Guest Spotlight: Out West by Red Dirtboy

The white Impala barrelled through the West Texas night, a covering of stars brightening the interior from our new Chevy’s expansive windows, a lunar module containing myself, brothers Gene and Al, mom and dad and my sister Janice. After three fairly good pulpwood years had passed on our red dirt hill just east of Nacogdoches, a decision was made among my elders, and a new car suddenly loomed in our future like a crisp hundred dollar bill. Three years without a single log truck breakdown, month-long rainstorms or an on-the-job injury had allowed a surplus of funds to accumulate and thus, a brand new 1968 Chevrolet Impala came into our lives one bright June morning. My dad could never pronounce anything too well, so when he’d give a neighbor a tour of the new vehicle, he’d announce his intention to give them “a ride in the IMPuh-La.” We indulged him, snickering a bit, but didn’t care how much he mangled the car’s name, as long as we could ride inside its air conditioned splendor. 

The crisp clean interior was a dark blue, sleek and streamlined so that it popped against the bright white enamel of the exterior. My brothers added an eight track tape deck, with enormous new speakers, and that first morning we drove into Nacogdoches listening to the Beatles’, “Here Comes the Sun” and Janis Joplin’s “Me and Bobby McGee" thumping around us. We’d always heard Dad talk of a big trip West when we “got a little ahead.” So that year, he and my brother Al planned it meticulously, with Daddy stocking up on Johnny Cash and Jim Reeves 8-tracks, while my brother Gene assured we had “The Doors” and “Simon and Garfunkel” on board. It was in the spring of 1968, when the Old Man and Al announced we’d take the new Impala to Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico, leaving life behind the pine curtain briefly for a broader, and more westerly adventure. Our road trip took on the air of a great expedition, as we’d never crossed a western state line anywhere before. We’d spend one night in Carlsbad, according to Daddy, before seeing the caves, and we planned to camp at campsites along the way. 

We only had enough money for one night in a motel, the Carlsbad Inn. Even its name had my mind racing, probably a room carved into a cave, I thought, with bats hanging overhead and spiders readily available to throw on my sister. And when mom announced new “vacation” clothes for everyone, my siblings were completely beside themselves. Janice pulled out our latest Sears mail order catalog to scout new outfits, while I had a far better idea for my newly acquired largesse. The previous school year, my class had made a well-timed trip to the local Candy House, where I discovered for the first time in my young life that the peanut patties I’d grown up on from rural mom and pop stores were actually available by the box. And they made them locally, hot and fresh. The very air emanating from the factory's peanut patty line was intoxicating. I got teary eyed at the mere idea of unlimited peanut patties! And I realized then, a full dozen of those pink pies could be had for far less than a new shirt and pants! So, as youngest children in families are prone to do, I whined and bargained my way into giving up my new wardrobe and instead, secured two full boxes of those precious pink patties for our pending road trip. I think in all the excitement of our imminent journey out west, everyone became a little giddy in their reasoning. I thought, it was less money for my parents to spend and a source of unbridled sugar content across the long miles for me. 

To this very day, I’m amazed that I somehow received permission to not only acquire but eventually consume a full two dozen peanut patties during one summer road trip across Texas. For me, this trip was already a legend in the making. West Texas itself was a revelation. I’d never seen anything so expansive, not a tree in sight for long stretches. We were traveling during the time of an annual tarantula migration, and we came upon hundreds of them crossing the road at once. My brothers taunted Janice and me, telling us to watch out at the next rest stop, because those spiders were known to stick to the bottom of the car then leap out and bite the passengers on the legs when they needed to stop and relieve themselves. The same was true for the rattlesnakes we happened upon, stretched lazily on the asphalt in the West Texas sun. As our snow white Impala eased over a hill, a long daddy of a rattler would slowly ease off to the roadside, but on the rare occasion we did run one over, my brother quickly reminded us that he was lurking just under the seats, probably wrapped around the axle, waiting for us to get out to pee. This information, of course, increased our need to urinate more urgently than simple biology ever could have. Mama, always the inventive sort, had doubled down on her magazine reading prior to our trip, and had discovered from an article in “McCall’s” or “RedBook” a brand new way to cook a chicken. On the car engine. You simply added potatoes to your chicken, double wrapped it all in foil, and remove your car’s air filter. There one could gently lay the pending poultry delicacy in the air filter container, and after a hundred miles or so, the heat from the engine would cook up a tasty meal before you even reached Amarillo. Or someplace. 

Mom wasn't sure of cooking time, but was a true fan of multitasking, and my dad was feeling extra indulgent since it was our first family vacation ever. If some creative genius in a magazine had explained how it was done, he was willing to play along and let Ma have a motorized chicken roast en route out West. For my part, I was mid-way through my first case of peanut patties, probably halfway to Amarillo, when I noticed smoke beginning to fill the car. It was an aromatic blend akin to chicken fat and motor oil, a musk that should never again be replicated. “I think my chicken is done,” Mom said cheerfully. “Agnes, I think your chicken exploded a few miles back.” Daddy replied as he pulled the car over to the shoulder. I often wonder how it must have appeared to a random passerby, a woman in her most colorful headscarf, with purse firmly clutched on one arm, peering under the hood while my dad, curly hair blowing in the West Texas wind, cursed under his breath as he tried to dislodge a burnt chicken from our car's air filter compartment. “We’re not doing this again, Agnes.” Daddy grumbled. “It never hurts to try new things, Alvie!” Mom chirped, still hanging onto the fantasy of a perfect vacation complete with her Chevy Impala grilled chicken. We left the chicken to the coyotes and mom's burnt bird became an unspoken source of delight and glee for us kids. Janice and I would role play them for years, peering under a make-believe car hood and replaying the conversation we'd overheard. "It's burnt, Agnes." . . . "You never try anything new". . . As we progressed towards the New Mexico border, I was well into a peanut patty sugar coma. I would lie back and look out the wide back glass and count the stars, unsure of whether the scene was reality or sugar induced. I vaguely remembered talk of a campsite, then recall our driving through the dark West Texas desert without another car for miles, our headlights the only sign of civilization. Just before we reached our campsite, the car slowed, and Daddy pulled over. 

A giant jackrabbit stood still and upright in the middle of the road. “Daddy, please, can I take him out?” my brother begged. Little did I know, amid the floaties, sun hats and luggage, the old man had brought his single shot shotgun with an ample supply of shells. “Why do I suddenly feel like Jethro and Janice looks like Ellie Mae?” I asked sarcastically. Had everyone lost their minds? I had envisioned a nice hotel with a pool for at least one night, not roasted chicken on the car engine and roadside target practice in hopes of a jackrabbit meal! Without listening, my brother quickly got the shotgun, disposed of the rabbit and threw him onboard. We roasted him over the campfire that night, and after a full day of peanut patties, I must say it was a welcome change from a strictly sugar based diet. Carlsbad Caverns was impressive, a nondescript giant hole in the ground, but with a football field sized cafeteria two miles underground, where I was amazed to find fried chicken and fountain drinks! I had tucked a peanut pattie into my back pocket just in case my sugar felt low, but had no worries, as the giant cafeteria carried a cornucopia of food that seemed exotic to a country boy. At night, as we watched the bats leaving the cavern to hunt, I munched on yet another peanut patty, and my little round face appears dazed, happy and beaming from photos of that day. Daddy decided after leaving all the stalactites and cave drawings that we had enough time to go on into Mexico. Since we were going to be close to El Paso, he reasoned, why not just drive on over to Juarez to say we had actually been to another country? “Mama, nobody in this car speaks Spanish. Is this a good idea?” I asked between bites of peanut patty. “Oh, of course! A smile is a universal language.” Mom said in her most lilting tour guide voice. Immediately across the border, our wide eyes encountered many street vendors converging on the car with spray bottles. “Oh look, Alvie, they want to wash our windshield!” Mom exclaimed.

Daddy was not in his element. At all. He waved the street vendors away, sometimes with hand gestures that I knew weren’t polite after a couple of vendors had kicked the car over his refusal to pay anything. Around this time, we rolled up to our first street sign in Juarez, Mexico. “Hmmmmmm . . . Alvie, that is sure shaped like a stop sign, but it says Alto. I think we need to stop." Ma declared. Fearing for our lives with Dad driving in Juarez, we finally convinced Daddy to let my oldest brother take the wheel. He was about to go to college, and we figured if he could get into SFA then he could surely get us back across the Mexican border without our dragging a poor unsuspecting pedestrian with us. As we left Juarez, then El Paso, slowly winding our way across the deserts of Texas, Jim Reeves was crooning on our 8-Track, lulling us all into a trance as we headed East towards home. “Put your sweet lips a little closer to the phone, Let’s pretend that we’re together, all alone. I’ll tell the man to turn the jukebox way down low. And you can tell your friend there with you, he’ll have to go.” I watched the desert landscape pass by, the moon high overhead, as the saguaro cactus stood sentinel against the night sky, and the voice of Marty Robbins filled the air. “Out in the west Texas town of El Paso, I fell in love with a Mexican girl.

Nighttime would find me in Rosa’s cantina, Music would play and Felina would whirl.” It was a lullaby to me, even though I was hopped up on more sugar than any 11 year old should ever be allowed to consume in a lifetime. We rode on through Amarillo to “Walkin’ After Midnight” and “Jackson,” with background hoots of Folsom Prison inmates cheering as a young Johnny and June Carter Cash sang their way into legend. Finally, as we rocked through the hill country under a star filled Texas night, I fell asleep listening to Patsy Cline’s ever wistful “I’m Back in Baby’s Arms.” For a little red dirt kid like me, the greatest epiphany of my life had occurred in a span of ten days, as I realized there was a world beyond the pine tree covered landscape of my childhood. I wanted to experience it, to touch it, to taste it, and something told me that world would be even sweeter than a case of peanut patties. And my life’s journey has not disappointed. It has been more than I could have ever imagined. While I miss many of my fellow travelers from those years, my mom and dad, my brother and sister, I still cherish every mile of the trip out West that changed my life. ★