Dripping with history: Mankind has taken advantage of the therapeutic benefits of the Arkansas hot springs for generations.
Didn't they give you a luffa?”
Tim, the manager of the spa at the Buckstaff Bathhouse in Hot Springs, Arkansas, is concerned. I am sitting in a comfy black leather chair in the men's locker room — a splendid double-decked, blue-and-brass fantasia of lockers punctuated by a grand central stairway, a facility of such striking symmetry it could be the set of a Wes Anderson movie.
I'm here for the same menu of services that has been offered at Buckstaff for 111 years: A top-to-bottom, insideand-out once-over that promises to restore my vigor and bolster my health. At about $80, it sounds like an unbeatable bargain.
But the balance of Tim's universe is slightly off at this moment. It's the luffa thing. I was supposed to get one when I checked in with the nice women at the front desk, a team that is apparently so steeped in precision they never, ever, forget to give a guest his luffa.
“You're sure …” he persists.
I show him my empty hands, and Tim is forced to accept this aberration. He shows me to a dressing cubicle, with three metal lockers, and pulls the blue-and-white striped privacy curtain across.
“You can put your clothes in one of the lockers and put the key around your wrist,” he says.
