I was born and raised in Orlando, Florida, but my Mom was born and raised a weird combination of Alpine and Pecos. I'm no fossil and could never tell stories quite like him, but here are a few from my time spent in West Texas and the journey to and from.
So, growing up in Orlando, my father was a professor at UCF. Every couple years or so we would make a grand road trip from Orlando to visit all the Texas family during his time off in the summer. Those road trips must have been hell on my parents because my brother and I just couldn't stand being cooped up in a car that long. Our voracious appetite for back seat battles was the stuff of legend. Trips were not planned around bathroom breaks or hunger or gas prices. They were tied to how long we could stand to be in the back seat without looking at each other else we were going to blows. So...lunch was a picnic at the Swannee river crossing for us to climb on trees and get us to let out some energy. Bathroom breaks were any local park to just run around.
As far as the trip, when we crossed the border from Florida to Alabama, we were half way to Texas (give or take). And then we would cross the border to Texas and we were half-way to Alpine. You could almost hear my dad's spirit break behind the wheel when he saw that first mile marker with 4 digits on I-10.
We'd stop in Austin and San Antonio to check in with our Aunts & Uncles, but the ultimate destination was always the ranch. Grandpa lived in Alpine, but the family ranch was just east of Marathon. Some of my most vivid memories as a child are of that ranch. Growing up in the swamps of Florida, the ranch had it all. Rocks, mountains, neat bugs (I've got a couple scars from scorpion stings on my hands to prove it). Horses. Goats. Even the neighboring property was supposed to have buffalo, but I never saw one there. It was at the ranch I first rode a horse, it was where I first got to drive (an old beat to hell volkswagon beetle that had been converted to a 'dune buggy'.). It was where I first shot a gun (an ancient .22 my grandpa had set up a little rifle range for the grandkids to shoot). I was always in awe of the mountains and pasture lands where with just a bit of climbing, you could see what felt like forever into the distance.
So, one trip out to the ranch, grandpa decided I was old enough to drive his prized possession, the Dune Buggy. A lot of jealousy from the rest of the grandkids to watch as I was the first to drive it. I got pretty good at it pretty quickly, (or so I'm told). At least no one was outright terrified when I got behind the wheel. I had a cousin a couple years younger than I who was begging to drive and would not accept "no" for an answer. "Why does *predmid* get to drive and not me! He's not even from Texas and I come out here all the time". Well, my Uncle convinced grandpa to let him have a turn. We get to a decent clearing in the pasture and grandpa finally gives him a shot. He lasted about 4.5 seconds before wildly swinging the steering wheel back and forth imitating what he saw in cartoons and drove us off the road and straight into a mesquite bush that punctured a tire. I didn't quite understand the words coming out of grandpa's mouth at the time as it was a weird mix of english and what I assumed to be spanish bad words flying out of his mouth. Boy do I wish I could remember exactly what he said. There was no trying to hide his frustration. No one but Grandpa was allowed to drive it the rest of the trip.
The other big highlight of our trips was the Post Dance south of Marathon at Fort Pea Park. It's where I learned to two-step and waltz with the best of them. No cost of going just to go, but if you wanted to dance on the slab, then you had to buy a wristband. I don't know of any other functions like that. A 4 piece band on the side of a concrete slab in the middle of nowhere next to a creek with a concrete dam. It was po-dunk and backwoods as all get out, but they're still some great memories of the whole family getting together for a night of frivolities. I got my first rejection from a girl there. I couldn't have been 9 or 10 and asked another girl about my age to dance and she said no. I didn't take it very well.
Some years later the summer before my senior year of highschool and we did a similar trip. I'll never forget the look of jealousy and amazement when my grandpa just out and out handed me the keys to the dune buggy and said "have fun". Woohoo! First grandchild to drive the dune buggy solo. What it really meant was "haha, you get to take all the grandkids and babysit them all afternoon while the adults do their thing in the house". By that point, I had the keys to the car and could drive them all in that, but everyone wanted rides in the dune buggy. It's amazing what happens in 7 years as perceptions of the dune buggy being this awesome all terrain monster of a vehicle quickly transformed into what it really was. A barely functioning deathtrap of duct-tape and wire holding together a vehicle that was older than the invention of the combustion engine. My 2nd trip out on the thing, the main wires connecting the accelerator & the brakes to the engine came un-done. I did what any teenager would do and tried to finagle the wires and connectors back into place while driving down an old dirt road. Stop the engine? Hell no. I can do this! Distracted driving at its finest as I looped the connectors into place right as I drove into a giant mudhole that soaked everyone in the vehicle from head to toe in muddy water. We headed back to HQ and got a big earful from my mother who was wondering just what in the hell I did to get everyone so dirty.
The whole purpose of that trip before my senior year was to scope out a bunch of colleges I had thought about applying to. We saw UF, FSU, Rice, and a few others, but the last stop was my parents alma-mater Texas A&M. I don't think I spent 30 seconds on campus before I fell in love and knew exactly where I was going for school. The biggest draw was a man by the name of Dr. Carlson, the then Dean of the undergrad Aerospace program. I was debating between Aerospace Engineering and Computer Science. Imagine my surprise as we wander through the engineering buildings and come across the Bright building when this kindly older gentleman walked by and asked if we were visiting. We had long ditched the guided tour as it was boring and stupid, but this man saw us and knew I was a potential enroll-ee. He invited us for a private tour of their facilities and was more than happy to answer all the dumb questions I had about the program. After that tour, A&M was the one and only place I applied and it was the best thing for me.
This bit had nothing to do with West Texas, but going to A&M and eventually graduating in Civil engineering led me to my current home of Midland where I've been working as a civil engineer all across west Texas for nearly 10 years. I served clients from Monahans, to Gardendale, to the bustling metropolises of Mentone & Pyote. From near about El Paso in Sierra Blanca to near about Austin in Menard, Eden, & Brady, and just as far North and south from the Mining camp in Shafter to the high plains of Borden County, Ackerly and Lubbock. It was an honor and a pleasure to serve these communities in helping them solve water and wastewater problems facing dying towns.
I've since changed companies and now almost exclusively work in Midland and Ector counties, but a small part of me misses the old clients. They're all kind and honest folks who enjoy a different pace of life than those I-35 and east.
