Some of you may know that I went traveling this past weekend — up to St Louis ’s Missouri. It’s a long trip up I-44 and back, but I made it. Due to my old age, I took my personal doctor, Ron, and my private nurse, Pat, with me. It was a hard trip but worth it.

I got to visit with my daughter Traci and her husband Alan as well as with my granddaughter Julia and her husband Avery Buchard. The star of my visit, naturally, was my only great-grandson, a boy named “Iggy”. Also, my grandson, Alec celebrated his 29th birthday with his favorite squeeze, Jamie. It was a wonderful time as we went downtown and toured the Mississippi River Parks and the great Arch. It was a beautiful and special time.

Going on such a strenuous trip in my old age reminded me of traveling with my grandpa Armstrong. Once upon a time in the ancient year of 1947 my grandpa was to make his annual pilgrimage to Western Colorado. His daughter Lula Rountree lived out close to Cortez and grandpa said it was nice out there. “It’s a high-dry altitude close to Mesa-Vede National Park. “Don’t get so hot out there” he often said.

To get there he would catch the DENCO bus from Stonewall to Oklahoma City, then to Denver, and somehow he would wind up in Cortez. Mom fretted a lot about his trip. “I know I could never find my way out there on a bus,” she would say. For sure grandpa was “senile” and talked too much. So, the special day he was to leave — although he arrived at the Stonewall bus depo (Burnetts Drug) at 4am, he still got to talking and forgot to board his westbound 8:00 o’clock bus. But my dad scooped up grandpa and got him on at Ada.

A letter the next week from Aunt Lula confirmed he had made it OK but by then we were all worried and it was decided that this was his last long distance bus trip. But grandpa still was determined to go, and Mom decided that my reluctant dad would drive him out there in our brand-new 1947 oversized Nash Ambassador. My brother Gerald “heroically” volunteered to stay home and run the business. The rest of our mob piled in. Our first stop was to be at Mom’s brother’s house in Phillips, Texas.

We made it to Elk City before dad noted grandpa had been spitting his abundant tobacco juice out the little wing window in the right rear window and now it and the right rear of our shinny new car was coated with this toxic juice. Dad made me wash it off with a hose there at the Elk City Station. This caused the attendant to give me a lecture on how that ‘this ain’t no car wash.’ But cleaned up we continued west and nearly made it to Shamrock, Texas before their Texas Highway Patrol pulled dad over for speeding.

Hauled before the “judge” at an old blacksmith shop in town, dad was fined $10 bucks plus a $9.00 court cost. Dad was irate and only after grandpa stepped up to pay it for him did we finally proceed on the gravel highway up to Phillips. Grandpa told me he had to do something as he didn’t trust mom’s driving and went on to point out he didn’t know how and that I was 12.

We finally made it atop Wolf Creek Pass and stopped for a snowball fight. Mom was not happy with our immature behavior and after I told them grandpa had turned blue from the high altitude we got back on our way. Two days later we finally found the red bean farm Uncle John and Aunt Lula operated. Besides the tractors and red dirt, it would have been somewhat better if they had had electricity and a water well. All their water had to be hauled in from an untested well and the murky water had a funny taste. But I was thirsty and drank it anyway. Personally, I had a wonderful time.

Dad spent a lot of time looking at his watch and mom was scared of their outdoor toilet. My cousin Charley and me spent our time getting acquainted and shooting “tons” of ammo up at fleeing giant jackrabbits, of which, like the .22 shells, were abundant. He had two of those semi-automatic .22 rifles and they became the highlight of my trip. That and the mysterious snake that visited Charley’s room every night. Aunt Lula was pretty certain that if we fired those guns at the snake in the bedroom one more time the guns would be taken.

Weary and sad, dad finally had enjoyed enough so we loaded ourselves up and left my happy grandpa on Uncle John’s low humidity front porch, gazing after us and the red dust cloud we left behind as he headed back to Stonewall. We didn’t go back through Shamrock.

Have a good week and be sure and go to church Sunday.

Wayne Bullard, DPh cwaynebullard@gmail.