A Story Worth Telling

“Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its 5-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.” —Captain Kirk

We had no idea what lay in store before embarking on our first mission chosen for the newly acquired ship.

“Strange new worlds?” Well, I wasn’t sure about the others, but I had been there before.

“New civilizations?” Nope, didn’t expect to be passing through any uncharted regions on this voyage.

“To boldly go where no man has gone before?” Not likely. We were all pretty sure Indianapolis had been explored and settled long ago.

The mission: blaze a trail to Indianapolis, Indiana for the 71st running of the Memorial Day classic, Indy 500 auto race May 24, 1987. Then return successfully to Center, Texas, without the loss a single soul, all while traveling in an early 70s vintage Winnebago that by reasonable rationale should have been scrapped at least 100,000 miles ago.

“Logic is the beginning of wisdom; not the end.” — Spock

While testing retirement waters the last few months, a recently retired friend was working hard to convince me how much fun I would have doing fun retirement things—like camping. I explained to her that I didn’t think I was cut out for retirement. “I don’t own an RV and I have a miserable record of failure at gardening attempts.”

She none-the-less assured me that camping in a motor home was “lots of fun,” but admitted without hesitation, “I’ve never driven ours.”

The thought of my one-and-only time driving an RV made me smile. We counted it a success when we made it back alive.

“I have been, and ever shall be, your friend. Live long, and prosper.” — Spock

Oscar Elliott and I met at South Ward Elementary School in Mount Pleasant, Texas, in 1959. He was in the sixth grade and I was in the fifth. In the 56 years since, Oscar and I have survived numerous adventures, living to tell about the ones that we dare.

Gary Hart and I became friends when he moved to Center, Texas, in the mid 1980s to open the community’s first McDonald’s restaurant. It was only a few years prior that Wal-Mart had opened its doors in Center. New galaxies were already being discovered in the East Texas community.

The three of us set out in Gary’s old Winnebago, newly acquired in the course of his classic car deals, something for which he was well known. Gary accumulated projects—neat old vehicles that needed anything from as little as lots of major work all the way up to complete restoration.

However, the Winnebago was different. It resembled the rest of the rusty resemblances of rolling stock in his repository with one exception. It ran. Under its own power. Or at least he assured Oscar and me that it did.

“Don’t let all the corrosion, dents and duct tape fool you,” Gary smiled.

“Ahh, Mr. Scott, I understand you’re having difficulty with the warp drive. How much time do you require for repair?” — Spock

The wrecking yard refugee that was to be our trusty transportation to Indy sat quietly rusting in the parking lot next to Gary’s fast food franchise at 9 a.m. on the designated departure date. “Gary sometimes runs a little late,” I warned Oscar.

After finishing lunch about noon, we rumbled out of Center rolling north with plans to drive without stopping. The schedule was four-hour shifts at herding the old heavyweight with a refrigerator full of food and a heart full of hopes that the noisy little fridge functioned.

“Checked everything out, we presume,” I asked Gary about an hour into the voyage.

“Absolutely,’ Gary again assured us. “She’s in tip-top shape.” That was about ten minutes before the alternator belt gave up the ghost with a nasty noise. Lucky for us, it expired within sight of a garage.

One repair down and somewhere in northern Missouri at about 2:00 a.m. on a stretch of highway that had expansion joints the size of speed bumps, Oscar was struggling with his sleep shift in the rear bedroom, Gary was piloting and I was riding shotgun. Sleeping was no easy endeavor with the smell of musty drapes flapping in the window and rotting plywood the only thing preventing us from plummeting to the pavement. Any sleep Oscar may have managed ended abruptly when a tire on the inside rear dual exploded, sending the elderly RV to rocking and its passengers to praying.

“So much for the Enterprise.” — Beverly Crusher

“We barely knew her.” — Picard

Once again, lady luck lingered with us when we determined the glow ahead to be an all-night truck stop. However, it was at that very moment, dead tired, several hours behind schedule and sitting on the side of a dark highway, that we lulled to laugh and lauded the worn out Winnebago with the logo, “Star Ship Enterprise.”

“Ru’afo, we’re getting too old for this.” — Admiral Dougherty

The trip going to Indy evidently eradicated the eccentricities from of the ailing Winnie. The races were great, the trip home uneventful and the experience endearing. However, I still harbor no hallucinations of having an RV as part of my retirement plan—should this test turn out to be a real retirement.

“I think that is the weirdest and most surreal adventure we ever went on. I can barely remember anything that happened.” — Oscar Elliott

— Leon Aldridge

Eddie Burke had a story, and learning Eddie’s story taught me that it’s true—everyone really does have a story. After meeting Eddie, I began to challenge students at Stephen F. Austin State University, where I taught writing, to find the story in every person they met with the assurance that it would not only make them a better writer, but also a better person.

It did me.

Eddie’s obituary simply reported, “Eddie Gene Burke, 69, died Sunday in a local hospital. An Army veteran of the Korean War, he was born Nov. 1, 1927 in Beaumont, Texas and was a retired musician in the entertainment industry and a 10-year resident of Las Vegas.” The obit also listed a handful of survivors and noted, “Graveside services will be at 8 a.m. Friday in Palm Valley View Memorial Park.”

There were far too many details about Eddie the brief obit failed to reveal. It said nothing about how he could write. Eddie could write a poem, write a story, or write a song. He could sing a song, play a piano, cook for a restaurant, or preach a sermon on Sunday morning. I knew those things about Eddie because I saw him do all of that—in the same week.

Obits also often fail to convey the desperation or the hope that a person can display when life causes it or demands it. At well past 50 years of age and without a job, but with a terminally ill wife and a modicum of experience, Eddie sat across the desk from me applying for an entry-level sports writer’s job at the Center newspaper.

That’s how we met.

“What is your writing experience,” I asked the quiet, humble man looking back at me through dark rimmed glasses. He was a short and frail person whose narrow face was both etched by hard times and anxious with an immediate need. He was balding, wore a tattered coat in the dead of winter and sat on the chair’s edge, wringing his hands in his lap.

With a voice barely above a whisper, Eddie told me his last job was cooking at a small restaurant on the lake, but was looking for something with a little more income in his quest to care for his wife. For experience, he said that he had worked at the Beaumont Enterprise, but confessed that was more than 20 years ago. What he didn’t confess to until after he had drawn a couple of paychecks was that it was a part-time stringer’s job. But, that didn’t matter, we were desperate for a sports writer and Eddie was desperate for a job.

Eddie hit the ground writing. He wrote pages, and pages, and more pages. And that was just about last night’s basketball game. Eddie wrote with a vengeance and with great detail about the game. He wrote about the coaches. He wrote about the players, about the cheerleaders, about the spectators and about the concession stand.

Between sports assignments, he wrote about his coffee cup, about his desk and about the traffic light on the corner. His style was, let’s just say a tad shy of journalistic standards, but for what he lacked in writing skills, Eddie more than made up for in volume.

Eddie wanted to succeed.

Obits also often fail to reveal successes achieved and lost. One night as we worked toward deadline while listening to 50s music on the radio, Eddie nonchalantly offered, “I used to play piano for the Big Bopper.”

“Really,” I countered instantly with a tone of doubt. Eddie was also a talker. His stories were interesting, but you had to wonder. “If this guy has done half of what he’s talked about…”

“I played piano on Chantilly Lace,” Eddie continued, never looking away from his work. “I cut a record of my own, too. ‘Rock Mop’ on the old ‘D’ label down in Houston … where the Big Bopper started out.”

Later at home, I wasted little time digging through music reference books, and it didn’t take long to oust the truth. There it was, “Rock Mop.” Recorded on the “D” label June 8, 1959. Flip side, “Too Many Tears.” Both titles written and recorded by Eddie Burke.

Shortly after that revelation, radio storyteller “Tumbleweed” Smith stopped in the newspaper office checking with local columnist and historian Mattie Dellinger for new program material.

“I got one for you,” I quickly offered Smith.

We asked Eddie if he would play a little piano for us at the bank’s community room across the street. He apprehensively obliged us, but fear and trepidation gripped his demeanor as sweat appeared on his brow.

He gingerly touched the keys with trembling fingers for several minutes before the first note rang true. “It’s been a while,” Eddie murmured weakly as he looked at us and smiled, almost apologetically.

Soon however, remnants of “Pinetop’s Boogie” from the 1920s were easily recognizable, followed by strains of random tunes that became more polished with each bar he played. While Smith’s tape recorder rolled, Eddie perfectly executed the mournful country standard “You Win Again.” He played honky-tonk, he played blues, he played rock and roll, and the more he played, the better he got. Eddie “closed the show” with Jerry Lee Lewis’s rocker, “Great Balls of Fire” putting on an exhibition that would have made “The Killer” himself smile. He stood on the piano stool, playing and singing, before kicking it behind behind him while swiping his fingers the length of the keyboard for a rousing finale.

Eddie Burke was back.

He had a new found happiness that reflected in his writing skills and his attitude for weeks. Sadly, however, Eddie’s wife died in late spring. After that, the flame’s brightness kindled from rediscovering his musical talent also faded, and it wasn’t long before Eddie disappeared. He left as mysteriously as he had arrived, leaving his key under the door early one morning with a note apologizing for leaving.

We wondered what happened to Eddie. Someone said they thought it was him they had seen hitchhiking north on 59 toward Carthage. Then one night almost a year later, my phone rang. “Guess who this is,” a familiar voice loudly and cheerfully asked. “I’m in Vegas and I’m playing piano at the Horseshoe.”

In the years that followed, Eddie sent me playbills, cards, photos and entertainment clippings from Las Vegas documenting his return to the entertainment industry. One packet included an autographed picture of a smiling Eddie Burke standing beside Fats Domino at the piano, and a clipping that noted he was opening for the 50s rock and roll singer in the desert city of lights.

Eventually, Eddie’s health began to fail, but he was back on top at the end, a place he hadn’t been since long before that cold winter day in East Texas more than ten years earlier.

Obits seldom address friendship. Perhaps we don’t learn the value of friends until we’ve been up and down, a trip that Eddie made like a yo-yo. He befriended a lady the last few years of his life in Las Vegas, and they married before his death. She called to tell me Eddie had died, and that she was sending the newspaper obituary clipping with a note.

“He loved you Leon,” she wrote. “Some of his happiest times were when he worked for you at the newspaper, the friendship you two shared and allowing him to learn that he could still play the piano.”

Since then, I’ve read many obits and thought, “Wonder what else about that person’s life, like Eddie’s, would be an inspiration for others—if we only knew his or her story.”

Because everyone really does have a story.

— Leon Aldridge

Originally published in the Boerne (Texas) Star – November 1996  •  The Center (Texas) Light and Champion – July 2014  •  The Mount Pleasant (Texas) Daily Tribune – July 2014

So, here I am lounging on a Florida sugar sand beach, watching blue-green waves and listening to the ocean’s roar while Gulf breezes cause me to forget that it’s 100-plus degrees back home in East Texas.

No stranger to the region, like a moth drawn to a flame, I’ve been lured by the Sunshine State’s sandy shores to revisit here many times over the years.

The scenario is a vast improvement over one of just a few days ago. I was lounging in an East Texas hospital bed watching the sterile clock on the wall count off minutes and hours, listening to the rhythmic clicking of a medical device plumbed into my arm as it dispensed fluids allowing me to forget about pain—and almost everything else.

We’ll reserve descriptive details of the experience for the setting where such conversations belong—at family reunions where comparing one’s latest medical problems and procedures are prime points of comparison. Suffice to say, however, while the medical malaise that landed me in an infirmary scant days before the Florida trip’s departure date was scary at the moment, it ended well.

Pondering recent medical matters during early morning walks on Florida beaches this week has prompted me to count blessings. First, that my years numbered 67 fading in the rear view mirror before seeing the inside of an ambulance or spending the night in a hospital room, at least one with my name on the door.

For better or worse, those two were crossed off my “never have” list last week.

Another is that the fortunately few times I’ve required acute attention to reinstate a healthy status quo have been neither serious in nature, nor in attitude. Likely through some derivation in my DNA, facing medical urgency invokes humor more often than fear.

More than humor or fear, excitement is usually the mood during the summer of one’s college graduation. That was perhaps the summer I first recall working my way through a trip to an emergency room, laughing all the way.

With degree in hand, full-time job secure and my first home purchase completed, I moved into 107 Dogwood Lane in Mount Pleasant. No newcomer to the home I purchased from Doris Neeley, no introduction was needed either for next-door residents, Mr. and Mrs. Nat Hoggat.

Décor for a single-guy, recent college grad’s domicile was by no stretch demanding. A sofa borrowed from parents on one wall and cinder block and board shelving supporting a tiny television and lamp on the other completed the living room. While it was a far cry from the exquisitely furnished ambiance the house had become accustomed to when Mrs. Neeley and her son, and my friend, David lived there, it was my first home purchase—my castle.

I was barely done with unpacking (paper plates, three pairs of blue jeans and my velvet Elvis painting) before the Hoggats called on a Saturday evening wanting to come over and welcome me to the neighborhood.

Minutes before the retired couple’s arrival, I engaged a moth (also known as a candle fly in the south) in hand-to-hand warfare over rights to the living room lamp. The insect fluttered from under the shade, I swatted, and he darted—right into my ear.

The more I tried to remove him, the more entrenched he became. In desperation, I stuck my head under the kitchen faucet hoping to flush him out. The sound of the tiny creature treading water in the proximity of my eardrum was excruciating. At first it resembled a rumble, then acquired an odd resemblance to a doorbell.

My neighbors! They were at my door.

“Come in,” I said opening the door and standing aside, observing the startled looks on their faces. Could it have been the wet head and the towel in my hand? “Are we early,” asked Mr. Hoggat.

We made small talk as they sat on the sofa facing me where I was perched on the edge of a chair borrowed from the kitchen. “I really like the day lilies you have planted along your fence,” I said, smiling at Mrs. Hoggat. “ I enjoy them every day.”

“Good,” she replied. “Perhaps you could plant some flowers in your yard for me to admire.”

I opened my mouth to offer light hearted remarks about “brown thumb” gardening skills, but instantly closed my eyes and winced in pain as the winged insect in my ear sprang back to life at that very moment producing sounds rivaling the intensity of a high school marching band taking the field. Grimacing, I jerked my head to the left and back to the right in hopes that the blasted bug would take exit of my cranial cavity.

It stopped moving and I stopped flopping my head about. Thankful for the respite, I opened my eyes to the sight of an elderly couple staring at me with wide-eyed wonderment. Disbelief. Horror.

“Is everything OK,” Mr. Hoggat asked.

“Actually, no.” I admitted. “I have a bug in my head.”

“Oh my,” they said in unison as they rose and quickly headed for the door without looking back. “You should get that seen about right away.”

The good news was that it took ER personnel less than five minutes to flush the errant insect, ending the candle fly’s deafening diatribe in my ear. The bad news was that for the five years I lived on Dogwood Lane, my neighbors never came back to visit. In fact, I was pretty sure that they retreated into their house every time I stepped outside.

The best news however, is that while I’m still drawn to the warm Florida sand, I have yet to encounter another moth drawn to my ear.

Some really good words are disappearing from our vocabulary. Take for instance, the compound word ‘church key.’

Truth be known, it had been quite some time since I heard anyone refer to a church key for either of the term’s two meanings until recently. My ears perked up however, when I overheard my friend and mentor at the Naples Monitor, Morris Craig, engage the Methodist church secretary about the small brass device used to disengage the lock securing the front door at the Northeast Texas house of worship.

I was slightly embarrassed, however, that my first connotation at hearing the phrase wasn’t Sunday go-to-meeting related. What it did call to mind was a friend in Boerne, Doug Dugosh, who was a local entrepreneur of distilled spirits down in the Hill Country when I lived there.

The story he related to me some years ago was about a lady who came in his place of business one day and asked him for a church key. He said he handed her one, she thanked him and left.

Doug said a couple of young beer distributors delivering product at the time were standing nearby, and asked, “What did that lady just ask for?”

“A church key,” Doug said he told the pair who appeared to be in their early 30s. He said he could tell by the blank stare on their faces that they didn’t have a clue what he was talking about.

“I had to explain to them what a church key was,” he laughed.

A church key was a commonplace item when I was growing up in Mount Pleasant in Northeast Texas. Although some may not have known both meanings of the term, I had learned what a church key was from my father and I didn’t know of anyone who ever had to ask what it was.

On the other hand, purchasing products of the brewer’s art was not as convenient then as it is today. Maybe that’s because there were no convenience stores then. Securing a case of “Jax, the beal jeer,” as the slogan of the day playfully advertised my dad’s preferred brand, required a drive of 30-40 miles across a couple of counties and at least three rivers.

Most of the places to buy beer in the 50s and early 60s employed an unfinished wood motif decorated in neon viewed through thick smoke and furnished with pool tables. The nicer places were dubbed “taverns” while the others were simply called “joints.”

In those days, the can tops were as smooth and flat as the parking lot down at the local Esso filling station. The individual who invented the “pop top” had yet to come up with that million-dollar brainstorm. This prehistoric hurdle was not unique to cans however. Bottles of everything from Pepsi to Pearl were capped with lids that required a tool to access the container’s refreshing contents.

The required tool, a church key, had a piercing point on one end to puncture cans on one end while the other end was round and designed to remove bottle caps with ease.

According to Wikipedia, the term is thought to have been derived from the tool’s shape. The predominant version is “that the ends of some bottle openers resemble the heads of large keys such as have traditionally been used to lock and unlock church doors. The other is that it was at one time a joke that opening a beer is an activity that usually has little to do with pious or ecclesiastical circumstances—historical connections between monasteries and brewing notwithstanding.”

Just as cans devoid of pop tops were weren’t unique to beer cans, church keys were not unique to beer drinkers. It was also commonplace at one time to find one wired under the hood of a car, convenient for opening cans of motor oil also requiring a tool in order to release the can’s contents.

Either way, anyone who has been hot and frustrated without a church key to open a cool container of beverage, or an essential can of oil for an old Chevy six cylinder, will never place a small value on the convenience of a church key.

On the other hand, I may need more than a small convenience to get out of the trouble I could be in for tying beer cans and the church house together in one tribunal.

I wonder if the preacher remembers church keys?

Leon Aldridge

Originally published in The Monitor, Naples, Texas – December 15, 1999

“Leadville, Colorado,” I whispered in my wife’s ear. “Mid 1970s. Oscar Elliott and other friends from Mount Pleasant. Motorcycle trip through the Rockies. Restaurant at the motel where we spent the night it snowed. That song was playing on the jukebox.”

The setting was Saturday night at the Texas Country Music Hall of Fame induction ceremony in Carthage. The Oak Ridge Boys lead singer Duane Allen from Lamar County, Texas, was inducted, and the annual show was, as usual, outstanding. The song that spurred the memory was, “The Y’all Comeback Saloon.”

Terry is used to the habit acquired from my Uncle Bill, mom’s “little brother.” The game goes something like this: A group of friends listening to music from “back in their day.” The objective is to, in as few notes into the song as possible, blurt out a place, a car, a name (frequently old girl friend or boy friend} and a couple of details to seal the deal.

As a journalist introduced to the newspaper business through photography, the saying, “a picture is worth a thousand words” resonates strongly with me. On the other hand, any old wordsmith worth the paper his or her thesaurus used to be printed on can also argue for a thousand words and they’ll tell you more about the picture than you will ever see.

Still working in right-brain mode, anyone who understands that music is what feelings sound like does the same thing by playing off memories evoked by music.

I credit my mother for the roots of my music appreciation. When my sisters and I were kids, she was still enjoying a small collection of 78 r.p.m. records accumulated from her central Kentucky high school years. Songs by Tennessee Ernie Ford, Patty Page, Eddie Arnold and Hank Williams, Sr. remind me of Saturday afternoons in West Texas as she played them over and over, along with the soothing melodies of big band music from orchestras such as Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey and Benny Goodman.

As a grade-schooler at the end of the 1950s, the rock and roll sounds of Elvis Presley, Ricky Nelson and Fats Domino drove me to exchanging allowance money for 45 r.p.m. records at Richardson’s White’s Auto Store in Mount Pleasant

Maybe that love for music and memories is why high school and college band years were spent playing a sousaphone (a.k.a. tuba or bass horn). There’s nothing finer than a John Phillip Sousa march. Rousing instrumental songs like “King Cotton,” “The Washington Post,” or “El Capitan” vividly recall images of Friday night football, spring concerts, a couple of bowl game appearances intertwined with road trips, the thrill of hitting a yard-line marker with your heel, a memorable stage band performance with “Doc” Severinsen or spending time in band study hall with my first real girl friend.

During the mid 1960s, a car radio tuned to KLIF in Dallas was the primary source of music during the day. But, by night it was WNOE in New Orleans, often with a date watching the moon rise over the city lake listening to the Righteous Brothers singing “Unchained Melody.”

It wasn’t until college years in the late 60s, early 70s that my interest turned to country and western music, mostly because my appreciation for late 60s rock and roll was an on again, off again affair. Didn’t like it much then, but have come to appreciate it more the last 20 years or so, again because of memories.

My “Classic Rock” years were spent drag racing and spending time at the tracks. Common practice was track announcers filling empty time between rounds of racing with music. Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, Blood Sweat and Tears today paint vivid pictures of changing spark plugs at Interstate Raceway in Tyler on Saturday night, or waiting for the next call for stock classes at Dallas International Motor Speedway.

Perhaps I owe some of my appreciation for country music to Johnny Garner. Let me hear “Crazy” by Patsy Cline and I’ll tell you about the night he and I sprayed a late night paint job on a truck at Sandlin’s Body Shop in Mount Pleasant in about 1970 while the radio kept us entertained.

Play “Does Fort Worth Cross Your Mind” by George Strait and you will have to endure memories of some specific afternoons that involve Joe T. Garcia’s and close friends, one in particular.

“Music is what feelings sound like” is inscribed on a plaque hanging at home where I’ve been attempting to cross another item off my bucket list, learning to play the guitar.

Don’t know where I’d be without the memories and feelings music has brought into my life, but I’m pretty sure it’s a place not nearly as comforting.

Did I tell you about the memory that comes to mind when I hear Floyd Cramer’s “Last Date?” No? Well, play it for me sometime and I’ll tell you the story.

Leon Aldridge

Originally published 8/11/2014 in the Center Light and Champion and the Mount Pleasant Daily Tribune.

“Make a note of this conversation, Robin, and let’s get back together again in about ten years.”

Admonitions such as this to my daughter were commonplace during the years my kids and I spent raising each other. I say that because I’m pretty sure they did as much to help me mature then, as I hopefully did for them.

Part of this reciprocal learning process was for me to realize that every child’s personality, even siblings born to the same parents, is completely different—different likes and dislikes, different motivational factors, different outlooks on life. All of this, of course, means two different methods of child rearing.

In those days, Robin and I communicated frequently and at length. So much so that at times we lapsed into leaving written communiqués for each other, which gives rise to this weekly missive. I have saved everything, some would say almost literally, to the point that I now need to thin out a life-long collection of memorable artifacts. It was either that or move out, and although it was a tough decision, living indoors is something I’ve become really fond of doing.

The archival dig has unearthed hundreds of inner-house notes and messages. To the point of differences in siblings, this was not the case with my son, Lee. He didn’t talk until almost two years of age. Then for a while afterward, we thought he would never quit. These days, conversations with him can go either way.

One direction is when he calls and shares excitedly on a variety of topics. All that’s required of me is some sort of “listening noise” just to let him know I’m still on the line. Things like, “Uh-huh,” “Really,” or “That’s great.”

The other? It’s when the conversation sounds more like me asking, “How’s everything with you?”

“Good.’

“How’s work?”

“OK.”

“What have you been doing lately?”

“Not much.”

Like pulling teeth. But, I have to say, “He came by it honestly.”

Going through the boxes of keepsakes from rearing my children, I was reminded of the most rewarding conversations with Robin—the “make a note and let’s get back together” sessions.

Robin and I would meet on the back porch for rocking chair discussions, better known as debates. These were more often than not, to allow her a chance to sell me on something which she was reasonably convinced from the outset was going elicit a quick “no” from me. So, a rocking chair conference was called.

She would present her case. And, she was good at what she did. It was no small coincidence that Robin was on the Bandera High School debate team, and also no fluke that they always placed well in UIL competition. She got lots of practice working on ol’ dad at home.

They usually went something like me rocking, looking out across the back yard down toward the Medina River and listening quietly, nodding or wrinkling my brow every so often, trying hard not to tip my hand on which way I might have been prejudiced.

She often made a good case therefore gaining my approval of said request, an action that occasionally earned me a nod for “Dad of the Day.”

Other times, after hearing her out for 20-30 minutes, or whenever she paused—whichever came first—if the proposal failed to smack of “good idea,” I rendered my verdict. “Robin, I’ve listened to what you’ve said, I’ve taken it into consideration and I don’t think that’s a good idea because …”

“Dad—why not, that’s not fair,” was the typical outburst to such a ruling. To her, this was automatic granting of another 10 minutes for a rebuttal. Should she fail to sway me at that point, that’s when the infamous words were delivered. “Make a note of this conversation, Robin, and let’s get together again in about ten years.”

Little did I know at the time that those notes would turn out to be moments of sheer delight after Robin married and was raising her own family. “Dad,” she started a conversation one day, “Do you remember the times we would talk on the back porch and you would tell me to make a note to get back with you in 10 years?”

As I began to nod, she continued, “Well, you won’t believe the conversation Sarah and I had today. It was the same talk we had once, but this time I was the parent, and it all came back to me—you were right. Your ‘no’ response was the right answer.”

My “kids” are 35 and 37 this year, and in case you haven’t picked up on it, I love them both very much.

Funny, it never occurred to me until just now. I wonder if she’s using the “make a note and let’s get back together” tactic with her children?

The constant clatter of diesel engines and sporadic spewing of air brakes oddly harmonize in concert amid a profusion of pumps lined up on acres of asphalt—all at one complex rivaling the size of a small third-world nation.

The center of attention is a neon embellished eatery with signage flashing, “Open 24 Hours” … as if they really needed to advertise. Willie and Waylon wail from a jukebox somewhere just inside where clinking china cups and saucers combine with conversational chatter of big rig drivers laughing off one more tale of life on the road, and finishing off one last cup for the road.

The aroma of steaming eggs and sizzling bacon wafts throughout, sending hunger signals off the chart and increasing the craving for that first cup of coffee. Waitresses shouting orders to busy cooks finish off this surreal sensory circus.

Truck stops.

The great oases beckoning to road weary drivers along the nation’s concrete super slabs. Great food and friendly waitress stories born in truck stops are legend from coast to coast, but the stories take on a personal meaning with each individual truck stop dining experience.

Such was the case early one morning last fall while traversing southern states in a ’56 Ford Thunderbird headed back to the East Texas pine thicket. As the sun began tinting fading darkness with traces of orange, violet and red, I had already been rolling for more than an hour. “Tranquility” doesn’t do justice for describing the sensations of early morning, long-distance traveling in a classic car that has been on the road since Eisenhower’s first term.

Tranquility gave way to hunger when I spotted the brightly illuminated billboard proclaiming “good food” at the truck stop just ahead. Seemed like the perfect solution to my immediate need.

After roosting the little ‘Bird at the edge of the parking lot and entering the building, I mounted the last empty bar stool at the counter. I was still looking down, making sure the split in the plastic cushion didn’t interfere with a pleasant dining experience, when a white china mug hit the counter just short of my chin. Rolling my eyes upward, I saw a name tag letting me know that it was Gail who was sloshing coffee in the mug without spilling a drop on either of us.

Coffee was still splashing when she firmly planted a menu right beside the mug. As my eyes continued upward to meet hers, she smiled and greeted me with a “good morning, honey,” no less sincere than one with which she might have awakened her significant other scant hours ago.

As Gail walked away, heads slowly rotated in unison as every guy at the counter turned to get a glimpse of jeans that fit tight enough to dramatically and delightfully demonstrate moves sufficient to create a flurry of “backfield in motion” flags at any football stadium in the land.

Turning blurry eyes back to the menu, I raised the coffee mug and trembled at the excitement of my first sip of the day. One taste of truck stop Joe exuded “good morning world” vibes strong enough to miraculously restore 20/20 vision faster than a Southern tent revival faith healer. After all, it’s hard to remain sleepy drinking coffee resembling Quaker State 30-weight with more than 10,000 miles on it. Taste wasn’t bad however, that is for coffee that was strong enough to easily support a spoon in an upright position.

In a flash, Gail was back packing an order pad and pencil. “What ‘cha havin’ this morning sweetie,” she asked between smacks of chewing gum.

“What do you think about the sausage and cheese omelet,” I asked.

“My favorite,” she smacked though a smile.

I hardly had time to take in the ambiance and size up the clientele before tight-fitting jeans was back with an omelet the size of Big Tex’s hat. It was accompanied by two biscuits the size of Cadillac hubcaps smothered in cream gravy with hash browns hanging precariously off one side of the plate.

Moments later and almost ready to declare defeat after eating little more than half the plate’s contents, I caught a glimpse of an older couple approaching the restaurant. The silver-haired “Missus” opened the door, heard the music, took one look at the gimme cap crowd and Gail’s jeans before spinning her hubby around in his loafers, grabbing him by the arm and making a hasty retreat.

Still sopping gravy with the remains of the last biscuit, I thought to myself, “How sad. Those folks just missed the best omelet east of the Mississippi and the opportunity to collect a first-hand story about a great truck stop meal and a friendly waitress named Gail … sporting some of the tightest jeans south of the Mason-Dixon line.

Leon Aldridge

Originally written for the Boerne (Texas) Star – October 11, 1995

Reunion [ree-yoon-yuhn] Noun—A gathering of relatives, friends, or associates at regular intervals.

The Johnson clan from Kentucky, to which I lay claim for half of my heritage, just completed another successful reunion in Texas, near Burleson.

The familial get togethers, held for at least as long as I can remember, were Kentucky events for many years. But, in the last decade or two, other locations convenient to surviving members and growing families have included Texas, Arkansas and other regions.

It’s been surprising to hear comments lately that family reunions in America are declining. If so, the Kentucky Johnsons haven’t been informed. In fact, one day just isn’t enough when they converge. Their gatherings have been known to last up to a week.

Arthur George Johnson, my mother’s father, is responsible for starting the events that have become family legend. He was born in 1894 and married Bernice Conlee before they settled in central Kentucky, started a family and spent the majority of their lives as educators.

My mother, Indianola Johnson, was the first child born to their union in 1923. Siblings following her included three sisters and two brothers who all grew up calling Winchester in Clark County, Kentucky, home.

Arthur Johnson did not live a long life by most standards. He died of cancer in 1951. He did accomplish a number of remarkable things, however, including instilling in his children an incredible sense of close family ties.

Among documents in my possession today is a letter he wrote to my mother on the occasion of her marriage. She was preparing to marry a young soldier by the name of Aldridge from Pittsburg, Texas, and this marriage would take her a long way off for 1944, away from the Blue Grass State and from her family. Likely adding gravity to the occurrence was the fact that she was the first child to leave home.

His letter covered all the admonitions of which one might assume a father would offer his daughter, things such as love, honor and devotion. It also strongly urged the importance of remaining in touch with family and conducting frequent get togethers—advice he offered all his children, and advice they obviously took to heart.

My earliest childhood memories are of Johnson family reunions in Kentucky for which every sibling was present. And this was no small feat. My mom moved to Texas where she was to live out her life. She was followed by two sisters who also called Texas home. The other sister settled in Ohio and the surviving brother in Southern California … before moving to Texas, to Phoenix and recently back to Texas.

Geography proved to be no obstacle, however. Reunions were planned a year in advance and no one missed the homecomings with some driving half way across the country and through the night to attend.

So how does a family spend a full week having a reunion? Not a problem for this bunch of Johnsons now numbering four generations deep. It takes at least two days of visiting to catch up with everyone else’s activities, events and stories. Throw in another day at the Kentucky reunions visiting with aunts, uncles, cousins and friends still residing in the area and the week’s half over. With many considering reunions as a vacation, there’s always a day or two to take in local attractions and landmarks.

Last but not least are the cemetery research expeditions, typically including one unique to this family. It’s called Johnson’s Mountain. It’s a day’s drive and hike in and out of a wooded Kentucky hilltop where remnants of ancestor’s log cabins remain and where graves of previous generations of Johnson settlers dating to the 1700s typically need cleaning. Every generation is required to make the pilgrimage at least once.

My mom was the oldest of her generation and I’m the oldest of my generation of cousins that has grown up more like brothers and sisters. Mom died in 2010, and declining health prevented her attending a number of the last several reunions while she was still living. The youngest Johnson sister died a few years before her, but the surviving three were in Burleson last weekend, plus representatives of every generation.

Stories about family members and events filled the late night hours supplemented with lots of snappy cheese dip and Ale-8-1 soft drinks—both Kentucky traditions rooted in the Winchester area.

Many of the stories, I have heard more times than I can count. But, I’ll listen to them as long as they are still being told because with each recitation, there are variations that only time and the love for recounting family history firsthand can enhance.

And that’s probably the best part of any family reunion, and the best reason I know of for continuing them—that, and the snappy cheese and Ale-8s.

Leon Aldridge — July 21, 2015

Spending time outdoors this past weekend was pure delight. Only a dog barking somewhere Saturday disturbed warming temperatures and gorgeous sunsets. Barking is what dogs do— at cars, at people, or for reasons known only to them. Something in the tone of this bark was troubling. Anyone who understands the unconditional love of man’s best friend could hear a plea in this bark.

Dogs were not a part of my youth. In fact, forty was behind me when daughter Robin first wanted a puppy. Hoping her requests would be short lived, creativity flourished as I offered reasons why having a dog wasn’t a good idea. But, I ran out of excuses when we adopted a terrier mix puppy she called, “Bug,” a happy white creature with a brown face that someone had literally thrown away. Together, they taught me lessons learned from loving a dog, and that anyone who says, “It’s just a dog,” is missing one of life’s greatest joys.

Watching the two of them love each other was rewarding, but the hound that touched my heart was an old gentleman of a basset named, “Max.”

“Dad,” Robin said shortly after we settled into our new home in the Texas Hill Country, “Bug needs a friend.”

“He’s got you,” I retorted.

“A dog friend, dad,” she replied curtly.

“Let me hear you bark,” I teased her.

Max lived with Bob Morgan near Lufkin. When Bob and his wife moved into town, their condo was perfect for them, but not big enough for Bob, his wife and “Ol’ Maxey.”

My mind was made up, however. One dog was sufficient. I stood my ground.

Headed back to South Texas the next day, Max appeared to enjoy the trip. The kids laughed and loved on the ol’ hound as we made our way out of the East Texas Pine Thicket.

Bob exercised great care to tell me all about Max. Gave me baby pictures and a letter of apology written to Max by one of Bob’s friends after she casually referred to Max as “just a dog.”

“He’s a fine dog,” Bob said with love. We usually go for a ride on Saturday morning. To the What-A-Burger drive through where Max gets his own, but you can cut the vegetables and mustard on his. Then we just ride around for a while and smoke a cigar.”

“Oh,” he added, “Ol’’ Maxy also likes tuna fish sandwiches and moon pies, but you can’t go riding with him after he eats them.”

In addition to his culinary and recreation history, Bob added on a more serious note, “If he ever barks at night, he’s either hungry, lonely or hurting.”

Back home in Bandera County later that night, we had made the old boy a nice comfy bed on the back porch. Left him water and a midnight snack. But, I had no more than turned out the lights when I heard it. “Oof.” First one, then two deep bass notes, “Oof—oof.”

As I stepped into the darkness on the porch, I heard the rhythmic “thump, thump, thump” of a large dog’s tail on the wooden surface.

After stroking his head, scratching his long floppy ears and assuring him he had been adopted into a good family, I bode him a good night again and headed back for my bed.

Moments later, there it was again. “Oof— oof!”

As this basset hound I had known less that 48 hours and I sat on the back porch, I stroked his head and said, “Max, we both need some sleep.”

Then, as the moon loomed larger over the mesquites down the hill toward the Medina River, we began to communicate. Him by resting his head on my leg and me by letting him know I was beginning to understand what Bob had said.

“I get it Max,” I said aloud. “You’ve lost your country estate followed by your cigar smoking, burger-eating best friend. And if that weren’t enough, now you’re 300 miles from East Texas and alone on a strange back porch somewhere in the Hill Country. Hang on—I’ll be right back.”

Once again, I pounded my pillow into just the right shape and made sure my feet were covered. “Got enough room there Max,” I asked.

The prince of an old dog that was to teach me many lessons about the love of a dog and I settled in together on the back porch watching a Bandera County moon and counting Hill Country stars as we both drifted off to sleep.

Years flashed by as Max and I traveled Texas, raised two kids, and shared a few burgers. I never really developed an appreciation for cigars though.

Kids grown and gone and me living in Center again, I was awakened again one night by another, “Oof!” I knew the tone of this one too well. Max was long in the tooth and enduring arthritis.

“How will I know when it’s time,” I had already asked Center vet, Dr. Robert Hughes.

“Oh, you’ll know,” he said. “You’ll know.”

I went to the living room that night and stretched out by the fireplace next to the old dog that had schooled me in devotion, love, friendship and loyalty. I stroked his head and rubbed his long floppy ears one more time. He sighed and drifted off to sleep long before I did. I’m pretty sure we both knew.

Fluffing and folding my pillow, I looked out the window at the East Texas moon rising over the pine trees, knowing the phone call I had to make in the morning, and knowing that the old dog and I were spending our last night together just as we had spent our first—sleeping on the floor.

Looking at nature’s spring flowering around me this past weekend, I thought about Ol’ Maxey. And I really hoped the dog speaking his heart somewhere in our neighborhood was barking at a cat, or a car. Or, for some reason known only to the dog.

Leon Aldridge – From archives

Originally published in the Boerne (Texas) Star – Oct. 1993

Edited and republished in the Center (Texas) Light and Champion – April 2014

Pale invaders and tanned crusaders
Are worshipping the sun
On the corner of “walk” and “don’t walk”
Somewhere on US 1.
I’m back to livin’ Florida’s
Blue skies and ultra-violet rays
Lookin’ for better days.   
—Jimmy Buffett

Is it coincidence that often draws us back to the same place, or maybe habit? My observations run along the lines that accumulating years of memories help define the places we frequent.

Florida Gulf Coast cities have consistently called out in years past, but the beautiful song of the sirens in Panama City Beach in particular have been the most alluring.

A recent coincidental convergence spawned recollections of Florida and set the sirens to singing once more. One was old news in a Mount Pleasant (Texas) Daily Tribune clipping documenting my initial adventure to the Sunshine State. The other is current news that I’m headed back there soon.

During the last every five year “whether it needs it or not” reorganizing of my archives (a.k.a. “that unorganized bunch of junk I’ve saved”), I discovered a yellowed newspaper photo depicting a group of smiling motorcycle riders ready to depart Northeast Texas for Florida.

Blame it on reorganization, or on Murphy because it’s something I needed, but the clipping has since rejoined the ranks of temporarily unfindable items. However, memory tells me the photographer recorded the image in about ’73 or ’74 at the home of Larry and Dixie Spruill, organizers of the event and owners of a Mount Pleasant motorcycle shop.

The Spruill family was pictured, as was Oscar Elliott and yours truly. However, I’m crawling no farther out on a memory limb with names until I have evidence in hand again. I’m pretty sure statutes of limitation have expired for said adventure, but I’m taking no chances.

The anxious assemblage departed one afternoon after 5 p.m. hoping to get as far as possible before sleeping. Memories endure about our rolling into Vicksburg, Mississippi way after dark and seeking rooms.

Don’t know whether she volunteered or was appointed, but Dixie Spruill inquired about rooms at the motel office while the rest of us waited nearby out of sight. I’m assuming that was to forgo frightening the night clerk with a bunch of sapped cycle riders in the parking lot. Whatever the reason, it worked.

Next afternoon, we roared into Panama City Beach for a week’s stay at the Barney Gray Motel. “World’s Most Beautiful Bathing Beach” as a period chamber ad touted, or “Redneck Riviera” as others have called it, didn’t matter, we were there just for the fun.

Not long out of college and my first time to Florida, for me the trip was fun filled with educational experiences … of sorts. It’s where I learned about severe sunburn, the kind necessitating innovative ways of sleeping while standing, and about nights trying to forget about sunburn while cruising the Miracle Mile Beach Highway 98 amid hot cycles, cool cars and loud parties. It’s also where I learned about streakers. Hey, it was the 70s.

The bare facts of that story were that a group of us huddled around an arcade pinball machine watching the player on a streak piling up points. I never saw Ethel, but I did look when a couple of young women ran through the arcade toward us—au naturel. Couldn’t tell whether they were wearing nothing but a smile because they were wearing nothing but a paper bag on their head. At first unsure about whether to stare or share, I finally called out to alert the nearest bystanders, being ever careful to keep an eye on the birthday suit expo headed our direction. “Guys,” I stuttered, “Hey guys … over here … look!”

The streakers flashed by us, and out the door before someone finally turned and asked, “What?”

“Never mind,” I said, “Telling you about it—it just wouldn’t be the same.”

In years since, Panama City and I have streaked past each other at least a couple of other times. Once was in the mid 1980s returning from Daytona Beach driving a ’56 Ford Thunderbird when the little ‘Bird’s generator gave up the ghost in a restaurant parking lot. An hour’s worth of parking lot repairs followed by a meal in the Panama City restaurant and we were on the road again.

Then it was just a few years ago while there on a working expedition capturing product application photography for my employer that I noticed the Barney Gray Motel, along with most of the original Miracle Strip Beach magic, had succumbed to high-rise luxury hotels and lavish condos.

Thankfully, not long ago a friend sent me an old postcard depicting the motel in the 1950s. I was pretty sure the place looked the same in 60s as well, because it still looked like the postcard pic when we were there in the 70s.

Hopefully when I’m back on the Florida Gulf Coast next month, I’ll find time to visit Panama City Beach again. But, without the Barney Gray Motel and the arcade streaker, the siren’s song just won’t be the same.

Leon Aldridge — July 15, 2015