Street Jazz

Once upon a time in Fayetteville there once stood the Mountain Inn, a major hotel that stood just off the square. It has since been replaced by a very attractive hole in the ground, and a huge, inactive crane which makes one think fondly of the Bernard Quatermass adventure, “Five Million Years to Earth.”

There is a neat website devoted to sights that are beneath the Ozark earth, and to places that no longer exist. There are some great pictures of the Mountain Inn, taken around 2005. Even in the obvious decrepit state it was in at the time, those visiting the site can see just how cool the Inn was.

http://www.undergroundozarks.com/

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This is why you need a college degree

We got back from Oklahoma today, from a probate hearing that lasted all of fifteen minutes. Still, it gave us a chance to drive over some of the worst roads in the country, on our way back to Arkansas.

Turning our rental car in, my eye was drawn to a flyer on the counter:

Do you need a part time job?

Become a Fleet Assistant at . . .

Job description: To manage, maintain, and clean cars before they get rented. Duties also include driving cars from one office to another, and picking up customers.

It must be a tough job; you have to either be in college or have graduated. And, for the chance to work up to 33 (count ‘em, folks!) hours a week,  you’ll be paid the princely sum of seven dollars an hour.

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How else am I gonna get rich?

Naked Self-Promotion Department: Yes, sometimes I give books by Richard S. Drake as presents every year around this time, and I’d be pleased as punch if you would, too.

One (“Ozark Mosaic”) is a modern history of Fayetteville, telling about the social and political issues that the city  faced in the last part of the 20th Century, and the other (“Freedom Run”) is a sex and violence filled science fiction novel.

rsdrake@nwark.com