B.J. Burton would have hated the title of this article. “She would give you the worst look if you called her Billie Jo,” Gary Burton says about his late wife with a slight smile. “Everybody called her B.J.” I think of B.J., a woman I never met, just about every time I…
By Jason Pederson In Dec. 31, 1967, at the age of 29, Evel Knievel’s body was broken and battered when his motorcycle jump over the fountains at Caesars Palace ended in a crash landing. Knievel credited his helmet with saving his life. On Sept. 23, 2020, at the age of…
This Side of Seven: Trickle-Up Economics By Jason Pederson Trickle-down economics basically theorizes that if you lower taxes on the rich and corporate America, those savings will be passed on to the commoners, and everyone benefits. Studies have shown that it is a theory without much support — that the rich didn’t get rich…
This Side of Seven: When the Vow Breaks Arkansans marry. A lot. And Arkansans divorce. A lot. In 2019, only wedding destination states Nevada and Hawaii had higher marriage rates than Arkansas (8.4 marriages per 1,000 people). And in 2019, Arkansas trailed only Nevada for the highest divorce rate (4 per…
Trust the roots that can’t be seen. You worked many years — the silo years — to make those roots as strong as possible. If you travel Highway 71 in southern Missouri, you may have seen a silo with a tree bursting forth from the top. If you are driving north, it’s on the…
The opening sequence of Raiders of the Lost Ark remains one of my favorites. I mean, the entire movie is awesome. But imagine my 11-year-old self, just settled into my small-town Gem Theater chair with popcorn in hand. The lights dim, and suddenly the audience is thrust into a nonstop adventure that hits 90…
“I forbid you to go.” That was my father’s initial reaction when I told him back in the spring of 1993 that I had accepted a job in south Arkansas. The money wasn’t great ($250 a week) and the distance from home WAS great. Generations of Pedersons have lived within a 30-mile radius…
Five minutes before the flames, I was driving our 2007 Dodge Grand Caravan home from work on Interstate 630 in Little Rock. Five hours earlier, I had been one of about a dozen vehicles inching through the drive-thru at McDonald’s. One day earlier, that minivan pulled a U-Haul to Fayetteville, jam-packed with all…
