{"id":2719,"date":"2014-05-20T18:04:00","date_gmt":"2014-05-20T22:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/?p=2719"},"modified":"2014-05-20T18:04:00","modified_gmt":"2014-05-20T22:04:00","slug":"a-dispatch-from-toad-suck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/a-dispatch-from-toad-suck\/","title":{"rendered":"A DISPATCH FROM TOAD SUCK"},"content":{"rendered":"

I recently spent a few days in Toad Suck, Arkansas<\/a>. \u00a0 Click the link, and see where the place got its name.\u00a0 Might explain why it sits in a dry county these days.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the kind of place limousine liberals make fun of, and not just because of the name. There\u2019s a definite Old South feel to it, and lots of folks haven\u2019t taken kindly to the recent court decisions allowing same-sex marriage in Arkansas.\u00a0 We weren’t there at the right time for the Toad Suck Daze Festival<\/a>, darn it, but we noticed that the Concierge Guide to Faulkner County lists Little Caesar\u2019s Pizza among cuisine options, and several thrift shops among the shopping opportunities.\u00a0\"welcome\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Elitists would have a ball mocking this place.<\/p>\n

But the elitists would ignore some other things, no doubt.\u00a0 A quick survey of house of worship architecture, for example, shows more in the way of the eclectic and innovative, and less of the vaulting cathedrals America\u2019s rich used to tour Europe to see.\u00a0 And elitists would miss the way black and white and rich and poor pitched in together for tornado relief efforts after the storms that devastated this area.\u00a0 A visitor gets a strong sense of\u2026community. <\/i>A place where neighbor helps neighbor, and where a dark-skinned stranger with a Yankee accent is treated as cordially as a good ol\u2019 home town boy.<\/p>\n

And a place where people can attend the Arkansas Shakespeare Theater, and the Conway Symphony Orchestra.<\/p>\n

Those who piously preach diversity often overlook the fact that places like Faulkner County are part and parcel of that diversity.<\/p>\n

I love this country\u2026<\/p>\n

\"Gas_Church\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"NoFrogs\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"SoldOut\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I recently spent a few days in Toad Suck, Arkansas. \u00a0 Click the link, and see where the place got its name.\u00a0 Might explain why it sits in a dry county these days. It\u2019s the kind of place limousine liberals make fun of, and not just because of the name. There\u2019s a definite Old South […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":6428,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2719","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2719\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}