State of This Union — President’s Message
August and the University of Arkansas 2026-2027 term has begun. How did you spend your summer? I spent bits of mine wondering why I never got more excited about the nation’s 250th Independence Day compared to, say, last year’s 249th.
It doesn’t seem to be just me. In late June, my wife and I drove to Iowa for visits with her family and her old friends. To fill a late afternoon in between get-togethers we headed to Jordan Creek, a fairly upscale mall in West Des Moines. She was looking for July Fourth 250 wearables, perhaps for her hair, maybe a summer scarf. We were expecting red white and blue decorations in all of the stores’ window and entryway displays. Found zero, and yet the big beautful day was days away. The Von Maur department store had a few scattered displays with some of the bling proclaiming “250.” Elsewhere, Iowa’s Targets and Walmarts, as did Arkansas’s, did feature holiday apparel and trinkets, but these stores year round display sequences of holiday inventory.
Something has been off this year.
I’m not sure anyone is feeling amazement that this country has hit 250 years and is sure the future for another 250 is rosy. Even though the Party Host In Chief has tried his best with a rasslin’ match on the White House lawn, dying the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool to St. Paddy’s Day green, a 16-day Great American State Fair, high schoolers’ Patriot Games in Ohio, through this past weekend’s Freedom 250 Grand Prix, which Pierre Charles L’Enfant couldn’t have dreamed of when he plotted out the district’s streets in 1791.
Back in the Ozarks for July Fourth, we found that No. 250 went like Nos. 249, 248 and earlier, with dozens of public and family fireworks displays that we watched from a hilltop parking lot.
The Semiquincentennial has a few more months and several more national holidays to revive our spirits. Labor Day is up first.
Your union will host our traditional picnic then, 5:30 at Fayetteville’s Veterans Memorial Park. Once again, we invite political candidates to meet us. Labor Day is the traditional beginning of campaign season.
The celebration of workers thus leads to the next major U.S. holiday, Election Day — with early voting beginning Oct. 19 culminating Nov. 3. (The deadline to register to vote in Arkansas is Monday, Oct. 5.) Even if you disagree with my politics (you may guess wrong), I want everyone to vote.
The quote “Nice guys finish last” in context turns out to be not about courtesy, empathy and honesty but about how competition works the mind.
When Democrats in recent terms lose, Wednesday morning quarterbacking follows with “We really had ’em going,” “We scared ’em, “The winners will remember how close we came and act accordingly” …
Victors come January never care who finished better than expected.
“I don’t get this stuff about sportsmanship. You play to win, don’t you? Say I’m playing short and Mother is on first and the batter singles to right. Mother comes fast around second with the winning run — Mother will have to go down. I’ll help her up, dust her off and say, ‘Mom, I’m sorry, but it was an accident’ but she won’t of scored. Nobody asks how you happened to lose. All they want to know is did you win. If I’m spitting at a crack in the wall for nickels I still want to win. Anybody can come in second. Nice guys finish last.”
Utility infielder Leo Durocher, quoted in Nonconformity by Nelson Algren
©2026 Ben S. Pollock
This column first was published in the August 2026 newsletter of UA-Fayetteville Education Association / Local 965. Ben Pollock is the 2026-2028 president of Local 965.
