fighting damien

I went to college from 1968 to 1973. While I was at Southwest Texas State University (LBJ’s alma mater), I met a very interesting fellow. His name is Bill. Bill was a Vietnam veteran, using the GI Bill to finalize his education. He was getting his degree in journalism, just as I was. As a Viet vet, he was very conservative and, at the time, I was a little progressive. Yeah, I know. Things change. We had lively discussions. Bill was tall, lanky, lacking in hair (which at the time I did not expect that curse to befall me, too), energetic and outspoken. On many days, Bill would wear to class some portion of the uniform he had in Vietnam.

Every spring break, Bill and I would take a trip. On one trip we drove from San Marcos, Texas to Cheyenne, Wyoming and back. Great fun.

But not near as much fun as one spring break, when Bill and I decided to hitchhike. We had 10 days for the break and we would hitchhike for five days and then return. We decided to head west out of San Marcos to see how far we could get in five days, and what fun we could have along the way.

We got some very interesting lifts. One guy had a truck with wooden paneling in the truck bed. That’s where we rode. He didn’t want anyone in the cab. He dropped us off in Fort Stockton, Texas. Nothing against the people or the location of Fort Stockton, but after getting some sleep behind a store, Bill and I grabbed our sleeping bags and knapsacks to leave. Fort Stockton was a bleak-looking place. A few red lights, wide highways and loads of West Texas sand and tumbleweeds blowing across the landscape. Back then, no Walmarts, just local shops and businesses.

It took an entire day for us to get out of Fort Stockton. We tried every road out of town, INCLUDING the one we had used to enter town. We were getting desperate Bill wore part of his Viet uniform, thinking we would get some sympathy from a West Texas driver. I wore his cap that had some U.S. Army markings on it. ANYTHING to get out of town.

Having fun … really

Finally, we caught a ride. When we got into the car, we mentioned that it had been hard finding a ride in Fort Stockton. The guy told us that the movie The Hitchhiker was at the local drive-in and that may have worked against us. “Duh, ya think.” As I recall, that movie had loads of bad incidents where people are killed or maimed as part of the plot. And we were trying to get out of town … by hitchhiking!

On the way out, we took baths in a stream underneath a bridge on the Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation near Cloudcroft, New Mexico. We pitched our sleeping bags in the hay loft of a lumberyard in Ruidoso, New Mexico; and, we had drinks with a prison parolee in a cinderblock bar skirting the road just outside of a very small New Mexico town. He had been released that morning and his first stop, before going home to family, was the bar. He drank a lot and had loads of stories about his life in prison.  We also climbed up and rolled down the sand dunes of White Sands National Monument.

We made it all the way to Tucson. We attended a frat party in Tucson the night before we began our return.

On the way back to San Marcos, we were hitching along a desolate road that cradled the Texas-New Mexico border. It was turning nightfall, we had had only a scarcity of rides (so a lot of walking that day), and we were approaching a very small town that looked like it was just a smidgen of Archer City, Texas as that town was shown by Peter Bogdanovich in The Last Picture Show. It was not too windy, only a few tumbleweeds scooted across the road, but our skin was getting a bit pelted by blowing sand.

We decided that we had better get some rest undisturbed just outside town BEFORE heading in the next morning.

So, we stepped off the road, crossed over a fence and began walking into a field of someone’s farm or ranch. Because we were away from what lights there were in town, the stars were amazing. They looked so bright that it appeared they were only about 25 feet into the sky. Just plain beautiful.

When we felt we had taken enough steps onto the farm or ranch from the road to be safe, we plopped down our sleeping bags and fell asleep very quickly.

In the middle of the night, the earth began to shake — violently, and there was a mysterious roaring. In our sleeping bags, the shaking bounced us up and down roughly. It became very difficult to shed the bags to find out what was going on. An earthquake? A meteor land nearby? What the hell could this possibly be? And, that noise?

It became clear quickly. Once we were awake, we could see the boxcars of a train. Apparently, it was a long train and as it chugged across the farm, we unknowingly were so close to the tracks that we were affected much like being at the epicenter of an earthquake. Because it had been dark when we pulled out our sleeping bags, and because we were so tired, we didn’t check out the surroundings. The tracks were nearby and we didn’t even see them. For the rest of the trip, we hummed Carole King’s  I Felt The Earth Move Under My Feet.

We made it back to San Marcos uneventfully, but, to this day, many years later, I don’t think I have ever been as afraid as I was that night the earth began to move. But, I will cherish the memories of trips such as these forever.

“I’d kill for a Nobel Peace Prize!” — Comedian Steven Wright

A couple of times in the past I have written here about rhythm and how there is evidence of rhythm in just about everything we do. Whether it is noticing the bulging, oppressive nature of numerous identical huge columns on a federal building in downtown Chicago and just watching repetitive waves of ocean slamming the beach, there is rhythm all around us. I take a great deal of comfort in spotting these rhythms occasionally.

Just recently, I noticed, however minutely, the profound amount of irony that surrounds us, too, and how sometimes, if we’re not paying attention, this irony just plain passes by us.

Today, I was glancing through the online NYTimes, reading an update on the government shutdown and how Congress is going all out to get us through it. For a little extra oomph, the article mentioned all the catastrophic events that will slam the U.S. if the House and Senate do not get something going. The online page looked just like a regular printed page, except the advertisements on the screen were in color, while the normal printed page, they would likely be B&W. So, I am reading about all the gloom and doom, but one ad on one side of the screen talked about the absolute divine fashion of a designer with at least six syllables in his/her first name and two-to-three in his/her last. Hey, I could not tell gender in the name alone. And, I’m sorry that I don’t remember the names of fashion designers.

Also on the page was an ad that was willing to show me the photos of Sandra Bullock‘s new home in New Orleans. Wasn’t that sweet? Years ago, when I worked in newspaper journalism, editors got 8×10 sheets for each page in the paper. The sheet would show the names of the ads, and the space left over for the news.  Editors did not have a clue what the ads said until just shortly before the first edition hit the street.

So, I found it a bit IRONIC that I would be reading a story about the end of the western world (perhaps a slight bit of exaggeration), but I could also leave that page and see the latest fashion designs and intimate pictures of Sandra Bullock’s new home. Maybe the shutdown is just a speed bump and not a cliff after all.

And, here’s another example. Yesterday, Patti and I had to make a grocery run. It had rained earlier in the day, so the store was packed. Carts trying to dodge each other, people staring at products on the shelves and blocking others. Typical grocery run. But what was also slightly noticeable was the music playing over the store’s speakers. Not loud, mind you, but just enough that the sound would capture your attention if you were so inclined and listen a little more intently to recognize the song.

As Patti and I were going through the organic foods and vegetables, a song from the 60s, The Association‘s Along Comes Mary, began to play. And, for a few moments I found it incredibly IRONIC that we were walking through the freshest part of the grocery store, and a song I recognized from my youth about marijuana was wafting through the rows. For a few moments, I stopped and smiled while I listened to the lyrics. The Association was the very first concert I ever attended as a teen living in Houston. I loved Along Comes Mary, Cherish, Never My Love and Windy then, and I love the songs now.

If you are a little younger than me, here is a clip from the Smothers Brothers show in 1967 that shows The Association at their prime:

If I have to explain who the Smothers Brothers are, then go ask your mom or dad.