A lifelong resident of southern California, with her four children, six grandchildren and 90-year-old mother all close by, Valerie Katz was not planning on moving. But then Eric Estrada invited her to visit Bella Vista.
She fell in love with the area and surprised herself, as well as her family, by agreeing to marry her longtime boyfriend and move to Bella Vista to retire. That was 11 years ago.
She found a home she loved, partly because of its two-sided fireplace and the deck that is surrounded by so many trees. it felt like being in a tree house, she said.
As soon as they were settled in, Katz went to the library to email her family with her first "News from Arkansas." Extended family and friends asked to be added to her email list and soon "News from Arkansas" became a regular occurrence. More than one of her email friends encouraged her to collect all the emails into a book. The book, "The News from Arkansas: Sense of Humor Required," is now available.
"I've always been one of those people who things just happen to," Katz said. For example, she and her granddaughters were once locked into the Gentry Drive Thru Safari. They stopped to watch a deer giving birth and lost track of the time. Luckily, her granddaughter found a phone number on his ticket and was able to call for help.
"This is what traveling with Grandma is all about," she told them.
She reported some of the differences between Arkansas and California. When their GPS failed them on their first trip to Mustang Alley in Missouri, a sheriff's deputy pulled them over for an illegal U-turn; but he knew they were lost and, rather than writing a ticket, the deputy gave them directions to their destination.
"I put out our solar lights today. Arkansas is full of rocks," one entry begins. Some of her neighbors came over to help. She adds that she needed the lights to find her way home after dark since there are no street lights. "After dark means really dark."
The emails also contained bad news. When her husband was diagnosed with cancer and needed a port for chemotherapy, the nurses asked if he was right handed or left handed. Katz said she was surprised since the port was going to be on his chest, but they explained that they needed to know which hand he used when shooting his gun because the kickback could damage the port.
The photo on the back of the book shows Katz with a swollen face and serious cut above her lip. It happened, she said, when she was traveling with her sister in her motor home. People passing were waving and honking until they realized something was wrong and stopped. Katz got out and tripped over one of the rods that should have been holding the car they towed in place.
After being stranded for a few days in the January 2009 ice storm, Katz treated her readers to a description of the golf courses.
"The golf courses are beautiful. Bring your clubs -- we have lots of tall tees. We'll bring a hammer and nail to make a hole for them. When the ball hits the fairway and encounters ice, you can imagine how far it will go! Don't worry about water hazards. They also have an ice cover and your ball will just scoot across. Putting, on the other hand, may be problematic. The putts fly at warp speed and the holes are filled with a flag in a cube of ice."
"People are nicer here in Arkansas," she said. In California, she lived in the same house for years but didn't know her neighbors. In Arkansas, as soon as they moved in, the neighbors were dropping by with cookies and cakes.
Even when her emails dealt with serious issues, like the long illness and death of her husband, Katz looked for ways to include an uplifting message.
The emails cover the years between 2008 and early 2017 and end on a positive note, "My magnolia tree and I have grown, and our roots seem to be well established. This is home."
Her book is available on Amazon.com.
General News on 05/01/2019