Dreaming of an Art and Music Community
by When an entire town works together they can mold their town into anything they can imagine. In this article I write about memories of my hometown and a plan for it’s future. I am looking for same minded people to inspire and to help out with the flowering of an Art Community in our town.
Re-amping My Town Towards Art and Music
Thanks to my friend Libby Rogers, I have received my first comment about my dream of changing the image of my home town to a community of artist and musicians. Let me start off by saying thanks to Lib for her input because it made me realize that the entire audience that I am trying to communicate with is not informed of my entire vision. So this article is composed to convey my vision of a prosperous and fun center of art and music for all ages.
I can remember how the downtown area of Rogers, Arkansas use to be. My memories include the Poor Richards Malt Shop, the old candy store that use to set above the Crumpet Tea Room, Townzends Barber Shop, Shofners, the boot repair shop, both of the shoe stores that set across from one another, The old drug store, Copy King, The flea market where the Rogers Little Theater now resides, and many other successful family businesses that once flourished in our downtown area. Some of them are still there, but many of them have moved or gone completely out.
I can remember when they turned the area into a “grumpy old man” also. I remember trying to hang out and have fun in the little park, some playing guitars and singing, just to be ran off by the police for loitering. I remember when they outlawed skateboards and bicycles from being rode through the downtown area. I was a teenager then and had spent a lot of my childhood riding all over that part of town. I don’t know about you, but that is when I all decided that maybe Rogers just wasn’t cool enough to stay in, but many of us stayed anyway.
I love this town. I have many great friends here, have done many fun things with them and got away with almost everything we tried as long as we didn’t hurt someone or ourselves. My mind is over flowing with all the good times I have had in this town. I’m sure you have a lot of great memories also.
This town has inspired many artist and our part of the country has been the muse of many more. This is a great area for imaginative creative people. This is probably, in my opinion, the greatest natural resource this community has to offer. We should use this resource to our advantage and not waste it along with our imagination. We are great people and great people accomplish great things, please remember this.
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