It’s Saturday night and the band is tuning up on stage. People are positioning their lawn chairs on the street to the west of the courthouse, a street blocked off every Saturday night in the summer. A tent is set at the back of the makeshift venue, selling funnel cakes and fried Oreos. Kids are playing tag on the courthouse lawn, careful not to knock over the vegetable stand near the sidewalk. The sky is clear, and thankfully, the humidity took the night off which is a tonic all its own.
This is Yellville, Arkansas, and each Saturday night between Memorial Day (late May) and Labor Day (early September), its 1200 residents host Music on the Square. Local bands take the stage in the converted work trailer with the side cut out, and townspeople gather on Mill Street, between Old Main Street and Highway 62. Some folks bring chairs while others sit along the half-wall surrounding the courthouse grounds. Everyone consciously leaves room for a dance floor near the stage.
I usually take my seat near the back of the venue, where I perch on the rock wall near the corner of Mill and Old Main. The spot gives me a view of the entire crowd while still close enough to smell the intoxicating fragrance of funnel cakes lifted straight from the oil.
Except for the presence of electricity and cell phones, it could easily be a scene repeated from 100 years ago. Townspeople gather at the end of a work week to enjoy some music, visit with neighbors, and if they feel a twitch, dance a little. In the crowd, I see familiar faces. The grandmother watching her grandchildren play on the lawn. The retired couple who hold hands while entering the venue and always take to the dance floor. The young family with a child on the father’s shoulders. It is rural America at its finest.
I only started attending this weekly event this summer, having only learned of it two summers ago even though it has been an ongoing tradition for almost 20 years. The 30-minute drive from my home winds through the green hills of the Ozark Mountains, a place that most Americans do not know exists. The two-lane highway bends and curves around hills that were once home to risk-taking homesteaders who entered these lands 200 years ago to stake a claim on a little patch of dirt to call their own. The land is unforgiving, too rocky to plow but remote enough to have a sense of autonomy. The settlers who first moved here were tough not only because they had to be but because that’s who they were instinctively.
The crowd tonight is friendly, as it always is, and strangers stop to speak to me as we all gather for one singular purpose: community. There are no debates here, no pundits or protests, no ‘us’ or ‘them.’ It is a return to simpler times, when a child’s laughter was heard on the same summer breeze that carried the smell of good cooking. On this night, with the clear sky and hometown music, all our differences are set aside so we can focus on what we have in common. A more effective tonic for our woes I have not found.
Rita Herrmann lives in the Ozark Mountains with her two dogs and Netflix subscription. A lifelong writer, she’s learned to draw deep thoughts from the simplest of observations. Through her work on She Wears Red Shoes, she inspires others to be the best version of themselves, even though she often eats too much chocolate. A good road trip with a great playlist is how she rolls. Her core beliefs include dancing spontaneously, singing randomly, laughing often, living simply, and learning to forgive.
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