A bit of nostalgia: the late Charles Allbright, Arkansas Traveler columnist

Cover of the hardback book in my library, published by August House in 1986, copyright held by Maylon T. Rice

After a near computer crash, I spent the following days moving documents to an external hard drive, just in case. This, instead of working in the yard during this heat wave. I knew better’n to do that. I scrolled through columns dating back to 2011, stopping specifically at any dated early July. Perhaps I could update one and reprint it. All columnists do that occasionally.

All writers also keep stacks of clippings: things to file, articles to rebut, ideas for stories, etc. Here is where a 2013 column begins:

Serendipitously, while going through sheets of old paper looking for something—I found. . . I found a yellowed newspaper article. The date was October 8, 2000. The paper was the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. It was the “Arkansas Traveler” column by Charles Allbright. The headline read, “Last (but not least) names.”

The first words of the article were "PAT LASTER TAUGHT SCHOOL 27 years . . .”

I’ve been retired 24 years, but even 18 years ago, I was keeping a log of names. 
Here, without permission from Mr. Allbright, who died in late 2015, or the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette bigwigs, or Maylon Rice, who is a Facebook friend, I’ll reprint it as it was.

“Pat Laster taught school 27 years, then one day found herself running wild-eyed out of her classroom, never to return. The devil helped her do it.

“‘I’d endured all the L. and A. I could take.” Lip and Attitude, from parents. A few each semester can engage the world’s most hopeful profession in ongoing dogfight.

“Pat Laster believes that J. Gatling is not catching the same from parents in Morrilton. She loves J.’s autumnal ritual of studying the names of his new students in Morrilton High. Then sharing them, as lyrics for a hopeful tomorrow.

“’I hope Mr. G. can keep it up longer.”

“So. How go Pat Laster’s days?

“’In the quiet of my mornings with only the fan’s whir and the calico’s purr, I take names, too. Mostly from the obituaries in newspapers.”

"Special names? None can be more special. Names of those who died. Their loved ones. Their pallbearers. Their preachers. Most are at the far end of Mr. Gatling’s life songs.

“And what will Pat Laster do with her houseful of special names? Why, put them in her novel, of course. Maybe employing the begat format. Or Faulkner’s stream of consciousness. Somebody said “Requiem for a Nun” went 42 pages before encountering its first period. No, no, not your antebellum kind of period. The punctuation mark that ends a sentence. We will be checking this for truth. For one thing, we love the book. For another, true or untrue, where will you find a better example of a mind’s running dolefully amok?

“With deepest respect, Pat Laster enters names from the newspapers in her journal. These are Arkansas names: Orbin. Drue. Chane. Dyka. Chelese. Phala. Waldine. Dibrell. Bobara. Destine. Lucchese. Delta. Dakota. Homerleen. Vileras. Duard. Dax. Malderine. Timber. Nela. Delbra. Kendyl. Reck. Lapria. Shanny. Odd.

“It never occurred to B. F. Allbright that his name was, well, unusual. Brice Fount. Get outta here. We once asked his mother, Grandma Allbright, where’d that combination of names came from. Grandma was then in her 97^th year, not in full possession of her communicating skills. She was in absolute possession of a mouthful of Rooster snuff. It could have been three weeks later when she answered:

“’Why’nt you go ask his daddy?’

A challenge. His daddy died when Brice Fount was 7. Took pneumonia, Thomas Finley Allbright did, trying to save his school from being destroyed by fire. But it was gone. So was he. Up in Valley Springs, near Harrison, you’ll find a stone building identified as Allbright Hall. The granddad we never knew.

“Not bragging here. Just pointing out, not everybody with this family name was a lightweight columnist.

“But back to Pat Laster and her collection of names in Arkadelphia. The surnames are likewise interesting: Box. Roach. Strain. Kindsfather. Hum. Peeks. Bear. Sink. Cotton. Fang. Jobs. Said. Smellback. Hamlet. Pouncey. Bottoms. Boatenhammer. Winbush. Carrier. Grooms. Looms. Lawman. Woodring. Battle. France. Johndroe. Whitehouse. Swindle.” . . . . . . .

Mr. Allbright, photo from the back cover of said book.

Pat, here. I am still amazed to re-read this. I hated it when in AD-G “retired” him and Richard Allin in 2004. Their—and our, and literature’s—loss.

c 2018, PL, d/b/a lovepat press, Benton AR USA