as a show of courtesy. This may or may not be the same male
ghost the Spirit Seekers encountered last week, but we have our doubts:
That ghost gave his name as simply “Edward,” but it doesn’t add up - a
man of the hat-wearing generation would give his first and last name. It
would occur to him impolite and indecorously common not to.
(Side question: Do these ghost hunters help or hurt
their cause when they set up an online gift shop -
www.cafepress.com/thespiritseeker - where you can buy a shirt that
says “Spirit Seekers Do It in the Dark”?) |
