When I was in Austin for my two week escape from the driveway, I went to dinner at my favorite sushi restaurant.  I love to sit at the sushi bar and watch the edible art being created as I sample the small plates that come up one by one, while sipping $3 sake until my gums are comfortably numb.   The place is always packed, so it is always a crap shoot whether you will be seated next to the back of an entwined couple oblivious to the world around them, sharing bites off the end of one another’s chopsticks.   Or maybe it will be another loner like me who came for the presentation, not the conversation.  Or perhaps even someone looking for a little chopstick co-mingling of their own?

This time, I got the enthusiastic  Expense Account Guy, happier to be out on the town than a penned up puppy.  He didn’t even give me a chance to polish the splinters off my chopsticks before asking, “So where’re YOU from?”    Having only been full timing for a little under a year now, this is still a challenging question, and thankfully, I have a plethora of answers.   Having lived everywhere from New Orleans to New Jersey, it’s usually easy to temper my answer to my mood.  Tonight, I am feeling a bit “prickly,” so I just say “Oh, just down the street” (no lie!)  Feeling obligated to return the same rote question, I ask, “You?”  He answers, “Oh, a small town just outside of Dallas.   I am sure you have never heard of it before.  Midlothian?”   I take a long draw on my cold unfiltered sake, raise my glass as I drop my head in disbelief, and say, “MHS, Class of 72.”

He moved here with his family as a “quality of life improvement.”  Good God, man.   Where were you living before?   Somalia?    It always surprises me that someone would actually move here by choice.   “Midlothian – The Cement Capital of Texas.”   Wonder who we had to fight for those bragging rights?

Just one of our claims to fame…

Growing up in such a small town did have its advantages.   Being only a class of 60, I knew all my classmates well.   We got lots of individual attention and extracurricular activities back then, like a class field trip to go watch the making of “Bonnie and Clyde” with Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty.    I still have their autograph tacked on my cork bulletin board among pennants and pop star pinups like Sonny and Cher.  We raised enough money during our senior year for a school bus trip to Estes Park, Colorado.   It was the first time some of my classmates had seen mountains, and I venture to say for some, it may have also been the last.

Where the Winnie gets her inspection….”In business for 47 years!”

It also afforded lots of opportunity for reward and recognition.   Not only did I win the “Crisco Award for Outstanding Student in Home Economics” (try living down the “Crisco Award” amongst a bunch of testosterone-intoxicated teens!)   But I was also voted “Most Likely to Succeed.”   Wonder what they think of me now that I am homeless?  😉

The gayest thing in town…

Texas-style Tire Swing

I still recall my reaction to the 1971 movie, “The Last Picture Show,” about a group of High School students coming of age in a West Texas town. It was nominated for 8 Academy Awards.  I didn’t get what all the fuss was about.  How could someone be entertained by sitting through two hours of my home town?  Too close to home.

Bicentennial Time Capsule, to be exhumed on July 4th, 2076. I am guessing it contains a polyester pant suit, a wiglet, and a Barry Manilow 8-track.

Although I counted the hours till Graduation Day so I could join my fellow hippie wannabes down at the liberal University in Austin, I still have classmates who never left.    The wildest of us all has done time, and is now working the Chicken Express drive-thru.   My brother’s best friend inherited his father’s hardware business.  And our Class President now delivers the mail.

My younger brother is also one who never left.  He seems content to call it home, with only the occasional vacation trip to the islands.    This always makes me wonder how three kids from the same parents could be so vastly different.     The eldest of us siblings is currently down in the belly of Guatemala exploring Mayan ruins, with no indication of plans to return anytime soon.  The middle sibling gave up on trying to remain in one spot for more than five years at a time, and finally succumbed to a mobile existence.   So how is it that the third and youngest sibling sewed all his seeds right here under the family tree?   Even that doesn’t make sense considering our father was “Born a ramblin’ man,” hopping a freight train like a hobo bound for California at the very young age of 18.   At 92, he is still a wanderer.   So what makes us all differ so greatly?  What makes a person predisposed to the itch?  Is there such a thing as a “wandering gene?”

The scenic view over “One Walton Way,” the hottest ticket in town. (Note to RVers: Overnight parking allowed!)

I love my parents with all my heart.  Sometimes I feel bad for them, because they got gypped where daughters are concerned.  I will never be one of those types who lives next door and comes over every weekend with a Sunday Roast.  They know I will come back to help whenever they need me.  But if it came to long term confinement in Rural Town, Texas, at 85 and 92 years of age, I feel certain they would most likely outlive me.

Back when I was trying to sell my sticks and bricks in Atlanta, my Dad used to ask, “Why don’t you just move back to the farm?”  My answer was (and still is) always the same… “If I did, I would only need six feet of land…six feet under.”