An Open Letter to Marcia Lynn Jones

I don't usually post very personal things here, but this was actually very therapeutic to write.  This is an open letter to Marcia Lynn Jones, who is currently sitting in the Pulaski County Jail. I don’t know if she’ll ever read it, but I’m going to put this out for her, or for her friends and family to maybe see one day.

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Marcia,
We’ve never officially met. You may recognize me as one of the people sitting in the courtroom during your several recent court appearances. Of course, I know you as the drunk driver that killed my Aunt.

I’ll refresh your memory for that night, since the details might be a bit fuzzy for you. On December 30, 2015, my Aunt, Juanita Power, was driving east on I-40 towards Memphis to spend New Years with her best friend. You were out at some party, apparently, and had gotten spectacularly and devastatingly intoxicated. With a blood alcohol level three times the legal limit, it’s amazing that you could even walk, let alone drive a car. But you did, somehow ending up driving the wrong way down the freeway.

Looking back, that night was so mundane, as if we were living in a much more naïve and simple time. Before the wreck, my wife and I had spent the evening watching Kindergarten Cop, of all things. Later that night I was in the kitchen loading the dishwasher, and didn’t hear my cellphone ring in the other room. I would find it and see two missed calls. It was the State Police trying to contact me.

I don’t know if you’ve been lucky enough to escape having to receive a phone call like this. If you’ve ever had to listen as a loved one breaks the news to you that something horrific and tragic has just happened. Have you ever had the misfortune to be the unlucky messenger that then has to pass that news along to other people? Have you ever had to tell anyone that their sister was just killed? That their Aunt was now gone? It’s an impossibly difficult thing to do. The anguish that I heard that night will haunt me forever.

I’ve tried to imagine all sorts of little things that could have changed that night to help prevent what happened. What if Nita had stopped to get gas before getting on the freeway? What if she made a stop to get a snack, or visit with us in Little Rock? I’ve imagined all sorts of things that could possibly have happened to put her out of harm’s way. The most obvious would be if you never got behind the wheel of a car that night. If you had called a cab, or gotten a ride, then my Aunt would be alive today. She would have continued living her life. She would have seen our baby be born a few months later, she would have been here at Christmas and Thanksgiving.

I’ve read recently that grief is something that a person can never just simply get over, it’s something that just has to be endured. We are trying to live our lives but there is a deep wound that will never heal, a scar that has afflicted an entire family. I’ve lost countless hours of sleep this year. When I can’t sleep, my mind replays the events of that night on an endless loop. This year has been so hard, so frustratingly and confusingly difficult. But I hope that when you try to get to sleep, that part of you is troubled by this as well. I do truly hope that you have realized how much pain you have caused. That maybe there is a part of you that is haunted by the same regret and sadness that has settled over my family like an oppressive weight.

When we see each other again, at the court hearing in February, I hope you might be able to look us in the eye and apologize for your actions. Nothing can bring back Aunt Nita now, but I hope that you have since realized what you have done. And if anyone else is reading this, I hope that you can realize how tragic drinking and driving can be. Please don’t expose anyone else to this unfairness and sadness. This was such a senseless and preventable tragedy. Be safe out there, and think of the ways that one mistake can have devastating consequences.

****

We celebrated Christmas with Nita just a few days before she was killed, but even though I brought my camera we didn't take any family pictures. I really regret that, but at the time I forgot to get the camera out. I have been looking back at all my old pictures, and I think this is one of my favorite pictures of her. It was taken in 2008, during a visit to Hawksbill Crag. I love her smile here. I really wish I could see that smile again.

Big Dam Bridge

My In-laws were kind enough to give me a new tripod for Christmas, so I was excited to head out the other night to try it out.  I went out to the Big Dam Bridge, the nearly mile long pedestrian bridge over the Arkansas River that just celebrated its tenth birthday in September.



It had been raining all day, and a little bit of fog was drifting along the river. I tried to maneuver the tripod legs around (probably should read the instructions sometime), to get this shot of a puddle that formed in the pavement. Luckily I was able to get a few shots there without managing to drop the camera and new tripod into the river.

White County

While we were in Searcy over the weekend for Christmas with my In-Laws, Jonah got a little fussy and refused to go take a nap. So I used the classic last resort of driving him around for a bit until he fell asleep. While driving the back roads of White County, I passed by this old truck rusting away next to some tall trees. I quickly took a picture while the baby snoozed away in the backseat.

Downtown

I headed out after work to try to get a few pictures in downtown Little Rock.  It was cloudy, with an occasional raindrop falling down and trying to land on the lens.  My first stop was the State Capitol, which had just had the holiday lights switched on.  It's a pretty light display, although I do miss the days when the lights on the dome spun around (the "Disco Dome").



After that I made a quick visit to the Junction Bridge. Here's one last shot, taken with the fisheye lens that I had borrowed for the visit to the old Saenger Theater.

Saenger Theater

I was lucky to be given another opportunity to go inside the old Saenger Theater in Pine Bluff, this time with a friend and fellow photographer Bryce. The Saenger is an amazing place, a once grand and ornate theater that has sadly been left abandoned for several years.



The theater was built in 1924 and was dubbed the "Showplace of the South" But the years of abandonment have taken their toll on the building. Water pours through holes in the roof every time it rains. The ornate crown molding is cracked, the plaster is peeling off in chunks, and the orchestra pit is flooded with murky water.

The damage to the building is most evident when viewed from the stage, which at one time saw performances from the likes of Judy Garland, Will Rogers and Harry Houdini. From here you can see the plaster wall that has collapsed onto the horseshoe shaped balcony, and the holes that poke through the ceiling above.



The Saenger brothers built 300 theaters across the country, of which only about 100 remain. Two other Saenger Theaters were built in Arkansas, in Hope and in Helena. But both of those theaters were torn down and lost decades ago.







The Saenger was used as a traditional theater until the 1960s, when it was converted into a movie theater. But competition from new movie theaters took a bite out of the Saenger's business. So in 1975, the theater closed. It had a short second life in the 1990s, when it was used for a few years by the Pine Bluff Film Festival. But when that ended, the theater was permanently closed.



The architecture of the Saenger is also a sad indicator of the era in which it was built. A side staircase bypasses the lobby and heads to the top of the balcony, which was used by African Americans who were forced to sit there during the days of segregation.



The view of the stage from the balcony:





And the seats at the very top of the balcony, which are maybe the original seats? They certainly look old enough to date to the 1920s.









At the very top of the balcony is a narrow series of rooms, which included a tiny bathroom and the old movie projectors.







We headed back downstairs and went behind the stage. The theater was hard to take pictures in because the only light was coming through the few windows that weren't boarded up. As it got later in the day, it continued to grow darker inside the building.



It was starting to get dark, and the streetlights outside began to cast an orange light through the windows on the second floor.



The Saengler was nearly torn down in 2011. It was spared the wrecking ball and the city of Pine Bluff purchased the building. Since then, the building has sat empty and continues to deteriorate. The Saengler is one of many abandoned buildings that haunt the streets of Pine Bluff. It would be a shame for it to join the fate of the buildings there that recently collapsed into piles of rubble.  There aren't very many theaters like this left in the state, and if it is torn down than we lose a part of our state's history.  It won't be easy, and it won't be cheap, but the Saengler needs to be preserved.  Until then the Saengler sits, like the Hotel Pines a few blocks away, as a ghost awaiting its fate.