If you know my Uncle Arlie Weems, then you probably know that he conducts morning office hours at the top of Stadium Road and has done so for as long as I can remember. His office is his Chevy pickup. Anyone can pull up and roll down their window, or maybe stand around depending on the weather and other factors. There are some gravel piles and usually a dump truck and backhoe there.

If you don’t know Arlie, then you need to know that he has the reputation as a virtuoso with a backhoe. I’ve been told several times by various people over the years that he is an artist when using his machines.

On this particular day, I wanted to ask him what year he drank his first can of Mountain Dew: I was thinking about writing a column about the beverage. I’ve always associated Mountain Dew (the carbonated version) with the Arkansas Ozarks. As a kid, I don’t recall people drinking Mountain Dew in the Washington DC suburbs, or overseas, but when we’d come home to visit, there’d be someone drinking it. Often, it was Arlie.

So I asked him my question and the answer was this: in about 1965, a man named Nolan Brisco was driving the Pepsi truck out of Harrison and he stopped at the DX station where Arlie was working and gave him a free sample of Mountain Dew. Arlie has been drinking it ever since. The DX was the service station located about where the Subway is now on US Highway 62. Nolan Brisco is still around. He owns ABC Signs and Advertising in Harrison.

The other interesting thing we talked about was a prior day’s event that occurred south of town. Arlie had been backing a Mack dump truck when it inexplicably wouldn’t stop. He tried all the tricks a person with 50 years experience knows, but nothing slowed it down. After the truck turned over, he climbed out. He said he wasn’t really shook up, unlike the first time he flipped a vehicle several decades ago. It wasn’t his first rodeo, as they say.

On December 6, 1993, I stopped by my grandparents’ farm for a minute. I was home from college and I made notes of my visit that day, not because it was extraordinary, but because it was typical. Jack and Betty McCall believed in hard work and expected everyone in the family to pitch in and help. I knew I ran the risk of having to help with chores.

Just after I arrived, Uncle Arlie Weems drove up in a dump truck and dropped a load of gravel for the farm lane leading to the county road. Though I thought I was in a hurry, I ended up helping Betty smooth gravel for two hours. She was just shy of 80 at the time, but she worked me into the ground. She invited me to stay for lunch.

Jack’s health was deteriorating, but he still had work that had to be accomplished, so after we ate, I changed the spark plugs in his Ford pickup. Since the hood was up, he had me replace a radiator hose, too. He decided he needed some O-rings, so we left for town. At the highway, the carburetor kept flooding, so we stopped and put the hood up again. Shade Hadley stopped and helped, but we still were unable to diagnose the problem. Since we were blocking traffic on Rock Springs Road, Jack rolled the truck backwards down the road until it would roll no more.

Betty happened to drive by and stopped and picked up Jack. He returned, chugging along on his ancient Farmall tractor and towed the pickup back to the farm. He still wanted O-rings, so I drove him to Kimes in my vehicle. When we arrived back at the farm, Jack called his son Sherall, a mechanic, and was told to blow out the carburetor as there might be trash in it not allowing the needle to seat. That fixed it. By then it was time to put out hay for the cattle. I left tired and dirty, but feeling good. At the time, it never occurred to me that days like that would come to an end on the McCall farm.

Ray Freeman of Eureka Springs, Arkansas was known for his honesty and integrity. Toward the end of his life, he had O’Connor’s Texaco (now the location of Sparky’s) service his automobile. When the work was completed,  Doris O’Connor returned the car to Mr. Freeman. What she didn’t realize is that she had accidentally left the Texaco’s bank deposit on the front seat of Ray’s vehicle. Duane O’Connor said that if you had to leave a bag of your money in someone’s car, you couldn’t find a safer person to leave it with than Ray Freeman.

Ray Freeman and his wife Chloe moved to Eureka Springs in 1921 soon after the birth of their son Bob and while their other son Charles was a toddler. Though new residents to Eureka Springs, Ray was a member of a historic family that had long played a prominent role in the affairs of Berryville and Carroll County.

Quite successful, Ray Freeman stayed active in the business world. A sampling of his endeavors include the grocery business, partnering with Eagle Thomas in a variety of entrepreneurial pursuits (including Onyx Cave), and operating cabins on the White River. He later founded Camp Joy, which evolved into the Joy Motel. He was a mayor of Eureka Springs and a charter member of the local Rotary Club. He also leased Lake Leatherwood.

The infamous Dr. Norman Baker once started a feud with Ray Freeman over integrity. He lived to regret it. Apparently, the Freemans had warned visitors away from becoming patients at Baker’s cancer hospital. In a open letter published in the Daily Times-Echo newspaper on June 15, 1939, Dr. Baker retaliated by accusing Mr. and Mrs. Ray Freeman of damaging the economy of Eureka Springs. The long letter had “language tending to impeach the honesty, integrity, veracity and reputation” of the Freemans, according to the charges brought against Dr. Baker by the prosecuting attorney. Norman Baker fought the charges tooth and nail at every level, but, in the end, the Arkansas Supreme Court ruled that he was guilty of libel and upheld the fine of $2,500 (equal to roughly $42,000 today).

Awhile back, Reggie Sanchez scored 37 points for the Eureka Springs High School Highlanders basketball team in a game against Magazine. His older brother Ryan was a star player for the Highlanders last year and now plays on the college level for Avila University in Kansas City.

This got me to wondering about who some of the best players have been through the history of the Highlanders. I did some informal and wholly unscientific polling of various people that have been associated with Eureka Springs basketball over the years. This subject was also recently discussed on social media. Between these two sources of information, I amassed a list of about 60 names that came up time and time again as being the best players for the Highlanders. I’m sorry there isn’t room to list them all.

For the girls, the names that were mentioned the most were (alphabetically with year of graduation): Tanya Ashford (1988), Ramona Capps (1978), Mitzi Clemons (1978), Bobbie Cross (1979), Frances Fargo (1982), Gaye Lynn Head (1980) and Kim Hull (1985).

For the boys, the names brought up most were: Lynn Ray Brashear (1958), Mike Butler (1974), Billy Clark (1982), James Nall (1980),  Bobby Pyatt (1955), Joe Sheets (1973), Marvin Siebert (1990), Chris Wise (1994) and Scott Young (1989).

Realizing that these players were mostly of fairly recent vintage, I asked McKinley Weems who the best players were from his time as a Highlander. He replied brothers Charles Freeman (1936) and Bob Freeman (1939).

Instead of naming individuals, some people brought up certain teams that played well together, such as the boys teams from 1989 and 1994 that went to the state tournament. Others named off families known for producing quality basketball players over multiple generations, notably the Cross, Freeman, Morrell and Wolfinbarger families.

I saw in an old Times-Echo newspaper that L.B. Wilson scored 46 points in a game in 1967 for the Highlanders. I wonder if that is the school record? By the way, basketball runs in that family, too, as his daughter Kimberly Wilson Jenkins coaches at Valley Springs High School.

My wife Diane grew up where the Pig Trail Kart n Golf (formerly The Fun Spot) is located on Highway 62 East in Eureka Springs. If you go back to the early 1980s, it was still a beautiful family home place, with an abundance of flowers, bushes and large old trees around a house with a big yard. There was some pasture and Duane O’Connor sometimes ran a few cows. Diane and her brother Doug would play in the front yard and periodically a car would pull up and tourists would ask for directions to the Passion Play. After being given directions, the tourists would sometimes ask how many blocks away it was. Diane didn’t know how to answer that.

Thirty years ago, we kept my Uncle Don Sisco’s mare Lulabell at our place and I spent many a happy hour riding across the countryside. I wanted to go to my grandparents’ farm, but didn’t want to ride down through the curves on the shoulderless highway. (I’d done that before and didn’t want to repeat it.) My Grandpa Jack McCall knew all kinds of shortcuts, so I asked him for directions. He suggested I take the old road over the mountain and through the woods. Turns out his definition of a road and mine were different (mine undoubtedly influenced by living in East Coast suburbia.)

I still remember his directions. I was to turn left at the red oak snag. I found it. I was to stay straight at the giant dead elm. I found it. I was to watch for the dogs at the house where the hippies grew dope. Those dogs found me before I found them. Lulabell and I made it through that section pretty quick. Looking back, I realize that she and I did a lot of trespassing without a second thought.

Speaking of Grandpa and hippies, he told me once that he’d heard that there were hippies in Eureka that didn’t get out of bed until nine in the morning. He was incredulous. I’m glad he didn’t know what time I got up.

Can Christmas really be the same without Larry Evans driving around with a lit tree on the back of his vehicle? Or does he still do that and I just don’t see it?

Someone mentioned that I wrote that Eureka Springs was a small town where everyone knows everyone else. I hope I didn’t say that because I don’t believe it to be true. Eureka is full of various cliques and factions that don’t necessarily mix with each other. I see many familiar faces around town, but I often don’t know names. I do believe that if two residents were placed in a locked room, they’d come up with a list of mutual acquaintances.

Eureka does have a permanent population of a certain size and many of those people know each other. Several times in my life I’ve found someone looking intently at my face and they follow with the question, “Are you a Weems?” Maybe it is the nose.

If people ask my name now, occasionally they know that I write. Other times they say, “Are you related to Arlie?” or “Mac” or “Mary” or “Terri” or “Diane at the bank” or “Diane the nurse.” Or they have a blank look on their faces and they ask where I’m from. It makes me sad when I say, “I’m from Eureka, born in the hospital,” and the response is, “I didn’t know there were any of those.”

I’ve told this before. I was behind a man in line at a local convenience store and a tourist asked him if he was a Eureka Springs native. The man answered, “I’ve lived here five years, I think that makes me a native.” That’s a curious statement.

But this is a Christmas column, so never mind all that. I was trying to remember Larry Evans’ vehicle that he’d decorate every year, so I asked someone with a better memory than mine. Scott Schmitz confirmed that it was a blue 1953 Willys Jeep wagon with a Ford 289 cubic inch V8. I hope Larry Evans knows that people appreciated his Christmas cheer. It made a lasting impression.

Perhaps one doesn’t hear the name Groblebe around Eureka Springs as often as years ago, but they’re an old local family. They inhabited these hills and hollows before the town did.

Ed Groblebe was born about the same time as Eureka Springs and spent his professional career as an engineer with the Missouri and North Arkansas Railroad. Growing up, he worked around sawmills, loading and unloading railroad ties and lumber onto wagons. This kind of work either cripples you or makes you strong. I understand that he was like most Groblebe men – tall and easy going with a ready grin.

When Ed Groblebe was about 17, he was driving a lumber wagon pulled by two mules up Main Street in Eureka Springs. When he reached the bottom of Planer Hill, a man jumped out and grabbed the reins of one of the mules and yelled, “I’m going to kick you to pieces.” Or maybe what he said wasn’t quite that polite. Ed Groblebe knew him and had no reason to doubt that he wouldn’t or couldn’t do what he said. The man was known to be a bully and downright mean. I’ll not repeat his name in case you’re kin: I’m not looking for trouble.

Fearing for his life, Ed Groblebe jumped down off the wagon and, as he landed, he drove his fist into the jaw of the bully as hard as he could. The man promptly fell to the ground as if shot. Stunned by the turn of events, Ed Groblebe felt sure he’d just committed murder. He climbed back on the wagon and left town as fast as possible. He did not show his face in Eureka Springs for a full month.

When he finally returned, the law wasn’t waiting to arrest him for murder. In fact, his adversary wasn’t even dead. The only thing Ed Groblebe ever heard about the incident was that when the local bully was questioned by the attending doctor, he claimed that he’d been kicked by a mule.