Out in the country, I mean, south of Lubbock TX, my parents bought a piece of land, 5 acres to be exact, when I was 7 years old. We moved out of our house in Lubbock and into a mobile home right before I started 3rd grade. Each day someone took me to school and I rode the bus home and walked half a mile down our caliche road home. There are many stories I could tell, but this one is the most pertinent today.
Living out in the country, riding a bus for over an hour everyday, going to the same school with the same people for nine years, tends to be similar to living in a small town. Everybody knows everything about everyone else and they are like elephants, they never forget anything.... every little thing you ever did, or didn't do, is saved and presented back to you at any time they feel it is necessary to remind you. Most of the time, it was given back to me in the form of an embarrassment.
Needless to say, I didn't date anyone I ever went to school with. I chose to drive into town and meet boys that went to one of the highschools there. But I digress...
There were a few boys who were nice to me and that I called "friend". One of them was just as cute as he could be and he rode my bus. Many an afternoon, I rumbled along, bouncing to the bumps of country roads looking out the window and stealing looks of this gorgeous young man who was in my class. My school girl crush lasted for years and I was never brave enough or felt I was good enough to give him any inkling of how I felt.
After all, the last one I had done that with had told me in no uncertain terms he was happy to be my friend but nothing more, so I wasn't ready to be shot down again, and a few years later, as a Junior in high school, I was seeing college boys anyway.
My mom and dad divorced. My mom moved us a hundred miles north to her hometown and I started my senior year at another school... full of boys, who were ready to meet some new girls... it was heaven...
Thirty years later, Facebook comes along and all those people I went to school with came with the addition of one friend I really wanted to stay in touch with. When I saw the boy from the bus was on FB, out of curiousity, I wanted to see what he looks like now... and what was he doing and how did things turn out for him? He was so cute in school with this killer hair that everyone wished they had or could run their fingers through...
So... I added him as a friend, he didn't have a pictures, just a cartoon.
Then I moved to Lubbock to be closer to mom as she battled cancer. When winter approached I wrote about how it should be illegal to build a house there without a fireplace because I was wishing I had one. He commented that he had two and never lit them...
A few months later he commented on how I travel to the beach quite a bit.
In January, he commented on a concert coming up in Houston and I said I would love to see Jimmy Buffet.
Last week he sent me a message.
He is going to be in Houston for Jimmy Buffet, his friend who was suppose to go isn't going, would I like to go?
I didn't hesitate, I said I would gladly go. A few messages and a text this morning and a road trip plan in place and I am headed to Houston this week.
If asked if I thought I would attend a concert with the boy from the bus, I would have said it was very doubtful. However I just got off the phone with him, and he was as nice as ever and we worked out a tentative plan...
Sometimes good things you want to come to you... but not when you want them or try to make them happen, but out of the clear blue sky... and years later.
Regardless of the boy from the bus, I will enjoy the concert and the adventure of an evening unexpected but pleasantly surprising.
Never pass up a once in a lifetime opportunity unless it will completely screw up something you want to keep in place. I don't have to worry about it this time, it worked out fine, but I have made "safer" decisions before and wish I had gone for the adventure instead.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Monday, May 2, 2011
Blast from the Past
A trip out to Terlingua to contemplate a change in that direction last weekend brought me home through a place I haven't been in more than 30 years.
Camping trips with my mother and daddy for as long as I can remember, usually involved a river... most of the time it was the Devil's River. In a pop-up tent trailer pulled behind a station wagon, we would make our way from Lubbock to the river near Del Rio, Texas. Down a long caliche road, past the old man's shed who rented the camping spot to us, we would find a shady area and set up camp.
My daddy made a kitchen cabinet that folded up into a box with handles. When it was unfolded, it had 4 legs to stand on, opened up to create a place for the camp stove, utensils and cooking spices or whatever he would use to cook. Later a wash basin for washing the metal plates and collapsible cups we used for the meal. I don't remember the meals, but I know from my own camping, those are the best meals ever made.
Daddy would fish, Mother would fish, brothers would fish... I think I mainly played, but I was the youngest and not more than 6 or 8 the last time we camped there.
Nearly every trip, and I know we went at least 2 times a year, on our way out of the canyon where it was green with lush vegetation, we would climb the caliche road, with rocks and barren ground on both sides of the car. Daddy would say if I saw a rock I wanted to just holler and he would stop to get it for me. We had quite a collection at home already. Once, in a fit of orneryness, I said, flippantly, oh that one and pointed to a huge rock, too big for any vehicle we ever had. Of course he stopped, not knowing what I had pointed at... so I picked another one close by... Daddy happily picked it up and put it in the car, thinking he had just made his little girl happy.
One year, a huge rattlesnake was in the road and I remember Daddy getting out and throwing rocks at it. Fear and excitement enveloped us all in our seats as we watched with a sense of safety in the car.
I always thought, as a very young girl, my daddy was strong and brave and not afraid of anything. It is a very comforting thought.
Once one of my brothers found a goat near by, a baby goat, and picked it up and carried it back to camp. The mother goat came after him of course. Well, he ran into the trailer, with the cabrito in his arms and the mother goat ran around the camper having a fit until my mother screamed at him to let the baby go.
We spent Easter there sometimes, or other holidays when it was chilly outside, but mostly we were there in the heat of the summer on our way to or home from Piedras Negras across from Del Rio. Until one time, when we knew they were damming up the river to create a reservoir. The last time I was down that caliche road, you couldn't see the old man's shack where we bought worms and paid for our camping spot, and where we camped was much farther down the hill from there. It was covered with water, and the only way we knew it was the right spot was because the light pole next to his shack was above the water about 4 feet.
The trees, the grass, the beautiful fishing and camping spot was gone.
Last night I drove across the Amistad Reservoir and cried. Things change, memories fade, and those who know them best and could tell the story better are long gone... all I have are my childhood memories and how I remember them from the prospective of a 6ish year old.
Camping trips with my mother and daddy for as long as I can remember, usually involved a river... most of the time it was the Devil's River. In a pop-up tent trailer pulled behind a station wagon, we would make our way from Lubbock to the river near Del Rio, Texas. Down a long caliche road, past the old man's shed who rented the camping spot to us, we would find a shady area and set up camp.
My daddy made a kitchen cabinet that folded up into a box with handles. When it was unfolded, it had 4 legs to stand on, opened up to create a place for the camp stove, utensils and cooking spices or whatever he would use to cook. Later a wash basin for washing the metal plates and collapsible cups we used for the meal. I don't remember the meals, but I know from my own camping, those are the best meals ever made.
Daddy would fish, Mother would fish, brothers would fish... I think I mainly played, but I was the youngest and not more than 6 or 8 the last time we camped there.
Nearly every trip, and I know we went at least 2 times a year, on our way out of the canyon where it was green with lush vegetation, we would climb the caliche road, with rocks and barren ground on both sides of the car. Daddy would say if I saw a rock I wanted to just holler and he would stop to get it for me. We had quite a collection at home already. Once, in a fit of orneryness, I said, flippantly, oh that one and pointed to a huge rock, too big for any vehicle we ever had. Of course he stopped, not knowing what I had pointed at... so I picked another one close by... Daddy happily picked it up and put it in the car, thinking he had just made his little girl happy.
One year, a huge rattlesnake was in the road and I remember Daddy getting out and throwing rocks at it. Fear and excitement enveloped us all in our seats as we watched with a sense of safety in the car.
I always thought, as a very young girl, my daddy was strong and brave and not afraid of anything. It is a very comforting thought.
Once one of my brothers found a goat near by, a baby goat, and picked it up and carried it back to camp. The mother goat came after him of course. Well, he ran into the trailer, with the cabrito in his arms and the mother goat ran around the camper having a fit until my mother screamed at him to let the baby go.
We spent Easter there sometimes, or other holidays when it was chilly outside, but mostly we were there in the heat of the summer on our way to or home from Piedras Negras across from Del Rio. Until one time, when we knew they were damming up the river to create a reservoir. The last time I was down that caliche road, you couldn't see the old man's shack where we bought worms and paid for our camping spot, and where we camped was much farther down the hill from there. It was covered with water, and the only way we knew it was the right spot was because the light pole next to his shack was above the water about 4 feet.
The trees, the grass, the beautiful fishing and camping spot was gone.
Last night I drove across the Amistad Reservoir and cried. Things change, memories fade, and those who know them best and could tell the story better are long gone... all I have are my childhood memories and how I remember them from the prospective of a 6ish year old.
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