How he makes me feel.

"I drive your truck."

The song came out months later.  And the truck is long gone.  But I suppose since his is the most recent death in my life, the song would naturally remind me of him.

The white truck, the one in which he taught me to drive.  The late model Ford with 4 in the floor, and my scrawny arms too weak to pull it.  My grandmother laughing at the site of her descendent jumping over the bumps in the well tilled field.

And time passes, and keeps passing.  My brother calls.  And within a few hours, I'm taking my mother on a road trip.  We've arranged to exchange her like a package, he gets her to point B, I take her on to point A. 

He didn't recognize me.  I honestly had the impression he didn't recognize anyone in the room.  But his personality, his jovial spirit, shone through and he talked to people like he was genuinely glad to see them.  He was up occasionally when we arrived.  He couldn't walk far, but he walked. 

I knew they had married before she was out of high school, he having obtained my grandfather's permission.  He would always speak highly of my grandparents, in much the same way that people always speak highly of my uncle.  And they would live out their lives together.  But I hadn't considered the reality - they grew up in the same small town.  They had walked to school together 30 something years before I was even born.  There was never a time in their lives when they did not know each other.

He passed away on Monday before Thanksgiving.  My grief somewhat abated by the knowledge that, as an adult, I made conscious decisions to see them, to visit them, to drive to their house and spend the weekend with them.

He may not have recognized me the weekend he died.  But while he lived, he knew that I loved him.  

Abandoned

An abandoned building in my home town.

Breakfast

I know it may seem silly.  I'm well into my. . ahem. . 40's, a grown man whose been living on my own for plenty long enough.

But some days, for whatever reason, I go to my home town and stay the night with my parents.  And I just love waking up in my parents house and knowing that my Mom will fix me breakfast. 

It's not much, I don't eat a lot of breakfast. So it's not the food.  It's the presence, the act, the morning in their home and knowing that my Mom cared enough to get up and make me something to eat. 

Springsteen

I suppose it's not uncommon to have an emotional reaction to a song on the radio. 

Thanks to the country station's constant playing of Eric Church's "Springsteen" I find myself regularly reminded of my girlfriend in the 7th grade.  Actually, I think we met and were friends in the 7th grade, but maybe dated, or whatever average 9th graders did for dating in 1983. 

What I remember most is she dumped me for a guy named John.  And I think I'm still mad about it.  And honestly, if you had been dumped for John, you'd have been mad too.

"When you think about me, do you think about seventeen?"
"But if I whispered your name, I bet there'd still be a spark."

Isn't it funny how a memory can sound like a melody?

Refried Bean & Bacon Taco

So there we were, all the way in Corpus, when I sent her a text.  I knew she had grown up in Corpus, and knew her grandparents still live there.  So the text was sort of a "nah-nah, here I am, and you're not" message.

The voice mail a bit later was, "Oh my gosh, I need you to go to my grandmother's house and get a box of stuff for me.  She already shipped me one box but it cost too much.  It's on the bad side of town so I don't know if you'll go.  But I want you to take her to breakfast tomorrow." Pause  "Do you wish you hadn't told me you were there?"

Very typical her.

A friend since roughly 1994, I had met her not long after she had moved with her parents to our area from Corpus.  It would be fair to say we dated for a while.  While I don't remember the exact time line, and probably do not want to, it would be fair to say that it ended, in part, because I knew I couldn't commit and she was liking me in a way that was going to hurt her.*  But I digress from the story ~

I consulted with MyFella and our vacation hosts, and we changed our plans for the next morning to kick-off with breakfast with a lady in her 80's we had never met, who lives in the bad part of town, who speaks only broken English.  One person in our party speaks only broken Spanish.  It seemed like it should work out fine.

The next morning had us on the road at the right time to cross town, and she called, "Grandmother's so excited, she's been up since 4."  It was quarter to 9.  The home was cute, and Grandmother was proud to tell us that her husband had built it for her.  It is filled with pictures and frames of children and grandchildren and beyond, and has a lovely feeling of being lived in and loved in.  It was also spotless.  (A trait my living quarters do not share.)

Breakfast was a fun affair at a diner type locally owned restaurant.  The fun part?  Mexican! Like, authentic, really people from Mexico~Mexican.  Like, the waitress spoke English with a super strong accent.  How fun is that! 

She had texted for me to have her father's favorite for breakfast, a taco, as in the title.  Then her mother texted me to try Menudo Soup.

I looked at Grandmother and said, "Menudo soup?"  She said, "Good.  Stomach."  uh.  No, I won't be trying stomach soup.  I'll stick with the refried bean and bacon taco. 

Tortillas were handmade and tasted like nothing I'd ever bought in a Midsouth grocery store.

We tried our very best to carry on a conversation with Grandmother, the 5 of us in a lively, noisy restaurant.  At one point she called and I gave the phone to Grandmother.  I would later find out that Grandmother told her she was having a good time with all of us and she did not have time to talk to her.

What a delight that lady is!

And what a fun, unexpected surprise on our vacation. 

So, to sum it up, we drove 14 hours one way to have breakfast with my exgirlfriend's grandmother, and bring back a box of baby clothes. 

Well. I do like an adventure.



* I suppose her marriage to a hard working man with beautiful arms has been some consolation after our breakup.

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.