02-19-11 “Did you ever get the feeling, you ought to hit the road again”

02-19-11
“Did you ever get the feeling, you ought to hit the road again”
393.3 Miles
Today was “international”.
From Paris to Reno to Detroit to Memphis to Athens to New Boston to Miami , Gainsville and a few other places! Add in Marshall (“We are Marshall”) and Livingston (Jimmy Buffett’s “Livingston Saturday Night - which it was by the time I drove through it) and you have an “international” incident kind of day.
Add to that meeting my cousin (son of my father’s brother), getting to see my ancesters from my father’s side of the family for the first time nad ending the day with my newly found sister (from my dad’s first marriage) and you have a pretty “unprecedented” day.
Add to that, George Leonburger became my newest Benefactor, unsolicited by me. George is a cousin and contemporary of my father. Their fathers were brothers. I’ve only talked to him by phone once before getting the ok to visit.
He met me with his wife Lydia and they showed me pictures of family members I never gotten to meet and seeing resemblances that are so familiar from my father’s visage that it can’t stop a smile from widening my face and warming me to the bone. These are my people. And I’m not too late to be connected, though my Father cut those ties before I was born. At least as far as I knew. I’m fed waffles and history. I get directions to my great grand mother and my grand father’s resting place as well as the location of George’s father’s grave in the Texarkana Stateline Cemetery. I get to meet their dog and they wave goodbye from their front yard as I drive out of Paris.
This Journey is surprising me everyday. I’m never sure what is going to happen, but it is almost always inspirational, surprising and humbling.
And I have a new appreciation for Texas. From Paris, east thru the lush Red River Valley area it often reminded me of pictures of New England in Autumn,.
I had been thru the area only once before in the early nineties as I drove from Shreveport on the way back to California. I had liked the look of the lush vegetation and rolling hills back then as well, but had forgotten it over the years until this morning.
The two days of 400 mile journeys have given me a sore “accelerator knee”. I’m hoping a day or so off the road will heal it up.
I make the last miles to my sister Kathleen’s place in Conroe in the dark. Kathleen is the oldest child of my father’s first marriage. I only met her for the first time two Christmas eve’s ago. I hadn’t know that she or her sister Cindy had existed until I was 41 years old. It is an odd blessing that the internet helped us find each other 17 years after my father passed away. They never got to know him at all. I knew him over a succession of years of him visiting me or me spending a week with him fro time to time over the summers of my youth. I can only share my memories of the father they never got the chance to know and it’s obscure to me how to do that. I can’t share the memory of his laugh or the gate of his walk. It seems anything I might have to share would be inadequate, as I only have little stories of my imperfect understanding of the man who I mostly knew as my father rather than a complex man who had problems knowing himself. I got a glimpse of him as that man only in the last few years. Trying to find the man in my father was a road I barely took before his passing. We had found a mutual peace and understanding of each other around the time of the wedding of his son, John from his third marriage. His life was marked by alcoholism, but that never seemed to be the demon he was running from, it was just the symptom.
The last 20-40 miles are cautionary, as the last town before the link to Conroe is a known speed trap. The proof is evident as I exit the freeway to the transition road. Three “Christmas lights” in 5 blocks. I’m having enough to deal with driving the dark road to Conroe without having to worry about cops pulling me over. I’m doing the posted limit…but still…you always worry.
I get to Conroe and miss the bypass road and am talked to the destination by Kathy’s husband Burle. I get there and am flagged down in front of their house. It this point I can’t tell the forest from the trees. They help me get in and settled. I am warmly welcomed and shown around the place. They make a big fuss over Mischa. We talk for a bit and then it’s blessed sleep. Perfect end to a very long day.