I have stacks of memories written down, including this from 2003. I call these the Nebraska Chronicles. It will come in installments. (I dont think youll need tissues, Mary Summers) but I could be wrong...) October 21, 2003 Nebraska Chronicles The Budman and I just returned from adding another thirty five hundred miles on our grandparent car. Our eight day journey led us to ten states and included thirty three public restrooms (if you count our four hotels and one conveniently located road shoulder...) Although we returned home Sunday night, this is my first chance to write about our adventures. It will not be the last. I returned home with notes scribbled all over the address pages of my 28 Month Personal Planner and one little note pad advertising the comforts of the Comfort Inn... Each journey we make brings new insights, observations and war stories. I plan to share them with you in installments, beginning with Day One. We planned to leave early. We always do PLAN to leave early. However, the Budman got so tied up with things he HAD TO DO before we could leave, that he didnt get home in time to wake me up for my last minute packing. Its HIS fault, really! (When he figures out the computer well enough to have HIS journal, he is eligible for rebuttal.) Impatience led to irritation to tempers to words said and then silence for hundreds of miles. This was not perhaps the best way to start a journey of three thousand miles (we were only planning to go three thousand...more on THAT later!) but it did allow the Budman to catch up on his sleep while I drove to Pittsburgh and the beautifully girly apartment of my sweet little 84 year old mama. All HER bags were packed and she was ready once again to hit the road (which reminds me of an awful joke from cousin Butch, who in his grief told this: A guy walks into a bar with a chunk of asphalt under his arm and says, Id like a drink...and give me one for the road!) More later. October 22, 2003 Nebraska Continued Centuries ago when travelers wanted to go west, they had to furnish the Conestoga wagons with every provision for the long journey. Our trip west was no different. Sure we had the cushy comfort of the grandparent car (which has finally stopped smelling like curdled gravy), but we had it packed full of our provisions...clothing, both warm and cool, the medicine case which contains all my pills and then some, a boatload of CDs and a CB radio which the Budman turns on in traffic backups and turns off when it just starts to get interesting. (For some reason, there is a higher than average number of potty mouths among the trucker population) Buddy always turns the sound off, just before I can get on there and ask, Does your mother know you talk like that? First things first. Mom served communion (with crackers and cranberry juice) around her dining room table before we climbed in the car on that Sunday morning. (This is the same woman who kept her Bible open on our entire five hour flight to California two years ago.) If we were going to die on the road, she didnt want to go to hell on a technicality. We were prepared to die or to live well. If you dont know, to get to Nebraska from Tennessee by way of Pittsburgh, you first drive north for four hundred miles, then turn left and drive a thousand more.... We werent sure how far we could get in one day, but we hoped to see Des Moines. We were a cheerful group when we left. The disgruntled postal worker had had a good nights rest, the over-worked, underpaid counselor was experiencing high self-esteem and the Grandma was raring to go. We left the hills of Pittsburgh behind and drove north to the upper route west (Interstate 80West; which, by the way was mentioned by the California cousins, who said, Q: Whats the BEST THING out of Nebraska? A: I80West!) From Pennsylvania, we crossed into Ohio with its varying topography of rolling hills and flat land with tree islands placed just around the big farmhouses with their beautifully made new-looking barns. (Previous to this, the Budman and I had assumed that people always built their barns to look old.) I also noticed that there is a dearth of rest areas in Ohio, leading me to assume it is a state populated by sturdy people with substantial bladders, and which also caused me to hang my head out the window and scream, Dont you people have to PEE?. It was also the most expensive state to drive through, as the toll was higher in Ohio than in any other state. Cant figure why. Ohio turned into Indiana, which has the most interesting warning system Ive seen. Along the sides of the straight flat roads are a series of tall posts with large rectangular heat lamps attached. The posts also have some kind of a beam of light that goes from one to the other so that if an animal crosses the beam, the lights will flash and warn motorists there is an animal on the road. (This would not work in curvy West Virginia where you estimate your chances of encountering an animal based on how many carcasses you can count, but I digress...) Indiana didnt have a lot of trees, but they were autumn-colored and I began to feel sentimental, thinking how great it was that the Budman would voluntarily give up his Thanksgiving and Christmas leave just to make this trip. What a guy! (He may come to regret it, just as he has the loss of his Austin Healy 3000 which he sold so we could afford to get married.....) We stayed in the car, between rest stops and restaurant breaks, including one to fast-food Italian Fazolis where we met Rita the outgoing waitress, who has won awards for her personality on the job, and Mahmoud, the funny manager, who shall remain rewardless, but was nice nevertheless. We rode and we rode and we rode and we rode and we rode and we rode for nearly EIGHT HUNDRED MILES..... during which time we had meaningful conversations about our own funeral services, including my mentioning to mom that, if she wanted to be buried in Nebraska, she could kick it right now and save us a trip. My mother loves me in spite of myself. We rode and we rode and we rode and we rode and we rode until we were exhausted and silly and making goofy comments and singin all the funny answering machine messages I have ever recorded, and FINALLY after nearly EIGHT HUNDRED MILES, we MADE IT....to DES MOINES...and then the Budman couldnt find a hotel......but eventually we found a hotel, checked in and I fell asleep just as fast as I could because we were sharing a room with mom and she and Buddy both snore. More later. October 23, 2003 Nebraska: Nothing but Corn How do you know youve reached Nebraska? Leave Pittsburgh, turn left, drive a thousand miles. Mom was excited when we got up on Monday morning to drive the last two hundred miles to the state of her birth and the side of her grieving sister. She summed up her feelings, Nebraska just gives me a good feeling. We got up, took advantage of the free hotel breakfast, got on the road and were making great time, until we stopped for lunch at Daniels favorite eating establishment (the one with Ronald..) Mom and I made use of the facilities, at which point my dear sweet mama discovered she had a big spot of dried breakfast on her beautiful fuchsia jacket which she had worn to impress her beloved older sister (and the rich California cousins.) It would not do to show up wearing fuchsia and gravy, so mom decided she needed to wash up then and there. She wet some paper towels and went to work, spreading the fibers of the towels into the deepening wet spot on the garment. She needed natural fibers and I was sent to the car for a white cotton handkerchief. The handkerchief, used carefully, removed the spot perfectly, the gravy spot, that is. There still was an incredible wet spot. Not to worry. Mom stood close to the hand dryer, held the spot under the dryer and smoothed and smoothed the fabric until it was perfectly dry and clean. I noticed another tiny spot on the edge of her coat and offered a simple prayer that she wouldnt catch it, but she did and again she washed, she wiped, she dried until she looked just as stylish as an 84 year old in a fuschia jacket can look. We climbed back into the car and before we knew it, we were pulling into the parking lot of the York, Nebraska Holiday Inn. Coincidentally, just as we were pulling IN, the Californians were preparing to pull OUT.... The sisters embraced and Lois invited us to join her at the funeral home to say goodbye to Uncle Symm. It was painful and poignant and beautiful to witness Lois being lifted from her wheelchair to kiss her husband of over sixty years goodbye for the final time. The children, themselves senior citizens and the middle-aged grandchildren were quiet, tearful and gently affectionate with one another. It was a reverent moment and I was struck by the realization that we had all come from sturdy Nebraska stock. We went back to the hotel and commandeered the lobby for our visiting space and were just getting warmed up by greeting so many (unbelievably tall) family members when beautiful, blonde, buxom Jennifer (professional musician and Symms granddaughter) grabbed me by the hand to take me to her hotel room to look at the music. Apparently Symm had left a list of songs he wanted sung and Jennifer had been asked to sing and now, on the advice of Cousin Susie, was enlisting me to help. (Most of the songs were hymns and when Jennifer was having trouble with the tunes, Susie said, Wait till the Christians get here. Theyll know how they go.) Following Jennifers lead, I enlisted Buddy to help too. Hes great in a music crisis, as I learned when both Mike and I dropped out of a trio at my dads funeral and Buddy sang a solo for the rest of the song. Anyway, we were enlisted to sing three hymns (Just a Closer Walk, Beyond the Sunset and God Be With You Till We Meet Again..) and oh yeah, The Green Green Grass of Home, which is a pretty tune if you dont know that its about a convict who is being executed and then buried at home (neath the green green grass...) We worked on the songs for awhile and then took a break, at which point we opened the doorway between Jennifers room and Aunt Lois room and Jennifer exclaimed, Theres a SNAKE! I myself have played this kind of trick on people, but it seemed a pretty cruel joke to play on two elderly women and a nurse who was already creeped out by coming to Nebraska for her first ever funeral. Therefore I was surprised when mom, having been shoved out of the way by tall, elegant, angel-faced Carrie (Susies daughter, Symms granddaughter) said, Its moving! Its REAL! And Jennifer, who may have been a tad anesthetized by the libations being served in yet another family hotel room, said, Somebody hand me a towel. MOM tries to comply by giving her a hand towel and Jennifer insists, No, a real towel and when she is given one, this talented buxom beauty reaches down and wraps the snake and scoops it up in her hands! She heads for the back door, preparing to dump the little reptile outdoors, when I insist, NO! You need to march that up to the front desk and tell them you want a discount on your room! So, she DID, after stopping to visit those imbibers in the other room who may have thought they were merely hallucinating. Then, she marched it toward the front desk and the manager du jour, who said, waving her hands frantically, I DONT NEED TO SEE IT! Just TAKE IT OUTSIDE! (And then the grieving widow got a free nights accommodation.) It made me want to go find the little fella and let him visit my room too! More later.
Posted on: Mon, 04 Aug 2014 10:48:03 +0000
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