AND AWAY WE GO
May 5, 2008
Read on my friends and you shall hear
Of the summertime adventures of PawPaw and Onie dear
As over the hills, mountains and plains we go
On through the dust, the rain and the snow
Tis’ new adventures we seek
So come along and have a peek
As Onie plots the course
And PawPaw keeps us out of the gorse
A grand adventure is truly in store
As we venture forth, once more
So join us for the trip
And read on, for the first quip
After days, perhaps weeks, of preparation, including compounding and waxing the coach, the morning arrived for our departure. We had closed the house down on Sunday evening and spent a restful night in the Marlin. About two o’clock in the A.M. it had started to rain. When we stirred at seven the rain was still falling and the temp had dropped, slightly.
While the driver made last minute outside adjustments and checks, the navigator fixed some breakfast for both.
After breakfast another last minute check revealed the car cover was missing so a search party set out to find it. In the meantime a few more clothes were added to the closets and the refrigerator in the Coldspring kitchen was emptied of items needed in the coach or that might spoil in the ensuing five months. Another cooler or two of salmon filets, smoked salmon, halibut filets, boned ham and chicken and a few other items were moved from the house freezer to the coach.
At last all was in readiness and the Cummins was cranked and the coach eased out of the drive and into the road just outside the gate. Onie brought up the toad to be hooked up, the gate was closed and locked and we were under way. It was one-twenty.
For those who have been to Coldspring they know it is on the road to nowhere. In other words you have to want to go to Coldspring to arrive there and there are only two roads that lead in and out, State highways 150 and 2025. To leave we opted for 150 west., and headed toward the megalopolis, in the residents minds, of Shepherd. It took us all of five minutes to leave Shepherd in our fumes as we pulled onto US 59 and headed north.
Soon we were passing through towns with familiar names, Livingston, Lufkin, Nacogdoches and then Teneha. Rain accompanied us all the way.
You have never heard of Teneha?
It was just past there that we saw the results of those who fail to obey road signs warning of construction. Another tragedy in the Texas tradition, of the old west where it was every man for himself and the slowest usually ended up dead, had played out here. As we topped a rise we saw the orange warning signs asking us to slow down. We did but folks in front of us had not.
At the bottom of the hill ran a little stream. It was just a mere trickle but still in all it was large enough to warrant a bridge as no modern road car could ford it. Clustered about it were the various trees that like to grow in moist ground, their roots filtering the creek’s water which waters those sylvan creatures that are in need of quenching their thirst. The recent rain had washed the road clean and the fresh scent of rain still hung in the gentle breeze that wafted over and through the coach.
It was into this pristine setting that death had come a little while ago. Stretched out between two orange safety cones lay a body, another victim of a careless driver who had obviously struck him as he tried to cross the road. The life had flown from the body some time ago but it still lay uncovered for the curious passerby to see. The legs were stretched akimbo and the head was thrown back in what might have been a final gasp for life’s breath. The corpse was but a mere shell of what had been a vibrant individual just a short time before. Undoubtedly he had no way of knowing that his end was so near, the road. Soon, perhaps before nightfall, his remains would be carried away to a place unknown to him, or her, for I’m not sure of the exact gender of the deceased. None the less those responsible for removing the remains would soon be at their gruesome task. Exactly where or in how many places the remains were to be disposed of was uncertain but we knew that shortly the crows, vultures, coons, wild pigs or other varmints would attend to the removal of the dead armadillo.
With such happy thoughts racing through our heads we motored on toward Carthage and Highway 79 where we turned northeast and headed for the superslab sometime referred to as Interstate 20.
Before heading east we stopped for fuel at the Flying J. The good folks there were practically giving fuel away, only $3.99 a gallon for diesel. Why we were so excited we filled up the coach and the car with regular, why at only $3.49 a gallon it made me want to run a little on the ground to say I had bought fuel so cheaply. Alas Onie stopped me reminding me of the environment and the omnipresent EPA and various and sundry others of the tree hugging variety who would have us all walking, given their way, and would no doubt think me a candidate for tarring and feathering if a drop of gasoline hit the pavement.
Now we headed on east through the woods and over the hills to West Monroe, Louisiana. Passing by our windows were wildflowers and streams. On occasion a stream would wink at us as the sun, now breaking through the clouds, sparkled on the surface as the water laughed its way toward a river and eventually the sea.
Just ten minutes before seven we pulled into the Pavilion RV Park where we took a pull through space before going for a short walk that included stopping to smell honeysuckle growing on a fence.
Later, inside the coach, Onie prepared supper and then we watched TV before succumbing to sleep around eleven.
May 6
Tuesday
EASTWARD
Sun greeted us when we rose and began our morning ministrations; showers, brush our hair, Onie only, breakfast, teeth brushing and the sundry other things folks do to get going in the A.M.
When the shore lines were all in and the morning walk around complete we headed out of the park and back to Interstate20 where we headed east, at ten after eight. Cloud cover blanketed the sun so there was no morning squinting as we rolled along.
Pine forest, common in northern Louisiana, lined the roadway with a pasture found now and then where someone thought they could make more money farming anaimals than they could farming trees. The Cummins easily pushed the coach over the gentle hills and the miles rolled away behind us.
Soon the boundary of Mississippi loomed near at hand, then it was over the river and we were there. Blooming Magnolia trees lined the road in Vicksburg and even farther east where the gentle hills of Louisiana gave way to steeper grades. Still the Cummins and Allison had no problem hustling us along from one vista to the next--town and country, country and town.
A steady sixteen hundred RPM, fifty nine to sixty one miles an hour, soon brought us to Alabama, past the Mercedes plant and into Bessemer where we pulled in to the Flying J for more fuel.
At Birmingham we turned north on Interstate 65. North of Birmingham where the streams run clear and the hills are steeper Onie called Gary to tell him we should be in his drive around five thirty. He said he would meet us there.
Traffic on 65 likes to travel 85 in the 70 zone and moving at 60 one has to be careful to stay out of the way. This is NASCAR on the straightaway. We managed to be dodged by the autobahn type drivers and finally exited at 351, Athens, and took 72 east.
A little before five thirty we were stopped in the drive on Fox Hollow. Gary was a few minutes behind us.
Kyle had football practice and arrived somewhat later and then Tina got home.
Everyone had a snack and then we loaded up and went to Kyle’s baseball game.
He didn’t have his best game but the team won anyway.
Back home we visited a while before turning in at eleven.
May 7, 2008
Wednesday
A DAY IN HARVEST
Somewhere in the middle of the night Kyle came in to our room, woke us, gave us a hug and told us he was off to school. We hugged him back, wished him a good day, rolled over and went back to sleep.
When we woke again it was still on the morning side of noon but not by much.
We made our way up to the kitchen where we had coffee and tea and Onie fixed us something to eat.
As time passed we moved a little faster and decided to do a few chores.
Onie began working dividing her time between the coach and the house.
Outside the front end of the coach was opened up to expose the generator cover. The last time we ran the generator it didn’t perform quite right so we figured it was time for a little service. The cover came off and the service began. The air filter was removed and checked and then the oil was topped off and the radiator coolant also topped off. When we cranked the generator it ran without a hitch for a solid hour. We buttoned the cover back up and closed the access hatch on the front of the coach.
With the generator problem solved the hose was fetched along with a tub and some soap. Applications of water, soap and elbow grease behind the brush rid the front of the Marlin of a generous coating of bugs.
Kyle and I set off for the auto parts house to get some special oil and then made a quick stop at the Marble Slab creamery. It was a tossup who enjoyed the ice cream more, me or Kyle but when it was all gone we trudged back to the Subaru for the trip home.
At the house Onie and Tina had prepared a good evening meal. Both of us, Kyle and I, bellied up to the table and did ourselves proud by consuming mass quantities of food to cover up our indiscretion of eating ice cream.
Later Kyle and Gary entertained us with an impromptu wrestling match on the living room floor.
Exhausted by their exertions Onie and I went to our room around ten.
May 8, 2008
Thursday
SAFE ROOMS
Wherever people choose to live on this earth there are natural phenomena that affect their lives. On the Gulf Coast it is hurricanes, in California it is earthquakes, in North Dakota it is blizzards, the snow variety of course, and in Alabama it is tornadoes.
Today was one of those days in Harvest, Limestone County, Alabama and surrounding towns and counties.
The Bahm family rose as usual and went off to work and school. Onie and I slept in as usual.
After our breakfast/brunch Onie set about doing some chores including the laundry we had accumulated. I went out to work on applying Rain X to the windshield and windows on the coach.
As soon as I was outside I became aware of the wail of the distant tornado alert sirens, announcing the imminent presence of a tornado. As I listened it became obvious that the sirens were located very close to Limestone Middle School, about three miles from the house and that is where Kyle was in class. Of course concern for his safety and that of the other students as well as the teachers came to mind immediately and then I reminded myself that tornado alerts are common place here about this time, as well as other times, of the year and most homes have a “safe room”. One hoped that the school did too..
I returned to the job of cleaning the windshield and windows before applying the Rain X. It appeared that very soon we would see what kind of job I was doing as the skies began spitting rain. Every few minutes a new round of sirens would be heard and that with distant lightning kept me very aware of the weather as the job went on.
At last the job was over and the writer joined Onie in the house where Kyle soon joined them. He related that about seventy-five percent of the kids at his school had been picked up by their parents, by lunch time, and the afternoon was spent twiddling his thumbs since there was insufficient numbers to hold classes.
Onie and Kyle adjourned to the coach for a game or two of Farkle and I returned to the outside to do more exterior maintenance on the coach.
Kyle’s Tuesday night baseball game had been rained out and rescheduled for his birthday, tomorrow, so when Gary and Tina arrived home after work it was decided to go out for his birthday dinner, tonight.
Kyle and Gary agreed to the Macaroni Grill and we were soon loaded in the car and on our way.
It was to celebrate Kyle’s fourteenth birthday that we were going but Onie and I looked forward to it with great anticipation. Before we retired and when we lived in Sugar Land we used to eat at the Macaroni Grill almost every week. We particularly like their hot bread.
Seated at the table we were not disappointed when the bread arrived. It was just as good as it had been seven years earlier.
We each placed our order. Gary sticking with his new dietary rules which render him a vegan, and then we returned to the task of demolishing a few loaves of the tasty bread. Of course when the entrees’ arrived some folks were so full of bread that most of their meal traveled home in a “go box”. The writer didn’t need a go box just some baking soda in a cup of water to dispel a bad case of indigestion brought on by too much good food.
Back at the house the men, Gary, Kyle and yours truly, watched a little TV while the ladies, Onie and Tina, got ready for bed.
Not too many minutes passed before we joined them.
May 9, 2008
Friday
TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALLGAME
When we rose the folks had already left for school and work.
A breakfast of heatups, coffee and tea were sufficient for the day and after showering and making the bed we began our daily chores.
Onie cleaned the kitchen and washed while outside the writer put more Rain X on the coach and then turned his attention to the windows on the toad.
About nine the driver set out in the toad toward Nashville. It was a nice day for a drive and lunch with a good friend of long standing. He was on his way to see J.H. Hathaway, III, a grade school friend. Joe, as he is called, and the writer share many good boyhood memories as well as memories from young adulthood. Later Joe had lived with the writer
after he, Joe, had broken his leg while working in Japan. Then when both Joe and the writer, who were both single at the time, decided to buy homes they went house shopping, separately, and ended up buying homes with identical floor plans on the same street seven houses apart. They shared the neighborhood and fed the women’s gossip pot until Joe moved to Carrolton then many weekend trips were made to share time together until the writer met Onie and married some eighteen months later. The reunion would be good although much time had passed since we last visited and Joe had fallen on bad times as far as his health is concerned.
When I arrived just about noon Joe greeted me in the front yard, showed me around the house a bit, then we headed off to a steak house. Joe has been a big steak lover as long as I have. We enjoyed a leisure lunch having ordered almost the same meals except my steak was served with the ice crystals, in the center, intact. His were melted, barely.
.
All too soon our lunch and visit were at an end and we had to go back to his house where one of his granddaughters took our pictures before we said our so longs.
Driving back to Gary’s the driver had time to think back on the almost fifty years he and Joe have known each other. It has passed so quickly.
Back at the house by four thirty I arrived just in time to get things together for another outing.
When Kyle got home from school he was ready to talk baseball. He had another game tonight and was looking forward to getting some hits. In the last game he hit pretty well but the opposing fielders caught better and he never got a base hit. He hoped tonight would be different.
When Mom and Dad got home we loaded up and went to the ballpark. The boys did their warm ups while we positioned our lawn chairs for the best view.
The game was delayed a bit while we waited for the arrival of the second umpire but when it was fifteen minutes past starting time the decision was made to go ahead without him. It was a good decision as he never showed up.
Our team did quite well early on with Kyle getting some good hits and scoring a run.
In addition to playing first base and pitching, on occasion, Kyle also catches.
In the last inning things went south for the team as their pitching and fielding came apart at the seams and the other team scored many times, winning the game. It almost seemed like an Astros game.
Back at the house the game was relegated to a back burner as we prepared to celebrate Kyle’s birthday which is the ninth, today. Fourteen candles were lit on Kyle’s birthday cake.
Being young and in good shape he still had enough wind, after the game, to blow out all the candles. Then he sliced very generous pieces and passed them around. The icing was a bit gooey, but then it always seems to be for the scribbler, but the chocolate hiding under it was scrumptious.
After the festivities he went off to play his PS3 and Gary and I went to the basement to watch TV. Onie and Tina visited upstairs.
By eleven it was lights out for the whole group.
May 10, 2008
Saturday
FIELD COURSE
Fourteen years and one day ago when Kyle was born Gary told me he would like for Kyle to learn to hunt and fish but the only thing Gary knows how to hunt is golf balls and the only thing he knows how to fish is electrical wires, neither of which I am good at. So through the years Kyle has fished, at an early age, eighteen months, with me and beginning at about his age eight we went on our first deer hunt. Since then he has hunted and fished with me on a number of occasions and most recently killed his first deer. That was with me in the stand.
Now he is getting older and it is time for him to be more responsible and hunt alone, if he wants to, and clean and skin his own game. That hunting alone business means he has to take a hunter education course. Recently he went to Wal-Mart with his Mom, Tina, and picked up a book on Alabama hunting and fishing laws, field safety, cleaning and storing of game as well as elated issues. After studying the book he went on line and took the written exam, passing it the first time through but to obtain the hunter safety certification he must also complete a field course.
This morning we rose at five, dressed, had a quick coffee and tea along with a snack and then set out of a two hour ride with our chauffer, Tina/Mom, and Kyle in the front seat. We were off to the woods and a ranger station, near Jacksonville, where Kyle was to take his field course to complete the hunter safety education and get his certificate. Tina headed south and then turned a little west eventually winding her way down country roads through woods and over hills. Creeks, trees and birds were in abundance along the way and we even managed to see some deer before arriving at the ranger station.
We got there a few minutes before eight, the appointed time, and Kyle went inside and checked in. There were about a dozen other young men waiting to take the course.
While we waited for the course to begin we wandered around the station looking at the library on forest and wildlife management as well as the construction of bridges, trails and various and sundry other topics.
A little after eight all the young men gathered in the library where the course began. Onie and I as well as a couple of fathers sat in and listened as the instructors reviewed the online material with the guys and then began talking about field safety, hunting and fishing laws and care of animals that had been taken. When that was over the class went outside to the back of the ranger station where a tree climbing stand was laying. The ranger in charge told the boys that more accidents and fatalities occur while using tree climbing stands than any other time. He then instructed them on the proper climbing techniques and safety procedures to use while employing a tree climbing stand. Before you ask, the writer, has had some experience with tree climbing stands but does not feel qualified to teach tree climbing stand use and safety. You see the experience went something like this. Attach the stand to a big pine tree, climb six feet off the ground and realize it was about five feet too high for comfort and then climb back down. The ranger said most folks hunt from these stands ten to twelve feet off the ground but some go as high as forty feet. When this person is forty feet off the ground he will be in a high rise building or an airplane not on a little metal thingy clinging to tree bark but back to the field course. When the tree climbing stand portion was over the guys went back to the library for the last part, a fifty question written test. Our guy scored ninety four! Then he got his card.
After the glow wore off reality set in and hunger was part of that reality so it was off to the local Mexican restaurant for an early, eleven o’clock, lunch. When the chips and salsa hit the table they evaporated almost instantly as did the second basket of chips and cup of salsa. When the food arrived most conversation ceased as everyone fed appetites that hadn’t had anything of substance since last evening.
Fed and assured of being able to hunt Kyle fell fast asleep as soon as we headed for the house. Onie and I dozed as Tina took us home.
Back home at three the ladies went in the house while Kyle picked up his chipping iron and some practice balls and went to the front yard to work on his gold game. The driver added some fresh water to the holding tank in the Marlin. Gary was gone doing some work.
Gary returned shortly and he, Kyle and me went to the basement to watch a movie and then a NASCAR race.
Upstairs Onie and Tina worked on supper which would consist of halibut and raw vegetables.
Well fed once again and suffering from rising so early we turned in before ten.
May 11, 2008
Sunday
MOTHER’S DAY
What a great day it was for us on the mother’s day that came nine months after father’s night. Today we are celebrating appreciation for our mothers and her labors on that day and the many that followed as she cared for us, helping us struggle toward adulthood and loving us when we were unlovable.
Gary’s mother, Onie, rose at seven to continue her caring as she prepared the breakfast Kyle had requested last night, biscuits and sausage. We settled down to eating after thanking God for our mothers.
Then it was time to go to church. Kyle got dressed quickly and was waiting for us when we finally finished our morning ablutions. Tina was missing as she got a late afternoon business call, yesterday that required she fly to Dallas early this morning. We missed her but loaded in the Subaru and headed toward the elementary school where the new Master’s Way United Methodist Church was meeting, until their new sanctuary was built. Pastor Barry delivered a very good sermon based on the story of Hannah. After the service he told me it wasn’t his “A” sermon but it was very good anyway.
Back home at eleven thirty Onie and I began moving things from the house to the coach.
Midway through the process in which Kyle was helping he suggested that we stop so he and Gary could give Onie her Mother’s Day gift and cards.
We were in the garage when the presents were brought out. Onie opened a small flat one, first. It was from Kyle. She knew immediately, upon seeing it, what it was but I had no idea. It was a digital picture frame. Onie had seen them in Kohl’s but I had never seen one before and had not a clue what it was or how it worked. Kyle, like most young folks, knew exactly how it worked and demonstrated it for us. Some Bahm family pictures had been loaded for our viewing pleasure but there was still lots of room for us to add our own as the frame holds two thousand pictures. Should some of the readers be as obtuse about this technology as I was, and I doubt that, the digital picture frame is a small memory chip in a nice frame with a flat screen for viewing the stored pictures as they scroll by in a slide show. One does have the option of locking one picture on the screen.
Next Onie opened the present from Gary. It was a colorful new purse with a matching umbrella.
With the presents opened and hugs given, by Onie, for the thoughtfulness and gifts, work resumed on putting things back in the coach that had migrated to the house over the days we were here.
When everything was on board final hugs were given and then the boys lined up for a few pictures. It was by height that we stood, Gary, PawPaw and Kyle, but it is a good guess if Kyle grows in the next twelve months as he did in the last twelve next year it will be PawPaw, Kyle and Gary.
Heavy hearts were inside and outside the coach as the door was closed, the coach backed out, the toad hooked up, and we rolled away, on the road again, once more. It was one fifty.
Out on 72 headed for IH 65 N we stopped to tie down the big slide cover as the wind was already rocking the coach like a cradle in a treetop.
Headed north on sixty-five we bucked the high winds and were soon greeted with a growing mist as we crossed the state line into Tennessee, the home of the walking horse. The rolling grass covered hills and clear streams had to be good for the many livestock grazing in the neat pastures.
Steadily we pushed on past Nashville and then crossed into Kentucky where the mist, now quite heavy, turned to a driving rain, whipped along by the unrelenting north wind. The undulating hills and long grasses in the green pastures were being whipped and drenched by the wind and rain.
By six o’clock we were ready to call it a day and pulled into the Elizabethtown Crossroads Campground. The rain was still falling as the driver hustled around in the fifty degree weather hooking up land lines which was no easy task as the park was an old one and the hookups, ancient.
Inside he warmed up and dried off as the navigator prepared supper and placed it on the table at precisely seven.
While the park plumbing was old the technology was up to date and after supper Onie went on the www while the driver made notes on his laptop.
Shortly we abandoned the laptops for the DVD player in the bedroom where we began watching U571 around eight thirty.
At eleven the movie was over. We turned off the unit, pulled up the covers and went to sleep. It had been a big day, a good Mother’s Day.
Outside the rain continued falling and with it the temp.