My Mom’s stepfather was a nice old guy and I loved him very much. But he talked a lot, chewed tobacco, and told some of the same stories over and over. His greatest pleasure come summertime was going to Cortez, Colorado for the summer months to visit my Uncle John and Aunt Lula out on their red bean farm out on the wild prairies near Cortez. He said the air was dry out there and “I don’t smother” so bad out there. So, he would pack up his deadly nightshade (digitoxin) and his little bottle of nitroglycerin, catch a bus in Stonewall and head out. But Grandpa was old, and he was forgetful.

The day came when Grandpa was to catch the 8:00 a.m. bus and not wanting to miss out on this Grandpa was seated on the bench in front of Burnett’s Drug at 4 a.m. Like I said above. Grandpa was a big talker, and he was forgetful. He still missed his bus, somehow. My dad rushed down and gathered up his father-in-law and sped to Ada. We learned by mail the next week that he arrived in Cortez just fine. Somehow.

“We can’t ever let Dad do this again. It’s too far and all those bus changes. It’s a wonder he made it at all. Next year we’re going to take him out there in the car.” While dad made a few feeble points about why that was a bad idea, you guessed it. Next year rolled around. In 1948 dad had a new Ambassador Nash. And it was in that Nash we loaded up grandpa. In the right rear seat a rear wing window which opened up about 4”. A good place to sit and spit, grandpa figured. By the time we got to Cordell there was a good thick juicy amount of tobacco juice around the inside of the little window. And outside? It trailed all the way to the rear of the car. Cars back then used a little water as they raced through the hot steamy highways so all of the gas stations provided a water hose.

Cleaning off this tobacco muck was my job and I got all I could off our new car—with the help of that hose. Those of you with good memories know those old tobacco users were pretty nonchalant about spitting. Mom said they were just plain nasty, but grandpa appeared to be unconcerned. Dad wisely kept his mouth shut, fired up his smelly Roi Tan cigar and proceeded down HW-66 toward Texas and Shamrock. By the time the Texas Highway Patrol had arrested dad for passing in a no passing zone and speeding; grandpa had pretty much replaced all the smudges I had washed off.

The Justice of the Peace in Shamrock was as a real large nasty blacksmith. He heard the two patrolmen’s charges and said “I hereby fine you $10.00 plus $9.00 court costs. Grandpa and I were in there so we could watch. Dad, of course was furious. He told the JP “you need to fine this guy for setting a trap and blocking traffic.” The JP was unmoved, but the two cops were furious. “Pay it now or you get to sleep in jail tonight.”

Grandpa was worried. He didn’t know how to drive. My mom was a notoriously poor driver, and I was 13. Grandpa said, “I’ll pay it son.” But dad quickly pulled his billfold out and gave a look to those people which I felt might get him locked up yet. But it did not.

The next day we went over Wolf Creek Pass in Colorado. We stopped and played in the snow for a long time and poor old grandpa turned a shade of blue I had not ever seen before. Mom told my Dad we need to get down off this mountain. She feared grandpa would run out of nitroglycerin if we did not. We spend that night on the road again in cabins. Took two of them for all of us. We finally did get grandpa to the red bean farm, as we had for the last several years. I can assure you we never went through Shamrock again. Other ways to Cortez. Hope all of you have a good week.

We had a great crowd in church Easter and hope you did too. Hope all of you are back this next Sunday, too.

Wayne Bullard, DPh

cwaynebullard@gmail.com