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Saturday June 24, 2000 "Poverty keeps together more homes than it breaks up." Hector Hugh Munro, "Saki", The Chronicles of Clovis
important stuff
another turtle bound for Austin
stuff on the run
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movin' the farm Dad said we'd leave at 8:30. But when he sees I'm awake and dressed at 7:30, he decides 7:30 is better. His friend from yesterday is going to loan us a trailer so he doesn't have to rent one. I find myself sitting in his friends' kitchen while the two of them go off to get the trailer and hook it up. I have a nice conversation with the guy's mother and his wife who is originally from Iceland. She tells me all about the Icelanders in Texas and how they get together for events. A lot of time goes by. Finally, they return. It seems the guy who borrowed the trailer last was late in returning it to the spot where Dad's friend keeps it at work. No matter, we are off. We haven't gone far toward Mesquite when we slow down, slow down and...stop. This goes on for a while and we finally move again, in one lane, until we pass a bunch of troopers measuring and surveying. No sign of the wreck that must have been there, though. After that the trip is pretty swift. We pull off at exit 353 as usual. Czech Stop. We get a couple of sandwiches and coffee and roll on. I eat my sandwich and, when I'm finished, Dad pulls over and I drive while he eats. He tells me to pull of in Red Oak and we go the 'back way' to bypass some construction. I can't believe the stuff I'm loading. Old tables and shelves. Rocks and fossils. Rusty iron stuff. A single potato. A pan of dirt with worms in it. I'm not kidding. I promised when this started that I wouldn't complain about what they brought. I keep that promise. It's hot and I'm sweating. Dad goes inside to use the bathroom. I figure as long as Dad as taking all these rocks, I'll see if there are some shells or rocks left in his rock garden that I could use in the Zen garden. While I'm poking around, I see one of the turtles. "Dad, look what I found!" I say when he comes out of the house. He's pleased. He finds a plastic milk case to put him in. Later, he'll line it with newspapers and toss in some raisins he's found in the frig. On the way home, we name him Clarence for the rather proper neighbor in their soon-to-be neighborhood who has seemed nonplused when we told him about the livestock. I'm hot and desperate for something to drink. Dad and I share the one bottle of juice I find that isn't prune juice. It's cranberry apple or something. There is one glass in the kitchen and we have some water and wash up. And then we take it to Austin. We have a cannon ball on board. I swear. And Clarence who occasionally pokes his head a tiny way out and wonders at it all. We also have a wheelchair, two walkers and an invalid's toilet chair. No, no one uses them now. But they are too good to discard. Dad confides that the wheelchair is too heavy to lift into the car so if anyone does need one and wants to take it in the car then another will be needed. Dad tells stories about the road. He points at one stretch of road angling off the highway and says that it used to be the main highway. "Leslie's Chicken Shack was down there. I was going back to San Antonio during the war. I got a ride with a guy in a Cadillac who was in the oil business in Lockhart. He picked up a sailor, too. He pulled off and said, 'Would you boys like a chicken dinner?' and he bought us a chicken dinner. " "Things were different back then," Dad says later. "Everyone you knew was poor. You were just like everyone else." Yes, the depression and the war years and the desire to make use of every last thing are alive in my dad's head. |
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