A Long Way to
By Paul Greeley
For many North Texas moms and dads, the end of the school year at Texas Tech in Lubbock triggers the annual trek in station wagons and SUVs via ancient migratory routes (in my case, RT. 114) to collect their sons and daughters for the summer.
So, like the swallows of Capistrano, I joined a flock recently to bring home my freshman son.
But this bird didn’t fly far before getting his wings
clipped by a
“What crime is that, Mr. Greeley?”
I think the thought of his old man walking down the hall to the showers carrying a shaving kit with nothing but a towel around him must be horrifying.
So I decide to make the trip out to
I didn’t realize then that it was my first step on a journey
away from my parents that would take me around the country eventually
depositing me here in
At 80 miles an hour, the vast landscape seems other worldly. Oil derricks feed rhythmically on the ground like some strange robotic animal.
In this part of
I stop for breakfast at the Green Grog diner in Jacksboro,
where a group of guys joke with the waitresses in the corner.
In the parking lot after, a big old good-old boy in denim over-all bibs who follows me out asks me if I got my share of abuse from the waitresses.
“No,” I joke, “I didn’t see it on the menu.”
“They serve it up anyways,” he says, laughing as he heads off, working a toothpick back and forth.
After my freshman year, I came home with a wispy, see-through mustache that I thought made me look older and distinguished. My dad thought otherwise and said so. It was just another point of view among many on which we seemed to differ.
I wonder what changes, if any, I’d see on my son, and vow to say nothing if he has a mustache.
At a pit stop in
The roadkill is mostly armadillo, skunk and unrecognizable with an occasional coyote to break up the monotony. I’m in the middle of nowhere where even cell phones can’t reach.
My GPS shows nothing but a featureless straight line---no
Starbucks here for sure. I drive past
Eventually, I pull onto the sprawling and beautiful campus
of Texas Tech and find a spot right outside my son’s dorm. I’m anxious to see
him. As he walks across the parking lot to my car, I hardly recognize him. He’s
taller, straighter, wearing glasses and a broad smile. There’s no sign of a
mustache. We hug and I tell him, “I like your goatee.”