Self-indulgence

It seems 4 years ago, I was much more narrative and slightly less cynical (we're quoting CG in its birth-month, November, 2005):

So, crazy girls break into unlocked schools and crazy men plow their vehicles down hills and across four lanes before coming to rest at the bottom of a loamy, human-filled hill.

Apparently Abraham Lincoln was rejected by his first object d'amour, too. The historian at Elmwood told me Thursday that Lincoln's approach to proposing to Sarah Rickhart had been to cite the Bible.

"You know, Sarah," he said to her sitting next to him on the porch swing in Springfield. He had watched her grow to womanhood, womanhood back in the early 1800s being 12 to 14 years old or something, while staying with Sarah's sister and brother-in-law, the Butlers, Elizabeth and William. "In the Bible, Abraham marries Sarah." I can't help but picture the delivery as a little bit smarmy. Perhaps any good Christian girl would have swooned.

As the story goes, conveyed to me by someone who actually has read history books on this subject, Sarah left the scene. What an answer. Just walk away. In later years she was said to have regretted the choice, but only because Lincoln turned out to be president and all.

Ages.

Do not expect to find springs in Eureka Springs, though at one time there were 62 or so. What remains are Victorian houses perched along a series of switchback loops along a slight mountainside. It seemed that half of the homes were operated as bed and breakfasts, and that half of those were for sale.

I am exaggerating, just as I did when the jets in the bathtub sprayed water all over the place and I repeatedly exclaimed, "It's a tragedy!" while wiping up the floor. We laughed supremely then, which makes finding out that Manuela keeps a really clean floor more than worth the wet clothes. (Manuela: the cryptic printed signature under the crooked printed sentence "Gratuities are always appreciated" on an envelope on the dressing table.)

On Friday night we set out after dark on foot and had no idea where we were going. There seemed to be no one around, and it's accurate to say the town is quite quiet. The trolley bus is loud, but that's about it. Deer wander though every evening.