OPINION

REX NELSON: Bathing with Barclay

In the Arkansas Legislature, it has long been a fact of life that those who know the least tend to speak the most.

Dick Barclay was one of the quiet ones. He was also among the smartest people I've ever known when it came to state government. Barclay, who died Jan. 4 in Rogers at age 81, wasn't a native Arkansan. He graduated from high school in Topeka, Kan., and finished college at Kansas State University. When he married his wife Jan in 1960, Barclay decided that the Arkansas Ozarks would be a good place for a honeymoon. He fell in love with the state and soon set up an accounting practice with his brother Chuck in Rogers.

Barclay, a moderate Republican in the old Kansas GOP mold of Alf Landon and Bob Dole, was elected to the Arkansas House of Representatives in 1976. He served in the Legislature (always in the minority) until 1992, when he decided to run for Congress following the retirement of Republican John Paul Hammerschmidt in the 3rd District. Barclay's form of business-friendly Republicanism was no match for the growing band of socially conservative evangelicals in northwest Arkansas, and he fell to Tim Hutchinson in the GOP primary. Hutchinson went on to edge Democrat John VanWinkle in the fall.

Gov. Jim Guy Tucker announced on May 28, 1996--following his conviction on felony charges in federal court--that he would resign by July 15. Lt. Gov. Mike Huckabee, who was campaigning for the U.S. Senate, abandoned a race he most likely would have won in order to serve the rest of Tucker's gubernatorial term that ran through 1998. Huckabee, who was just 40 at the time, set out to put together an experienced staff of advisers. Barclay was asked to serve as budget director in the governor's office. I left my job as political editor of this newspaper to serve as Huckabee's policy and communications director.

During those early months, the six of us who served on what was known as the executive team would meet with Huckabee five mornings a week at 7 a.m. at the Governor's Mansion. We would have breakfast and plot the day ahead. I was the youngest member of the executive team at age 36 and figured out I could learn a lot from Barclay. We quickly became friends.

"Dick was an honorable man who was a joy to work with," Huckabee said. "He was professional and excelled in his job. He was also loyal and operated with total integrity."

In the fall of 1997, Barclay and I accompanied Huckabee to the annual meeting of the Southern Governors Association at the swanky Homestead resort in the mountains of southwest Virginia. There was an afternoon set aside for recreational activities. Barclay and I cared nothing about competing in golf or tennis tournaments. We were, however, interested in history and signed up for a trip to the Jefferson Pools. Those natural springs near Warm Springs, Va., were visited by Thomas Jefferson in 1819. Jefferson spent three weeks bathing there and described the waters in a letter to his daughter Martha as being of the "first merit."

What's known as the Gentlemen's Pool House is the oldest spa structure in the country. An octagonal wood building was constructed there in 1761. The men's spa holds 40,000 gallons of constantly flowing water at 98 degrees. The Ladies' Pool House was built in 1836. The last significant improvements took place in the 1870s.

Barclay and I were the only two people who signed up for the outing. A Homestead employee driving a hotel van took us to the Jefferson Pools for what we thought would be a tour filled with tidbits about the history of the place. When the driver dropped us off, he said he was going back to the hotel and would return in a couple of hours.

Barclay and I walked into the Gentlemen's Pool House where there was one attendant and no customers. The attendant appeared to be in his 80s and was napping. We got his attention and told him we were the only two who had signed up for the tour. He didn't say anything.

Finally, I asked: "What now?"

He replied: "You take off all of your clothes and jump in."

Barclay and I, being modest, looked at each other and considered our next move. We had two hours to kill. So we stripped down and skinny-dipped in the pool that Jefferson had made famous in 1819. It was only later that we learned that it had long been common to bathe naked there. We would laugh years later when remembering that afternoon.

A footnote: Bath County officials ordered the pools, which are owned by the Homestead, closed in October 2017. They're considered a safety hazard due to the buildings' condition. A story last year in the Roanoke newspaper noted: "The letter was brief--only four paragraphs. It said the structural joists and framing of the historic buildings were rotting and the concrete holding the foundations had deteriorated. Soon, the doors were locked and access to the property chained off. ... The two bathhouses ... underwent only minimal repairs over the years to maintain their historic simplicity."

Another session of the scandal-plagued Arkansas Legislature began this week. The Legislature once was filled with people like Barclay--successful professionals who would take a couple of months off every other year to serve their state. Now, much of that body is made up of men and women for whom the legislative salary represents the bulk of their income. It's why we see so many useless interim committee meetings--they're living off per diems.

Perhaps Arkansas voters will return to their senses one of these days and resume electing people like Dick Barclay.

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Senior Editor Rex Nelson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. He's also the author of the Southern Fried blog at rexnelsonsouthernfried.com.

Editorial on 01/19/2019

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