What are your first memories of independence?
Walking around the block by yourself? Riding a bike minus training wheels? Camping in the backyard? Getting a first paycheck?
Today, Arkansans will eat barbecue, take to waterways and enjoy fireworks to celebrate the capital-I Independence Americans have enjoyed ever since the Continental Congress approved the Declaration of Independence, telling Britain that our 13 original Colonies were breaking free.
July is also full of little-i forms of independence worth celebrating -- for example, getting a driver's license.
That laminated card plus keys mean independence for many people, not just teenagers who no longer need parent chauffeurs. Thompson Driving School in Little Rock has three generations of experience in teaching sometimes skittish or reckless key-possessors to be confident, responsible, licensed drivers.
When owner Brock Thompson's grandmother, Cleo Thompson, wanted to leave secretarial work and start a driving school, "she had to go up north" to be trained, he said. With her husband, she opened A1 Thompson Driving School in 1953 in Benton. His mother, Peggy Thompson, ran the school next, for 40 years, and sold it to him in 2011.
Peggy saw many students' lives changed, like "a little girl of 15 who had no arms," she said. "We taught her to drive." They reconnected 20 years later. "She had her own apartment, her own car, she makes her own living," Peggy said. "There's a real success story."
An older client was "paralyzed on her right side. Her husband was paraplegic. She had to learn how to drive," Peggy recalled. "This lady was scared to death to solo. One day I was feeling good about her driving. We went down by the river. I said, 'I'm going to get out of the car and exercise while you drive up and down and wave to me.' Well, that's all it took. From that moment on, she was fine."
Another client was afraid of bridges. "Well, this lady could go nowhere. We got her over that fear."
And she helped many older women. "Back in the day, women didn't drive. Their men took them everywhere," Peggy said. When a husband died, the widow couldn't get to familiar stops. "We would take these women on a little route — grocery store, doctor's office, beauty shop. They learned to do that route. That gave them their independence."
People encouraged Peggy, a natural storyteller, to write a book. When the pandemic began, "I was terribly bored," so she did, collecting stories from her 22,300 students in "Behind the Wheel" (see arkansasonline.com/704peggy).
Teens are sometimes hesitant to drive, Brock said. "A lot of the work we do is addressing fear through education. It's the cornerstone of our business since 1953. If you empower people with knowledge, education and understanding, that fear goes away or lessens dramatically."
When parents teach, they might say, "Turn right," not realizing that the child is thinking, "What do I do with my hands? My feet? Do I slow down?" Brock noted. Sometimes teens rack up multiple tickets or crashes before parents call in professionals. "We come to find out they really don't know or understand the science of driving," he said. "Crashes happen for a reason."
Unlike parents, he said, "We've got a brake on our side."
Trained teenagers also notice their parents' slips. "Embrace that new backseat driver that's now in the front seat," he said.
The school retrains drivers with traumatic brain injuries, partners with the Arkansas School for the Deaf and helps families trying to decide if it's time for someone to give up the keys.
BIG KIDS ON CAMPUS
After a break during the pandemic, the University of Arkansas at Little Rock will host Summer Laureate University For Youth, or SLUFY (rhymes with "stuffy"). This month, 315 young Arkansans, from post-kindergarten to post-sixth grade, will spend two weeks learning, playing and creating — and feeling big on a college campus.
"We anticipate a tidal wave of very excited children," said Christine Dietz, program director. "We are a paper, scissors, glue kind of program. Kids are not plugged into computer devices. ... We're writing, reading, creating."
Laura Langley, an English teacher at Little Rock Central High School, created Pod Squad!, a podcasting class for third- and fourth-graders, the youngest she has taught.
She always gives SLUFY students choice in the direction the class will take. This year that means the subject and style of podcasts. "Either they will work in groups to produce little segments, or if they are more familiar with podcasts — and I kind of expect them to be — they might break up into groups and each create their own standalone," using interview or storytelling styles.
SLUFY students choose two classes, and even those in the afternoon Discovery class (their second choice) figure out ways to connect material to their primary interests, she said. "They're always on the hunt for something to add to their interest collection."
Deloris Meadows, 13, of Little Rock "felt big" as a SLUFY student, attending every year she was eligible before the pandemic. She literally got older on campus. "I enjoyed spending my birthday there," she said. "I got cupcakes and Capri Suns." Mom Monica (a gifted and talented facilitator for the Pulaski County Special School District and former SLUFY principal), requested her birthday as their day to provide snacks.
Sometimes quiet in regular classes, Deloris felt more adventurous asking questions at UALR, and enjoyed the teaching methods. "It's not at all where they're right next to you showing you. Sometimes you watch them and what they're doing and they put steps in front of you ... and if you need help, they're friendly enough to ask."
Deloris liked the way classes slipped in math or science but didn't make them the focus. She especially liked classes on paleontology and Harry Potter books. "That's what I like about it; they don't teach math and science," she said.
"They're learning math and science and not realizing it," Monica noted. Concocting potions in the Harry Potter class "was all about chemical reactions."
"It was?" Deloris marveled.
She and her sister Lisa will volunteer this year, assisting teachers and students in various ways — including looking friendly enough to answer questions from new campers.
FREEDOM TO FLOAT
July is peak time for float trips. This year, the Buffalo National River marks 50 years as an undammed, freely flowing part of the National Park Service. A new exhibit in the Arkansas Capitol, "The River Remains," runs through Aug. 29.
When Fayetteville Councilwoman Teresa Turk was growing up in Texarkana and Little Rock, she read newspaper stories about efforts to preserve the river, and pestered her parents to take her to see it. "When I was 10, we went to Dogpatch. We stopped in Pruitt and had lunch," she said. "I remember jumping into the river, I had my goggles on, and seeing all these fish."
In southwest Arkansas, she was used to muddy lakes and streams. She recalls thinking, "This is amazing! It's so clear! ... My first memories of being really interested in fish."
While earning an anthropology degree at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, she spent "way too much time on weekends" canoeing and camping on the Buffalo.
After 24 years inspecting North Atlantic fisheries for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, she returned to Arkansas in 2012, the year the state granted C&H Hog Farms a permit for land on a major tributary of the Buffalo. Turk joined others who knew waste from the hogs could pollute nearby waterways. Different groups "all had the same eye on the prize, to save the Buffalo a second time," she said.
Advocates often rose at 4 a.m. to testify at Little Rock hearings, but the operation kept getting permits. Then came a turning point.
"The river started speaking for herself. Algae started to happen in a lot of different places along the river," Turk said. Advocates shot video, got in touch with algae experts, "and showed how much the river was suffering."
By 2018, miles of the river were covered in algae from manure spread on fields that drained into tributaries of the Buffalo. "Fortunately, Governor Hutchinson and his staff understood that this river was so important to Arkansas' identity and prominence" that they worked out an arrangement to close the operation.
On a June float trip, Turk saw a much cleaner river. "I was really happy and really encouraged. The river is starting to heal itself."
She notes that visitors also have the independence "to pull over and camp on any gravel bar you want to on the river" rather than making reservations, as in most national parks. That freedom to camp, she said, "is like no other place I know."
EVERY DAY
Somewhere this month, a parent will let go of a bicycle seat and watch a wobble become a glide.
Someone will bait a hook or unhook a flopping bluegill for the first time.
Someone will bake her first millionaire pie, take his first unnecessary solo drive to Sonic, fearlessly cross a bridge, steer a canoe without tumping.
That's every bit as satisfying as the thrill of fireworks, and longer lasting — a reason to copy one of Brock Thompson's teenage drivers. She pulled over from her successful drive, parked and cheered, "Yay, me!"
Laura Lynn Brown is the author of "Everything That Makes You Mom."