There's this guy named King Gladden who stables his airplane in the hangers and airfield in back of my house. Damn near every day King comes on down and starts his plane up and flies to work in Harrison. I have gotten used to the noise in these last few years. I barely notice it anymore.
He flies this weird ass plane the likes of which I have never seen before in a small aircraft. The engine appears to be mounted on top of the cockpit, or maybe that large odd thing sitting on top of the cockpit is something totally different, I have no idea, I know nothing about light aircraft. Come to think of it, other than being a passenger on commercial aircraft of a much larger variety, I know nothing about aircraft at all.
Which is funny because both my father and little brother are pilots. My Dad became a pilot up in the Alaskan bush back in the forties and Scott took up flying as a hobby, learning to fly at the Van Nuys airport.
At any rate, King's plane is weird looking to say the least and louder than shit when he starts it. It sounds like a loud explosion when it starts up. The first time I was sitting here on a lovely May day back in 01 and heard that explosion, I thought something catastrophic had happened in back of my house. Like I said, now I barely notice it.
King actually does not live in back of me. He actually lives down behind and below Point West on the lake. I have never actually clocked it but, I would say King's house is at least 5 miles from here. Considering it's probably at least 2 miles to Charlotte's and he's at least 3 more miles on up the road past the dam, gotta be at least 5 miles or more. He flies out of here because this airstrip is actually the closest one to his house. The next closest one would be up by Kim and Jan Ridenour's in back of Lake Lucerne. That road up there I think is actually called Airport Road. At least I think it was before the advent of the county putting in 911 services and renaming all the county roads to numbers. At any rate, that's at least 13 miles from my house and probably 15 from King's house.
King is part owner and on the BOD of the bank I use. Lots of people in town here use King's bank because, well, it's King's bank. People trust King, he's honest. You're hard pressed to find an honest banker and King is a rarity. Your other choices are John Cross and the BoES (every one in town knows how evil John Cross is),the FNB of BV is another choice and not all that many locals have accounts there because, well, it's the bank from Berryville and who wants your money helping out folk in the town next to you where you know they are laughing and making fun of us Eurekans on a daily basis? Then there's the BoGF (same problem as the FNBoBV) and finally Arvest, formerly known as First Eureka Springs Bank (owner and Chairman King Gladden) now owned by Walmart. Walmart's been running around NWA (and frankly SEM and NEO) buying up small independent banks and slowly losing the original names and changing them all to Arvest.
I still have an account in Arvest, simply because I have had one there so long. I can't bring myself to kill that account, opened that account there because of King Gladden, just like I opened my account at CFB because of him. Up until I bought this business, I had had all my home loans (and most of my loans) through Arvest, aka FESB. Now I just have a small loan there that I will be done with in a few years and I will never get another loan at Arvest unless I absolutely have to.
So Walmart has made a ton of money off me in ways I never wished for them to make money off me. Nothing I can do about it though. I am pretty much just stuck with them making money off me until that loan is done. Oh well.
Which brings me back to King Gladden, who I would much rather was making money off me than Arvest. I know where King lives, know his wife and kids, know him. I do not know Jim or Helen Walton. Do not know where their homes are, never really ever met them (sort of met Helen once at the Opera of the Ozarks). They are not hometown family, King is. They live in Bentonville, they're foreigners in our books. King cares about his community here in Eurekee, can the same be said about Jim? I think not.
Keep on trucking King.
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