Leaving South Texas

           On July 4th weekend 1986, something strange happened. The Port Aransas beach was filled with wild parties consisting of somewhere in the neighborhood of 600,000 people. This rocked our little island town usually consisting of 2,000 people hard. At my house, on Saturday night, I had some friends over. Things got a little out of hand and on a run for beer, somehow, someway, my ex-girlfriend and I decided that not only were we going to get back together, but we were also going to leave Port A together. When we got back to the house, me and the person she was with, headed off to the beach, arguing about the same woman. The beach was full of drunken chaos. My life was driving me, yet it was so limited to this small island. The heat, despite my best intentions, would cause me to postpone any ambitions that I had. I was just 20 years old, was living like I was 45. I was having a hard time getting things to change.

Although the plan to get back together with my ex-girlfriend quickly dissolved, the plan to leave stuck. I had no interest in returning to the state of Connecticut. I was not really a fan of it. Maine. That is where I wanted to go. I wanted to live in a modest homestead in the woods and cut my own wood and heat with it. I wanted my father's life 8 years ago. From this point, these are the documented journals of the preparation and the journey in the summer and fall of 1986.

Thursday July 17, 1986
I know it now, I'm leaving. Today at work Rene and I took some more cylinders out of the garbage truck. Then Carl, Red, and I worked on landscaping the intersection of Avenue G and the Beach. After work, I looked at a Chevy Van and it is beautiful. I want it. This means Vicki-Lynn (my very first car, 1972 Dodge Dart) will live with Rick and Sherrill. They own Mariner's Inn on the beach. This has been a hang out of mine for the last year and a half. They were like my family. Leaving that car will be difficult. We grew together. There is something special about your first car.  This one was first my uncle Brian's car, then my mother's, then mine.  I was attached to it.
I went to Mariner's Inn then went to Dad's house. I talked to Amy, then Dad and I went to Beach St Pub. Chuck, who worked in the City with me came in. We were talking about ambition, future, etc, and said that I did not belong there. He was right. I know I am leaving. I took the Camero home tonight. I went to see Robin at Church's Fried Chicken. I tested the waters with her. At first, she seemed interested, but that did not seem to be there now. Not really sure. She seemed really nice, and I liked her.  I think I was slightly afraid of starting something now with plans to leave, so I found myself making little effort in the grand gestures department.  
Sunday July 20, 1986
I have decided to purchase the 1976 Chevy Van for sure. Vicki-Lynn is still the issue, what is to become of her? Rick and Sherrill bought the LeCar for $200. Vicki-Lynn was offered to them at $225, for Forrest for $275, Kevin at $250, Jim $225, Elsewhere at $350. It is too darn hard to put a value on such a thing. 

Monday July 21, 1986
Today, I got the van at lunchtime. It really runs great. I don't think the gas gauge works, either that or I shall run out of gas any second. The inside is clean but the outside is needing work, but not nearly as much as Vicki-Lynn could use. I give it like 8 days of work on the body and she will be fine. 4 hours average. But I sure like that van. 

Tuesday July 22, 1986

Undercoated the Chevy today with street patching oil. I was a mess. Grandfa and Dad went to watch Commando on the VCR at Glenn's. I gave Dad the Dodge so he and Grandfa would have a car to ride home in. I can take the van to work in the morning. The exhaust needs work so I'll put the cherry bomb on it and it will be fine.

Sunday July 27, 1986

It is 1:44 AM so I'll say it's Sunday but Saturday, I saw Grandfa, and then I took a ride on the beach. I then went to JT's and he looked at the van. Then he allowed me to buy the muffler and tailpipe off the Dodge van of his for a 12 pack of Milwaukee's Best. After cutting the exhaust off his van, I took my van to the shop and installed it on my van. There is still work to do. I sometimes think it might be wrong of me to leave. But I want to do this! I know I want to! and I want to go by Connecticut as quickly as I can because I don't want to get stuck there. 

Tuesday August 26, 1986

It has been almost a week since I picked Steve up from the airport. Today I went to work, just basically watering those damn flowers on the other side of the ferry landing. After work, I went to Ingleside and did some washing and organizing of Steve's house. Let me explain. Steve came to Port A one day in the last month or so. He had made a connection with a girl from his past named Kimberly. She lived in Vancouver. He decided to fly there but was on a tight budget as he did not work. Steve was an able-bodied 40-year old that sat around and smoked pot all the time and his mother in Fort Worth sent him money to live on each month. I suspected after finding many of the notes that accompanied cash envelopes to him that she was pretty scared that he would probably just end up dead if she did not sustain him this way.

So Steve needed me to drive him to the airport. There was some sort of small compensation and it all seemed pretty harmless at this point. It became anything, but harmless in the end though. What I did not know when I took on this task that I was about to make a hard right turn into Steve's life, past, present, and future. I was making a turn, into the Twilight Zone.

Earlier this year, Steve ended up with his picture in the "Toast of the Coast Herald". There was nothing so degrading as this. This was a diabolical newspaper that chased the San Patricio County Constables all over the Coastal Bend looking to photograph them arresting drunk drivers. He was speeding, coming back to Ingleside through Aransas Pass from Port Aransas. He was in handcuffs, being marched to the cruiser by an officer. The photographs were never flattering. Steve did well here. He kept his mouth shut, and I think I know why.

Back in 1984, I had never heard of the Toast of the Coast Herald. I was working in the tire shop in back of Bilmore's and A Auto Supply. There was a buzz in the store from my Dad, Mike, Charlie (the store's owner), and some others. Someone they knew, Harry, got his picture taken by the Herald. I will NEVER forget the photograph. Harry was being subdued by two police officers trying to put handcuffs on him. He was waving his fist at that camera. Below the photo, there was a bold caption. It said: MEMORIES. It read that Harry, of Rockport Texas, did not want his picture taken and demanded that the paper not take the photo. When they proceeded anyway, Harry kept screaming at them, "I'll remember you! I'll remember you!"

That was Harry's fifth DWI, which meant that after his court date, Harry was going to spend some time in the Huntsville State Pen. Even more ironic though unrelated is the fact that just over a year and a half ago in 1985, I actually drove to Mexico with both Steve and Harry. Even then, I figured Mexican jail was inevitable. That is another story, for another time.

When Steve came back from Vancouver two weeks later, he was head over heels in love. I would never call what I saw in Steve as "being alive", but suddenly, I think he was. He looked like a person, that might even get a job and earn some money. Earn his keep! It seemed crazy! But he was a different person. He informed me that he was going back to Vancouver to live happily ever after. This is where he needed me.

If someone ever asks you to put everything they have up for sale and send them the money, run the other way. I realized that going through every page of someone's life is a very invasive thing, for them and for you. I put up yard sale signs and this place began to take over my life.

I was taking Steve's life apart piece by piece and handling it OK. I was just moving along through my life and doing this too. All was going OK until Ann found out.

Ann was the local bohemian millionaire that lived in a house in the dunes and hung out with hard luck poor folk like ourselves. None of us knew how rich Ann was, but the day would come, where you would need Ann. Her heart was big, and she would be there for you. Once she saved you, she also owned you. It wasn’t so bad. If you knew how to fix her stereo system, she expected you to do that. I had heard others, (Steve being one of them) had paid the ultimate price, if you know what I mean.

I liked Ann. She had invited my Dad and me over for Christmas day a couple of years earlier. Her daughter was there from Canada and JT had leaned over to me and whispered that this would be someone to consider for a marriage mate. He did not think so because she was so charming or good looking, Annika was a person that made you think of someone who lived organically without chemical products, she was very plain I guess you could say. It was because of how much money the family had, and never having to need worry about beer money.

It was Ann who bailed Steve out of jail earlier this year and her name was on his bail bond. Although she paid several hundred dollars for that, if Steve defaulted, the bond agent would go for the whole $10K from her, if he skipped.

That information did not come out right away. Ann contacted Steve and told him that any money I collected was hers until her investment was paid. Naturally, I complied. Ann also had helped me earlier this year with a loan for fines, lawyer and court fees when I stupidly had got me a DWI after doing a burnout in the Dodge after leaving Tortuga Flats on a Saturday night.

So the clean-out began to take on a “black-cloud” sort of presence. Man, I had some energy back then! I was out marketing this stuff, having yard sales, cleaning out the house in Ingleside, and getting ready to head north myself.

One night, I had JT over at Steve’s house with me. After dark, the van would not start. After many attempts to get it going, I had no choice but to call my dad. He was upset when he got there, because not only did he have to drive all the way over there, and I think the van may have started in the 45 minutes it took him to take the ferry over to Aransas Pass and out to Ingleside, JT and I were drunk. I was stupid back in those days and drove the van back to Port A. Hadn’t I learned anything last winter? I cut too close to one of the reflector posts on the approach to the ferry and smashed the driver side mirror out.

I could have left this part out of the story, but I am trying to be real here too. Also, there is a significance of noting that once in a while, the van acted like there was a bad connection on the starter and would not start. That is a bad connection on the very hard to get to the starter. In the next few weeks, again in Aransas Pass while hunting for vans to buy with Kevin, who was now going to follow me to the northeast, my van did not start.

So I took one of the last months, or maybe even more of that, that I could have been hanging out with my father and my sister and squandered it on this awful indentured servitude in which I was undoing Steve’s life brick by tainted brick. All the money I had from that deal went to Ann, and my father told me that Steve did come back to appear in court in the months after I left Port A. He sadly went through what was left of his personal things in an old little camper that was parked in my yard. After that, I never again heard anything about him. If he is still alive, I believe he would still be living under the radar. I don’t understand what happened to him. I got to step into the matrix of his life. He had a very good start and advantages, but somewhere, it went way off the rails. It will always be a mystery to me.

With as much as this place is driving me crazy, it is really strange to say if I were to write of all my encounters here, I would probably have a best seller.

Wednesday September 17, 1986

Over the last couple of weeks I learned that my Grandmother, who lives in Bristol Connecticut was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. As the days since we have learned about this have passed the reports are that her condition is worsening steadily. With the urgency of all of this, I took real steps today to leave and put in my notice at work. I had bought real vehicle paint in Aransas Pass last month and a dark brown with metal flakes in it. I am hoping to paint the van this weekend. It is a full-size Chevy with windows all around and cream color on the bottom with a rust orange in the middle and the roof. There are several spots of rust that I need to be dealt with. Looking closely at what I have to do, I am thinking it could take me another week of work to get that done.

I heard my ex is planning to leave her boyfriend to come with me. This is not going to happen. I have decided. No more open old wounds. Sometimes I really feel like I still have deep feelings for her, then other times I wonder what it is about her that I am wanting. I question my motivations.

In the spring of 1985, after what I call the “Great Dodge Space-Time Disaster” of March 4^th. I was driving my Dad’s Chrysler wagon to Corpus every day at a huge gas expense. After a couple of months, the guy who worked on the beach cleaning the Skid-O-Kans, Little Jimmy, got fired from the City of Port Aransas. My Dad alerted me and before I knew it, I was employed in Port Aransas with a real job. It was nice to not drive off the island every day.

Memorial Day weekend, I went on a double date with a co-worker who was 26 years old. I was 19. She had 3 kids ages 10, 8, and 6. She had gotten out of a very rough relationship. I did not understand this yet, but I was about to invoke my Superman complex and “rescue” her. I did not know that was what that was about. Actually, it wasn’t until I was a few years down the road and thousands of miles away that someone pointed this out to me. She was beautiful and I was drawn to her with a power I have never known before. We started living together within 48 hours. This is where I grew up fast. She was rebounding from things that I have no right to ever write as that is not my story to tell. I was full speed ahead with me making everything ok for her going ahead.

This was a very rocky relationship. Her sisters' boyfriend clearly wanted her and he and I were at odds all of the time. I was at odds with her estranged husband who could care less about her and their kids. I was untouchable though. Although I was 125 pounds and just a kid, everyone was afraid of my father, so there was no way anyone would ever even think of harming me in any way. Emotionally, the relationship for her shouldn’t have happened, she should have just had space, but she was married at 14 and never knew how to be alone. I went all in and her occasional needs for air, caused her to push me away which was difficult to understand.

We first lived in her travel trailer with the 3 kids. This was very normal of Port A. Then when my Dad and Brooke moved to Oleander St, we moved into Jeri’s old 1950s mobile home on Avenue J. In October, I bought Rick’s mobile home on Ruthie Ln. We moved into there and in the last week of December, she and I decided to still date, but she was moving back into her trailer with the kids. She needed that and it was good for me too. About a month later we broke up. For the next half a year we had several intense relapses. Sometimes I wondered if it is those times that fooled me into thinking that I could not live without her. Deep down, I was scared to really explore the full commitment to her because she really needed to deal with 12 years of unimaginable circumstances. No one could dismiss such trauma so quickly without years of working at it.

Kevin worked out a trade with a guy named, (I am not making this up) Dusty Rhoades. Kevin gave him his early 70’s Impala and Kevin got Dusty’s 1969 Ford F100 short bed. It had a slide-in camper from the 60’s in the back. This would get Kevin, his wife, and son up north when they followed me. One thing about Kevin that I have noticed, he gets let down too easily. I want to try to help him to get better to not get so discouraged. It seemed to paralyze him. So many things are now my concern. I am hoping to still paint my van, get my house straightened out and have a safe trip north. Something else that is on my mind is Kevin and Joy do not have the money right now to go north. I can see that something like this really helping him. I think it will change his whole perspective on life. Am I crazy? I want to be the person that helps him with this. I think everything else would be something less.

I am so shocked to hear my Grandmother in such a terrible condition. I have taken it for granted that she would always be here with us. I know this is reality and I don’t like it. I love her. I want so badly to see her well again.

Wednesday September 24, 1986

I talked to Grandma last night. She sounded OK but very weak. I told her I was coming north. She said that was nice, but she said that after I see everyone, I should go back to Texas to be with my Father. I did not know it at the time, but she knew how much he needed someone with him. This was lost on me like her just being Grandma.

I have been extremely late for work the last few days. Chuck has been very unhappy about it. Still haven’t done the bodywork on the van. It feels like it will never get done. The van has .38 caliber bullet holes down the right side of it. I bought it from a southern baptist preacher’s son, so use your imagination there.

Thursday September 25, 1986

This is getting crazy! I was working on the van at the city maintenance shop and Jeri stopped over. He said I will never get that bodywork done in the time I have. Jeri is a master at bodywork. My father told me a couple of years ago when he and Jeri were young men up in Connecticut, working at a body shop, someone took this person’s Corvette from the 60’s out drunk joy riding. The car got wrecked and in 36 hours of non-stop work the two of them rebuilt the car and had it rolling out the door looking new when the owner picked it up. If anyone knew, Jeri knew. I am losing ground. Unless I get a bunch of help, there is no way this is going to happen.

I fixed Ann’s stereo up by installing it tonight. I learned that the Canadian Mounties are looking for Steve. What is with him anyway?

Monday September 29, 1986 (Grandma’s 78^th birthday)

Saturday we put the camper back on Kevin’s truck. Thursday night I finally decided to not paint the van until later. I got some close colored cans and touched them up where it needed it. Now, both Kevin and I are out of work. Our plan right now is to leave this Friday morning at 9:30.

On Friday night, we had a big going-away party at my house. Jeri and Odette, Glen, Carol, Brooke, Dad, Dusty, JT, Ann, Bob, Kevin, Joy, and Jason were there. It was the best going away party I have ever known.

On Saturday morning, I woke up pretty drunk still. Odette came over and so did Dad. We drank a few beers and Dad and I installed Steve’s gas range in the house. We changed to coffee and hung out with Brooke and Dad. Later that day around 3 we said our good-byes and left. We stopped our convoy of 2 on Avenue J at Jeri’s. We had a beer with Jeri and Odette. We got ice and some other things and we hit the road.

Once we got to the other side of the ferry, Kevin’s truck would not run right at all. We limped to Aransas Pass. In 1984, I drove down here almost trouble-free. Little did I know it now, I was beginning the journey that would start a series of 2200 mile treks that would be carried out fighting rapid-fire adversity.

In Aransas, we tried a bunch of things but nothing seemed to work, so we limped to Rockport. We stopped at a service station and then a garage. A couple of girls were watching us as were waiting and it made me wonder if going alone was the right thing for me to be doing. After a while, they looked at the Ford and found that a condenser was not connected properly.

With the truck fixed, Kevin and I were standing outside waiting for his wife to come back from the Dairy Queen next door. His son was asleep in his car seat in their pickup. I turned and noticed that his truck was rolling back across the parking lot towards the gas pumps. I have never run so fast in my life to get around that truck. I got into the driver seat and stomped on the brake pedal, at the same time, Kevin was in the passenger seat trying to reach over and do the same. The truck stopped 3 feet before it contacted the pump.

We got on the road and headed north out of Rockport. 3 years later, on this stretch of road, I would have my Kobayashi Maru, my test of the no-win scenario. Kevin kept falling behind. After a while, I pulled over and asked why he was driving so slow. He said that the steering was seriously scaring him. He said that it was drifting. The Ford was a short bed with this big tall slide-in camper in it too. It was top-heavy, so this meant that with the steering drifting, his corrections were causing this tippy feeling as he drove. Wonderful. Stuff you don’t notice on an island where the speed limit is 30. I told him he would get used to it. (wow).

He started to drive 55 with me. We stopped south of Tivoli and he mentioned that he almost lost complete control of the truck. So from this point on we crawled down the road. Soon after we stopped and then got back on, heading for Victoria.

It was dark, but we crawled on. There were times when I would lose Kevin’s headlights behind other vehicles, but somehow we always worked it out. Victoria was a huge pain to drive through because it gets confusing. From there we drove to Giddings. It was the last overnight stay town on my way to live with my Dad back in 84. There was one unbelievable mountain of s curves. I was so frustrated with the way things were going. My cat Joannie was very restless. I wanted to find a campground. I convinced Kevin of this as we fueled up. Fueling was frustrating too. My fuel capacity was double his, so we had to stop twice as often as I needed to. Not long after, I found Bastrop State Park. When we got there, I could not believe it’s likeness to Connecticut. We turned in right away.

I got a beer out, and I realized that I missed Port Aransas, Dad and Brooke and many others. I wanted to go back! As I slept I dreamed of Port A. I missed it so much...What have I done?

Sunday October 5, 1986

We woke up and made coffee. Joannie played in the trees and ran up and down the hills. She loved it. She had never seen a real tree before or a hill. It was great. I took some pictures of her. As I watched her though, I could not deny the sadness in my over leaving Port Aransas. In many ways, I was mad that I had made this stupid decision. That one night in the bathroom, brushing my ex-girlfriend’s hair and her uttering the words, “take me away from here.” Well played “D”. Look at me now.

I paid the park ranger and took a shower. As we got on the road, it began to rain. Joannie jumped into my lap I petted her until she slept. We got some gas a little “Dixie” looking gas station that you see in the 70’s movies.

Although we were only driving a maximum speed of 40 miles per hour I STILL had to stop and let Kevin catch up because he seemed to be driving slower all the time. When we arrived at Austin it was really difficult to keep Kevin’s truck behind be with all of the traffic. Fast stops were hard for him too. They almost caused him to lose control of his truck. As we trekked across Austin, the radio stations were great.

We drove for endless hours northwest across the state of Texas using all back roads. Then a strange thing happened. Something that rarely ever needed to happen in Port A. I had to put the heat on in the van. It was gray, dark, wet, and miserable outside. Earlier today I was not wearing a shirt. This was normal for me is my 21 year-old, deep dark tan, bleach-blond island boy. I suddenly knew now that the next time we stopped that I would need to rummage through my stuff and find a good warm one.

Joannie really surprised me. I reached for a Coca-Cola Classic out of the cooler which sat between the 2 seats. She got off my lap, yawned and stretched, and went into the back of the van and lay down on the tape case. She had never left me before, she was getting brave.

Why are we going northwest when New England is northeast? Before we can leave Texas, Kevin and Joy have to go home to Cisco and Abilene in West Texas. I suspected they were going to try to score some funds from parents perhaps. I passed a sign that read 41 miles to Cisco. I had never been to this part of Texas and this part of Texas was clearly not ready for the likes of me. 6 years ago, there was a John Travolta, Debra Winger movie called Urban Cowboy. Cisco on a smaller scale made me think of this. But, guess what? It was a dry county! My van had plenty of beer. Great.

We stopped for gas and I pulled over a sweatshirt. I think it was down to a damp 58 degrees which after a South Texas summer, was awfully cold. This was probably the 1^st time Kevin, Joy, Jason, or even my cat Joannie Babe had ever seen me this covered up! Yesterday, it was 93 degrees. As we pulled out of the gas station a hard rain started. The wiper switch in the van has to be held for the wipers to remain operational. This was a pain, but this is what I needed to do.

We passed through Early, TX. This is the town that our recent City Manager of Port Aransas migrated from. I had some negative political thoughts as I compared this almost non-existent town to tropical Port A, a resort town.

We left there after eating and went to Kevin’s Mom’s house. Cisco was so ugly, the roads were dirt even in the residential neighborhoods. I hated it. The raid hammered relentlessly on the roof of the van. Cisco just seemed gray to me in every way.

We first stopped at Kevin’s mother’s house, you could not fill a postcard with the few words they said to each other during the time we were there which was a couple of hours. Then we moved over to Kevin’s sister’s house. Nancy was very nice. We visited then went on to Kevin’s Dad’s house. The conversation flowed there with Kevin’s dad and stepmom and others. We learned things about Cisco here. Torrential downpours have been going on for days. The whole town was suffering from flooding problems. Joannie stayed in the van and slept on the dashboard.

It was here that I learned about this being a dry county. They described the town police as “mickey mouse” and that it was best to avoid their notice. Then to make matters even more interesting in a “Macon County Line” sort of way, all roads out were now closed due to the floods. (Macon county line was a movie back in 1974 of a true story from 1954 about a couple of young men who pick a wild girl and get the notice of the local sheriff. When the Sheriff's wife is murdered by a couple of drifters and not the 2 boys the Sherriff vengefully pursues them and the girl as he believes it was they that killed his wife. One of the most tragic movies ever made about being in the wrong place at the wrong time). Cisco’s borders were psychologically closing in on me. For good measure, of course, there was a curfew! Why not! Someone was burning houses down one after the other. They had no leads, so a curfew was in place. I was thinking, how could you burn something in this rain?

We left Kevin’s Dad’s and we walked into the White Elephant truck stop in Eastland/Cisco Texas. We needed to eat dinner. I was so out of place, it seemed to me that everyone halted their conversations and the jukebox stopped playing at the same time. Kevin, a big 6 foot 4 local with me was probably the only reason I survived the visit. This was red-neck central and I was a long-haired, blonde, tanned, and tropical bohemian kid. They were jeans, plaid shirts, cowboy hats, and pointed-toe boots. The girls all had tight jeans stuffed into cowboy boots, some had hats. I guess I could get used to that. Big hair, it was still the 80’s. The food was terrible and at 21 I had no standards. I could cook McCormick cooking bag ribs, shake and bake pork chops and hamburger helpless.

We then went back to Kevin’s sister Nancy’s house to stay for the night. She was a wonderful hostess and she let me put Joannie Babe in the garage because it was so much warmer and drier than in the van. As I closed my eyes, Port Aransas felt like a dream or that it was a thousand miles and years ago.

Monday October 6, 1986

Today, Kevin and I went to a junkyard in Eastland and bought a steering box for his truck. This part was worn out and was causing all the drifting for the steering. Old Fords were famous for this. We could no longer crawl across the United States. Every person I encountered looked at me like they were going to find me with torches and pitchforks after dark. We found a garage to put Kevin’s steering box in, but they could not until tomorrow. I guess I would have to do my best to avoid the torches and pitchforks for another night. We moved on to a crappy campsite and reserved it for the night.

We drove out to Joy’s Dad’s house for dinner. The man had “no smoking” signs posted in his house! To me, he was the real West Texan. He was a hard man. It was clear he hated Kevin. I don’t think he like the hippie (me) they brought with them, although I got the sense that he felt he could relate to me a little better than he liked. I felt miles out of place. I looked around the dining room during the tense dinner conversation and wondered “how did I get to this place and time?” I really wanted to leave. After dinner, I went out to the van to smoke a cigarette and see Joannie. She was on the dashboard as usual. The van life was good on her, she really seemed to like it. She was really getting all the sleep she wanted.

I went back inside. Joy’s father proceeded to yell at both of them for all of the stupid decisions that they had and were and will be making. He did not care one bit that I was there. He handed them some cash and then we left.

We drove out to Abilene as the interstate was open. Joy’s mom lived in an apartment out there. While we had a couple of beers there, I viewed Abilene as your average city with its mix of good places and bad places. I was on edge and wanted to leave. Her neighborhood did not feel like one of the best. Joannie and everything I owned was outside in that Chevy van.

We went shopping on the way back to Cisco. We arrived back at the campground. Joannie went out and she ran around happily until one of those rag dogs chased her away. I was so mad at it. I searched all over the campground in the rain with a flashlight. I did not find her. I left the passenger window open enough for Joannie. I had a couple beers and began to write about this trip. I prayed Joannie would come back. I missed my travel buddy. Port A was disappearing in the mist more than ever.

Tuesday October 7, 1986

When I woke up, Joannie was on my pillow, looking at me and purring. I was so happy. I felt that she would always be back in the morning. We took Kevin’s truck to the garage then went to a little diner on the interstate. We stopped at Walmart. I bought a 2 mantle Coleman lantern. It would be light and heat. I bought a down vest. Bought 2 tapes, “Queens Greatest” and “Foreigner Double Vision”. We took a ride and then did laundry. Finally, Kevin’s truck work was done. We each had tires fixed because we thought their current condition posed threats, and then we went to say good-bye to his family.

Kevin and I thought we were in good shape to head north now, me more than him. It was so good to get on the road this afternoon. Joannie and I was so happy to be sprung from Cisco. We were burning down the highway, headed for the Fort Worth, Dallas Metroplex. My mixtape made in Port A, “RoadTape III” played. The cooler was full of ice-cold cans of Coke. Memories of Port Aransas wandered through my head over and over again. I really seemed to be regretting this decision. Now on my way north, it seemed that I had only left the northeast hours earlier. It felt like Port Aransas was only a few minutes long. There was no turning back. Dad and Brooke moved into my house. My job now belonged to Jeff, my ex-girlfriend’s boyfriend.

The metroplex was a nightmare traffic-wise, which I expected. Just north of Dallas, Kevin flashed his headlights and I stopped. He told me that he needed gas very soon. He told me that he only had $220 left. That really rained on the parade! We could not turn back now. After an hour of driving North towards Oklahoma, we suddenly began going down these steep hills on the interstate. Then at the bottom of a giant hill and curve, there stood an enormous sign, “Welcome to Oklahoma”. Somehow in the future, I might choose to avoid that greeting. For some reason, they tend to spell trouble for me. But we were there and out of Texas, just like that! We were actually about 20 miles off course as I took the wrong highway in my haste to get the heck out of Dallas. I located an old county road that would cut us east to the highway we needed to be on. I had some stupid idea that we would not spend the night in tornado alley, as I had a good time here in 84, but there was no way we could drive all night either. We did not leave Cisco till the afternoon and we had driven a long way.

When we got to Route 69 I told Kevin we needed to locate a campground. I had a big campground book with me. I found one in the strange, swampy, woodlands, Boggy Depot State Park. Out in the middle of nowhere as you could get. Miles of dirt road kept knocking my, not quite completed beverage holder off the engine cover of the van. It was taking so long that I wondered why people would drive this far off main roads to camp here. Armadillos ran across the road in front of us. Joannie was awake because of the bumpy roads but otherwise, unconcerned. I imagined the woodlands around me in the daylight to be swamp all around. Fog surrounded us which added an eerie effect to Boggy Depot. After an eternity we came to a fog-covered cemetery straight out of scooby doo. Joannie seemed to get restless now. We passed a sign that said, “Boggy Depot State Park”. Signs said the park was closed but gates were open, so we continued. We found a place to park, and Joannie bolted up one of the tall pines that surrounded us everywhere. She loved trees. Joannie an Island cat had realized her greatest triumph, trees.

I started my beautiful Coleman lantern. This thing threw amazing light into the darkness and made it a more likable place. I was telling Kevin that this park reminded me of parks down by the Connecticut seashore. Nothing I said seemed to surprise Kevin anymore. I told him so many things he was just in absorb mode now. If I told him that there were aliens from outer space living in Connecticut, he would have just looked at me a nodded.

Kevin and Joy went to bed. I hopped into the passenger seat of my van, placed the coleman light on the beverage holder, and drank a beer. This van was really starting to feel like home now. I could not yet feel the love and trust for the van as I had for my Dodge, but trust was growing and home sweet home it was starting to become. I thought Joannie really felt this way. Van life was working very well for her only after a few days. I put a can of cat food down for her, she ate a little then went outside to play. I finished the beer and went to bed. Tomorrow is another day. We are now moving right along and it is now smooth sailing from here.

Wednesday October 8, 1986

When I awoke, Joannie was not sleeping with me. I knew then, I would never see her again. I kept telling myself that she was somewhere near. I even avoided looking for her at first because then I would not have to accept the fact that she was gone. I took a shower. When I returned to the van, I knew I could not have put it off any longer, I had to go looking for her.

A park ranger came over and I asked if he had seen a little black cat. He said that he had not. I was not even sure if Joannie was allowed in state parks, but he did not seem to mind. I heard dogs barking and I hoped that it was her they were barking at, but that was not the case. Kevin and I went deep into the woods and cemetery to search for her, but we could not find her. Only now, I realized how it was wrong that I let her out in this weird and dense place. I wish I had kept her in the van. I got out the binoculars and went looking for her. Kevin saw them and said, “ah, I didn’t know you had binoculars.” It was one of those statements that you wonder why someone would say it. It was overstating the obvious and made it sound like maybe I needed to register that item with him. That maybe I had told him so many things in my constant reassurance of his future that he was in disbelief that I could own something that I had not mentioned. Kevin must have picked up on my annoyance because he also said, “I am sorry about Joannie.”

I just didn’t want to talk about it. I knew that we would have to leave without her and something inside me said that if she were still alive, she would have been with me already. Joannie-Babe was her real name. She was the second cat that I had named after Joan Jett. The first was Jett back in late 84. He fetched crumpled up cigarette packs. He died on Park Road 53 in the spring of 85. Joannie was a gift from Brooke after my cat Snow Ball disappeared on Ruthie Lane. I really loved her. After her, I would not name any more cats after Joan. Enough was enough. After looking as far as we could it was time to leave. 

As we pulled out of Boggy Depot State Park I was leaving a big part of my heart there.  I held back tears. I missed Joannie Babe and I felt alone and lost. I wanted to cancel this day. I wished I had left her with Brooke. Joannie and I were good roommates and we enjoyed each other's company. I hated this sadness.  My memories of her surfaced as we drove out those desolate roads out of the area. Why would I even let her outside in a place like this?  I felt really bad.  It was no one's fault but mine.  I was mad at myself because Joannie was a gift from my sister Brooke, and I had regarded her with so little care.  What I should have known or at least thought about was my last trip through this part of Oklahoma in 84.  

In 1984, while on my maiden voyage to Texas, I had a mechanical issue with the left front brake of my 72 Dodge Dart. The issue was taken care of for a mere 11 dollars and I continued down the road. I arrived in Checotah, Oklahoma around lunchtime.  I got a room, called my Grandmother, and said hello.  Then I went back to my room and took a shower and lay down. My intention was to sleep a few hours, then pull out at midnight. I could not really go to sleep, although I did get close several times.  I watched television for a while.  Around 7:30 that evening the television had a steady overlay on the lower right corner of the screen, on every channel that said "severe storm warning".  This was different from Connecticut in which you would see a message scroll across the screen every so often.

Brilliant me decides, “I better leave now and beat the storm!” Stupid little Connecticut boy, you cannot outrun a thunderstorm in southeast Oklahoma! I was so clueless. I hit the road, without sleep, and drove right into the biggest storm I had ever seen. I could see it for 50 miles and was right in the thick of it for over 30 miles. The wind and lightning was serious business. My wiper blades were worn and the wiper motor could not run the wipers fast enough to keep up with rain like this car has never seen. There was a section of highway 69 that the row of trees on the side of the road was on fire. The violence of this storm felt like a tornado was imminent.

While I gripped the steering wheel of my 72 Dodge, all I could think about it that I STILL HAD THAT MOTEL ROOM RENTED TILL NOON THE NEXT DAY! What an idiot! I rode out of the storm and drove into Texas. I stopped at this dark little convenience store and grabbed a coffee. Things were pretty calm until I made it to Dallas around 2 AM. The traffic patterns were foreign and it blew my concentration. Yet, I could still be sleeping in my Checotah, Oklahoma motel room that was still paid for. Dallas was in my rearview finally. I decided that I was very tired and at this point, I thought just pulling into a rest area and laying down on the front seat to sleep was welcome, despite the motel room in Checotah.

All the rest areas were full. I began to worry that the full rest areas were warning that storms were further south. I got off the interstate in Hillsboro and took route 22 west toward Lake Whitney State Park. The sky opened up and again, the wipers were no match for the deluge. I drove a long way out to the state park on back roads and there was a tree across the road. I turned around, I had seen a small motel on 22 on my way out to Whitney. When I got there it was actually not open anymore. The rain pounded down, wipers slamming up and down, defroster full speed, lights on full, and of course, the alternator gauge started to pull down toward the low side, it was not charging. I backed the defroster down to conserve battery power, as well as dim the brights, and wipers down 1 speed. The headlights grew dimmer all the time. It was getting dangerously low. My car would run without power, it was a 72 with breaker point ignition, but I still needed lights and wipers. When I got down as low as I thought I possibly could and would have to stop driving, the needle jumped over to the overcharge side with a vengeance. It overcharged all the way back to the interstate. I had enough. I pulled up to the swimming pool of a larger hotel and parked, laid down on the front seat, and went to sleep. As I slept, a nice little motel room in Checotah, Oklahoma sat quietly across the road from an old truck stop diner. Empty and mine. I should have stayed until the next day.

How I wished now, in October of 1986 I thought about that and said, “This time, in Oklahoma, I am going to wait until the next day”. I wonder if Joannie would have come back. I wonder if all that was waiting up the road for us would have happened. We got off the endless dirt roads and passed the two iron bridges where Clear Boggy Creek and Muddy Boggy Swamp were. The Road Tape #4 was in the tape deck when the thing ate a few yards of tape and defiantly messed up the tape deck. This really made me mad because on a long trip like this I like to have personal choices of what to listen to. Losing Joannie and the tape deck was not a good start for today.

We stopped at the first store we came to and bought coffee. Kevin kept saying he was sorry about Joannie. I think he really liked her. We got back on the road and the day grew warm and cloudy. I was listening to a local AM radio station because in 86 you could still feel the local culture by doing that. The Oklahoma state of mind took my mind off Joannie on and off. We were traveling northeast on highway 69 and my mind was spinning that area of road back in 1984 and the thunderstorm. We got to Eufaula Lake. It was so beautiful! It seemed bigger than the last time I saw it, well, actually it was. There were signs, houses, and cars in the lake. Oklahoma was suffering from terrible flooding.

That afternoon, we got on the Will Rogers Turnpike, or as I know it, “Highway to Trivial Hell”. I did not expect any issues. I paid my dues back in 84 with the brakes on the Dodge. We were running along very smoothly. We got off the highway and fueled up. I figured the next time we’d need to stop would be halfway across Missouri. On my radio, the DJ said, “ Muskogee’s Classic Rock Station, and right after that, the studio version of Venus and Mars Rock Show by Wings began playing. Now I was riding high. This was just what I needed. I was feeling pretty good despite the very bad start of the day. I thought we may even find a campground before dark and cook outside. Enjoy the experience a little.

As the afternoon progressed we got into the afternoon rush hour, it was around 4:30. We had almost run out of Oklahoma as we were gaining on Joplin, Missouri rapidly. We were moving at 58 miles an hour (the speed limit still 55 back then) I noticed that the wind was pushing my van sideways. As I steered into the wind to compensate, then the wind pushed me in the other direction and I had to steer in the opposite direction. I looked at the trees, the leaves were still. I flash of hot went through my whole body because I instantly knew something was going very wrong, but I did not know what it was. The van’s steering? What? What is it! I instinctively pulled back off the gas pedal and as I did I heard the whine of a tractor-trailer passing me. I checked the mirror, nothing was there. PANIC! Now I knew what was happening!

There was an explosion like a gunshot! The left rear tire, which had a tube inside a tubeless tire, exploded and when it did, it took everything I could do to hold the van sort of straight, or at least moving in the same direction it was. I was trying to get to the side of the road and in my mirror, Kevin too was at red alert. Pieces of my tire pelting his truck, but he was struggling to keep his top-heavy rig upright and slowing down fast too.

When we finally got stopped, I put the 4 ways on the van and turned off the engine. I don’t remember how I felt at that moment because I was in a very dangerous place on the turnpike where there was only enough room to have the left tires on the white line and the traffic was brutal. I may have been too thankful to be mad.   

The tire was mutilated. I had no idea a tube in a tubeless tire could become so dangerous when breached. I pull out the jack and a tire and jacked up the van. There was no room to work. Not every vehicle passing by moved over to give us room. I could feel the breeze of those vehicles speeding what felt like a couple of feet behind me as I worked quickly. The tire was super hot and hard to deal with and the jack did not pick the van up high enough so I had to make adjustments. We put on the spare tire that came off of Crockett’s work truck in Port A. It was bald on the edges and had tread in the center. Kevin and I worked extremely fast, adrenaline flowing. I lost a friend in this exact situation years ago. We were pretty impressed with how quickly we dealt with this and were still in a pretty good mood despite the setback.

I jumped into the van, shut off the 4 ways, and turned the key. Remember that scene in Back to the Future where the lightning strike is going to happen, Marty jumps into the Delorean and turns the key, but nothing happens? That is exactly what happened now. Just like that night at Steve’s in Ingleside, just like the time in Aransas Pass. I could not believe this is happening! No! Tried again, nothing. I could hear the unobtainable starter making a clicking noise in the unreachable depths of my van. Why did I not buy jumper cables! That always seemed to bridge the gap. The 4 ways must have depleted the battery just enough to aggravate this poor connection issue. Back in 85, when I bought Cliff’s 73 Dodge pickup and we were having issues with it starting, my Dad went nuts when he had told me that all connections were clean, and then it did not start or charge because they were not clean. You will relive the same mistakes in many manifestations. While I tried, cars and trucks blew by us rocking our two vehicles every time.

My good nature suddenly jumped out the hatch without a parachute. If I had held back anything that had bothered me earlier, it all came out now. I do not ever remember being this mad! Joannie, the stereo, almost crashing, the tire, the battery, stuck on the side of the highway and the sun was setting soon. Kevin and I brainstormed about ways to get the van going again. Kevin kept bringing up a new idea, we would laugh at some and others we didn’t. Kevin kept his head. He was not necessarily known for this but here he was doing it. He was patient. I fantasized about having a gun and putting a few MORE BULLET HOLES in the van. I was 21, still learning. Still whiny. Still dramatic.

I pulled out a CB radio, hooked it up to the battery, and tried calling for help. It was not the 1970’s, CB’s were used for more practical reasons and some novelty. In the 1970’s everyone was on these things. You could call for help and an army of citizens band junkies would come roaring over the horizon like a storm. I tried. I radioed out that I required road service. In the hiss of the radio, I heard a faint voice say, “Alright, I'll be right there.” What the heck? I didn’t say where I was! I could be in southwest Missouri or northeast Oklahoma. Yes! What the heck was happening here? Then it occurred to me. There is only one way this could happen. One person is responsible. I marched back to Kevin’s truck and there he was, kneeling on the ground, leaning onto the passenger side floor of the truck at Joy’s feet, talking into a small handheld CB radio. He had this huge grin on his face. I started yelling at him. “That is NOT FUNNY!” I screamed at him. He only laughed more, then I laughed too because it was actually VERY funny.

The sun was working its way down to touch the horizon behind us and the traffic blew by us every second, shaking us all from side to side on the narrow shoulder. For our next trick, we removed the battery from Kevin’s truck and brought it to the van. Using coat hangers we attempted to use them as jumper cables. Still, we could not get juice to the starter. The starter was so hard to get to with the cable protectors that it had and the strange condition of the solenoid. It was not a good idea to mess with the starter even though I did try a little bit.

Sunset came and I was determined to get the van off the road. Just beyond the shoulder, the grassy land sloped into a very steep ditch. We had no rope to tow with so I took the sheet off my bed. Towing a heavy half ton van loaded this much did not seem logical, but I needed to be attempted.

Our first, try, the van moved a little, then the sheet ripped. I tied it back on and this time we towed the van almost a half a mile. Still, there was nowhere to get the van off the highway. It was very dark now. I locked up the van, and Kevin drove us up to the toll booth at the end of the turnpike. I found a phone and called for help. We went back to the van. Now 8:30, the traffic never stopped. I was so shattered from spending hours on the side of the Will Rogers Turnpike. I hung the Coleman light on the rear of the van so people could see it. About 15 minutes later, an Oklahoma State Trooper showed up. I told him that I thought a simple jump-start would work. He did not have jumper cables so he left and headed up to the toll plaza to see if he could get some. He was back in 15 minutes. We tried to start the van a couple of times but it did not work. I asked if we could just let it charge a few minutes. It finally started after the battery was allowed to charge some. We thanked the officer and left. He followed us for about a mile riding right alongside of us looking like he was checking us over. He finally took off and let us be after one very hard day.

When we got up to the toll plaza the woman in the booth was visibly unhappy with the fumes that my van was producing. Sometimes, the carburetor would load up and do that. She mentioned it to Kevin as he came through. What she did not see was all the smoke coming out of the right side tailpipe of Kevin's truck, which probably rendered the person in the right tollbooth unconscious.

Right after the tolls, there was a beautiful “Welcome to Missouri” sign. I was happy to see Oklahoma gone but very sad that Joannie was gone too. I was also sorry for what I terrible experience Oklahoma was.

One thing had now definitely changed. This afternoon, I was free-spirited and felt invincible. Now I felt marked for disaster. I felt vulnerable. The spare tire I was running made me nervous. I did not know if it could last the trip. Even worse, Kevin’s rear tires were in terrible shape. If one ever gave out, after seeing what happened to me, he would flip that whole thing over! Oklahoma hated me and seemed to strike me hard every time I went through it. I was in fear now for the rest of the trip. Worry seized me. I prayed over and over again for a safe trip.

When we got into Joplin, we went to a store. Joplin was a good size city. We needed a grocery store. I led us to a department store. My dramatic twenty-one-year-old baby self started complaining. “I lose Joannie Babe, mess up my tape deck, blow a tire, the van won’t start, stranded on the Will Rogers Turnpike, and now, NOW I lead us to the wrong store! Am I having a bad day?” So after getting my Pampers in a bunch, we found an actual grocery store with actual groceries in it. I noticed the prices of food, beer and cigarettes were good. “Maybe we ought to live here” I told Kevin and Joy. They did not respond as I think they were probably thinking that I had lost my mind by now. I do think it is really funny that at 21 years old, my in-depth scientific analysis of a geographic study consisted of the prices of food, beer, and smokes.

We drove about 3 miles to the KOA Kampground. The campground had one of those self-registration stations. I said, screw it and we found a decent site. I finally felt relieved when we parked. I was sad because a whole day had now passed since I had seen Joannie Babe. There would be more days and years without her. I took out the Coleman stove and got out the beer. I knew for sure, I was going to put a few back tonight. We all sat in Kevin’s camper and reminisced about our eventful day. Joy said that she knew I was mad when she saw me throw a screwdriver at the ground. It was the one I had been trying to jump the starter with. We talked a while longer about the day and also days to come. I succeeded in getting completely smashed tonight, just as I had wanted to.

Thursday October 9, 1986

When I awoke, it was sunny. I hoped it was going to last because we had not seen a sunny day since Port Aransas five days ago. It almost did not exist anymore. I went and took a shower. The men's room was nice and had country music playing in it. Nobody’s perfect. I put on cut-offs and a tee shirt and did not wear shoes. I wanted today to be warm and comfortable. Kevin and Joy got their showers and then we squared up for the campsite fee. We grabbed ice and headed straight back to the highway since we fueled in Joplin the night before.

As I rode along, I was not brave anymore. I was scared. Yesterday was too much of a slap in the face. Today, the good weather decided we were not worthy and storm clouds chased the sunshine away. Soon the rain poured from the sky. The highway seemed so crowded. I was nervous about the spare I was riding on. I adjusted the left mirror to keep an eye it. All I did was pray that nothing bad would happen. I watched the white wall on the tire, making sure that it did not get closer to the asphalt on the roadway. I was sensing Kevin’s nervousness with all of the rain and how he was driving, so I pulled into a rest area.

I grabbed a few Cokes, the Coleman light, and the map and headed over to Kevin’s camper. We looked at the maps, drank Coke, and ate sunflower seeds hoping to sit out the rain. But the rain continued and we mapped out our estimates of how far we would go today. We wanted to get beyond St Louis, which means that we would cross the Mississippi and land in Illinois. I did not like St Louis. The last time I was there it did not impress me at all. I explained to Kevin that we would take the bypass highway to avoid St Louis. I could not imagine that top-heavy Ford going through that nightmare of a city.

The rest area was a nice break from the dangerous roads with the pouring hard rain. It eventually eased up and we got back on the road. It was funny, inside the camper it was light, warm, and cozy from the Coleman. Outside it was dark, damp, cold, and dreary. I told Kevin I would recognize Eureka Missouri when we got there. Eureka was where I stopped in 1984 to watch Star Trek 3 The Search for Spock for the second time in 3 days. I remember it well. There was a Six Flags over America there. Riding these roads again made the years that went by seeming only like weeks. I did not like how that feeling sort of invalidated my Port Aransas life. It was the time of the most impact on my life.

As you ride through Missouri, everything is something “of the Ozarks”. The soda, radio station, City, Highway, toilet paper...you get the idea. Underground caverns advertised on billboards. These caverns were so big you could drive through them.

Evening crawled in upon us. It seemed to come faster than I expected. Kevin saw the signs for Eureka, but I never did. I was looking for a six Flags and a shopping center that I thought I remembered so well. I never found it. It was foolish anyway. We pulled off the highway for gas. Outside there were high school kids all hanging out. No matter where you go it is all the same, isn’t it?

Back on the highway, we headed for St Louis and then took the bypass loop which to me seemed every bit as crazy as the middle of the city. This time I did get to see the Mississippi River and it was huge and beautiful. We came into Illinois north of East Saint Louis Illinois. I figured we would get a campground there. We drove, following signs the best could and we felt that we were doing fine. I would finally see East St Louis. It was time to find a place to stay. I never seem to be able to stay in East St Louis because I never seem to be able to arrive there. It is almost like it does not really exist.

We went to one campground, but it closed at 10 and it was later than that. Strange. I needed to look at Wheeler’s campground book. We pulled into a dark gas station. Kevin decided to top off the fuel tank. I looked at the map. A sheriff's car pulled in and he was talking to the station operator. The sheriff kept looking me over...a lot. So while Kevin was getting gas, the Sheriff drove over to me. This town began to close in on me like Cisco did. He asked if there was something he could help with. The gas attendant walked over to my van and stood between it and the cruiser. They said there was a campground around here but it was closed. They said the next one was about 40 miles further up I 70. The station attendant was about 5’6”, round with a big beer belly, and looked like he had not showered in a week. Black hair, unkempt beard, and dark eyes. The Sheriff actually asked him to make room in his yard for our vehicles. They said we can plug into his electricity and water, use his shower. At least someone would use it. This whole thing felt so wrong to me. Why are complete strangers doing this? It was more than that. They were insisting, strongly insisting that we stay there. People this “nice” scare me. The more they talked the more uneasy I felt. The back and forth with them was weird. The more I said it was OK and thanked them for their hospitality the more they pressed. Honestly, I think I would have felt safer in Nuevo Larado Mexico, and you should see that place! I thanked them again and said we would head up the interstate to the other campground.

The attendant and the Sheriff began to talk among themselves. The Sheriff told me that he was looking for trouble. Although that sort of makes me uncomfortable, it sort of is his job. They talked about local things. The sheriff kept looking at my van as though it would have been great to find fault with it somehow. He found something, he saw the bullet holes. “38 caliber?” he asked. I was like, “Oh that. Yeah, funny story. Bought this from a Texas Baptist Preachers son, the odometer even seems tampered with.” He laughed. We finally pulled out and I was happy to get out. They may have just been nice guys but that is not how I felt when I was in their presence. We found the campground up the interstate but that was closed with a gate. We were burning gas for no reason. We went even further up 70 and found another that was closed, but no gate. We pulled in and parked for the night and went to sleep.

Friday October 10,1986

When I woke up, got our of the van and talked with Kevin for a while, then went to take a shower. Place after place, I was starting to think, campground life isn’t such a bad way to live. I guess I had forgotten about this over the last couple of years. We did not stay long. We went to a trailer that was a temporary office and spoke with a retired couple. We talked with them for about half an hour. The man told us that the state of Missouri was so flooded that the usually straight interstate trip from Kansas City to St Louis was now closed and one would have to drive up towards Chicago. Half a state out of the way. I told him about the Oklahoma floods we had seen. They finally wished us well and we were on our way again. It was finally very sunny out. It suddenly occurred to me that this was the first time we had really seen the sun since a week ago in Port Aransas for the most part. It now seemed like that was years ago. So strange. 

It was nice out. A car of girls drove by, being silly, and waved at me. They were just having fun. I again was thinking about being alone. What I left behind, and what was ahead of me. I was listening to the radio. The announcer was interviewing Garrison Keeler about Lake Wobegon Days. It was the first time I had ever heard of either. It almost sounded like “Island Time”. It is the state of mind that you succumb to in Port Aransas. You arrive like a normal person and you stop wearing shoes, fewer clothes, your car rusts into oblivion, the muffler falls off, your pace changes, the news is completely local, the sports section of the paper only has similarly dressed people holding cans of beer standing next to large fish hanging from a rack. Sounds just about right.

We stopped for gas as that is our habit. As we got close to the entrance I heard Kevin’s tires locked up and squealed. At the pump, he got out and complained that I did something wrong when all I did was signal and turn. Inside, I got a cup of coffee. This place was like a trucker's dream. Fuel and diner. We hit the road and all I could think about was Red whom I worked within the Public Works Department of the city, telling me that John Cougar Mellencamp was his cousin. They were from this part of the country and the land reminded me of the Pink Houses video from 1984. There is not much more for me to say about the state of Illinois as it was just flat farmland.

In the afternoon, we were at a rest area in Illinois. I called Brooke and told her about Joannie Babe. She was mad.  She was also really surprised I was not in Connecticut. But after all, this was the trip that never ends. Further up I 70, it was around 4 in the afternoon. On the westbound side of the highway, there was a tanker traveling down the highway and it was on fire, behind it 2 police cars were chasing it, followed by a firetruck. How I would love to read about that in a paper somewhere.

In 84 I drove right through the middle of Indianapolis and it was very nice. This time we took the bypass and that was nice too. Mike from A Auto once told me Indianapolis was a toilet. It is funny how you can get the wrong impression about things. Something to remember.

The sun disappeared and just as it did we drove under the arch that is the Indiana, Ohio state lines. I checked the Wheeler’s book and located a campground very close and just off the interstate. This was a very nice place, we checked in around 8, cooked some dinner, had a few beers, and went to sleep.

Saturday October 11, 1986

We got up. Kevin was the first person to go to the shower. He came back and was all excited. The shower was “ice cold” and almost impossible to stand under! I went up, put in a quarter, and had all the nice hot water I wanted. It was awesome. Kevin was amused and annoyed by the weather and he noticed that it was a nice warm day to the people of Ohio and we were freezing our butts off. You could tell it was fall and you could feel it in the air. 

 We definitely, had this belonging nowhere feeling now, and why not? We left hot south Texas in vehicles we could live in. Never once did we ever consider winter was coming. Never for a moment did we consider a place to live once we got to the northeast. This was so characteristic of my twenties. I always jumped in the dark without ever knowing if there was even a place to land. Even now, feeling the colder weather closing in on us, I had no concerns about this. I had no concerns about money even though I did not have much of it. I did not worry about Kevin and Joy who were rapidly running out of money. Kevin and I were young. We could get a job in one afternoon if needed. It was 1986, it was the Regan era. We did not know it but the part of the country we were driving into was booming so much, we could have got 12 jobs each if we had the time of day to work them. Texas was dying since the crashing of oil prices happened this year. A month ago I bought gas in Rockport for 51 cents a gallon! Kevin was ambitious. If there were jobs to be had, he was employed. The northeast would welcome him with open arms.

As we drove from the campground back to the highway, my clothing felt strange. I was wearing baggy jeans and over sized sweatshirt. It was so strange to dress like this. I realized I changed so much in my tropical gulf coast years. When I came to Texas I was a jeans, t-shirt, Frye boot kid. I became a cut-off, barefoot, shirtless beach kid. But NOT “surfer-trash’ as my Dad termed it.

Ohio was it’s usual smiling self today. One gas station that we stopped at showed gas price signs high in the sky that said 17 cents Regular gas and 19 cents Unleaded gas. I asked the gas man across the road how long the station on the other side had been closed, he told me 21 years.

We really made time in Ohio. We were now cooking and my bravery was restored. I was driving a tank instead of a fragile machine that would break at any time as it seemed days ago. We were used to this cross country thing now. We did not let up in Ohio and in the afternoon we crossed into Pennsylvania and Route 17. 17 had been now extended into Pennsylvania, in 84 it was not. It would seem that the interstate explosion from the 1960s was still expanding here in the mid-80s. I loved route 17. It represented my transition from youth to being an adult. I left Connecticut in June of 84 and drove across 17, the Southern Tier Expressway all night and part of the next night on my maiden voyage to Texas. It was the unchaining of my youth. We rode some back roads in PA and NY and found 17 again. So different from Texas and everywhere we had been so far.

In western New York around 5 we were a little burned out on driving. We stopped in a small town and watched the new Sean Penn movie called, “A Close Range”. It was the movie that Madonna had written the song, “Live to Tell” for. The movie was super intense and the theater was almost just us.

As we walked out of the movie theater I was pumped with the movie inspired purpose and dipped in adrenaline. I told Kevin that we could finish this thing. Our destination was East Canaan, CT. New York was just a little over 400 miles across and we were already in it. Then a few miles over to the campground I used to work at and we could sleep. We would need to drive all night. Kevin asked his usual several questions and I reassured him it was doable. All he had to do was keep fuel in the truck, his foot on the pedal, and himself awake. He was in, we drove east into the night with the last memories of light touching the mountain ridges in our rear views.

In the past 2 decades, science got something terribly wrong. The super slab that they decided to build highways out of seemed like a great idea when the Interstate system was planned in the 1950s and built in the 1960s and 70s. They decided that if you poured concrete highways, they would last for decades longer than blacktop highways. So across the country, all of the interstates and other highways too were concrete slab. Indestructible, enduring, forever. Not exactly. What the scholars did not account for the fact that the concrete slowly expands and contracts and materials are allowed to get in between the slab causing slab jacking. Route 17 in 1986 really edified this condition. All night long, that road beat us to death. The slamming of our tires in a heartbeat-like rhythm.

Gas stations were very hard to find out here but we managed. At 4 AM we stopped outside of Binghampton and rested for 45 minutes. At sunrise, we were heading north toward Poughkeepsie NY. When the sun was finally up, the light caused the color of the New York mountains to explode in mind-bending color. I don’t care if I was raised seeing this every year. Today, it was like I saw it for the first time. I cannot imagine what it was like for Kevin and Joy being from Cisco and Abilene and then being here.

It was the perfect October day at peak. We passed a sign that said that we were in Salisbury Connecticut. Suddenly Kevin flashed his headlights at me. Something must have been wrong. We were on a very curvy road with nearly no shoulder. I pulled over even though it wasn’t the best idea where we were. I walked back to the truck. He rolled down the window. He looked at me, “So. We made it, huh?” Thank goodness no one was driving by at that moment because I sort of involuntarily stepped back upon hearing this. The culmination of the months leading up to this, Quitting my job, leaving my family and home, the van, the money, the trouble…. all ended upon the head of a pin-like that statement. I was stunned. I wanted to change my mind about having him follow me, but too late!

I got back in the van, and took them to East Cannan, and rented a site. I headed back out and went on to visit my family.

If I could change any one thing in my life, this is what that would be

This next part will be difficult. One of the reasons I came to Connecticut was to start a new more ambitious life and hopefully relocate to Maine, which never did actually happen at all. The other reason was, my wonderful Grandmother Violet Jackson, was fading from this world. I needed to see her. As I arrived in Connecticut, she was transported to Branford for hospice a day or so later. I knew I was going to go down in a day or two to see her. Being in Connecticut and having Kevin and Joy following, low on funds distracted me. I make no excuses here. I was wrong. I should have driven straight to her the moment I got into the state. She knew I was coming. She was one of the most beautiful and amazing people I have ever known. She showed my siblings and me what it was to be a real person. That life does not equate to how much you have materially. To find all that you are inside and do the very best with that. To love your family and show it to them. Many years later I think of the contrast in how I saw women viewed back in the 1970s compared to now. My Grandmother lost her husband in the late 1950’s and from that point had to fend for herself and 2 children on her own in a world that would not give her the credit and respect that she was due as a hard-working person. She did it all with grace, dignity, and humility. She was smarter and savvier that most of the males out there. Her greatest quality was her love, she shined there. My admiration for her has increased a thousandfold although even then, I thought she was pretty awesome.

While I would not have had such insight in 1986, It would have been still been a wonderful thing to hold her hand and tell her how much she meant to me. But that is not what I did. I did not get it. I thought I had more time. I kept allowing distractions with where to stay and who to see, get in the way before going down. On the following Saturday, I was going to leave the campground I was staying at in Litchfield Connecticut and go to Branford. I called my Grandfather. He told me that she had passed in her sleep in the night.

I learned a very sad lesson that day. No matter how much it hurts me, I cannot imagine the sadness she may have felt knowing that I could come to see her, but did not. She deserved so much better than this. I dream still of seeing her again and telling her what she meant to me. How much I learned and that she indeed was one of my heroes. It is the deepest regret of my life. I only wrote about this despite how personal this is because if it ever helps me or anyone reading this to drop everything else in our lives so we can be there for someone who needs one more moment to have our love, respect, and comfort, then it will be worth telling.

Good-bye Port Aransas

My life would be just as crazy as it always was. I enjoyed drinking. Drinking made me extremely impulsive. I went to work at Timex in Torrington, but I hated it and soon was laid off. Kevin got me a job pouring concrete in Newington that fall. By winter I was working at Ponderosa. 1986 started in South Texas. There is where I got the rest of me, that I could not find without my father. I came back to Connecticut such a different person, because I was so wild and untamed when I decided to do something. It made me grow fast.

What I did not know, was in less than 10 years, so many things would change. My Dad would die in South Texas at only 50. I wonder so often, would he have still been here if I had stayed. My Grandmother told me on the phone that it was important that I return to Port A and be with him. She had such wisdom when it came to him. She knew most all of the self-destructive wildness he had tangled with, and yet she loved him like he was perfect. I spent 3 months with him in 1989, but headed north again. That time, I had quit drinking there, and he was asking questions. I know it sounds like I may be beating myself up here, but I am not. I know that I cannot live his life for him any more than I could live Kevin and Joy’s life for them either.

Kevin and Joy? They lived in an efficiency unit on the Berlin Turnpike for the fall and then Kevin moved into a basement apartment with me for a while at my Mother’s house. Joy had gone home and then he moved back out when she returned. In May, I left my mother’s house and moved to Del Aire campground in Tolland Connecticut. Kevin, Joy and I had one more ill-fated Chevy Van, Ford pickup camper trip in which his truck broke down on the interstate ramp. Neither of our vehicles were registered. Not wanting to get caught for this, I hooked a rope to that old Ford and I dragged it the last 8 miles to the campground.

They eventually separated, I got married and Kevin went back to Texas. He came back one more time in 1988 and lived with us. He left again, then I never heard from him again. He was a good guy, who followed this crazy person from South Texas on this crazy trip with rough vehicles and very little money. Back in my 20’s, this is how I lived all the time. While I was all over the place I often look at how 21 year-olds are now afraid of their own shadow in 2020. Maybe the world needs a little bit of my crazy. I am not really sure. All I can say is, this is what I did and for some reason, thought it was a good idea to journal it.