The closing of this man's presidency closes an eventful chapter in my life, as well.I was a teenager, still in high school and fascinated by politics, when Clinton began his improbable run for the presidency. The kind of Southern closed-door, good-ol'-boy politics that we had always taken for granted was suddenly shown to the press (and through them, the world). They came, with their insulting questions and stifled laughter at our mannerisms and speech patterns. ("Now, tell us please, is it y'all or ya'll that your kind use down here instead of proper English?")

Were we ignorant? Probably.
Were we made laughingstocks? Yes.

But as the months wore on the and the campaigns got dirtier, something improbable, even to us, was growing: Bill Clinton's lead.

It culminated on a school night, a Tuesday night of course. We didn't talk about it in class, but my father and I certainly talked about it at home.

My childhood home was a politically schizoid one. My twin love and distaste of politics comes from my family; my grandfather served as mayor for our small town for many years. My mother, as his oldest child, bore the brunt of much of the small-town Southern politicking that resulted—people commented on even the littlest things, like why she attended the tiny Methodist church, but allowed her oldest daughter to attend the Vacation Bible School at the Baptist church in summers.

(Answer: because my sister wanted to attend VBS with her friends. But not that the reason was anyone's business.)

It should come as no surprise that my mother, as far as I can tell, hates politics of any kind, shape, or form. I say "as far as I can tell," because she will not discuss it, ever. If asked her opinion or how she voted, she will answer simply, haughtily, "My vote is private"—with the over-the-glasses schoolteacher look she's had years to perfect that says, "and that's all you're going to find out, too."

But I am my father's child, and in some ways, my grandfather's.

My grandfather understood the way of small-town politicking; my father loved politics for the process and the argument. My grandfather understood that winning votes and long-time arguments sometimes meant you had to do a favor for someone else to earn gratitude, respect, and a payback. Sometimes a loaned part for a stalling tractor, or an extra pair of hands on a house repair (or hay-baling) worked just as well. It wasn't to curry favor. It was simply what you did, and people would repay you in kind.

My father, on the other hand, loved to argue about strategies and campaign themes and the minutiae of local and national election procedures. I cannot be sure, but I must think it was he who answered my first questions about national elections and sparked my interest in them. For every election, there was always at least one spirited discussion between the two of us.

My memories of the 1992 election are, strangely, flatter and less vivid than they should be. I remember no comments from my grandfather, and little but amazement from my father that our loony governor would be so, well, loony as to attempt to win the presidency.

But oh, then there was Election Day. When I came home from school, I left my books in my bedroom and pasted my eyes to the television. (Unusual for me, as I rarely watch much television and did not watch much as a teenager.) What we saw was incredible. Mind-boggling.

Clinton was winning.

He was us. Not 'one of us.' That implied a separation, and a symbolism. As the campaign had worn on, and the half-spoken, half-insinuated comments about Arkansas had mounted in the press, Clinton was no longer just a man from our state, our flawed but charismatic governor (love him or hate him), running for president…he was us. He was our way of thumbing our noses at a nation that thought they were too good to acknowledge a state full of barefoot uneducated rednecks—and making them vote for us because what we offered was better than anything they could offer.

Around five p.m., my father turned to my mother and said, "I want to take Amy to Little Rock."

This made her angry. "She has school tomorrow, and every drunken idiot within five hundred miles is going to converge on downtown Little Rock. I do not want her there."

For once, my father was unruffled—and determined.

"I don't care. You and I never got the chance to see anything like this when we were growing up. What are the chances that this will happen again? She can sleep on the way home, but she should not miss this."

I wasn't stupid. While I thought it would be interesting to go, I knew that, truth be told, my father was trying to take me to Little Rock so that he could go. It had not occurred to me to ask to go to Little Rock to see the spontaneous party that was orchestrating itself in the downtown area, but once presented with the opportunity, I did not want to give it up.

I waited. My mother did not relent.
We went anyway—my father, myself, and two family friends—over my mother's sternest objections.

Little Rock was full to the rafters. We found a parking lot close to where shuttle buses were circling to take curious onlookers to downtown (to help prevent a massive traffic crunch later). We watched in amazement with thousands of other people as Clinton was first predicted, and then declared, the winner of the election. We watched him stand on a platform in front of the Old State House—a place we had all been many times—and do the improbable—give a celebratory speech. We went home late—tired, celebratory, with a sense of history, shocked…triumphant.

They had laughed at us, but we had won anyway.

Years passed. My grandfather died as the campaign to the 1996 election geared up. That year, as a college student, I said words not unlike my father's, to my friends—"If you don't go, you'll never get the chance to see anything like this again."

We drove my car to Little Rock, and parked in the same area, except this time we walked, instead of taking shuttle buses. The tone for this party was different; angrier, more sullen. There were metal detectors and pat-down searches this time. As we stood in line to get through the metal detectors, we saw the networks declare Clinton the winner of the election.

The people doing the pat-down searches neither smiled nor stopped to celebrate. This time, it was business. The crowd was larger, pushier; many of them were drunk. We saw Clinton's speech; during it, one of my friends finally remembered to tell us she was claustrophobic—right before she had a panic attack.

We got her out of the crowds and into the car. We drove back to the dorms, marveling at what we'd seen. They were all amazed that my parents had seen fit to take a teenager to such an event four years ago.

Four years ago, I explained, it had been different. More innocence, more celebration. Less resentment of the national spotlight on us. Four years of press, questions, and metal detectors had changed it from the first celebration of a surprise victory to something harder-edged, defensive, and less … celebratory.

This past election night, I sat with my husband and some friends in my living room. I cooked dinner for them. It was Kat's 21st birthday, so we had drinks for her. I felt so strange, being away from Arkansas, not in Little Rock. Being indoors, not braving the cold to stand outside the Old State House with thousands of people who talked like me.

It somehow felt less momentous, less immediate, less real. Here, again, were puppets on a national stage that had little to do with Arkansas and with the people I had grown up amongst. In the eight years that had passed, we had grown accustomed to the harsh light of the national press; its criticism, its well-bred condescension.

Its absence was welcome, but a little saddening. Those with that particular southern/midwestern accent blend of Arkansas were getting ready to go on with life—a little wiser, a little sick of getting asked, "Do you know him?"—with the unspoken shared knowledge of who "him" was.

But my father was right—we will never see anything like that again. I've occasionally even gotten the hint that my mother regretted not going with us back in 1992. She dimly understands what many of us now know so well—it's not the same when you watch it from a television screen.

My previous entry about this will eventually scroll. For when that happens, here are three pictures:

Let me tell you what it was like to grow up in this place: Bauxite, currently population ~400. So named for the bauxite ore that was available in the area. It became a boom town in World War II. Bauxite, you may remember, is the ore from which aluminum is made—aluminum that was made into lightweight planes that helped win that war.

Miners were brought in and the economy swelled. Bauxite became a city that rivaled neighboring Benton—it had a movie theatre, a hospital, an enormous community center, and shops and businesses.

After World War II, the demand for aluminum continued. By this time, both Alcoa and Reynolds were firmly entrenched, scraping the bauxite ore out of the ground as fast as they could find it. Reynolds provided company housing to employees—simple, square white houses with a particular distinctive look that can still be identified today.

Then, in the 1960s, the ore began to run out. This was not an instantaneous process, but a slow death. First, the high-quality ore became scarce and then unavailable. Then the companies moved to refining lower-quality ore, until there was basically nothing left to mine. The yellow, porous heart of the town was gone, and operations shifted toward the refining of ore brought in from other places.

Bauxite then began its eeriest period—it melted back into the forest it had come from. The hospital that my mother was born in was torn down. As was the movie theatre. As was virtually everything else except the high school, the post office, and the community center.

The trees crept quietly back over what had been a bustling town. Many of the thousands of people who lived there began to move away. Those who stayed took it for granted that in the middle of the woods, you would sometimes encounter sidewalks that ran from nowhere to nowhere.

Reynolds shut down operations at the plant, and Alcoa began to lay off employees. As Little Rock and Benton continued to grow, the jobless were absorbed.

The ones who stayed with Bauxite were the ones with family and historical ties. As evidenced by the attendance at any football game, they were proud of this history—proud to have attended the same high school as their parents and grandparents, and they fully intended for their children and grandchildren to attend there as well.

Attendance at Bauxite High School was, for many of those kids with a sense of history, an introduction to their past. Because of the small class sizes, some unusual things were possible. Most unusual were the sidewalks. Since 1951 (I believe) every graduating class has built a sidewalk and stamped the name of every graduate into it.

It was a ritual, walking the sidewalks and finding your family.

• My mother: class of 1961, the length of a coin toss from the exit on what is (to you) the right-hand side of the burning building.
• My sister: class of 1986, on the diagonal sidewalk out front of the main building, on the right-hand side.
• My mother's siblings: all on the long unbroken sidewalk leading to the old gymnasium.

Me, I'm on the sidewalk near the science building, leading down to the football stadium.

The high school's team mascot was, of course, the Miner. The Bauxite Miners—symbolized by a growling, round-faced fellow with a shovel and a wicked-sharp pickaxe. In a town with no industry, few people, and much history, you cling to the symbols that remind you of greatness.

The Miners officially wore black and grey. But it could be black and white, or black and silver (which I think most people favored). The football stadium, which had been dug into a hill, was affectionately known as "The Pit." It, and the team it held, inspired fierce pride in a community that really didn't have much left to be proud about—for in the last twenty years of the 20th century, the Miners were a team that thoroughly dominated in football.

For many of those years, conference championships were assumed. The question was always if this year was going to finally be the year that the Miners got the state championship that had eluded them for so long. They did finally win one—in 1997 or 1998. I am ashamed to admit that I do not remember which. Shortly afterwards, I moved away; I do not know how well they've done in the past two years.

After the demise of the aluminum industry, football became the community touchstone. People returned for games; it was a family and social event to attend. You went to watch everyone who was there just as much as you attended to see the score of the game. The ex-players, many now fathers and grandfathers of sons playing on the team, would walk back and forth along the fence closest to the field—better to see the action that way. They would chew tobacco and swap stories about when they were the young invincible ones out on the field, battling the same familiar foes their sons faced now.

It was history.
It was continuity—

—and every bit of it was done in the shadow of that pale-brick, 1930s-style building that was, frankly, ugly as hell. But you grew up there. It had your memories and your heart. It was a place you took for granted, as you took for granted the history that it had swathed itself with. Love it or hate it—and I certainly did plenty of both—it was the focal point of a community that had chosen, instead of vanishing, to stick together.

Some things cannot be truly replaced. This is, I suspect, one of them. We are seeing, for one community, the end of an era.