Big Bend is the only area of Texas that I did not get to see.
Alpine is waiting for me.
oops i thought it would be green
more like high desert so it seems
gonna have to head south from Alpine in my dreams
had a job on the oil rigs out of Galveston
1977
met a fellow from India who had gone to college in Alpine
he liked steak
I thought that was interesting because he was from India
annd thought they were all vegetarians
holy cow
also remember how he and the other young Texans I worked with were totally unperturbed
they were lucky
I was highly perturbed in 1977
Before that, in 1976, after the fall of Saigon and during my fall from grace, I was driving mindlessly down through New Mexico picked up a whole slew of hitch hikers going to New Orleans. I did not want to carry them across west Texas, so dropped them off in El Paso. They left a huge bag od marijuana in my back seat, which I tossed into a garbage can. I was perturbed, yes, drove to Padre Island, and on to New Orleans.
In 1987, after I had left Shreveport and the vet center years, I luxuriated in one final road going fling.
I ran out of money and stayed in Ft Worthless for the summer, working, met a lady at the Kimball Museum in front of a Picasso painting of Don Quixote. She took me to the park by the zoo at late afternooon and we heard a tumultous roar from the beasts at dusk. Later, driving west, I was crying, saw the Guadeloupe Mountains, heading to Phoenix for the winter.
Early 1988, heading east in southern Arizona, I pickedup a hitch hiker in Wilcox. He was from Tunesia. He had a huge black hairy growth on his left upper cheek. He was going to Philadelphia. He told me he had AIDS and kept muttering,
"I'm gonna do it" over annd over.
I stopped at a large truck stop just east of El Paso, bought him supper, and dumped him. Two weeks later, heading on down to Florida, my final destination, I saw him hitch hiking on US 10 east of Pensacola. I did not stop until I got to old St Pete, been here ever since March 0f '88.
Texas is sweet. I miss my brother, lives in Useless.
Where is the popcorn?
