It's a long long way . . .

from here to Hollywood, the song says. And it's a long way to Corpus Christi, Texas.

“I’ll drive,” he said.  He being MyFella.  And so our plans for a trip to Corpus Christi, Texas, began to celebrate the 50^th birthday of a friend of ours.  We planned one overnight each way, and told ourselves the trip is more about the journey, not to worry about the time. 

Probably 10 hours into a 14 hour drive, MyFella decided that if we were to ever go back, he would learn to fly. 

Our first souvenir was a young Texas State Trooper who somehow noticed MyFella had tugged and pulled his seat belt into a position under his arm, rather than over his shoulder. The Trooper told us that wearing it improperly was considered the same as not wearing it at all. He really was incredibly nice, and he gave us a warning.  It’s very official looking.  It doesn’t go on your record, and there was no monetary fee.  

Honestly, I think we caught the trooper's eye because he caught mine, and I was doing some serious rubber necking in the passenger seat to see if he was a hottie.  I didn't plan on getting such an up close look. 

Our next couple of days were a whirlwind of Mexican food, Texan food (not that impressive) and a batch of real Pork bbq that we had hauled in a cooler just because the birthday boy wanted it. 

There’s a couple of tacky group pictures and probably still some sand from Padre Island in my car as proof we were there.  And most importantly, MyFella and I survived that much cooped-up-together time.  That in itself was a gift to us. 

The Mississippi River

The phone had died while taking pictures in the cemetery, so our anthem song was lost to us.  We made our way down the gravel road and turned around at a bridge.  The boys had asked to make their way down to the stream. The muddy banks showed us that the stream could get much higher, I suspect it’s a run-off from the lake at the national park.  Ankle high today, it’s waters really didn’t hide any secrets, but the magic it promised drew the boys and I through the underbrush and up ditch banks to make our way down there.  Cuckle burrs covered our pants and socks, and there is a tiny shell in my car’s console.  

I warned the boys that their uncle was getting hungry, and when my sugar drops I get cranky.  The biggest boy knew the turn off from the gravel road to the top of the levee, and we drove on top of it to a city green space formed recently on the banks of the Mississippi River.  Every few years, the river rises high enough to slough the black top off the road, but the land formation remains.  It makes for a short but pretty drive, and the pier type walk way begs kids to run it’s length. 

The festival in town had left the remains of campers, most of whom had bagged their trash up in neat piles waiting for the city to come and clean up.  One camp fire was still smoldering on the banks and my nephews went to poke at it with sticks and throw whatever wood and paper they could find into it.

“Uncle’s getting hungry”, I told them.  I warned them in a joking way that when my sugar drops, I get cranky.  We played along in the bud for a bit, and made our way back up the hill.  Uncle (that would be me) took the nephew’s invitation to leave the stairs behind and just climb up the hill, which resulted in me covered in mud. But what did I expect after the rain fall from the night before?

Granny would soon have lunch ready, I was plenty hungry and covered in mud.  So the three boys made our way home, after a morning of raising hell and praising God.  We missed church that morning, but I’d like to think He was happy with the way we spent our morning, in His great outdoors.

The bridge

The phone had died while taking pictures in the cemetery, so our anthem song was lost to us.  We made our way down the gravel road and turned around at a bridge.  The boys had asked to make their way down to the stream. The muddy banks showed us that the stream could get much higher, I suspect it’s a run-off from the lake at the national park.  Ankle high today, it’s waters really didn’t hide any secrets, but the magic it promised drew the boys and I through the underbrush and up ditch banks to make our way down there.  Cuckle burrs covered our pants and socks, and there is a tiny shell in my car’s console. 

The Dead Still Sleep

The gravel road opened up in front of us.  Locals call it “The Low Road”, almost like one word – thelowroad.  Locals use it much like today’s popular country songs about riding with your girl or your dip, that’s how we use the The Low Road.  It skirts low land adjacent to the Mississippi River and winds it’s way up through a beautiful national park.  I’m sure there’s a legal name for it, but where pavement meets gravel in the old North part of town, it’s the low road.

I had propped the little one up on the arm rest console between the seats and told myself to worry about the gravel and dirt some other time.  His brother in the passenger seat had plugged in his iPhone and was playing a tune with the lyrics “raising hell and praising God” and declared it “the” song for the day.  But his five percent charge would mean the song’s anthem was short lived.  But the morning was still early, and the adventure was just beginning.

I’ve been on the road hundreds of times, both driver and passenger.  This was the first time I have ever seen the green state sign announcing a cemetery.  It’s a small sign and I passed it, backed up, and looked up the hill for a sign of a cemetery.  There at the top of a hill, which would not have been visible in Spring or Summer, was a monolithic marker rising high.

My boys and I pulled over to the edge of the road and climbed the 60 or so feet to the top of the cemetery.  This part of my hometown is filled with hills, and I had to wonder who stopped so many years back and began plots on all these knolls rising high out of the ground. 

Remnants of a fairly modern handrail built from wood help climbers to the top, where the wilderness is trying hard to reclaim a late 1800’s, early 1900’s cemetery.  Several stones still stand, others have fallen and slipped down the hill.  Wire fencing still marks a family plot.  My nephews asked if we could come back in the winter and do rubbings of the stones.  Our feet crunched over leaves as their eyes spotted more stones. We picked up fallen buckeye seeds as a souvenir of the day. 

And left the dead where they lay to make our way back to the car.

The park that once was my front yard . . . .

"This morning is awesome", I heard him say.  That was my oldest, the 12 year old nephew.  I didn’t quite make it to the hospital before he was born, but I was there within hours, and the little brat has held my heart ever since.

He was talking to his little brother. And we were on a gravel road, “raising hell and praising God.”  Those were the lyrics to the song he decided to play on his iPhone in honor of our morning.

The morning couldn’t have been any better if I had planned it, and I never could have planned it.  It was like the perfect storm.  All the choices of free will led up to that morning. 

I had spent the weekend in my hometown visiting friends and relatives.  MyFella and I seldom take a weekend off from each other, since weekends are all we get.  But we had taken this one because there was a big festival in town that I enjoy going to, and it allows me an opportunity to see tons of old friends home for the festival.

I invested time with Mamaw, time with my parents, and time with my boys. And on Sunday morning, both Granny and Grandpaw said they were not going to church.  So Uncle said to the boys, “Let me get dressed and we’ll go for a ride, just us boys.” 

I thought we’d go downtown and see what was still cleaning up from the 3 day festival and then top the levee to the river park’s boat landing and walk way.  But within minutes one of the boys had suggested we go look for the house Granny had showed him once.  The house they brought me home to well over 40 years ago.  It stood for a long time in a park on the North side of my home town, but it’s gone now.  But this crisp Autumn morning in October, the park was empty and the grass was green.  Swings called to the boys who weren’t quite dressed warm enough, but I couldn’t tell them no.  I couldn’t tell me no.

The swings are standard park fair, heavy chains attached to slats of thick rubber.  The little one wanted a push to get started, and I pushed him high in the air.  I found that while I could still get myself pretty high, I’ve lost the drive to launch myself from the apex and land like Spider Man.

The Merry Go Round  captured the boys eyes next.  The spinning round and round sight of them pushed gently at the edge of memories of myself going around and around.  I didn’t ask the boys to try and push my weight. It seemed unfair. The gravel area surrounding it absorbed like a sponge rainwater from the night before, making puddles where I stood.  And the rain water drew the attention of the little one who wanted to lay down in the gravel and slide under the playground equipment.  We’re definitely not dressed for such as that.

A little bridge and a dirty drainage ditch seemed like the greatest of adventures to their young minds. I must have sounded a hundred years old yelling, “Don’t touch that!” It did me no good anyway, their hands quick to grab whatever was in the grass. 

I proved to myself I could still swing high, but I lost my nerve to jump out at the apex.  Monkey bars and swings and such, made of real iron.  I kept my eye on them, my hands outstretched, to avoid a later call to their father about broken arms.  We survived the morning with all bones intact. 

And happy memories made within a few feet of the once-home to which my parents brought me after I was born. 

Life is just stories.

 ". . .and you won't even remember me. Well, you'll remember me a little. I'll be a story in your head. But that's OK: we're all stories, in the end. Just make it a good one, eh? Because it was, you know, it was the best: a daft old man, who stole a magic box and ran away. Did I ever tell you I stole it? Well, I borrowed it; I was always going to take it back. Oh, that box, Amy, you'll dream about that box. It'll never leave you. Big and little at the same time, brand-new and ancient, and the bluest blue, ever. And the times we had, eh? Would've had. Never had. In your dreams, they'll still be there. The Doctor and Amy Pond... and the days that never came."  The Doctor

Dude Ranch

In my day job, I work in a transportation company and a huge portion of my job is sort of double checking - what time to leave, what time to get there, any odd directions, etc.  And when it comes to school age children going to camp, I rely pretty heavily on camp websites.  "GPS doesn't work up here so use the website's directions" and things like that are pretty common.

Today I was researching directions to a camp that we haven't driven to before, and found the following description: "The smell of baking biscuits and roasted coffee lures guests to the lodge each morning. . . .  where the staff are busy grilling smoked ham and dutch-oven potatoes."

Now, he doesn't have a swimming pool, and there's no rock climbing.  And the family land isn't quite 350 acres, it's more like 20 acres.

But the more I read the website for this campsite, the more I thought, "I wouldn't pay good money to go there. It's just like going to my boyfriend's for the weekend.  Except maybe they won't make me help muck out the barn."