A Sequence of Events - Timeline of Lance Miller: 1970

Friday, July 3, 1970

Carlisle Dragstrip

Grog at Carlisle Dragstrip. A regular I saw many times.

Note: there is very little on the web about Carlisle (Ark) Dragstrip. Sorry my recall lacks for a proper essay on the place. From the looks of it this may be the only online record of the place.

Carlisle Dragstrip was Central Arkansas's main or only official dragstrip. I'm not sure of its exact years of operation, but I know first hand it was open all through the 1960's and early 70's.

It was situated just outside of Carlisle Arkansas. It wasn't a full time raceway. It was actually an airport for the crop dusters that serviced the local farms. Only on weekends was it in use as a dragstrip. All the concession stands and other things needed for running a dragstrip were in portable trailers.

Even though it was not a full-fledged big deal dragstrip, it did feature every big name in drag racing at the time. I saw Don Garlits, Don Prudhomme and Tom McEwen "Snake and Mongoose" (movie: Snake and Mongoose), and I probably saw The Little Red Wagon a dozen times over the years. Don Garlits even gave me a spark plug used in his world famous dragster (its in a museum now) .

My dad, Tommy "T" Miller, raced his first few cars there. Yes, his cars he drove everyday. He didn't have average cars. He owned a series of GTO's with special edition motors (I believe with three four-barrel carburators) and purple paint.

My first visit to the dragstrip was after my dad's years racing there. It was maybe the summer of 1970, or 71 at the latest. My dad usually stood near the starting line. For me that was all fine...till the funny cars. For any who don't know, funny cars and dragsters are a breed above all other drag race cars. They burn a higher grade fuel, and have horsepower in the thousands. When their motor revs even a little bit, the earth shakes several hundred feet away.

So there I was, 9 years old and standing less than 30 feet away from two of these funny cars. I was dealing with it till the staging lights went green and they took off (they reach 60 miles per hour in one second). I panicked and ran from my dad back to our car. I never had bolted from either of my parents like that before, or since. My dad came looking for me and was totally understanding.

I know that sounds like drag racing wasn't going to be my thing...but the trauma of that first race didn't last. I loved drag racing after that, and stood at the starting line both at Carlisle and Memphis dragstrips.

A funny story about one Sunday at the Carlisle Dragstrip. It was my dad, Murray Draper (owner of The Gun Exchange), and me. We were in my dad's 1969 Pontiac Bonneville, which is pretty low riding long wheelbase car. My comment about low riding and long wheelbase is important in this story. My dad was a spendthrift....miser...cheap...anything to save a buck (and died with 60,000 in the bank and no debts). Him and Murray planned to get in the drag races for free, by taking backroads that eventually end at the back end of the drag strip near the pits.

These roads were dirt roads for farm tractors, they didn't have a single house or business on them, they were just paths between field crops for the farmers. The drag strip didn't manage these road entrances because no one without a giant farm tractor would drive down them.

One more thing to add to this story: a torrential rain storm had just waterlogged the region over the last week. Carlisle is situated in the southern delta, all flat land. Away from cities, in the delta farm country, rain has nowhere to go other than into the soil or sit as mud and giant puddles. When there's an especially long duration of rain, the soil is saturated, and then the delta becomes a mud bog.

When we got to Carlisle all was easy till my dad got the end of the blacktop and saw the backroads: they were nothing but mud. ....we went anyway.

Miles and miles of slowly trudging our big Pontiac through mud. Then we came to IT. It was a half mile stretch of water, under it somewhere was a muddy road, but all we could see was the surface of a huge pond of questionable shallow depth.

...we went anyway.

The story ends with us making it to the races without ever getting stuck. God only watches over Southerners, especially those not going to church and sneaking into drag races.

The last time I went to Carlisle Dragstrip had to have been no later than 1975. My dad got more interested in dirt track racing, and began going to the Benton Speedbowl on Interstate 30 south of Little Rock. The rest of his life he was a fanatic about dirt track and especially the World of Outlaws.

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The author of this blog also has two books available on Amazon. Athena Techne uses some of the autobiographical content of this blog and adds a philosophical perspective utilizing the ancient Greek god Athena.

Athena Techne :: Amazon.com Page

Autistic Crow Computer is a fiction set in Seattle, about an autistic boy and two crows. The book was written for young autistic readers, although reviews by non-autistics have been positive.

Autistic Crow Computer :: Amazon.com Page

Tuesday, June 30, 1970

The Summer of 1970. Listening to real rock with Jimmy Sullivant

In 1969 we moved from downtown Little Rock to the suburbs. Southwest Little Rock, in the Rosewood Apartments on Lancaster Road. Wakefield Elementary would be my school from second till sixth grade. We lived less than two blocks from the school.

Somehow early in 1970 I met Jimmy Sullivant. We were both nine years old, but was way different from most kids our age. All he was interested in was:

Starting a psychedelic rock band.
Find pot plants growing in the woods behind the Rosewood Apartments.
Find some local girls to get laid.

Jimmy pretty much stuck to this plan for oh..about 4 decades. He is still a professional rock guitarist.

That summer was crazy. Woodstock and the first landing on the Moon was just a year before. Southern culture was more on the wane than at anytime before or since. Flower power and space exploration had its spell cast on all culture in America. We were just two particular instances. We so wanted to be hippies. We wore our shirts un-buttoned, avoided sports, said hello by flashing the V peace sign and saying "hey man", talked about chicks, and listened to Inna-Gadda-Da-Vida...over and over and over. The long LP version.

Once, later that year, Jimmy got out a truly new kind of music: he played all of Paranoid by Black Sabbath. I admit, with embarrassment now, the music went way over my head. I didn't like it, I didn't understand it. Keep in mind I had okay music taste -I liked the Kinks, Beatles, Rolling Stones, and CCR. Paranoid was like from another planet though.

Friday, January 2, 1970

Downtown Little Rock was magical in 1960's

MacArther Park Main Building

From my birth in December 1961 till 1968 our family lived in downtown Little Rock. I was fortunate enough to have a mom who believed in walking as the ultimate exercise, so we were out in downtown Little Rock every day from the time I could barely walk.

Southern towns, large or small, before the era of suburban sprawl, were pretty much like New England towns with all the stores downtown, sidewalks with people actually on them, city parks, old trees and old houses. I recall in particular the Woolworth, JC Penney, and the Safeway on Main Street. Woolworths was the most sensuous, with its dark hardwood floors and soda fountain (served grilled hamburgers and hotdogs of course). I can still recall the reverb of those hardwood floors.

A special mention is reserved for a favorite store outside of downtown, still in the innercity, on Roosevelt Road and Schiller Street map. Its name was Percival's, it was a little neighborhood store, really old even in the early 1960's. It wasn't the typical low boxy shape of small stores, it had a high pointy roof. The owner was the person behind the counter, and he was always nice to me.

We always lived within blocks of the Governors Mansion and MacArther Park, the park was my regular playground till we moved.

All the stores mentioned are long gone, most closed in the early 70's. There was an earnest attempt to revitalize Main Street in the early 1980's by closing part of Main Street for a created a pedestrian mall. That failed, and later in the 90's the street was rebuilt. As of 2010's, Little Rock inner city has enjoyed a true rebound into vibrancy and livability.

Thursday, January 1, 1970

My Aunt Linda Sanders and a visit to Fayetteville Arkansas on an important historical date

I was born in the early 60's and really aware of all the changes going on in society. One big example that stood out was Linda having a job most would only consider for a man -a telephone tech. I believe she even climbed telephone poles in the job. That was very impressionable on me. I remember her when she was still a teen, but most of my earliest memories of her were as a newlywed to Michael, and they had a neat little rental house a few blocks from the Arkansas Governors Mansion.

A few years on they moved to Fayetteville. We went to visit them in the winter of 1969. I remember feeling like theirs was a charmed life -Fayetteville was nice and cold, in the mountains, they lived in an apartment complex that like most of the town back then, was full of college students. Linda had a Volkswagen Beetle, which I really liked.

Beyond the general coolness of their college lifestyle for me to be excited about, on my birthday (Dec 6th 1969) the Arkansas Razorbacks and Texas Longhorns played against each other in Fayetteville. That game went down in history as one of all college football's most important, often called The Game of the Century (wikipedia). I saw on TV that Richard Nixon was there, and less known at the time; Congressman George Bush and student Bill Clinton were there too.

We went to visit the site of a Civil War battle at Pea Ridge/Elkhorn Tavern on Sunday the 7th. I got a souvenir musket bullet, which I kept through many years and may still be at my parents.

All these details kind of add up to a story of how cool Linda was to me. She was a tomboy and liberated woman, by Arkansas standards in those years, and her and Michael were a couple focused on getting him through a Masters degree. All that was unique and inspirational in my eyes, just what a little boy needs to see.

(Originally posted as part of a family eulogy for Linda's obituary. A blog dedicated to the memory of Linda Faye King Sanders was created with photos and memories posted by her family are here: linda-faye-king-sanders.blogspot.com.)

Lance, Linda, Renee. Late 1960's

Linda and Martha (my aunt and mom) late 1960's

Linda with her daughter Michelle. Mid 1970's.

Collecting and cashing in soda bottles for a 1964 Chevrolet Chevelle

Timeline 1969-1977. My age: 7-16. Location: Little Rock Arkansas.

When I was 7 years old, with the aid and encouragement of my parents, I opened a savings account at Pulaski Federal Savings & Loan, a local bank in Little Rock Arkansas. My plan was to save up money to buy a car when I turned 16.

I had no allowance, but my dad encouraged me to go out make the money myself by picking up soda bottles and turning them in at the grocery store for money. I think the bottles were worth 5 cents on return, but I may be wrong on that, for some reason 3 cents is stuck in my head also.

I always took them to Bonner's Thriftway, at 5219 W 65th Street Little Rock, Arkansas 72209, which was just about adjacent to the Rosewood Apartments we lived at on Lancaster Road.

Typical case of Cokes, the wood frame case is how I transported the bottles.

I don't know how people did with litter in the rest of the US in those years, but in Arkansas people simply drank a soda and threw the bottle on the ground.

I don't mean occasionally. I mean everyone, everywhere, all the time.

The land was a goldmine of glass bottles, and I worked like a little gold miner everyday collecting them.

My dad was really supportive. He would take me to the Benton Speedbowl (dirt track sprint car racing oval track on Interstate 30 just north of Benton) during the day after a major race the night before, and I would gather all the bottles left under the bleachers. Those were the biggest payoff days.

I recall a lot about the savings account also. The account type was marketed to little kids. They had promoted it on the Bozo Show, which I admit got my attention. Years later I heard something about a scam on little kids perpetrated by Bozo himself and the bank. Nothing odd happened to the sum of my savings. Maybe Bozo was simply payed for his PR for the bank, which is pretty standard and I have no problem with.

I loved the savings account -the little coin holders one filled with nickels, dimes and quarters that managed your money into increments of dollars, and functioned as the deposit holder for going into the bank account. I loved going to the bank after hours and depositing in the envelope drop (no ATM, no electronic management at all).

Years would go by, and my little account grew into 20, 60, 100, 150 dollars. All with no allowance. Later I would wash cars to add to the sum.

Finally, in early 1978, just a little before my 17th birthday, my dad found a 1964 Chevrolet Chevelle. It had 62,000 miles on it, had been driven by one lady. It was in perfect mechanical condition, but rough interior and almost never washed. I bought it for $280. It was white and a two-door, automatic transmission with only two speeds, 283 cubic inch V-8, and an AM radio with a single speaker on the top of the dash.

When we brought it home we spent one evening on a massive cleaning project on the car. I recall even using kerosene on the body to remove all the old dirt and dead paint. Then we waxed it several times. Later we had the seats redone in red vinyl.

Coke bottles into awesome car, mission complete.

Head Start and First grade at Parham Elementary in Little Rock Arkansas

Parham Elementary, I still recall walking on those steps.

In 1967 I started school at Parham Elementary. It was the elementary school my dad attended.

President Johnson's welfare initiatives included Head Start, a program that provided "comprehensive education, health, nutrition, and parent involvement services to low-income children and their families". I was poor, so I was in Head Start on its second year of existence.

I remember doing a lot of art projects in Head Start, especially making a collage of a frog I thought was a real challenge, listening to a teacher play an upright piano, and one more thing. Head Start was a new welfare state instrument, and this was the 1960's. So who would be involved in such an affair? Radicals. I put all this together years later in my forties. I had one thing I remembered from those classes that never made sense till my adult mind connected the dots to radicals: the women wore no underwear. And they didn't wear make-up. My first year of school was in Radical-ville! (excerpt out of Athena Techne, Chapter 3 Straight Lines through Arkansas)

In 1968-9 was my first grade year at Parham. My teacher's name was Ms. Marshall. The South had just become desegregated within the last 10 years. The whole idea of blacks and whites in school was still hotly debated. Ms Marshall was black, and exuded more beauty, poise, classiness, and professionalism than anyone I had ever met. The school as a whole was neither predominantly white or black.

There were no tensions between races or feelings of tighter friendships for any race. I know it was just first grade, but I had actually experienced race tension a few years before in my great grandmother's neighborhood (Sunset Terrace gov projects) when blacks got out for a strong street presence after either the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or the Voting Rights Act of 1965. I distinctly remember the groups of blacks and they were not celebratory in demeanor, they wore scowls and I stayed indoors kind of scared.

...but first grade at Parham simply was nothing but good for me. No bullies, no mean people at all.

I don't usually retain memory of smells, but I recall the smells of the kitchen wafting into the playground in the morning before school. The school kitchen used an ancient butane stove. For decades after that I associated the butane with the very best in pancakes, because the single strongest memory of the school playground was smelling that stove and a teacher saying they were cooking pancakes.

Later that school year I got in trouble for the first time ever in school. We were watching a video, shown on reel-to-reel projected onto a white screen, and the lights were off. I was sitting between two girls. I started kissing both of them. It was one of the girl's idea, and...well...voila..manage au trois.

I didn't get in big trouble. Just scolded a little. One girl was white and the other black.

There was one stressful thing that happened at the school. Parham was at 15th St & Vance St and my home was at 1619 Broadway. My dad took me to and from school by car. One day I waited on the steps outside for over an hour. I waited for a long time then I cried. I remember an older boy saying to other kids something sympathetic about me. Then I remember my mom and dad driving up and my mom was so sorry. My mom didn't know how to drive, and had my 4 year old sister at home. It wasn't her fault.

Then, not long after that incident, my dad was really late picking me up at school. I decided to walk home. It was a one mile walk through inner city Little Rock. The first time it was...of course...a big deal in every way for a little kid. I walked two blocks down Vance Street, then turned right on East 17th Street, which I stayed on most of the way, then a right on Broadway at Mr and Ms Reeves house on the corner, and our house was the next one. When I was crossing 17th and Main I saw my dad blazing by with a worried look on his face...in the adult world I was missing. I can't recall what happened at home but I wasn't in trouble at all, my dad may have been. My dad convinced my mom I could obviously handle myself with the walk home. I think I said it was easy. From that point on my dad took me to school and I walked home. I liked the walk, I got to see all the old homes and big trees.

Alta dies. Six years old and thinking about death

When I was six years old, one morning I woke, walked to my mom and dad's bed and my dad said my grandmother (his mom), Alta, was dead. I had spent most weekends at her place since I was a baby. (I'll do a full entry about her and her husband Bill, she was divorced from my real grandfather....as a matter of fact both of my grandmothers were divorcees...by their own choice, a rarity in those times).
We went to the funeral, I think it was my first one.

Of course I learned about the words death and dying, like any child does on their first meaningful exposure to tragedy. What was atypical in my household was my mom's religion and my dad's void of religion. My mom was raised Christadelphian. They believe when non-Christadelphians die, they are as dead as a squirrel. Most of all human kind are not Christadelphians, so they teach a harsh worldview much like an Atheist. My dad was an atheist. So I didn't get any cutesy nicey words about Alta or any one else being in paradise.

Whatever and however I was taught about death, I do recall vividly what I believed: it was totally darkness and unconsciousness, forever. No need to put more profound fancy words on it -never thinking a single thought ever again for eternity sums it all up.

I remember walking around my home at 1619 Broadway and thinking about this a lot. It shaped me for the rest of my life.

Of late I've returned to the subject in my inner thoughts, since my son was born. I still believe what I believed at six years old. All I've added since six is a belief in the value of the information we leave behind, which is totally why I've written a few books and this blog. Some of what we are is this organic glom of heat, action...dynamism. That's analog and largely is lost with the loss of life.

Another perspective is for a person to be represented by a profile of interests, jobs, schools attended, places visited, spouses, children, dance clubs visited, cars owned, etc etc etc. For rock stars like John Lennon we regularly refer to him by listing some part of of his discography...once again a profile. I want to leave behind my profile, I want it easily accessed on the web, archived forever. This isn't hubris, I think every one is just as special, the world would be more intelligent and enriched with honest records of regular people for posterity.

Alta and Bill...and Dorothy.

Site of Alta and Bill's home. 1005 East 8th St Little Rock AR

Alta was my paternal grandmother. She was divorced from my paternal grandfather "Buddy" Miller. She was remarried to a truck driver by the name of Bill.

They had a little house with an ornate goldfish pond in the front yard that had an island made of plastic that lit up at night. Their backyard had a sandbox.

Just this moment I realized after all these years the sandbox was likely built by Bill. He was a true man in the old stereotypical sense -truck driver, good with making things, played acoustic guitar and liked fishing.

Alta was good to me, let me emphasize that. I don't recall even one hurt feeling due to her or Bill. My mom says she spent a lot of time teaching me concepts with lessons and games.

I emphasize she was good to me because I have say what her, and her sister Dorothy, were...raging alcoholics. Not the get into fights and accidents kind, they didn't drive or get out much, they just drank like crazy and passed out early in the day.

They were both dead before I was seven.

Once I still remember talking to Alta and her gums started bleeding profusely. What her drinking meant to my welfare were long hours left alone in her home. I recall some of that.

One instance of being alone while she was passed out was a little surreal. Her and my great-grandmother were Southern Baptists. They believed in the Devil. Alta, while drinking, had ranted on about the Devil. Then she passed out. I was left with my four year old imagination. I thought the Devil was going to get me. They had taught me to call 0 to speak to an Operator if any emergency ever happened. I did, I dialed 0, the operator picked up with a "Can I help you?" and I said the Devil was on the sidewalk and walking onto our porch to come in and get me. The police came, discovered me there scared and my grandmother passed out.

Alta made the best damn scrambled eggs on planet Earth. A lot of black pepper, some other stuff, and a dash of whole milk. They bought me Quisp (cereal), and the coolest toy that I still to this day look for...a metal floating battleship that I floated in my baths when staying there. I spent hours in that sandbox, and in that big backyard. There was a lot they did for me that meant a lot to me.

In a typical movie script Bill, the in-law manly truck driver, should be a mean guy. No, Bill did nothing but good for me, and two of the most precious things for me in my pre-eight year old life. One thing he did was build me a crane that rode on wheels. I still remember it vividly. It used a fishing reel, had a crane boom, the end of the cable had a common wall-mount clothes hook. It rode on a wood board fixed to a wagon. I loved it, but only equal to the other big thing he did.

He took me to Lake Conway to fish...in a fishing boat! I put the exclamation point there and realized how mundane to the world that is...fishing in a fishing boat. Well, to me at four or five it was as big as wonderful gets. I remember being in the boat. I remember his smiling face in the boat. I remember the lakeside cabin. For my little self years that day was winning the lottery.

I also liked going with Bill to liquor stores. We mostly went to the one at the corner of Rock Street and 9th Street, the one built with a diagonal slant for easy drive though. The old dudes working there liked me. There was chewing gum for sale right on front of the cash register, and I loved the Beechnut Fruit Stripe (five fruit flavors in each stick) gum.

What I found so primordially precious about those experiences with Bill taught me something about what North might be thirsting for from me. I've tried to do it with an intensity and frequency ten thousand times more than what I got.

And I can see in North's eyes and expression when and what means a lot to him.

Dorothy was Alta's sister. She lived with my great-grandmother. I have little memory of her, and I'm sorry to her for that. She lived in a room I would later sleep in. She stayed there a lot. She drank like crazy. She was never really around.

Dorothy, I love you. You took me on a really special adventure one night, maybe the only day or night you were sober in your last years. You took me for my first visit to a state fair, and it was more magical because our house was on the street that ends at the Arkansas State Fairgrounds. We walked there at dusk, perfect because all the lights on the rides and attractions were beginning to show. It was a beautiful walk, a few blocks for a four year old is a big chunk of space. I still remember the sky and the things like ferris wheel and roller coaster lit up as we walked there.

Then when we got there we went in the Hall of Industry and they had Batman's boat and motorcycle! That was the biggest deal to me for that whole year, and I actually thought about it my whole childhood. Then back outside I still remember big intimidating images like the Wax Museum and a creepy graphic of President Kennedy, who I knew had been shot a few years before.

I never realized that day might have been your last best day Dorothy, that you might have liked it more than I ever could. I love you and glad I was the person you chose to muster your last day living and being happy.

1964 or 65. First favorite song: The Kinks All Day and All of the Night

As a toddler one song came into my world with a strength so strong I credit it especially with taking an interest in music. The song was All Day and All of the Night by the Kinks.

I was 3 years old, and I remember sitting at the dinner table trying voice the chord progression of the song. I was more focused on the rhythm of the chords than the musical note values. I was singing "A fork, a fork, a fork fork fork fork". My sister Renee was sitting on the opposite side of the table, she was maybe 6 months old (definitely less than a year old). We lived in tiny house in an alley between Scott Street and Cumberland Street in downtown Little Rock Arkansas. We had a little record player and a radio. We had the vinyl single of the song, I even recall the record jacket.

First memory: The Bath Peeing Incident. Summer of 1962

1957 W 29th St. Little Rock Arkansas

My earliest memory is being bathed at my great grandmothers house at 1957 W 29th Street in Little Rock Arkansas map. My mom, great grandmother, and Aunt Linda were there. They were bathing me in the kitchen sink. I remember someone saying "Watch out, he might pee." When I heard that it gave me the idea to pee, just to mess with them. I did. I was in the sink, my tool aimed up, at them but more to the ceiling, and I let it go. Linda and my mom were nearest all the action, and they were surprised and laughing as it all happened. This was the summer of 62.

My mom was 20, Linda was a teenager, and my great grandmother was in her early 70's.