“I know we will be getting married the day you show up with a shovel.”
-Leigh Van Swall
On March 21st, I asked Leigh Elizabeth Van Swall to marry me. The proposal itself wasn’t a complete surprise to her, but the date and modus operandi were. Months earlier, we had engaged in a ‘discussion’ about our long-term future together and I had confessed that the hesitation on my part had less to do with the commitmentphobia often associated with my gender and was more a function of the lack of resources at my disposal to carry off a proposal and wedding in a traditional manner.
In subject of a ring came up in the conversation, I half-jokingly said to her “Instead of a ring, my style would be whisk you away on a plane to Murfreesboro, Arkansas so you can dig for your own darn diamond.” She looked at me quizzically and asked for more details. “There is a state park in Arkansas,” I explained, “that is open to the general public and anybody can go there, dig for diamonds and keep what they find. It is called Crater of Diamonds, I think.”
Leigh’s eyes widened and she finally responded, “That is the coolest thing I’ve ever heard. Let’s do that. I know we will be getting married the day you show up with a shovel.”
And so began five months of preparation that would end on March 21st when Kenton Selvey, the gentleman she works for, surprised her at lunch time by delivering a letter from me asking Leigh to meet me across the street at the famous 21 Club on 52nd Street. That I would propose at 21 on the 21st of March was appropriate given that we had met on September 21st and we had previously celebrated that anniversary with lunch at 21.
Naturally, when I made the reservations I asked for Table Number … 30. Why not 21, you ask? Well, Table 30 is where Humphrey Bogart proposed to Lauren Bacall in 1944 and I figured if it was good enough for Bogey, it was good enough for Grimm. Thankfully, the good people at 21 with some help from American Express obliged me.
The letter that I had sent to Leigh at her office via Kenton was marked from ‘The Department of Shoveling’ (I had a special stamp made, so when Leigh arrived she knew the ‘shoveling’ was in progress. Once we were seated at Table 30 and champagne poured, I didn’t want to waste any time so I got down on one knee beside the table, proposed, and presented her with a vintage canvas bank bag containing a jewelry box. Inside the box was a ‘shovel’ which was, in fact, a miniature gold and silver shovel money clip (Gotta love eBay.)
Over the course of lunch, I also presented her with a key and a coat check claim. When we had finished lunch, she used the coat check claim to retrieve a real shovel that I had checked in a carry case with the 21 coat room and then she followed me to the bank where her key gained her access to a safe deposit box. Inside the box, I had placed a 1964 road map of Arkansas, a travel wallet and instructions that she was to go to La Guardia with me and catch a flight to Little Rock that left at 7.30 that evening.
LITTLE ROCK
After a minor panic that we might miss our connection in Charlotte, we arrived just shy of midnight in Little Rock. We picked up our rental car we made our merry way to the first of four unusual ‘Dwight’ choices in accommodation, the Peabody Hotel. In the Peabody, I had totally lucked out. It was one of the last pieces of the puzzle that arrived after I made the decision that we needed to fly down Wednesday night instead of my original plan of flying down on Thursday morning. Wanting to find a snazzy, sumptuous hotel for the first night after the proposal I was simply looking for something among the nicer hotel offerings in Downtown Little Rock. When I found the Peabody and its ducks on the internet, I was a little confused. I had heard of the Peabody Hotel before but thought it was in either Memphis or Nashville, not Little Rock. It turns out I was right. The original Peabody Hotel is in Memphis, but in recent years the hotel expanded its operations to both Orlando and Little Rock.
For those of you not familiar with the quirky Peabody story here it is. In 1932, the general manager of the Memphis Peabody and a hunting buddy returned home from a hunting trip a couple sheets to the wind and thought it would be funny to park their live duck decoys in the hotel’s lobby fountain. When they woke up the next morning, the guests were agog with the new attraction and a family of ducks have lived in the hotel(s) ever since. In 1940, a bellman trained the ducks to march to and from the fountain twice a day to the tune of Sousa’s “King Cotton March” and crowds gather daily to watch this quaint little routine.
The choice of the Peabody in Little Rock couldn’t have been more perfect for Leigh since she has a thing for ducks. Okay, okay, she has a thing for a lot of things, but when we met ducks were really a big … Thing. For example, she owns the URL www.duckiesinarow.com and has a whole collection of unusual rubber ducks. (Yes, I know what I am getting myself into … )
The Little Rock Peabody is quite lovely and after checking in we devoured the waiting bottle of champagne and chocolate-covered strawberries while enjoying the view over the moonlit Arkansas River.
THURSDAY
The highlight of Thursday morning was the aforementioned Duck Walk. Here’s how it plays out. First, they cordon off one of the elevators for ‘Duck Use Only’ and then roll out the red carpet from the elevator to the fountain. Then the ‘Duckmaster’ appears. Seriously. The Peabody employs a person whose sole job is to care for the ducks and introduce them to the guests. In this case, our Duckmaster was Lloyd Withrow. (With a name like that, Lloyd had no other choice but become the Duckmaster of the Little Rock Peabody.) He beat out over four thousand other applicants for the honor of Little Rock Duckmaster. Baffling.
Anyway, the march itself goes down much faster than one would expect once Lloyd’s pun-filled preamble draws to a close. He goes up in the elevator, opens the doors, ducks waddle in, they poke their beaks up to the glass of the elevator, elevator descends to the ground floor, the ducks are led out briskly by Lloyd, they walk up the red-carpeted stairs and hop into the fountain for a leisurely day of being fed corn and pithy “Isn’t that sumthin’ “ platitudes from the well-heeled Southern guests.
(I forgot to look to see if they had duck on the Peabody menu. I always found it amusing that that Warrawong Wildlife Sanctuary in the Adelaide hills served kangaroo. You could sit in the restaurant and admire the same species with your eyes that you were admiring with your palate and tight glass of Coonawarra Shiraz. Baffling.)
With the Duck Walk complete, we hopped in the car and made our way towards Murfreesboro. Since the Crater of Diamonds had always been in the cards for our trip, the location and the activity wasn’t a secret to Leigh. However, the unusual ‘Dwight’ accommodation choice would be a surprise and, frankly, I wasn’t sure what to expect either. As far as accommodation options go, Murfreesboro is not Honolulu. I couldn’t find many options on-line and the one that stood out was Diamond John’s. I can’t make this up. See for yourself: http://www.diamondjohns.com
Diamond John offered tipis on the banks of the Little Missouri River on the south side of the Crater of Diamonds park. When I called four months in advance, it turned out that he had a cancellation for one tipi the night I needed. From there on out he was booked solid until November. For those of you looking for new business opportunities, I can tell you that tipi rentals in Murfreesboro, AR is going gangbusters. Baffling.
After a little difficulty locating the right road, we finally found ourselves crossing the bridge over Little Missouri and there before us was a row of enormous tipis on the banks of the river. “No way!” exclaimed an excited Leigh.
We pulled up and I got out to locate the man himself, Diamond John. His story was the typical ‘I was living with my wife in Hollywood when our house was destroyed by a mud slide, I found God and moved to Murfreesboro, Arkansas to open a Christian tipi campground by the world’s only public diamond mine’ kind of vibe. To quote my brother, “Of course you did.” Diamond John certainly looked the part of an ex-Hollywood guy who opened a tipi campground in Arkansas. He is probably in his mid-40s, about 5’8”, wearing an aloha shirt and about 40 carats of diamonds in a panoply of rings, bracelets and his watch. He excitedly showed us to our tipi and introduced us to the menagerie of animals sharing the campground with the two-legged mammals. We stowed our bags in the tipi and finally headed to the Crater of Diamonds.
I’ve known about the Crater of Diamonds State Park since I was about 10 years old. I can’t remember the exact source of the intel but I believe I learned about it in one of the children’s circulars that used to be packaged with the Sunday Washington Post. The first diamonds were found in Murfreesboro in 1906. There was something of a diamond rush in the early days, but the deposit has never been commercially viable for any real mining concern. It operated off and on as a private venture open to the public between 1951 and 1972 when the State of Arkansas purchased the property and opened it full-time to the public. They charge a nominal daily entrance fee and offer equipment rental on premises. The site is not an underground operation that you might associate with a ‘mine’. Instead, it is a 37-acre tilled field that you can dig and sift through the dirt for diamonds. Any you find, you keep. And they do find them. Since the state started keeping records in 1972, over 25,000 diamonds have been found. The largest stone on record from the site was 40.23 carat monster called “Uncle Sam” found in 1924. The week before we arrived, 8-year old twins found a 2.5 carat stone that made national news sparked a brief diamond rush. According to the park staff, they had over 2,000 visitors in a single day the previous weekend, shattering park records.
On average, there is about one diamond a day found there and I was hoping that we would have beginner’s luck on our side, at least in Leigh’s case. For me, the exercise was taking a step back into my childhood. I started rock collecting, or “fossicking” as the Aussies call it, when my family moved to Alice Springs in 1981. I spent a good many days foraging around the outback looking for semi-precious stones and gold. It sounds geeky, but it actually was a good, clean way to have some fun. An adult would hand me a heavy rock hammer, point me towards a hole, show me what to look for and let me at it. It was quite therapeutic for a youngster to spend hours pulverizing big stones into gravel like a cartoon felon. For me, sitting in a hole sifting through dirt was a nice connection to those less complicated times and for Leigh she seemed to be getting a charge out of unearthing stones … any stones, mind you. In the end, no diamonds emerged from our efforts, but Leigh returned with her bank bag filled with colorful jasper.
After our short tenure in the diamond mining business, we returned to our tipi and decided to explore a bit further along the campground. The vibe in this curious outpost along the Little Missouri is disorganized but positive energy. Diamond John had strewn all manner of recreational diversions along the banks of the placid Missouri for use by his guests. Canoes, kayaks, paddleboats and fishin’ gear are available provided you can sidestep the sentry of semi-wild goats, puppies and cats guarding the goods. In a field of daffodils set back from the camp proper, John has also placed several old church pews rescued from a Civil War-era church. This pocket of ecclesiastical, arboreal refuge was one of my favorite spots on the journey and Leigh and I amused ourselves my taking a stack of photos there.
Dinner was soon calling and we had to figure out where to go. Central Arkansas is not exactly a bubbling cauldron of culinary excitement. I don’t mean to sound like a snotty New Yorker here. I don’t require haute cuisine daily. My enthusiasm for food is simply sparked by anything original and genuine, but in a country where the Olive Garden is often your best option, local flavor is often a distant memory.
The Hollywood ex-pats directed us towards Fisherman’s Cove about 10 miles away. For the record, as a guy who grew up in an outback town over a thousand miles in any direction from water, I am naturally suspicious of any landlocked seafood operations. Nonetheless, our other options were either Subway sandwiches or gutting our own campground goat. Given that I couldn’t find any Caribbean Jerk sauce at the Murfreesboro Dollar General and those little horned bastards are quicker than you think, we passed on the goat and headed for Arkansas surf & turf. Well, at least the turf. But first, we had to be introduced to ‘set-up. ‘
‘Set-up’ was indeed the local flavor we were seeking. As it was our first (and only) encounter with ‘set-up’ it remains unclear whether different establishments in that part of the world have different proprietary versions of the ‘set-up.’ At any rate, by selecting ‘set-up’ (instead of salad) we were served bowls of baked beans, cole slaw, green tomato relish and a basket of hush puppies prior to receiving our entree. The hush puppies were particularly tasty, especially when washed down with a sweet tea the size of a rainwater tank.Fisherman’s Cove did us just fine, but the afternoon of diamond mining and ‘set-up’ had taken its toll. We returned to Diamond Johns to indulge in a little hot-tubbing under the stars while being watched by John’s tree creatures (he had placed ‘faces’ on most of his trees – see for yourself, serenaded by obviously grateful non-eaten goats and gazing at the row of riverside tipis glowing in the warm Arkansas night.
In this moment of chlorinated reverie, one cannot help but wonder at how the forces of Fate conspire with you to create the most amazing circumstances of your life. Take this moment in particular. It had been created because Greg Gallo received symphony tickets for wearing a Jets uniform at Jones Beach, gave those tickets to his brother Pat, who in turn gave them to me whereupon I placed an ad on craigslist because that is where our computers had been fenced after being robbed at gunpoint exactly a year earlier and as a result met Leigh and because a dude named John had his Hollywood house swept away by a mudslide, had God speak to him and took this as a sign to create a campground of tipis in Arkansas complete with a gnome-guarded hot tub in which we were presently relaxing after mining for diamonds. Baffling.
This moment of contemplation was too much for my mediocre intellect, so we hopped out of the hot-tub and resorted to our primitive wiring. We built a magnificent fire in the pit outside of the tipi and spent the remainder of the night amusing ourselves with a $1 flashlight and the self-timer on our camera.
Upon turning in, I found sleeping in a tipi in the early Arkansas spring was a lot more comfortable than I expected, to be honest. Our tipi was furnished with a great brass bed and tons of bedding. It was very cozy and we both slept great, though I was awakened occasionally by the howling of a distant canine and the braying of a goat I should have eaten. There may have also been a werewolf in the camp. I can’t be sure.
FRIDAY
I rose considerably earlier than I do in New York and decided to take a walk along the river. I was not the only mammal enjoying the energy of the new day. The pack of goats were laying siege to a nearby picnic table, taking turns bounding on top and butting one another off.
It was at this surreal moment that I realized I might actually be nuts. Here I was standing in the morning dew on the banks of the Little Missouri River in Nowheresville, Arkansas watching adolescent goats charging a picnic table while my fiancé slept behind me in a 20’ tipi built by a crazy ex-Hollywood screenwriter who had found God and diamonds in the same place. There is a lot of nuts in that previous sentence, but the craziest part is that it felt … right. Thankfully, the woman sleeping in the tipi understands this and feels this way too. When they say there is someone out there for everyone, they aren’t kidding.
Friday would be about chocolate gravy, barbeque (as a noun, the way God & Stephen Colbert intended it) and driving. Arkansas is a much larger state than you may realize. Certainly it is about three times larger than I assumed. The distance from Murfreesboro to Northwest Arkansas requires over 5 hours to drive. We couldn’t expect to cover this distance on an empty stomach so before we left town we fueled up at Buddy’s Ranch House Café. It was up to the cooks at Buddy’s to introduce Leigh to the concept of chocolate gravy. (I had prior experience with this Southern delicacy courtesy of Donna Presnell’s mother aka ‘Granny’ who paired her magnificent biscuits with chocolate gravy on a previous visit to NYC.) Chocolate gravy is exactly as you would imagine it. It is a warm, thinner version of pudding that is poured over biscuits in the south. From what I have read, it used to be reserved more for special occasions than as a regular option, but at Buddy’s it is available daily. Here is a link for a recipe:
Chocolate gravy literally under our belts, we were off for one of my favorite small towns in the world, Eureka Springs. Before I get started on my love of this enclave of weirdness, I need to call the South out on something. After several fact-finding missions below the Mason-Dixon Line I have come to the conclusion that there is a conspiracy afoot by our Southern neighbors to perpetuate disparaging Southern stereotypes and myths in an effort to obscure some great places and experiences from the likes of we Yankees. Every time one of my friends asks “Why on earth would you go to [Arkansas, South Carolina etc.] ?” a whole bunch of Southerners smile slyly and know their treasures are safe from the carpetbaggers for another year.
That said, let me tell you why Eureka Springs (pop. 2350) is my favorite small town in the United States. It is an inspired island of high weirdness in a sea of Middle American milquetoast. Carved out of stone by natural springs and freaks, Eureka Springs welcomes a collision of cultures from bikers to healers, artists to hillbillies, Holy Rollers to the plain old weird. It is the site of a 7-story, two million pound concrete Jesus and several haunted hotels. Spring water runs in stone conduits along the sidewalks and it bubbles from the walls. The whole town seems to be built on a 60-degree grade and I’d be willing to bet that it holds the record for most number of stairs per capita in the world. There are little statues of pixies, gargoyles and mythical creatures scattered about town, crammed into nooks and tucked into crannies. Eureka Springs has tapas and BBQ, diversity and bluegrass, Harleys and shiatsu. It is a paradise of paradox and a perfect spot for my FEE and me.
‘That is all well and good,’ you say, ‘but how did you find this eccentric corner of the world?’ Eureka Springs had been on my radar since about 1996. At that point, I had started collecting research in order to drive around the United States and write a book about all of the bizarre and unusual festivals and museums that take place annually. For example, did you know that every year the town of Britt, Iowa hosts a Hobo Festival? Or that for the past 25 years, thousands of folks descend on Clinton, Montana to gorge themselves on ‘Rocky Mountain Oysters’ at the Testicle Festival? I did and that is the reason I knew about Eureka Springs. Throughout the year, it plays host to dozens upon dozens of odd festivals. From UFO conferences to Frog Festivals, all weirdos are welcome. The inhabitants of Eurkea Springs, both permanent and temporary, are my lost tribe.
So when Pat and I were dispatched to film a school in Baxter, Kansas in March of 2005, I was thrilled to discover its close proximity to this beacon of the bizarre. We traveled down a few days early and attended the annual Kite Festival that is held at the Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge on the outskirts of Eureka Springs. As we discovered, Turpentine Creek itself is a great story. Founded by Tanya Smith and her family on 450 acres in the early 90s, the refuge is home to over 150 tigers, lions, cougars and other ‘big cats.’ In 2005 when Pat and I attended, the Kite Festival was a bit of challenge. Very grey, very cold and very windy was a difficult mix for the folks who showed up, but nonetheless it was a great event. Less an organized festival and more a loose gathering of kite enthusiasts of all ages, I thought the Kite Festival would be a great low-key place to take Leigh to fly a kite.
It also would give me the chance to unveil the third in the unusual ‘Dwight’ series of accommodation. What could I possibly do to compare with the tipi in Goatville? How about treehouse in a refuge of 150 big cats at the Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge? And that is what I did. For the third night, we would sleep in a cozy, elevated wood treehouse that bordered the compounds of the big cats. But first, we had to get to know our 900lb feline neighbors.
Almost all of the big cats at the refuge have been ‘rescued’ from owners or breeders who suddenly realize that raising and caring for a Volkswagen-sized man-eating mammal with razor sharp claws and the capability of crushing a human skull with a playful flex of its jaws is a bad idea. (see Seigfried & Roy) I am always shocked about how apparently easy it is to obtain a tiger, lion or cougar cub in the United States. For as little as $500, you too can acquire one of these bundles of furry joy. The problems obviously arise when their favorite furball decides to start snacking on the neighborhood cats and toddlers. That is when they get sent to Turpentine Creek.
Caring for a gross of giant carnivores is heady enough work, but given most of their charges have been abused, it adds an even more deadly wrinkle. Fortunately, Tanya has a devoted staff of volunteer interns from a variety of universities around the United States and the majority of the food is supplied by nearby Tyson Chicken. The result is that the refuge is exactly that. It is a great spot for both man and beast alike to heal and I think Leigh was again pleased with the surprise.
After the kitties had their appetites taken care of, it was time to attend to ours. Leigh and I hopped in the car and I took her to Bubba’s BBQ for pork shoulder, hot links and by her account the best cherry pie she’s ever had.
It’s hard to top Bubba’s cherry pie, but I wanted to take Leigh into Eureka Springs proper and show her around. (Turpentine Creek, while technically in Eureka Springs is actually about 8 miles south of the downtown Historical district.) Being Friday night, the town was hopping. My favorite part was the live blue grass band playing in a tiny courtyard wedged between a bar and puppet store. We could hear them from almost every point in our stroll as we wandered up and down the streets and the stairs of Eureka Springs window shopping and soaking in the weirdness.
SATURDAY
If Friday night concluded by bathing in the strange, then being woken the next morning by the ‘choraling’ of lions and the ‘chuffing’ of tigers did nothing to lower the threshold of the surreal. I’ve taken my morning coffee in a lot of places and with a lot of different people, but this was the first time with the Kings of the Jungle. While Leigh slept, I walked along the fence line of the reserve in the early morning light, chatted with a few of the big kitties and did my best not to get sprayed. I found myself attached to one restless tiger in particular that paced endlessly like I do. After Leigh came out and joined me, we talked to the volunteers serving breakfast to the cats and found out that the pacers’s name is Wings and we decided to ‘adopt’ it. Fortunately, this form of adoption simply required writing a check rather than trying to figure out to where to cuddle a half-ton in our West Village shoebox.
The adoption complete, it was time to fly kites. We really lucked out with the weather this time. It was about 70 degrees, clear skies and plenty of wind. Before arriving at Turpentine, I had bought a kite for Leigh on-line but not wanting to give the surprise away, I had the kite shipped to Turpentine. The kite I bought was a giant colorful pheasant with a long tail that we named Gretchen. After a little friendly assistance from one of the resident kite geeks, we found Gretchen was a ready flier and we took turns flying her alongside the dozens of other colorful creatures that had taken wing.
One of the other activities offered at the kite festival that I knew would grab Leigh’s imagination was the ‘build-your-own-kite’ booth operated by the American Kitefliers Association. The booth is set-up to get kids interested in kites by helping them design and build one from a plastic bag, two dowels and 100 feet of line. These simple sled kites work remarkably well and the white plastic material is the perfect blank slate for kids to draw their own designs. Fortunately, the lovely folks at the AKA had a loose interpretation of ‘kid’ and Leigh gleefully took her place among the 10-year olds and made her own kite.
Kites flown, tigers walked & frito pies consumed (what else would you eat at a Kite Festival?) we drove back to Eureka Springs proper where I had one final surprise for Leigh (and for me as well). I had booked us into the historic 1905 Basin Park Hotel. (It has some bizarre distinction of being the only hotel in the world with 9 ground floors as it is built into the side of a cliff.) As part of the package, I had arranged. The surprise for me was that my masseuse was in fact a masseur that bore an uncanny resemblance to a Christian David Crosby.
Already relaxed from the massage, we thought we would push the decadence envelope right to the edge with a few rounds of Basin Park margaritas & BBQ on the hotels balcony bar overlooking the main intersection of town. Our dinner was accompanied a medley of the hotel’s crusty one-man folk band, horses on cobblestones below and hordes of throaty Harley’s making their thunderous way through the sun-dappled Ozarks.
After dinner we made our way to one of my favorite watering holes on the planet: Chelsea's Corner Café & Bar. God knows I’ve thrown down a few pints and cocktails in gin joints from Reykjavik to Yap so I feel that I sufficiently accredited . Chelsea’s reminds me of the bar at the Mos Eisley Spaceport in the original Star Wars. It’s the sort of spot where you can get served a Guinness in a mason jar and hear a top-notch swing band wearing overalls while sitting between a paroled felon and reiki master. The ceiling is essentially held together with the tail feathers of pub darts. Handwritten signs with their motto ‘Be Nice or Leave’ are tacked randomly around the bar. (‘No Firearms’ used to greet you at the door, but its been painted over. I’m not sure if that means it’s no longer necessary to mention or if firearms are welcome back….) Our bartender was one forehead tattoo short of passing for Charles Manson and was carrying on an animated conversation with the Tommy Bahama-bedecked owner regarding Eureka Springs’ ‘new’ cop. Apparently, the consensus on the addition to Eureka’s Finest was the man had no idea how to drive at high speed and pulled over too many bikers. I suspect these were related issues.
Chelsea’s is acknowledged as one of the best spots in the Ozarks for live music and tonight Leigh and I were treated to some lively bluegrass (and a lively audience to match…) We fittingly wound up our final night in this quirky Arkansas outpost swinging our way across the sawdust dance floor to a couple bluegrass covers of Bob Dylan.
SUNDAY
The music, margaritas and mason jars had taken their toll and it took us a little while and a pair of Baroccas to find our way to the Mud Street Café. A subterranean gem of a breakfast spot, Mud Street Café known for its coffee and its underground location. It is a perfect spot to avoid the painful night-after sunlight and we killed a few hours before making our way to the airport.
Being hundreds of miles away from Little Rock, I organized us to depart out of Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport. Most people would assume that this sort of remote regional airport would be totally podunk. Except for the fact that it happens to be located 10 miles away from Bentonville, AR (aka as the HQ of Wal-Mart). As a result of its proximity to this retail Goliath, this airport is new, beautiful and has direct flights to a number of major airports. We were actually scheduled to go back via Charlotte, but a severe delay combined with a kindly counter agent got us re-ticketed on the direct flight back to Newark and our Willy Wonka Magical engagement tour came to an end.
WEDDING
Due to the fact that Leigh and I have so many friends scattered all over the globe, we have decided that there won’t be a singular celebration. She and I will be orchestrating a quiet, pre-meditated elopement to Hawai'i in September. In the months following the hitchin', we will be scheduling a series of receptions in the following locations: Williamsburg, VA; Los Angeles, CA; New York, NY and Syracuse, NY. For my Australian friends, we hope to combine a reception with our 20-year high school reunion in Alice Springs in 2008. Dates and details will follow.
