Keeping Fayetteville Funky: Bikes, Blues & BBQ

As many of the regular First Born readers know, we moved to Fayetteville Arkansas about three months ago to work with students at the Wesley Foundation at the University of Arkansas. Fayetteville is a town that neither of us had ever been to before we moved here. At the foot of the Ozarks in Northwest Arkansas, this is a classic college town of about 50,000 people.

We really like living here. The hills are beautiful. Every Saturday we go to the Farmer’s Market. We’ve already been to two Razorback football games. But one thing we are learning…

This is a funky town.

So tonight we’re beginning what I hope will be a come and go series on the blog called Keeping Fayetteville Funky. While so much (if not most) of this blog deals with serious matters, from time to time it is good to just look and laugh. And I believe we need some more smiles on First Born Son.

And for our first installment we’re going to take a peek at the annual Bikes, Blues and BBQ festival that ended here today. Remember, I said that this is a town of about 50,000 people. Well, for the four days over 350,000 people and their motorcycles descended on Fayetteville. That’s right… well over a quarter of a million people.

For the last four nights this entire city has been literally rumbling. For 24-7, up and down the highway in front of our apartment, we've heard nothing but the thunder and the whine of thousands of motorcycles.

So yesterday Jenn and I grabbed the camera and headed down to ground zero: Dickson Street. The best way to describe the scene is a combination of Spring Break, the State Fair and Mardi Gras for anyone with a Harley... complete with parades, beer, vendors, scantly clad women, and even one guy who - in the spirit of Fat Tuesday - tried to get Jenn to “earn some beads” (her response: “Not gonna happen”).

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, then a YouTube is worth a blog post. Some people may find a couple of bits to be, well... vulgar. But we’re just trying to report what we saw.

Welcome to Funky Town.

dueling prayers

Friday afternoon.

I get on the #4 express subway from the Bronx to Manhattan to meet my little brother.

I sit down and notice that next to me is a much older man with a gray beard, large glasses and a yarmulke on his head.

He cups in his hand a small, very worn copy of the Scriptures… thumbing its pages as he rocks gently back and forth, mouthing out prayers while his eyes read over the Hebrew text.

I look up, and across from him sits another older man, wearing a long black robe and a white kufi skullcap.

In his hands he cradles a small, very worn copy of the Quran… thumbing its pages as he whispers prayers, pointing his index finger resting on his knee towards the sky as he reads over the Arabic script.

And I fumble with the Rosary in my pocket.

At the Fulton Street stop two girls come aboard and join our circle, one of them (maybe 19 or 20) in short shorts and a shorter tank-top… the skin on her legs naturally the color most girls sit in the sun all day to find. She has a black and white kafia wrapped around her neck as a decorative scarf (or a statement of cultural pride) as she drinks an iced coffee from Starbucks.

We all pause for a moment and stare at her, then go back to talking to God.

At Union Square a man boards our car… in one hand he holds a plastic grocery bag full of sandwiches, in another a large cup full of change.

“Excuse me ladies and gentlemen,” he begins, and then tells us his story:

He works for a group that gives sandwiches to the poor who live in the subways, and every penny we can give helps him in his cause of mercy and justice for the hungry and homeless.

As he holds out his cup and makes one pass down the car, the girl with the kafia and the legs dumps a fistful of change.

She is the only one, and the man with the food for the hungry looks at the three of us men in prayer and says, “Thanks anyway.”

He moves on to the next car.

We go back to talking to God… while the girl sips her coffee, having done His work.