The Fruits of Gratitiude

On Sunday, we packed up after 10 days in San Marcos. We headed east to spend Thanksgiving with  Marlene's Brother, Sister-in-law, and Dad in College Station, Texas. We pulled into the 12th RV Resort after an uneventful drive. We will be here for the week before heading south to Galveston.

When we cross the causeway into Galveston, we will close the loop on our travels for 2023. We left there on February 6, 2023. Since leaving the island, we have traveled through 10 States and driven Koko 7,403 miles. We spent 330 nights in 52 different campgrounds and one night in a hotel. According to my iPhone, I have walked just over 900K steps. Marlene has surpassed 2 million steps. We have added 23 new bird species to our life list and checked off several bucket list items, including Multnomah Falls and La Brea Tar Pits. In addition, we rode the Durango-Silverton Trail, climbed the Moki Dugway (look it up), and drove HWY 101 along the West Coast. We visited Joshua Tree National Park, Glacier National Park, Capitol Reef National Park, Redwood National Park, Lewis and Clark National Park, Northern Cascades National Park, Minidoka Internment Camp, Bears Ears National Monument, and El Malpais National Monument. We have toured Tribal Cultural Centers for the Ute, Anasazi, Wanapum, Makah, and Yurok people. I have over 13K pictures in my archives from the year. This is just a fraction of our experiences.

It is fitting that we mark this moment during Thanksgiving Week. As I look back over the year, I am overwhelmed with gratitude. As I pondered the year, this quote kept echoing in my mind.

“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.” ~Epicurus

My cup is overflowing, and the tidal wave is too much to contain. What do I do with the abundance? The joys of traveling are not just about following our dream. Being grateful is not enough. To enjoy its full impact, we must go beyond gratitude. I ran across this quote from Robin Wall Kimmerer in her book Braiding Sweetgrass:

“But I think we are called to go beyond cultures of gratitude, to once again become cultures of reciprocity.”

Gratitude inspires us to embrace grace, good humor, openness, tolerance, respect, and patience with ourselves, others, and the universe. These fruits of gratitude are meant to be shared with every person we encounter along the way. In doing so, gratitude spreads from spirit to spirit, and we can leave a translucent wake of joy behind us. We have been incredibly fortunate to have traveled in the wake of others and hopefully created a wave of gratitude during our travels.

In this spirit, I share some photos of Marlene and me from our journey through 2023. Thank you for traveling along with us. I hope you have been inspired to get out and do a little wandering on your own. Please check in as we head to Galveston through Christmas and then to the Rio Grande Valley for the winter. I will keep posting and sharing the joy of wandering along our neighborhood along the Gulf Coast and in South Texas.

Grandma and "The Boys" before leaving Galveston!

With Good friends, Mark and Linda, at Texas Wine Cooperative in Stonewall.

On the Edge of Texas in El Paso

On the trail in Texas

At Chiricahua National Monumnet

Marlene at the wheel of Koko

A Super Bloom along Route 66

In Joshua Tree National Park

At the Graumann's Chinese Theatre

On the Friend's Couch at the Friends Fountain at Warner Bros. Studio

Strolling Pismo Beach

In the Redwoods

The Heart of San Fancisco

The Seattle Family at a Museum

Whale Watching in the Juan de Fuca Straits

Marlene yanks the alarm chain in a mine in Idaho

Along the trail in Montana

Glacier National Park

A Recovered river in Washington

A Lava Tube in Idaho

Zion National Park

On board the Durango and Silverton

With our nephew, Johnny, and his husband, Ben

Another Class on 71 grad from SMHS, Monty

Marlene's Dad and Brother

Our Nephew Will and Grandnephew, Jericho

On the trail above Bryce Canyon

Our 2024 Journey begins next week in Galveston. We will head out after Christmas for the Rio Grande Valley and then begin our loop through the Midwest at the end of February. I hope you will come along with us.

Happy Holidays, my friends!

Bob

Tripping Down Memory Lane

 

“You’ve changed!” “We’re supposed to!”

My Mom used to quote her favorite theologian by saying, “God does not use a sledgehammer on thumbtacks!” Well, I must disagree. This "sledgehammer" has been pounding on this "thumbtack" all week. This meme has been making the rounds on FB all week and kept creeping back into my feed. At the same time, I struggled to understand all the memories that had been sweeping through my mind during our time in San Marcos. “You’ve changed! We’re Supposed to!” I suppose the main reason was that my “thumb tackiness” kept hiding the changes creeping into my life over the last half-century. And so, life pulled out a sledgehammer to remind me that that kid who was dragged kicking and screaming from San Marcos in 1976 is not the same Old Fart who has returned for a visit in 2023. Change, for good or ill, has happened to me and everyone/everything else I have encountered over the last week. Often, we don’t have to like change, but it goes down much easier if we accept that it is supposed to happen. “We’re supposed to!”

 

We began our week by walking around the Square in Downtown San Marcos for the Art Squared sale. One of the booths held an old friend from high school, Steve Marlow. We have been friends on FB for several years, and I have admired his pottery from a distance. I had a chance to visit with Steve and check out some of his beautiful work. (Check out his and his daughter's website at https://artbymarlow.com/). It was good catching up. I had a flashback when he mentioned his Mom, my high school art teacher. I am standing in her room in the old high school and talking with Debi, who shared the table. Talking with Steve and walking around that old Courthouse awakens many memories. It is as if my past is all part of my present, and with a little nudge, the past steps out into my awareness, at least as I remember it in that moment. I suspect that past and future are more closely connected to our present than I sometimes want to admit. And in those few minutes in my old Downtown, the past was very much alive.

 

I have two brothers and sisters-in-law in San Marcos and Buda. Mike and Julie have lived in Buda for many years, and we spent the first of two afternoons with them during the week. This picture is from a nephew’s wedding back in 2003. We lost my oldest brother, Skeeter, a few years later, but the remaining three of us stayed in touch. As the wanderer, I try to get by and see them whenever we are in town. We caught up with Kenny and Donna the next day as we walked a trail that Kenny's Master Naturalist Group had built and maintained behind his house. It also surrounds the place where I went to Nursery School. Memories? I had an avalanche of them as we walked, talked, and caught up on each other's journeys. It is more than staying in touch; it is a piecing of our lives into the quiltwork of our individual lives. It reminds me of watching my Aunts and Mother sitting around a square frame hanging from the ceiling that held the current quilt-in-progress as they talked and sewed together. My brothers and I worked to piece together and refresh old memories of our lives together.

 

Anyone from San Marcos understands the importance of Our River. (San Marcans will often refer to it as Our River, rather than The River.) The San Marcos River emerges from springs under and above Spring Lake. It has been occupied by people for over 12,000 years. Most of our ancestors arrived in the last 180 or so years. The crystal-clear water flows right through the middle of town. I have seen it in flood, cutting the city in two. I grew up swimming and fishing along the river with my family and friends. It was the home for Glurpo the Clown and the Aquamaids, who starred alongside Ralph the Swimming Pig at Aquarena Springs. It is home to an endangered native wild rice and the San Marcos Springs Salamander. I have included a few photos from our walk along the river. Yep, there were tons of memories there as well. A lot has changed around the river, but Our River is the same as always, the constant in our lives.

Rio Vista Park and the Old Cypress Trees

Most of the soil has washed away.

But Our River is as beautiful as ever.

Site of the Old Rio Vista Dam. They took it out to make room for canoes and kayakers.

A stretch where Skeeter and I used to fish.

The Watersports stretch at Rio Vista.

A Great Blue among the River Rice

Where I learned to swim at the City Park. Brother threw me in and said "Swim!" I guess I did.

 

While in town, we decided that it was time for a trim. Marlene made an appointment with another old friend, Monty Moore, owner of Calcutta Hair Design in San Marcos. Monty and I were in the High School Choir together and have been in touch over the last few years via FB. Marlene had him do a bit of a trim on her hair. I was not sure I really wanted a trim, but after finishing with Marlene, Monty stated, "I have time to trim up Bob's hair." My uncertainty caused me to pause, which allowed Marlene to nod enthusiastically. All during that time, we also caught up with stuff that we would not put on FB and enjoyed renewing our old friendship. Again, shared memories help to wipe away the tarnish of the years that obscures our memories. But face-to-face remembering has a way of polishing them, the changes wrought by our subsequent experiences and needs to shine through. I doubt that we can ever fully remember how things were, but my high school memories are a bit brighter than last week.

 

Any visit to San Marcos means that I can eat at some of the places that were important in my growing up. One of those places was Sunset Lanes, the local bowling Center that opened when I was 6 years old. My Dad was a charter member of the Thursday Night Civic League. I used to go with him and watch them bowl. I joined the kids' league when I was old enough and learned to bowl on the original eight lanes. I learned to do arithmetic by keeping score for my Dad's team. After high school, I was hired by Mr. Gilbert for my first job, sweeping the floors and cleaning the grill. I used to work the grill in college, where we prepared hundreds of burgers for the high school kids who walked across HWY 123 for lunch. I had to have a Cheeseburger and Fries from Sunset Lanes. (BTW, we never were allowed to call it a bowling alley because Sunset Lanes was no bowling alley!) While the lanes had changed and I did not recognize anyone in the place, the sound of the balls hitting the deck (I could see Mr. Gilbert wincing every time he heard that sound) and rolling down the lanes took me back to the 1970s. The machines sweeping and resetting the pins brought memories of hours trending those machines' predecessors during league play. I remembered the hours of joy that I had inside those walls. Time moves on, but remembering helps me reclaim fleeting glimpses of yesterday!

 

One of the usual stops for us in San Marcos is to swing by the cemetery to visit my Mom and Dad's graves, along with the graves of Grandpa and Grandma Dees. The cemetery was also an extended part of my playground as a kid since I grew up on Cemetery Hill, and every Summer was spent exploring the undeveloped land that surrounded it. On this visit, we noticed that the oak pollen had made the headstones difficult to read, so we returned to do some cleaning. This picture is where my Mom and Dad are buried. The bench is in memory of my oldest brother, Harry Ira, and was placed by my sister-in-law and nieces. We did some scrubbing and got the headstones readable, and then walked across the path and did the same for my grandparents. We then walked the cemetery, and I saw many names of friends, friend's parents, teachers, and names that were always a part of my growing up. With each memory, a little piece of myself lit up like a circuit board. Yep, the memories were all still there. Each one was a part of who I was and am.

The headstone before cleaning.

Mom and Dad's Headstones are nice and clean.

Grandpa and Grandma Dees

A Last Look Back

I grew up in a family with four boys. My Dad and Mom both worked and always made "just enough." We did not eat out very often and enjoyed lots of beans and cornbread and other budget menus for our weeknight meals. We didn't go hungry! But we did have our moments. A very special treat was chili dogs from the Chili Dog Stand. These were steamed hot dog buns with all-meat hot dogs filled with onions, mustard, and their homemade chili. If Dad felt exceptionally generous, he would pick up some Fritos, too. These hot dogs cost 8 for a dollar, and he could feed all of us on a dollar (or two, once my brothers and I got older). This was the taste of a weeknight celebration. I still enjoy chili dogs. The flavor has stayed the same because the same family continues making them. We stopped by, and I got the double, two chili dogs (I forgot to ask for extra onions), a bag of chips, and a soda. Yep, they were as good as ever! As I ate them, I could see my Dad's big smile as he took care of his large family. BTW, you can check out the history of The Chili Dog in San Marcos at https://www.chilidogstand.com/menu.

 

Another taste of my childhood was the Manske roll. This gooey cinnamon roll was an addon to the burger meal at Gil’s Broiler. Everyone in San Marcos loved the Manske Roll almost as much as Our River. The burgers were good. They came with a freshly pressed hamburger patty between two soft buns. They topped them with their signature grilled onions and not too much lettuce or tomato. Cheese was always a great treat. These came with fried crinkle fries. To be honest, Dad never took us to Gils. This was someplace we would go on our own with friends if we could scratch up the dollar or so that it took to get the meal with the Manske roll. But the real star was the roll. It was soft and loaded with butter, cinnamon, and melted sugar. They melted in our mouths as we savored each bite. We saved Gils Broiler for the last in eating our way through the cycle of old San Marcos foods: Herbert’s Taco Hut, Gill’s Fried Chicken, Valentino’s Pizza, Grin’s Chicken Fried Steak, and Sunset Lanes. The Gils Broiler cheeseburger and Manske Roll provided the perfect finale. I now have a couple of pounds to lose, but every bite was worth it. Each one carried a wave of memories of people and times that took me back to who I was as a child of old San Marcos. 

 

Old Main from the Quad

After finishing our final San Marcos memory meal, we walked the paths of old SWT, now called Texas State University. My history with the Hill, as College Hill was called, began in second grade when I attended Campus Elementary on the college campus. I spent grades 2-6 there and then returned after graduation. I attended Southwest Texas State University for nine years in two installments, before and after getting married to Marlene. What follows are a few pictures that I took while walking around the campus. Frankly, I was shedding a few hundred extra calories we picked up at lunch.
  

 

This hallway is in the College of Liberal Arts building that was called Evans Academic Center in the 1970s. As soon as I stepped into that hallway this week, an old, old feeling came bubbling up from deep in my memory. It was September of 1961, and I had completed kindergarten and 1^st grade in a small private school until I was old enough for public school. This picture is of the same hallway. In 1961, I would have been standing outside of the principal's office and was being led to my second-grade classroom, about halfway down that hallway on the left. I was scared to death! I am sure it smelled of mimeograph fluid and banana oil. There were kids everywhere. My previous school had 20 or so students, and now I was on a college campus surrounded by hundreds of grown-ups and kids. Walking to my classroom for the first time was my longest walk ever. Of course, ten years later, I would step into that same hallway as a freshman in college, and all those butterflies came back! During the next nine years, I would come to see that hallway as part of life where I took history and political science classes on my way to my degree. But this week, when I stared down that hallway, I was a scared six-year-old with no idea what awaited him.

 

This is the courtyard inside the TXST history building. In 1971, it was the courtyard of the SWT Music Department where I spent a great deal of my next three years as a music major. I was part of the Music Fraternity that serenaded the department from the balcony. The fountain in the center held our Department's Christmas tree, which we cut and decorated ourselves. The upper floor along the far side was ringed with practice rooms where all the music majors spent most of their time. Classrooms, professor’s studios, the Choir Room, and the Band Hall filled out the small building. It was my universe from 1971 – 1974. This is where I got to know Marlene and made lifelong friends with many people I still see on FB. Those friendships outlasted my commitment to a music degree. That lack of commitment led to my second college career, which started in 1977. That building was a crucial place for a kid who found his feet and gained traction for life.

 

Behind us are the doors to the lockers where music students kept their instruments and books. This is where Marlene and I met while we were dating. For a year, we hung out together, became best friends, and were engaged. We looked a bit different back then, but those same two kids walked alongside us as we explored the hallways of the old music building.
 
 

 

This picture is taken from Flowers Hall, where Marlene and I took most of our classes. The window looks down the street into the “Canyons” between the women’s dorms. Marlene lived in Butler Hall, which is down and to the left. It was the location of the infamous Streaking that took place in the mid-70s on the Old SWT campus. No, we didn't streak, but Marlene and I were among the hundreds who lined the street and cheered on the braver exhibitionists among us. That group included at least one present US Senator. But the streaking was a symbol of the time. It was harmless fun that shocked our WWII generation parents. It helped us establish that we were Boomers who would follow our own paths, whether we were clothed in respectability or not. We cheered and shared in a moment in time that was filled with the sweet innocence of youth. We emerged from those canyons as a group that would, above all else, leave their mark on the world, for good or ill.

 

After the streaking, my first college career ended with a mutual agreement between Dean Gratz and me. We both agreed that a year or two break would be in order. Marlene and I married and moved to Lockhart, 17 miles away, where we worked for VISTA while Marlene completed her degree. But within a couple of years, I was back at SWT and enrolled in psychology, sociology, and criminal justice classes. This picture is where I received the bulk of my education during those next couple of years as I finished my degree. This is the new Student Center, where I sat between classes with friends of all ages and persuasions. We were all commuters and would meet for coffee and for lunch. We studied together. We debated the topics of the day. We played pool and “shot the breeze” when life got too complicated. Some were retired military, others were older students, and others were kids just out of high school. We represented all kinds of majors and enjoyed being together, having to occasionally pull several tables together to make room for everybody. This is where I learned most of the important stuff in the second half of my days at SWT.

 

I apologize for taking you down this long road of remembering. Honestly, I am weary of remembering, and I am sure you are tired of reading about it. I am leaving memory lane behind as we move to College Station to visit Marlene's family for Thanksgiving. But before I do, I want to share what this last week taught me or caused me to remember. In Criminal Investigation class back at SWT, I discovered that you should never count on an eyewitness to solve a case. Their memories are seldom accurate. Such memories are not little videos of the past that we pull out and replay at will. Memories are not that neat and tidy. They are messy fragments of sensation that trigger others. There are always gaps between them, and we reconstruct those missing parts from a combination of what we want to believe and what we think should have happened. We are influenced by our prejudices and other biases.

 

For the last 10 days, I have been cleaning up my memories from old San Marcos. I recognize that they will never be spotless, but I hope they are closer to reality than they were after all the re-writing that I have been doing over the last 50 years.! A perfect example was our trip to Valentino for pizza. I remembered drinking beer and eating pizza at Valentino's on the Square after I finished my internship duties at the Courthouse in 1977 – 1978. Those memories include the tables that were in individual enclosed stalls. When we ate there one evening last week, they had the history of the place on the wall. It said that the place was not called Valentinos until 1981. I knew that that had to be an error. It had to be! I mentioned this to my classmate, Cindy, who checked her yearbook for 1971 and found it was called Pizza Plaza in the 1970s. We were both flabbergasted. We knew it was Valentino. But the evidence was clear. Our remembering was in error, and it did not matter how positive we were.

 

These memories I have enjoyed this week are subject to the same bias. What I want to believe and how these reconstructed memories have been pieced together over the last 50 years has had much more influence than I would like. Therefore, visiting with others who were there and seeing where they happened has helped clean up these old memories. Hopefully, I have scrubbed some of the accumulated pollen and tarnish from the last half century and have a clearer picture of who I was and who I have become. Thank you, San Marcos. You continue to care for one of your native sons despite himself. San Marcos has reminded me that I have changed! It has helped me see who I was and that I am no longer that person. It has also whispered into my soul, “That’s okay, we’re supposed to!”

 

Next year, when we come through San Marcos again, I will try to look beyond the past and discover the best of San Marcos to embrace the positive changes I see in my old hometown.

 

I hope to see you on the road ahead. Travel well, my friends!

 

Bob