April 2001
part one
April turned out to be busy. Just back at the Nut Shell four plus days a week. It is actually good to be back. Arrangements were made at work for the trip, before I took the job back. "Just so long as it does not interfere with a holiday." So I arranged to be off the seventeenth to the twenty-fourth. (Then had to call in for extension.) Through the recommendation of some customers I have gotten to know, I got a request to photograph a wedding for their friends and pastor. I guess they know I can take pictures from my web site, etc. We have been in touch while I was away, my sabbatical. I have not done weddings in a long time, and I do not have the proper equipment any more. I told them I was rusty and could not promise much, and that I would not charge, but let them pay for the film and the processing if they wished. They agreed.
I guess, shooting a wedding is like riding a bike. You never forget once you learn, because I turned in some decent pics after all. I dieted all week to get into my one good suit. The wedding was on Friday 13th, that ominous day in Beaverville, but the weather could not have been better. Out toward Lipan, there were signs and balloons for the Ellis wedding, and 12 miles down the road, you turned into this impressive gate. Driving through these extensive pastures, at least a mile, you came to this fine sturdy rock house, nicely landscaped with desert succulents and yuccas, rocks and an free-form pool around back. The wedding was to take place in a fine big open pavilion, with huge cedar supports for a vaulted roof. Concrete floor. A red carpet lead from the house, past the pool to the steps of the pavilion, where an electric organ and some chairs were placed. I arrived early and the musicians were practicing. The ranch owner and his son were directing traffic to the parking areas on horseback. Sturdy bay quarter horses.
The Groom, and maybe the bride too, had connections with A & M, and there were two of his friends who introduced them selves to me and were going to take pictures as well. They had much better equipment. Big Nikons with zoom lenses. My confidence rose as I realized that the photos that should be taken would be.
There was a big seating area filled with folding chairs. The guests arrived slowly, but the place filled up well. The music started in ernest as the twilight fell. Pachelbel's famous Canon with variations for flute and guitar. Songs sung I did not know, but they fit the laid back afternoon in the lovely setting under spreading oaks. Colored lights twinkled all around and calalillies were the flowers of choice. The weather certainly cooperated. The wedding proper was presided over by two pastors, one who heard their vows was the bride's father. Afterward, a dancing, cake cutting and garter and bouquet tosses. I left, having to get to work in a few hours.
The next few days were spent in fussy details I hate, phone about a rent tux for the wedding in Chalotte, arranging to get addresses and phone numbers of people need to contact, making enough baked goods and batters for my week off from work. Sending the film for processing, the results I would only see after I returned. Packing, such as it was.
Finally, the
morning of the 17th, Tuesday, and I could be taking off. After
getting the opening bacon broiled, the muffins and cinnamon rolls
baked, the turnovers and sour-dough rolls cooked, Ronnie getting
nervous about my departure, I went to the bank and withdrew copious
funds so as not to have to use my American Express Account, (dispute
over something) and headed for gas at 1.53 a gallon, the highest
I have ever paid, and the Dairy Queen for a bite with Ronnie
and Jimmy who were looking after my animals and stuff with Kathleen
while I was away.
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That done, it was up 377 to eye thirty, I-30, the interstate that connects I-20 with I-40 from just after Weatherford to Little Rock. On to the pines of east Texas. Past downtown Fort Worth, Dallas, across Lake Ray Willey Hubbard, and north east past Greenville and Sulphur Springs to the gate-way east, Texarcana. (And other arcana.)
Once in Arkansas, you are in Clinton country. Hope. Little Rock. I miss him. Wish we had another like him without his lechy tendencies that got us embarrassed for him. Maybe Hillery will come back to save us from the insanity of the current bunch in charge! Time will tell, as they say!
O the traffic on the interstate. The 18 wheelers going voom voom. I found myself following a friendly little pick-up with some kind of serious structure on the back, a Tennessee license, and youngish driver driving sanely. He was going my speed and seemed to know how to get to 40 through confusing signs and lane switches in Little Rock. He got it right. Then he stopped for gas, and I did not until a bit later. Then back on the highway, I found myself behind him again! Strange co-incidence. He got me to Memphis and its mysteries, but not before a major slow down to a minimal crawl. I wrote this poem in frustration:
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Called Tim a few miles out of Memphis. I bought this ten dollar phone card,
the first I ever had used, and after initial confusion, the black help at the store told me that to get the max 100 plus minutes out of it, you should talk for two hours all at once. (Like she had talked to her sister in Chicago for two hours the day before.) Well, I did not want to do that, so I got hold of my friend, who told me to come to Nashville, about three hours drive and take 24 to the second Murphreesboro exit, find Wendy's and call from there. This I did and he told me to turn at Wendy's and go three stop lights, he named the roads and then take a right on 16, I think. This would take me to Woodbury, where I was to call him from the all-night market across from MacDonalds, and he would come get me. This I did, and that he did!!! It was about 11:30 and I was pretty well bushed. I followed him up the hill to a plateau above town, to the country area where he had his mobile. There were several cars, a truck, a small barn, more a tractor shed, and a bus making a very mobile campus. On the inside of Tim's house, all was comfort and neat original decor. Same old Tim. He had the magic touch with decor. Should have been in interior design, I guess. I was to sleep in Caleb's bed, while he was sprawled on the livingroom couch, poor guy. Greeted me with his sleepy smile and ducked back under his quilt. As Tim says, he is such a saint. I had seen him the past summer and know he has a pure heart. His passion is Celtic dancing, and is learning the fiddle. Talented and strong, only 17, working with a ferrior. He made this out of horse shoes:
Tim and I talked long into the night back in his bedroom, as Robin was away nursing an elderly friend. Bethany and Sarah were asleep, as was Zeb in a back room. We talked about the old times and caught up on the years. We met back in the 80's, Tim and Robin came to Granbury, when Tim got a job where I was working as draftsman at Comanche Peak Steam Electric Station as it was called, euphimistically, for it was a nuclear generating plant in construction trouble. Robin was pregnant with twins, and soon delivered Bethany and Zebulon. Already full of energy, wit, beauty and personality, we got these wonderful shots of their antics. They were living in an old farm house in the country outside of town. There were some problems, like heating and primative plumbing, but Tim was so enterprising he had the place comfortable and livable right away. When they moved out the next year, I moved in. The rent was 80 bucks a month! I was living in a place I bought in a modest-to-run-down development called Oak Trail Shores. It was a rural slum, but it was paid for, and the place had some amenities, like a community swiming pool or two. Tim and Robin would come over on hot summer evenings for a swim. Once, when he twins were almost 2, and showing their wit and originality, Zeb took off his bathing trunks. We had the pool to ourselves and they let him have fun bare-ass. But one time, some others came, and an indigant old fellow, who was a serious delegate of the development association, it seemed, told us to put the boy's pants on. We argured that he was just a baby, but the arguement was not well recieved. There were young girls present. (Who might get arroused?) But we had to keep him in argument, for Zeb was relieving himself, pissing in the other end of the pool. Victim of authority?
