It's 9AM

Is that the smell of success?

Chris Lowry

Jun 20, 2023

What’s that smell, she cringed.

It wasn’t me, I said.

Fast.

There are strict road trip rules about cracking a quiet one early in the trip.

The rule is to hold it until everyone is napping and see who you can wake up.

And this smell was strong enough to do it.

A combination of chemicals, and sulfur and reek and despair.

It smelled like home.

The Paper Mill.

Yes, it stinks.

To an outsider.

But like most things when you experience them daily, you get used to it.

The scent becomes second nature.

You use it to tell which direction the wind is blowing.

Strong and pungent?

Must be southern winds blowing in.

It was a big industry in the city, and a big part of our family.

Papaw worked there until he got hurt.

My uncle worked there until he got hurt.

My other uncle went to work there until he retired.

And my older cousin went to work there when he graduated high school and stayed for twenty five years until he retired with a pension and an MBA from UALR.

Then he stared a second career with Central Maloney, the “other” big business left in Pine Bluff.

Growing up our grandparents instilled in us expectations.

“Are you going to work at the Mill or teach?”

Like those were the only two options.

It was a constant refrain on Sunday dinners and weekday visits.

Not every time, but brought up often.

“You know Mike’s going to the Mill after school and his Daddy can get you an interview, son.”

I was working for Parks and Rec at the time and having fun.

Part of my job was riding with the Director to roust the lover lane’s with a spot light and “time to go home” then lock the access gates to the bigger parks.

My first job outside of working as a carpenter’s assistant with Papaw and I think they could see my world expanding to more than two options.

More than an either/or scenario.

Prepping softball fields for nightly games and working with the Parks Director for other projects gave me a glimpse into local government departments.

Working retail at a downtown department store dipped me into that world.

And the two gave me the experience on running a Tennis Center and retail shop when I was a senior.

It also gave me an expectation of moving up and getting more faster.

Which meant the Mill and Teaching weren’t really on the list of possibilities for what I wanted to do with my life.

I can blame the water.

PB got it’s water from Lake Pine Bluff, which has since been renamed Lake Saracen, after a Quapaw Chief who came back to the area from the Indian Territory so he could die at home.

What once was home.

It was a good fishing lake, created when the Arkansas river tried to eat the river bank from under the gold domed courthouse during a hundred year flood.

Someone in the Corp of Engineers told the PB City Council that they could not place dynamite at a certain spot upstream to shift the course of the river because of reasons. (political)

They were adamant about NOT putting X pounds of TNT at this exact spot because of what it would do, and somehow, when X pounds of TNT blew up in that exact spot after dark, the courthouse and downtown was saved!

And Lake Pine Bluff was created, and turned into a water source and fishing lake.

I’m not suggesting a special trip to watch the sun come up over the lake, but it is an image that sticks with you.

If you can stand the smell of home.

While residents were using the lake for water, the energy company was using it to hold old transformers.

Which leaked PCB’s into the water, and caused a clean up debacle in the early 90’s.

Maybe that’s why they renamed the lake, because of the bad press associated with the toxicity. (I was overseas in the early 90’s, so most of what I got about it was sporadic reading from afar)

So Mamaw blamed PCB’s for my brother and I having wandering hearts.

We didn’t want to stay in PB, we wanted to “go somewhere” and “do something.”

Maybe PCB’s is what made my Dad light out when he was younger, and what made my Mom always hunt for ways out west.

Though to Arkansas from Alabama is as far as we made it with her.

PCB’s and Paper Mills and Pine Bluff.

Now known as crime bluff, and almost as corrupt as Ukraine.

Why on earth would you want to “fix” this place, she asked as we drove out of the smell zone and on to our destination in Mississippi for a tournament.

I took a deep breath to get one last hint of “home” locked in to activate the PCB’s in my brain.

“I don’t know,” I answered and that was part of the truth and most of a lie.

Because there were F’d up parts of my childhood I don’t talk about and fixing the town may fix those broken pieces in me.

Because there were parts of my childhood that seem lifted from a poor man’s version of a Norman Rockwell painting and I think every kid deserves it.

Because there were good men and women who gave poor kids from the wrong side of the tracks and the wrong side of the woods chances to work and learn and grow to know a great big world around them.

Because I grew up with the same group of kids and watching them get older on Facebook as they turn into grandparents gives me a sense of community and pride.

Because what happens to the kids there now if the options of Paper Mill or teaching go away because no one thinks the city needs to be saved?

“I don’t know,” I said again.

Probably softer this time because I wasn’t really talking to her.

A lot of reasons. Maybe.

But they pass the smell test.

What is the best part of growing up that you wished was still around?

9AM

It's 9AM

Is that the smell of success?

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