THE TRIP BEGINS TO COMPRESS
It’s an East Coast Thing
I swing down through the southern states, Georgia, Alabama, a bit of Mississippi, and then into Louisiana. Until I get to the gulf coast the territory is consistent. In Alabama there is the KIA automobile plant that stretches for over a mile along the interstate highway. The time zone is regulated at the plant for the place that houses the most workers. That is the state time zone does not match the time zone of the factory. There is a tiny hump on the time zone chart that is not recorded but it is there. Trust me.
I stop in Tuskegee for a relaxing visit to the airfield where the Tuskegee Airmen all trained during WWII. I am moved to read the plaques and the other signs throughout the exhibits. What a brave group of men and women to challenge the norm of that time and place. The original 100 trainees gave up a lot of comfort to begin the change in our national culture. It continues. Thanks to the men and women who took part in that major event in our history.
After an overnight rest stop in Montgomery I drive steadily for New Orleans. Pat has scheduled a dinner at a vegetarian friendly restaurant with our friends. I enjoy my stay with Pat. She is a good host and we get along nicely. Her home is comfortable and she is generous as can be. Thank you, Pat, for three great days with you and Patti and Lucienne. I met Patti’s beau Mark while in town and he and I have a lunch at a vegan restaurant. It is a whole new experience for Mark and it is a whole new experience for me to introduce vegan eating to another person. I am enjoying the process.
I make a short trip to Katy, Texas to visit a Facebook friend. Kara Long and her husband Jim with two children live a short distance from the interstate. Although they are close to the highway it is not noticeable. There are various boundaries established that prevent highway noise from reaching their neighborhood. I spend one night and Kara and the children join me at a East Indian restaurant that serves dishes that are created for three types of eating requirements; vegan, vegetarian, and Jain. The food is wonderful, we enjoy the variety, and the kids have a new experience. Thanks, Kara for you hospitality and to Jim as well. Hugs to all.
While staying in Katy I notice the weather patterns. I had planned on traveling south toward Corpus Christi but I change my mind. The weather is not looking very good along the Gulf Coast so I opt to make reservations at Lake Casa Blanca in Laredo, Texas. This turns out to be a better choice. The weather patterns favor inland camping and I am using my tent and all my gear for three nights. I find the campground easily and set up in a few minutes. I haven’t used the tent since Northern California last year. Everything works and fits well. I crash in the tent for a much needed rest and then I go explore the town of Laredo. In three days of living there I find a great little vegetarian restaurant that alters a few dishes to satisfy my vegan desires. I am finding that few people here speak English. I am happy to adjust and my very broken Spanish does the trick.
At this point in the journey I am three weeks into it and starting in South Carolina I have been strictly vegan. I have met my east coast guru for vegan living, Grace. She is a good teacher and a great friend as well. We have been staying in touch via texting and Facebook. We are gaining in affection for each other and that is a nice feeling. My weight is dropping and my belt is getting looser as are my jeans. I am happy with what is happening. Yay! Awesome!
I finish my stay in Laredo and with rain falling and wind blowing I have opted to sleep in the car my last night there. Good choice since I packed the tent and other weather exposed items before the rain arrived. I don’t like packing wet camping gear. I have talked to Rick Mobbs on the telephone a few times. Rick and I go back pretty far. We first met in Boston in 1985. During the few years I spent there in that period I was able to establish a rapport with Rick. We get along very well. Rick is undergoing some treatments for his innards and I am going to stay with him and his great wife Naomi in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
I’d like to get there as soon as possible however the distance is too great for a one day trip. Texas is huge and I need to travel the width and breadth of the state to get to Rick’s house. I decide to go to Marfa, Texas for one night and I choose to book a reservation at El Cosmico hotel in Marfa. El Cosmico is extremely unique to say the least. They offer rooms in camping trailers, tepees, and tents. I choose a tent for the night. The tent has a wooden floor upon which the tent is pitched. There is a queen size bed with a heating pad on the mattress and just a few other pieces of furniture in the room. The showers and toilets and kitchen are all communal. Whee! Check it out here:
I enjoyed the facility and the people but it was to darn cold for any comfort. Although I slept well getting up and dressing was excruciating. The temperature was 27 degrees F. Woah!!! I got up real early before the administration building was open and my car was covered in frost. As was I. I started the car and sat in it with the seat heater, the car heater, and the back window defroster going full blast. Eventually everything defrosted and I was able to find a place for coffee on the way out of town. Too bad it was so dark for the first couple of hours of travel. I think I would have enjoyed the state route 17 a great deal from what I could make out in the gloom. Route 17 from Marfa through Fort Davis and on up to I 10 I’m sure is extremely attractive. I am going to come back here so maybe I’ll travel it again in the light of day.
I arrived at Cannon AFB near Clovis, New Mexico. I will stay here just one night and then get to Santa Fe tomorrow. I look forward to visiting with Rick and Naomi. I hope I can be of some help while there.
Peace out for now.
G.M. Goodwin
18 February 2015
I’ve added a short story I wrote while driving from Katy to Laredo on U.S. 59, the Lloyd Bentsen highway.
CARLOS ARROYO LIVES
Carlos Arroyo stood at the edge of the field for forty five minutes growling at everything in sight. Carlos was ordered to clear this field of the old pecan trees that had been abandoned some years ago. The trees had long ago been dead or dying and their limbs had been breaking and dropping on the ground so that each tree was standing in a space littered with its own detritus. Tomas had stopped by Carlos’s shack just after dawn to wake him and inform him that the owner wanted the trees cleared before Spring.
A few live oaks grew along the highway. Mostly there were smaller bare trees that held clumps of mistletoe, some mesquite and further off the road were nopales. An occasional hawk in the trees or turkey vultures wheeling above the earth were all that prevented Carlos from thinking the world was abandoned. This land around Mujerero Creek was sparsely populated and quiet except for the wind and lizards. Carlos could hear his blood flowing through his veins in this quiet. The whisper of the circulating sangria gave Carlos a rhythm for working. On this day in the middle of February, with the days cool and the nights chilly Carlos was irritated bordering on angry. Carlos was fed up with this quiet existence and he was fed up with always being at work or at the place where work was present. He rented a shack from the owner. It stood 5 miles from this spot and it took Carlos an hour and a half to walk through the scrub to get here. It seemed he never left work; he never could relax. His work surrounded him in all directions here in the field and at home.
A few dozen head of cattle grazed the land upon which the broken trees stood. They belonged to the gringo owner who never came around except to sneer at Carlos and talk in loud tones to the foreman, Tomas, who was always agreeing with him. In the food chain of Texas farming Carlos was a minnow and everyone else was a predator. Tomas was Carlos’s point of contact with all work that payed. Carlos needed Tomas to be happy or Carlos would be sleeping under a bridge or in a culvert near Laredo. He was trapped in a tight spiral of misery.
The pecan orchard had once been a source of income. It produced tons of fruit and gave passers-by a pleasant view as they drove this highway. The old orchard was on U.S. Rt 59 in southeast Texas, south of Houston and about a hundred miles up from Laredo. The road had been named in 1992 after a former U.S. Senator, Lloyd Bentsen. U.S. Rt 59, the Lloyd Bentsen highway. Now, over 20 years later Carlos stood transfixed with his irritations and resentments at the edge of the Lloyd Bentsen highway.
Carlos was staring at the cattle. He didn’t like cows. He was afraid of the big animals and here they were grazing among the trees and tree detritus and Carlos needed to get next to the trees and pile the limbs into stacks that could be easily handled by a machine and hauled away to a mulching implement. Carlos didn’t give a damn about any of it. He had been living here for 40 years and he had been working these fields and orchards since he was a boy. His whole body was made of this land and his muscles were made of this dirt and he was kin to these animals in front of him and his bones were brittle and broken like the pecan tree limbs stacked in front of him.
Carlos also could smell the cow shit on the ground; he could smell pig shit, chicken shit, and horse shit. It was on his boots, his jeans, and in his skin. His hat smelled of all the shit. His nose was caked with shit. Carlos was made of the same stuff that made all of the shit and his blood singing in his veins carried little specks of shit from place to place. Carlos would never be able to clear his sinuses of the smell of shit no matter how much water he drank or how much he hawked and spit. He detested this place.
Now he was standing at the edge of this field trying to bring himself to get near the cattle and begin working. During the time Carlos had been standing at the edge of the field he had seen a group of cyclists ride by all dressed in tight, colorful shorts and shirts. They were probably young gringos from Victoria about 30 miles north. Victoria was home to the university and other schools. Carlos’s ex-wife Linda had gone to beauty school there and he had seen the people who resided in Victoria. He knew from these observations they were people who held positions that required no physical labor so their Saturday bike rides gave them great pleasure and Carlos some resentful entertainment. He imagined that the gang of cyclists were out looking for hills to climb. There were no hills. Good luck to them, he thought.
Carlos could wait no longer. He needed to get near the cows and begin gathering dead limbs and stacking them in piles that could be manipulated by the machine that would carry them to the mulching implement. He twisted his toes inside of his boots to wake his feet up and just as he started to move toward the cattle he heard a car’s wheels on the gravelly shoulder of the road behind him. A car was stopping on the Lloyd Bentsen highway near Carlos. Carlos turned and saw a gringo with white hair getting out of a small sedan. The sedan had out of state plates that Carlos didn’t recognize. The name of the state said “Maine”. Carlos knew nothing of Maine. Carlos waited for the gringo to approach but he didn’t; the gringo just stood on the road by his car and called out to him. Carlos could not understand what he said. He just stared at the gringo with no expression and with his feet planted in the direction of the cattle. He felt a bit awkward but he didn’t change his expression nor his position on the edge of the field. The gringo got back into his car and drove away.
Carlos could not move and he could not stop staring after the car from Maine. His feet remain planted and he twisted his body around to follow the path of the automobile. Carlos could smell salty air and his ears heard crashing seas on rocky shores. A spray of ocean passed over him and he felt the cool, salty sting on his skin. Carlos looked down at his wet clothing. His shirt was wringing wet as well as his jeans. The weeds at his feet were soaked in seawater. Carlos’s hat dripped salty drops onto his wide shoulders. The air was cool and wet and the sounds of the ocean filled Carlos’s ears. This went on for about forty eight seconds or until Carlos had had enough and he shook his head and wiped his eyes with his hand. The taste of salt lingered on his lips and his throat filled with the glob of shitty mucous that had lived there all of his life and Carlos hawked it out and spat it upon the ground. Tears welled in his eyes and a deep feeling rose from the depths of his past. Carlos knew not what just happened but he was clearly in the presence of a power that pulled him from this farm, from this shitty cattle populated land and called his name in many languages to find “Maine”.
Carlos made the sign of the cross and sat down in the mud at his feet. The sounds, smells, and seawater lingered. Carlos didn’t see Tomas pull up in his old pick-up truck and then leave. He was still sitting there when Tomas came back with the gringo owner. When the EMT’S arrived Carlos was lying on his back and staring at the sky and the turkey vultures and the lizards had come to stare at Carlos. Carlos continued to stare during the ride to Laredo in the back of the ambulance. Carlos lived comfortably for a long time in Laredo with the wonderful smells, sounds, and his wet hat and boots.
G.M. Goodwin
15 February 2015
Playing Fair and Being Kind 