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.
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