
A visitor to this blog lives in San Antonio, Texas, and that reminded me of an experience there so that is what this post is about. Sorry about it being a bit long.
After my wife died back in the 80’s I was married to a good ol’ country gal from Missouri for a few years. Her son on drugs screwed up our marriage but this post is about an adventure we had before she left. I met her in Richland, Washington. Had been there for about a year, was getting tired of the place, had bought a camp trailer and was going to wander around the country for a while.
Dropped into the VFW club on a Saturday night to say goodbye to everyone and enjoy a last evening of dancing and live music. Sally had a good day job in the Hanford Atomic Area and also shagged drinks at the club on the weekends during the music. I ended up staying until closing time and asked her if she would like to go out for breakfast.
I don’t recall if we made it to breakfast, but we made it over into my grandmothers bed and making each other. Ha, ha, ha. My grandmother wasn’t home, she was away visiting relatives. We really liked each other so I ended up staying there. She lived in a small apartment with two teenage sons and I hate apartments so I found us a bigger nicer place with a garage that I could repair automobiles in. Back then I was a crack mechanic that never had trouble finding work and I was soon busy just by word of mouth.
After about six months we bought 20 acres of undeveloped property just south of Colville, Washington. Moved up there (with her problem son, the other son was older and stayed in Richland) and I set up a temporary campsite shelter compound with materials I bought at local auctions. Then I started building a small house on the bluff with a beautiful view of the valley.
We hadn’t been there but a few months, neither of us had went looking for jobs yet as we still had money and being as I was from here I was getting some little jobs working on cars for folks that knew me, mostly we was just trying to get settled in and get a home built. When one day an older friend came to visit and asked me if I knew anyone that wanted to go to Florida for him. Turns out that he had a son in Mesa, Arizona that owned a lot that sold pickup canopies. The canopies were made in Florida and he had a one ton Chevy flatbed and a long special trailer that he used to go get them with. That is, he would send the man that worked for him.
The man had headed for Florida but the truck broke down in Fort Stockton, Texas. He decided to quit, rented a car from them and went back to Mesa. My friends son called my friend to see if he would help him and go get the load. But my friend was getting old and just didn’t feel up to it and was looking for someone that would. Back then I was a pretty adventuresome person always ready for new experiences. Still am, just closer to home.
I asked Sally if she wanted to go and she was up to it so Marion gave us his Ford Courier pickup, some money for gas and meals and off we went on a grand adventure. Took turns driving to Mesa and picked up the rental car and drove on to Fort Stockton, pretty much nonstop. Traded for the truck and drove pretty nonstop to some small town east of Milton, Florida, don’t recall the name of it.
Got there in the late afternoon and called the factory, nice folks, had us come right out, took us back to town and we got a good southern catfish meal in a café and a hotel room and got a good nights sleep while they ran a night shift loading the canopies. By the time we got up in the morning and took a good shower together they had the load ready to go, so we headed west again.
Sally had a sister that lived in San Antonio, Texas so we stopped there to visit her. The only problem was that she lived right downtown. Being the idiot I am that didn’t faze me a bit, I drove that truck and trailer (sixty-five feet long) right into the heart of town, and parked in a public parking lot, boy I had to pay for a lot of parking spaces. LOL
But we was only a few blocks from where her sister lived and we walked over there. She lived not far from the ‘River walk’ as I recall they call it, so we went down there and it was a lovely place with lots of quaint shops and bars and such and we took a ride on one of the river barges that cruised the river. It was an interesting afternoon and evening. We also saw the Alamo when we was there, I was a bit surprised that it was right in town.
We was going to spend the night at her sisters place but I was a bit worried about that load in that parking lot so I called the police to see if it was okay to leave it there. They as much as said “Only if you want it stolen or vandalized”. I didn’t want that so we hit the road again. We made it to Mesa in good shape and stayed overnight at Marion’s son’s place and headed back home the next day. I don’t recall what we got paid for the trip, not much, but it wasn’t about money, it was about adventure and helping friends and at that time in our lives we could do that.
Sally had never been to Las Vegas (Lost Wages) so I went a bit out of the way and took that route back. We got there in the evening and if you have ever been there in the evening your first time there it is pretty damn impressive driving in there and seeing all the lights. I think it just sort of overwhelmed her. We went into a casino and I got us each a roll of quarters, after they were gone she wanted me to get more as she figured that one of us would hit a big jackpot, but I’m not that bad at math and refused to invest more money, if your not winning it’s best just to stop, and we headed out of town.
Boy, was she steamed, I had never seen her like that. About twenty miles out of town she was still steamed and demanding to be out of the Courier, but no way in hell was I going to stop and let her out alone on a Nevada highway in the middle of the night. At the next fair sized town I did stop and told her that if she still wanted to get out she could, and I’ll be damned if she didn’t. I didn’t think that she had much money so I offered her some and she refused it. Women can sure be stubborn sometimes.
So I went on home alone. A few days after getting home my friend came out to tell me that Sally had called so I went to town to call her. It turned out that she had hitchhiked to Richland where she had family. She wanted to know if everything was still okay with us. It sure was with me because I didn’t understand her blowup in the first place, and I asked her if she was coming home, and she did a few days later.
She ended up leaving again, to be with her son on drugs, but at least that time she let me give her some money and a car. It surprised her that I cried when she left, well what in the fuck did she expect? A happy fucking ending because she was leaving? After a year I saw that she wasn’t coming back to I wrote to her and asked about a divorce. She agreed, so I paid her the reasonable amount of money she asked for and tossed in another car.
We stayed in touch some, when I was long haul trucking and going through her town I would stop if I could and we would get together for a meal and visit. But after moving here I lost contact with her. So I looked her phone number on the Internet and tried to call her last night just to say hi and see how she is doing. But I just kept getting stupid recorded messages that I was doing it wrong. Phone company’s these days are a pain in the butt, give me back Ma Bell where I could get the help I needed without a lot of bullshit.
Oh, wait, the capitalists took our good phone systems from us and now we have all this confusion. Listen to me you idiots, I’ve owned two of your cell phones, and I will never own another one. I want a phone to make a phone call with, get on the Internet with, that is all, take all your other features and your big fancy homes and shove them up your ass. I just want to make a fucking phone call, you morons. What in the hell is a five digit access code? Hell, I’ll just buy a phone card, I don’t have a long distance provider and I guess she must be out of my local long distance calling area.
I was sure that I had a picture of that load of canopies on this computer but I can’t find it, sorry.
Damn, now I’m cranky, have a happy fucking day. LOL…. Hugs…. BBC