Texarkana

Last Saturday, Priscilla and I went to Texarkana and picked up John from the group home. John’s workshop is closed this week, so he will spend the week with us.

Texarkana is an energy-sucking, mentally debilitating town. I lived there from January 1971-December 1973 and from June-November 1975. I spent two years there in college and more than two years working for the Texarkana Gazette. Priscilla and I were married there in 1972.

Every time I arrive in Texarkana, I lose 25 IQ points and about a third of my physical abilities.

Texarkana is a mean town. Part of that meanness comes from racial history, decidedly Southern white and Southern black. Of the approximately 35,000 people on the Texas side, 59 percent are white, 37 percent are black. The Arkansas part of Texarkana has a population of around 26,000 – 66 percent white, 31 percent black.

Towns with a history of racial animosity and roughly 60 percent to 30 percent racial population breakdown are always mean towns, as are towns with an almost even racial demographic split. Little Rock, for example, is 49 percent white and 42 percent black. North Little Rock is 62 percent white, 34 percent black.

Racial demographics cause a dome of other worldness, a modified Hotel California aspect. People who don’t check out are doomed cynicism and anger.