There are so many reasons we move out of our apartments or homes. One of those reasons will never, ever be term limits.
Exactly four Arkansans ever lost their home here to term limits. The first were the Huckabees. The second, the Beebes.
On a recent weekday afternoon I peeked inside the cabinets of first lady Ginger Beebe's home office. There's still stuff in them, but it's boxed up. Mrs. Beebe has been slowly planning the big move since the summer. The framed photos and letters and one painting by Babe, a Little Rock Zoo elephant, still adorn the wall, but there's a sense now that no new nails will be hammered, no new nostalgia hung.
How weird must it be to say goodbye to the Governor's Mansion? Again, only a handful of people can answer this. One of them isn't me. What I can tell you is this; however strange it may feel for Ginger Beebe to wave goodbye pales beside Susan Hutchinson's hello, because, folks, you cannot appreciate how weird it is changing your address to 1800 Center St.
Exhibit A: Police
Few houses come with a state police outpost. This one does. Sometimes the governor's body men are there at the mansion when he turns in and there when he wakes, so there are a few cots for them. Mostly, it's the modern-day watchtower (all the surveillance cameras are monitored here).
Once, very early on, Ginger Beebe stepped out onto the balcony of her home office. The door shut behind her and locked. She waved hurriedly at the guardhouse until someone got the cue.
Now she has hidden a key.
Exhibit B: Trustees
"Something that we're really trying hard [to do is] to leave things for the [Hutchinsons], whether it pertains to the Grand Hall and how it works, or what's been done outside on the grounds, because when we moved in, there was nothing."
Not many houses come with an operations manual. The Governor's Mansion has gates controlled by the police, historic public art, obligatory open houses and events in the Grand Hall, and of course, a chef and staff. Like any commercial space, it has its own destiny outside the simple shelter of its chief inhabitants.
When the Beebes moved in, there wasn't a soul to show them the light switches. "More than anything, it was the inmates."
More than a dozen inmates descend on the grounds each day. They're gardeners and custodial staff, but they're also servers -- that's right, the battery of liveried waiters who work the fundraisers. Many of them are convicts.
"I figure with the state police there, you're safe. I always say, you can leave your purse anywhere."
Some of the men have been serving a long time -- one came in with the Huckabees.
Exhibit C: Privacy
The actual space that the Beebes live in is relatively small. In fact, what they consider their principal living space consists of a round dining table for four, a living room, a kitchenette, and a bedroom and bath. A college dean should hope for just such a space -- for his office.
The historic mansion itself is about 12,000 square feet, but nearly every room Mrs. Beebe walked me through was what she calls a public space, including the large dining room and living room at the front, the sun porch cum walled library in the east wing, and the foyer and spiral staircase leading to the bedrooms.
Inside their small living room sits a workout ball and two tiny chrome dumbbells it's cheeky to imagine the governor using -- he does not -- and right here "you have the governor's chair, you have my chair. I sit there and kind of prop my feet up," she said, pulling the coffee table closer. "This is where we ..." She shrugs. "This is it. Normal, like anybody else."
Exhibit D: Mopping up
What constitutes a home ownership problem when it's not your home? Heck, you didn't even sign a lease!
She has forgotten so many of them, but once, about five or six years ago, on Christmas Eve, she heard a crash from downstairs. In the Great Hall, the ceiling had caved in from the weight of water that had leaked through the roof and collected there. She snapped a picture of the governor with a mop and bucket.
"What do you care?" I chided. "It's only temporary."
"But still, we are responsible, or in charge," she said. "In charge of taking care of what is not our home but belongs to all the people of Arkansas, so we better take care of it because they've entrusted it to us by way of election."
YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU
For any of us, moving day is mindless hauling. See something sitting there, pick it up. Not so here. There are whole rooms of furniture, housewares, rugs and window treatments, even gewgaws, that stay put. Not all of these items were here when the Beebes arrived, either. There's a full dining table in the original residence that the Beebes bought -- an antique -- that will stay. Then there's the juicer.
"I bought a juicer for myself. I juiced one time, and then it became the kitchen's. They juice all the time." (To be fair, some of the juiced juice is for her.) "I'm not gonna take that juicer. I can just go buy another juicer. I mean, you know, there are a lot of things you've sort of gotten and you just don't take with you."
TIDBITS
In the living room hangs a painting of Gen. George Izard, our second territorial governor, from 1813. A 201-year-old portrait! If that gets boxed in the move it will not go unnoticed.
Some other notes I made:
• "You have a favorite spot?" I asked.
"The herb garden. It's peaceful. It's kind of my prayer garden. I touch every herb in there, and I'm sure the cameras down there, the security, that they're watching me. 'There she goes again,' [because] I pinch every leaf off of every plant and smell it."
• Mrs. Beebe collects rose bowls. Rose bowls are vases wider in the middle than at either end. I did not know this. I thought they were football games played on New Year's Day.
• The Beebes leave behind the dog they arrived with. No, not Viper, but their first German shepherd, Mosel, who died at 13 and is buried on the grounds.
• "How will it be to host parties back in Searcy?" I asked.
"I'll have to do all the cooking myself. I'll have to set my own table! I have been able to, in this position, plan menus, decide table arrangements, so when I go home it'll just be me and whoever I can get to help me. ... That's been the fun part. I read a lot of magazines, gathering recipes, and I'll go down there and say, 'Try this, try that.'''
"Do you think they get irritated --"
"They're always researching recipes [themselves]."
• The three Governor's Mansion chefs and staff don't, as a general practice, cook elaborate meals just for the Beebes. They're pretty much committed to Grand Hall events or dinners in the State Dining Room. At night "it's peanut butter and jelly." Weekends the couple cook for themselves.
• Downstairs there's a den. Clinton used it for a war room, Mrs. Beebe said. Mr. Beebe took no prisoners in table tennis, "until everyone got so injured and hurt ... slipping around on this carpeting, and their backs, their knees -- we kind of got off that."
ARVets
Last year, ARVets, the upstart nonprofit advocating for and serving the state's combat veterans, held its Salute gala here inside the Grand Hall. In just its second year, it has already outgrown those digs and, as the Beebes soon will, moved out.
This year's fundraiser is over at the Great Hall (Clinton Presidential Center). Gov. Mike Beebe's deputy chief of staff, Lamar Davis, is chairing it. Guess who's getting the Outstanding Veteran Supporter Award? Hint: This fall event calendar has been, for him, like the Marquis de Lafayette's tour of America, and his name appears in this paragraph.
Salute sounds off at 6:30 p.m. For tickets, email director Nicole Hart, nicole.hart@arvets.org, or call (501) 246-5341.
High Profile on 11/16/2014