The poison, tetrodotoxin, is extracted from...
The poison, tetrodotoxin, is extracted from puffer fishIn proper doses, it can paralyze the body and reduce respiration to such low levels that even the attending doctor believes the person is deadWhen the poison wears off, the person wakes upSimilar cases had been reported in Japan, where puffer fish is a delicacy if properly prepared, and deadly if not

I describe my brief foray into the world of voodoo because Ive always been fascinated by the way different cultures try to make sense of life, nature, and the virtually universal belief that there is a nonphysical spirit force at work in the world that existed before humanity and will be here when we all are long goneHaitians understanding of how God is manifest in our lives is very different from that of most Christians, Jews, or Muslims, but their documented experiences certainly prove the old adage that the Lord works in mysterious ways

By the time we got back from Haiti, I had determined to run for attorney generalI took another leave from teaching at the law school and got to workI had two opponents in the Democratic primary: George Jernigan, the secretary of state; and Clarence Cash, who was head of the consumer protection rolex sea dweller division in Jim Guy Tuckers officeBoth were articulate and not much older than IJernigan seemed to be the more formidable of the two, with a lot of friends in Governor Pryors organization, at several county courthouses, and among conservatives across the stateStrangely, no Republicans filed, making it the only time I ever ran without opposition in the general election

I knew Id have to run the campaign out of Little RockBesides being the capital city, it is in the center of the state and has both the biggest vote and the largest fund-raising potentialI set up headquarters in an old house a couple of blocks from the Capitol buildingWally DeRoeck, a young banker from Jonesboro, agreed to be my campaign chairmanSteve Smith, who had done such good work in the Congress race, signed on as campaign managerThe office was run by Linda McGee, who did a terrific job on a shoestring budget: We ran the whole campaign on less than $100,000Somehow Linda kept the place open long hours, paid the bills, and managed the volunteersI was offered a place to stay by Paul Berry, whom I had met and liked when he ran Senator McClellans Arkansas office and who was then a vice president at Union BankApart chanel logo earrings from everything else, he insisted on my sleeping in his apartments only bed, even if I got in from the road at two or three in the morningNight after night Id drag in to find him asleep on the couch in the living room, with a light on in the kitchen, where hed left out my favorite snack, peanut butter and carrots

Longtime friends like Mack McLarty and Vince Foster helped me break into the Little Rock business and professional communitiesI still had good support from labor leaders, though some of it fell off when I refused to sign a petition supporting labors effort to repeal Arkansas right-to-work law by putting the question on the November ballotRight-to-work laws enable people to work in plants with unionized workforces without paying union duesBack then, the law appealed to my libertarian sideI later learned that Senator McClellan was so impressed by my position that he asked Paul Berry to call his main supporters and tell them he was for meA few years later, I changed my mind about right to workIts wrong, I think, for someone to reap the superior salaries, health care, and retirement plans normally found in union plants without making a contribution to the union that secures fake chloe bag those benefits

My base in the Third District seemed secureAll the folks who had worked for me in 1974 were willing to go againI got some extra help from Hillarys brothers, both of whom had moved to Fayetteville and enrolled at the universityThey also added a lot of fun to our livesOne night, Hillary and I went over to their place for dinner and spent the whole evening listening to Hugh regale us with tales of his adventures in Colombia with the Peace Corpsstories that sounded as if they came straight out of One Hundred Years of Solitude but that he swore were all trueHe also made us pia coladas that tasted like fruit juice but packed quite a punchAfter two or three I was so sleepy that I went outside and climbed into the back of my Chevy El Camino pickup truck, which I had inherited from Jeff DwireThe back was covered in Astroturf, so I slept like a lambHillary drove me home, and the next day I went back to workI loved that old truck and drove it until it completely wore out

Out in the state, I found strong support in and around Hope, where I was born, and in the five or six counties outside the Third District where I had relativesI got off to a good start among blacks in central, hermes birkin bags south, and east Arkansas, thanks to former students who were practicing law in those areasAnd I had support from Democratic activists who had cheered my race against Hammerschmidt from the sidelines or been involved in the work of my affirmative action committeeDespite all that, there were still gaping holes in the organizationMost of the campaign was an attempt to fill them

As I traveled the state, I had to contend with the rise of a new political force, the Moral Majority, founded by the Reverend Jerry Falwell, a conservative Baptist minister from Virginia who had won a large television following and was using it to build a national organization committed to Christian fundamentalism and right-wing politicsIn any part of the state, I might find myself shaking hands with someone who would ask if I was a ChristianWhen I said yes, I would be asked if I was a born-again ChristianWhen I said yes, there would be several more questions, apparently supplied by Falwells organizationOnce when I was campaigning in Conway, about thirty miles east of Little Rock, I was in the county clerks office, where absentee ballots are castOne of the women who worked there started in on me with the black and white chanel handbag questions