Notes from the Hollow

Thursday evening, happenstance allowed me to browse a few, short minutes in the Dickson Street Bookshop in Fayetteville, Arkansas. What a wonderful used bookstore. Though my intention is to write a bit about Virginia Tyler, I can’t allow this opportunity to get by without enthusiastically endorsing the Dickson Street Bookshop, which I’ll do with someone else’s words, since mine would be feeble in comparison. This is from www.abebooks.com:

David and Susan Siegel, in The Used Book Lover's Guide to the Central States puts it this way, "The Dickson Street Bookshop...is truly a fabulous establishment with books in scholarly and technical areas as well as popular culture categorized in sub categories of sub categories. This is one of those establishments where you could spend hours if only your partner weren't reminding you about other obligations."

Wheeler Printing published two anthologies of the columns Virginia Tyler wrote for the Eureka Springs Times-Echo newspaper and I’d been keeping an eye out. I found Around Town, Book II, which I greedily clutched until it was safely locked in the car. Dickson Street Bookshop has what has to be the finest section of books on Arkansas and the Ozarks anywhere on earth (bold words, I know).

I’m told Virginia Tyler died several years ago, though I’ve yet to figure out which year. I was aware of her name since childhood since it was in the weekly Eureka newspaper the mail delivered and I heard her occasionally mentioned in stories my whole life. Everyone seemed to know her, though I have no recollection of ever meeting her or even seeing her.

People remember her wit and kindness, but they especially remember her love and knowledge of all things Eureka Springs. As I got older, I also heard some unexpected stories about Virginia Tyler, though usually the stories were just hinted at (sometimes in a whispered voice and sometimes with a smile).

One day I asked a native old-timer who knew her, “Are the stories about Virginia Tyler true?”

He said, “All of them.”

That didn’t clarify matters much, but I decided it really wasn’t my business anyway. I just wanted to find and read her books. Then I stumbled upon a concise summation of the alleged stories in lurid detail. I wish I’d not seen it, I know it wasn’t meant kindly.

Now the rumors seem beside the point. A deceased lady known for her kindness, writing, and love of Eureka Springs and the Ozarks - I can’t help but feel like I should be on her team.

I’m only partway through the book, but am really enjoying it. The tone of the writing is both eager and earnest, like she couldn’t wait to get it written down. She’ll mention things like the funny incident where she was walking to the New Orleans Hotel to meet the Alpine Hiking Club or the Ukulele Club in the lobby when she met so-and-so from a little town in Minnesota on Center Street and they said this and that and they drove an old Ford with bald tires and she’d tell them the story about the old lady that rode her Jersey Cow down Spring Street because she had a smart, little dog named Nipper that had been brought to town by old Doc Miller and when old Doc Miller died he bequeathed Nipper to the old lady because she always laughed when little Nipper chased his tail or recited Latin or something And, of course, the funny part of the story was that old Doc Miller had retired from a small town near where the tourist couple lived in Minnesota, and they’d actually heard of the old doctor because he had once treated their gardener’s sister for the gout. And Virginia Tyler regretted that she’d only had a few minutes to talk to the couple because she was running late for the club meeting and it was her turn to put out the snacks. I’m exaggerating, of course, but her columns are amazing.

Hope I can find the other volume on my next trip to Fayetteville and I hope that the silly rumors that still circulate don’t discourage people from seeking out Miss Tyler’s old columns to read. And I hope that when the columns are read and enjoyed that the readers can’t help but have the same fondness I feel for Virginia Tyler.