Talk about contrasts. The same obituary page that carried the news of Mary Worthen’s passing in Little Rock also noted the death of Blaze Starr: “Burlesque dancer, governor’s flame.” Which couldn’t be a reference to anybody but the object of (Uncle) Earl Long’s affections—when she was wasn’t wowing them at the Sho-Bar Club in New Orleans.
Our neighbor to the South may be the Pelican State formally, but other, more accurate appellations abound—like our only Mediterranean state. Or you might call Louisiana the Tabasco state, considering the spice it adds to the Union, while good old Arkansas calls up wholesome visions of cornbread and buttermilk. Or maybe turnip greens and potlikker, a diet rich in minerals that is said to have gotten many a poor sharecropper’s family through the Great Depression.
That border between Arkansas and Louisiana separates not just two states but two states of mind. Hey, what a country, what a society that can contain both. It was Walt Whitman who called the United States the greatest poem. And what he said about himself could also be said about his country: “Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.” Including every type from dear Mary Worthen to titillating Blaze Starr. Laissez les bons temps rouler!
Editorial on 06/20/2015