There was no way that we were all going to the family reunion in one vehicle. The Dodge Journey, foisted on us by Budget Rent-A-Car, wasn't quite big enough, and my parent's van could hold all of us, but not all of our luggage, too. Besides, I asked my partner, weren't we leaving the reunion and driving out to New Mexico for a few days? I was relatively certain that my sister, her husband, and the youngest of her four children, wouldn't want to tag along, and my parents coming was out of the question. It practically takes an act of Congress to get my mother out of her house these days, and while she was okay with attending the reunion, there was no way on God's green earth that she would venture any further from her front door than what she'd already promised my dad. So, on the morning of our departure, my partner and I climbed into the Journey, my parents into their van, my sister, her husband, and their seventeen year old son into yet another car, and off we went, a caravan heading west on a highway that had once carried me home from college.
* * * * * *
As you drive farther into the Oklahoma Panhandle, the elevation begins to increase, subtley at first, and then with noticeable abruptness as you get closer to the mountains of northern New Mexico. Towns are sparse, their presence announced by majestic, white grain elevators that serve as their skyscrapers, their monuments to commerce and survival in a place that was, not too long ago, dubbed "the great American desert". Traffic is largely limited to varieties of trucks: a few cattle trucks here, the occasional (and ubiquitous) pickup truck there, more trucks hauling machinery to and from the oil rigs that rise incongrously from the prairie floor, like mini-Eiffel Towers. There is road kill on the two-lane highway, lots of it. Vultures and hawks swoop down, grasping pieces of carrion with savage swipes of razor sharp claws before departing back into the hot morning sun. For the most part, people are nice out here. The Panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma are areas where right-wing, Bible-Belt fundamentalism exists side-by-side with a certain lawlessness, if not of deed, then of spirit. Folks there won't ask you to pick a side, they don't have to. You'll know quickly which alliances to form; people are polite but blunt, and rarely misrepresent themselves. Having said that, I can hardly think of a better place in the United States in which to lose oneself, if one truly wants to get, and stay, lost.
* * * * * *
At about 9 a.m. that Saturday morning, we pulled into Guymon, Oklahoma. Just ten miles east of my college stomping grounds, Guymon used to be the place to go for fast-food fixes, movie theaters, department store shopping, and rough trade; it was also rumored to be a major pit stop on the Mexican drug highway. First and foremost a cowtown, Guymon is now equally well-known for its hog farms. As we passed through town that day, I saw flashes of my college past: the truck stop where, as a student, I sometimes ate midnight meals of chicken fried steaks and fries, while shooting the shit with an ancient waitress named Marcella; the vacant building that used to be a movie theater where I first saw "The Exorcist", "The Towering Inferno", "What's Up Doc?", and "Young Frankenstein"; and the adjacent lot that housed the drive-in picture show, where I witnessed less savory fare like "Messiah of Evil", "Six-Pack Annie", and the original "Texas Chainsaw Massacre", a film whose impact was not slightly diminished by the copious amounts of beer and weed that were being passed around the car.
While my family drove north of Guymon, my partner and I decided to drive on west, so I could see my old college, the scene of several important "firsts" and where one could say that I, arguably, spent the best years of my life. I came to Panhandle State University as one person, and left, four years later, as someone else. Although it would take several years before the person I became would be allowed to have free reign over my life.
* * * * * *
Goodwell, Oklahoma, from a distance, does not look like the type of town that is home to a university that has drawn students from both coasts, as well as a few foreign countries. Situated on a flat, dry, desolate stretch of prairie, the town is comprised of a few hundred hearty souls, many of whom are employed, in some capacity, by the university. With around 2,000 students, Panhandle State is the largest educational facility in an area encompassing the Oklahoma Panhandle, parts of the Texas Panhandle, southwestern Kansas, southeastern Colorado, and northeastern New Mexico. The town's main street hasn't changed much since my salad days there. It really hasn't changed much since my dad's salad days, nor probably since its founding in the early part of the 20th Century. There were a few buildings missing, the most prominent being the one that had housed the Jungle, the town's main bar, which we students, technically, shouldn't have been allowed to enter (and frequently weren't). Behind this building was a very large, two story house that was rented by some pseudo-intellectuals who, nonetheless, threw some very good parties; that house was the first place I saw a bong, or tasted a Harvey Wallbanger (my beverage of choice until then had been Annie Green Springs).
At the end of Main Street, we turned left and, in less than a minute, were idling outside Field Hall, my old dorm, and the home-away-from-home where I spent all four years of my college career. Hesitantly, I made my way up the familiar walkway and peered into the glass doors. Surprised to find one of the doors open, I walked up the stairs into the empty lobby, and passed on down a hallway that led me straight to my old room (one of my MANY old rooms, actually). I stood on the threshold and looked in on my past, as the years peeled away.
* * * * * *
Most people attending college out here lived in the dorms throughout their college years. There wasn't much off-campus housing available then, plus there was a communal, familial feel to the dorm; by living on campus, you felt like you were part of a bigger sphere, one that transcended the isolation of the setting. And it's true, I made friends with people from all over the place. Living on campus was also conducive to having experiences that might not otherwise have been available. And yes, I'm talking about male bonding, both in the "Happy Days" sense of outrageous, mostly innocent pranks, as well as in the "Brokeback Mountain" sense of mano a mano, forbidden fruit frolicking. Dorm life provided ample opportunities for untethered glimpses of tempting male flesh. Although the Gay Liberation Movement, with a few exceptions, had not progressed much further inland than the U.S. coastal areas, there was an unacknowledged homoeroticism lurking just below the surface of our dorm's academic studiousness and manchild rowdiness. Naked cowboys regularly prowled the hallways, smoking cigarettes with insoucient cool, as the giddy shrieks of rambunctious jocks echoed from the showers, followed by the electric POP of a towel snapping against wet, bare skin. And, always, there was laughter, deep and resonant and carefree. Did any of us ever laugh like that again?
At the beginning of my junior year, I noticed a change in the weather, a certain Republican uptightness accompanying the new crop of freshmen. That year ushered in a new, subdued attitude that was reflected in the sudden prudery present among many of the new students. Out went the nudity and the wild free-spiritedness that had characterized my first two years at the university, and in came our college's equivalent of the Eisenhower Era.
Some of the best friendships of my life were formed during my residence in the dorm, but I was a social creature, and many of my activities were geared towards cultivating friendships. Most newcomers were rechristened, some unknowingly, when they entered into residence at Field Hall. There was Toad, Jingle Bells, Lurch, and The Mad Bomber, among many others. Toad, much to his chagrin, maintains his nickname to this day, and he's a school superintendent!
Standing in my old dormitory room, the following images marched through my mind like a parade of Polaroid snapshots: running lines with fellow actors preparing for performances at the brooding college theater; learning to sing folk songs, and rock and roll, with a long-haired, straight guitarist, who taught me all about moisturizing, flossing, blow-drying, and cowboy/hippie chic; playing all-night card games in smoky rooms; arguing campus politics (and temperance) with my neighbor, the Vice President of the Student Body; being dangled from a second floor window by my ankles by another friend whom I had pushed too far by taunting his pet owl; talking serious trash with a cousin, who became the one friend in whom I confided everything. And, of course, there was always, always the camaraderie of the showers, in which an observant boy might gain more insights than might have been imagined.
Oddly enough, our dorm mother, the sweet, steely magnolia known as Kate Marshall, was rarely phased by either the nudity or the often racy activities of her "boys". She was probably already well past seventy when I moved into the dorm, but she was a tough one who wore her toughness inside a velvet glove. She was motherly (or grandmotherly) without the guilt and without the penalties--unless you were a slob like me and your room didn't pass weekly inspection. That first year, I got more write-ups on yellow sticky notes than I could keep track of. Finally, she stopped inspecting my room altogether, maybe because she just got sick of writing me up, or maybe because, by the end of that first year, we had established a very friendly bond and she decided to let me slide. No doubt about it, she could have been a hardass and, rightfully so, as she was in charge of keeping order in a house of 200+ rowdy, randy young men, many still teenagers just leaving home for the first time. But Kate wasn't a hardass, that wasn't her nature. One night, I came in from a fierce night of drinking and was, literally, crawling up the stairs to my room. Suddenly, a pair of fuzzy, pink houseshoes appeared on the step in front of me. After establishing that I was simply intoxicated and not, otherwise, endangered or in need of medical care, Kate advised me to take care on the steps and bade me goodnight. On another occasion, she asked me to come into her apartment, where she informed me, in hushed tones, of her suspicions that two boys in the dorm were luring other boys to their room in the basement, plying them with drugs, and......USING THEM, these last two words being accompanied by a dramatic sweep of her hands across her bosom. The reprobates in question were ROTC cowboys, gorgeous and blonde, and they had nicknamed their lair "The War Room". I very much wanted to volunteer my services to determine the guilt of these culprits, but Kate was obviously distraught, and genuinely concerned that I shouldn't fall prey to these beastly appetites, so I simply promised her that I'd make sure not to venture into the basement alone. Despite the rumors, it was never proven that either of these guys were gay, much less engaged in such unsavory activities as forced b & d or male rape (one would think that, had this been true, there would have been something of a commotion coming from the unwilling participants). At any rate, Kate Marshall was the anchor for many college boy storms that passed across the, outwardly, unfluttered surface of Field Hall.
I fell in love in that dorm, for the first time in my life, and with a man, to boot. Having overcome my shock and consternation at actually having sex with a man, I soon acknowledged my true feelings, albeit only to myself, and never to him. Two months later, I was a groomsman at his wedding; I smiled broadly, conveying a joy I did not feel, as he walked his pregnant bride out the door. Following his bachelor party, we briefly (and drunkenly) discussed taking off for his parent's winter house in Mazatlan, ready to fuck off our responsibilities, along with our futures, so that we could spend the next, what--two months?--fucking each other. Even at that age, having reached an intoxicated stage of the evening when anything is possible, we knew better. Somehow, I could comprehend that lust was not really love, and that's what I kept telling myself over and over in the ensuing weeks, as my heart tried to tell me something different. Having found something that I never thought I'd find--something I never really knew existed--and having confronted my feelings, my desires, the possibility that maybe I wasn't who I thought I was--it was gone, and I felt like I'd lost something more than a furtive lover (because he wasn't that, was he, not a lover, just a fuck, a furtive fuck, and I didn't really love him, because men don't love like that, do they?). There would be others, of course, but it was at least a year before I would dive back into that particular pool. In the interim, I decided to devote more attention to my studies (never high on my list of priorities), my girlfriend, the Homecoming Queen, (with whom I had the most chaste relationship of my life) and my other girlfriend, the secret girlfriend, the hyperintelligent, hypersexual actress with whom I enjoyed exotic, ecstatic encounters that later became the fodder for campus gossip. When I eventually took up with the hunky, blonde cowboy, my hetero relationships, along with the gossip, proved to be useful covers, even though I never planned them as such. In fact, there were times when I considered having a future with each girl. And while it could never have worked with the Homecoming Queen--I really did love her, but like a sister--I thought there might have been a ghost of a chance with the actress, because, in so many ways, we were alike, and I did enjoy our sex life. But, of course, in the end, we were too much alike; I liked men just as much as she did, and was smart enough to butt out of her life before I ruined it. Both girls (wisely) married others and moved on.
And speaking of moving on, it was time for the journey down memory lane to end. I took one last look and noted the fresh paint in the rooms, the new desks, different linoleum, the recent addition of ceiling fans. Down the hall, except for brand new paper towel dispensers, the bathrooms remained remarkably, refreshingly unchanged; after thirty-plus years, they still echoed with the drips of leaky faucets, and I could almost hear the hoarse screams of my dorm-mates galloping down the halls, attempting to evade the sizzling snap of the dreaded towel.
Before departing my old campus, we passed the revamped Hughes-Strong Auditorium, where I spent my brief college acting career being shot, pummeled, and poured into Shakespearean pantaloons, and where, on the spooky, secluded third floor, I spent three years of late nights spinning records on college radio station, KPSU. We drove past Hamilton Hall, a main classroom building, where I, along with several dozen other students, had once taken up the ROTC department on their offer to rappel from the rooftop. There was the football field, where we spent many chilly Friday nights in the fall watching the (mostly hulking) Aggies pummel their opponents. We passed the gym, where I'd once attended numerous basketball games, arranged to meet cheerleaders for late night drinking parties, and finally graduated from college during a blistering heatwave that rendered the air conditioning useless. On the other side of the football field, there are now college apartments, three stories of badly needed space that looks, somehow, forlorn in a former parking lot. The library (to which I rarely ventured) is still there, as is the girls dorm and the other classrooms. Then, I saw the student union, which also held the school cafeteria, a dance/party hall, the student governing rooms, and school bookstore. Needless to say, this building was the scene of much socializing. I remembered manning a booth with Jingle Bells as we attempted to sign people up to give blood. A buxom, blonde co-ed, well-known for her voracious sexual appetite, walked up, had a seat on his knee and, much to Jingle's horror, proceeded to bounce herself to orgasm (this was amply demonstrated not just by her vocal ministrations, but by the considerable wet spot that she deposited on his trousers). Jingle Bells was such a proper, dignified innocent that I'm not sure he ever recovered from the experience. He certainly never forgot it, nor did anyone who witnessed that performance. In that building, I learned to do the Hustle and the Texas two-step, listened to Deep Purple sing "Smoke on the Water", smoked Newports and Lemon Twists, voted to enact campus rules that I quickly broke, ditched classes, and plotted a future far different than the one I'm living.
As we came to the end of town and turned west onto the highway, I took one last look at my old alma mater. A middle-aged man moving through time, I waved goodbye to the trappings of my misspent youth, knowing that the youth still exists somewhere within; jealously guarded and forever young, he is the keeper of secrets and retainer of dreams.
My partner clicked on the car's radio and I heard a weather forecaster predicting heat and more heat, followed by the vocal stylings of Fifty Cent.
The spell was broken. Time to fly.
* * * * * *
The first thing you have to know about Boise City, Oklahoma, other than that it is where my dad was born and raised, is the correct pronunciation of the town. It's called "Boy's City", which is exactly how I thought it was spelled when I was a child, and possibly an indicator of my, as yet, undeveloped predilections. Do not ever go there and call it "Boy-zee City", as people will either look at you like you've lost your mind, or shake their heads in disgust before walking away. Either way, "Boy-zee City" will immediately identify you as a stranger, not just to the town, but to that portion of a four state area. So, remember, Boise City is "Boy's City". Period. There are no variations.
The second thing to know about Boise City is that it is the dropping off place at the end of the world, the final outpost at the edge of nowhere. Going south of Boise City towards Texas, one encounters a veritable black hole of remote and seemingly uninhabited flatness that stretches on and on into an infinity of tumbleweed, antelope, and barb wire, and later, as one once again approaches civilization, acres and acres of cornfields. The number of cornfields out here are a relatively new addition to the panhandle. For years, this whole area was part of the "Great American Desert" and was hit particularly hard during the dust storms of the "Dirty Thirties". Entire farms, acres of crops, cars, and even people were completely buried by blowing dirt; dust pneumonia was a common ailment in infants of the era. This was a land that was never meant to be farmed, and wouldn't have been, had it not been for the innovative techniques in irrigation developed during the 20th Century. In some areas, President Roosevelt orders rows of Cedar trees planted to act as windbreaks on the, otherwise, treeless expanse of prairie. In these same areas, the Cedar trees have now taken over, spreading out and greedily overtaking everything in their path. The land south of Boise City, however, is not one of those areas. Trees of any kind are few and far between, and there is no hint of humankind until the cornfields surrounding Dalhart come into sight.
Boise City was founded in the early part of the twentieth century. Two scam artists advertised an "oasis" in the desert, with tree-lined boulevards and fountains and beautiful homes with green lawns. They offered a good deal on this heavenly property, and collected the money in advance. When the prospective homeowners arrived in their new town, they were confronted by a very different reality than what had been presented to them. The scammers didn't get away with it, of course; instead of fleeing the country like many of the West's shady cons before them, they hung around and got caught, spending time in prison atoning for their dirty misdeeds. Despite the obvious mischaracterization of the place, many people chose to remain in Boise City, and a town sprang up, spoking out in four directions from a central axis comprised of a square and courthouse. Soon, there was a hotel, cafes, a movie theater, and a school. There were churches and saloons, a post office and a bank, the usual business that accompany the development of a community. When the double whammy of the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression hit, the town and surrounding area was devastated. Married when my grandmother was 16, my dad's parents had ten children and they all lived in a small house in Boise City when the world came tumbling down. In 1935, as farms were being swallowed by dust, and banks were foreclosing on homes, my dad's father died, leaving his mother to raise ten kids alone. The oldest child was 16, the youngest 1. They all worked just as soon as they were old enough. Dad's mother worked at two jobs, beginning at six in the morning and ending at ten at night. With not much education, she waitressed and washed dishes in two cafes in town. The things my dad and his siblings seem to remember most was how hard their mother worked, and how tired she always seemed to be. Even so, she enjoyed going dancing, eventually meeting and marrying a widower with three kids of his own.
During World War II, Boise City became the only town in the United States to be bombed. Apparently, during air force maneuvers, the pilots became disoriented, mistaking Boise City for their target. Luckily, no one was injured, although there was a certain amount of property damage.
Many of my dad's brothers and sisters still live in the area, and it still looks much as I remember it during rare forays out during the sixties. My mom hated coming here, and she's the one who adjudged it to be the "dropping off place". Despite all that, I was always fond of some of my many first cousins, with whom I infrequently played during my childhood. Many of us are scattered all over the United States, so the family reunion offers a good opportunity to reconnect. My dad's mother died in 1969, at the age of 69, but I remember thinking that she must be at least 100. She had tuberculosis and didn't know it until many years later; that fact, plus her otherwise hard life, took an extreme toll on her. She wasn't warm, and I remember being vaguely intimidated by this tiny, 90 pound woman, as she was such a contrast to my mom's mother, a gregarious, hugging, kissing, loudly demonstrative grandmother who, perhaps unwisely, centered her entire life around her grandchildren. The natures of both women were determined by very different upbringings and very different environments and, ultimately, neither survived to see their seventieth year.
* * * * * *
The Townsman Motel lies on the eastern edge of Boise City. It was purchased a few years ago by some people from India, and one immediately wonders how on earth they managed to find their way to this remote part of the world. The Townsman, if nothing else, is immaculately clean and serviceable. Highway workers, oil field roughnecks, and tourists wandering off the beaten path, all find their way here, for stays of varying lengths. When our caravan at last met up and descended upon the Townsman, our party, alone, numbered twelve, and we were dispersed over four rooms. I noted that there was no Dish TV, although by the time I collapsed into bed later that night, I couldn't have cared less.
By heading through Boise City and turning west at the courthouse, you'll see a sign that says Black Mesa is twenty-some miles ahead. Driving along the road, we pass the tiny home of my grandmother, the one she shared with her second husband during the last years of her life, the one I remember visiting when I was a kid. I always liked her husband and thought of him as "Grandpa". A former sailor, he was ruddy and had dark, stiff whiskers that he rubbed against our soft skin, laughing maniacally as we squealed with delight. He was short and stocky and smelled of beer and Old Spice, and he worshipped my grandmother. He kept us kids entertained with picture puzzles, as she sat wearily in her chair holding her tiny chihuahua and watching "The Jackie Gleason Show". That's how I remember them. I loved being around him, but when my grandmother died, we didn't have contact with him again. I don't know what happened, but I was a child and didn't think to ask.
Driving out of town, it truly does look like we are heading into oblivion. It was not yet noon and there weren't even the slightest vestiges of human habitation: no fences or fenceposts, no errant crops, no farms hovering in the misty distance like shimmering mirages. There was roadkill--there is always roadkill. And the rusting pieces of machinery rotting in tracts of prairie that may once, in another century, have been fields. Far off in the distance, it is possible to make out geographical forms jutting upwards, as if trying to leap from this parched patch of earth. I know, for instance, from my childhood that, over to the left, near Felt, where my Aunt Betty lives, is the rocky promontory known as Rabbit Ears. It's distinguishable by the protuberances for which it is named. There's another, as well, but I don't remember what it's called, or if it's ever been named. Further west, one begins to see the mesas and buttes that characterize this area of Oklahoma: the beginning of an Old West that has been canonized in the films of Hollywood stalwarts from Raoul Walsh and John Ford to Sam Peckinpah. In truth, this rugged, unforgiving country of hard beauty and even harder living, has been home to any number of notorious outlaws and desperadoes. One of my mother's great-grandfathers (or great-great grandfathers) allegedly rode with Billy the Kid and was in on some of his more nefarious escapades. Presumably my ancestor survived this association since he later sired a more immediate forefather, and is rumored to have settled into respectability. If, like me, you have family who have lived in this area for several generations, you will, more than likely, be able to find that your family tree has a few less-than-savory roots. A good friend from college was related to the notorious Black Jack Ketchum, an outlaw who was finally captured and hanged in Clayton, New Mexico. During the execution, he dropped from the gallows with such force that his head is said to have popped off. A cousin of mine is related to John Wesley Hardin, the cold-blooded cowpoke who grew so annoyed by the snoring of one of his posse that he shot the man dead. And so it goes.
There are still traces of the old west here, but it is a far older west than that presented by images of outlaws and wagon trains. Next to the site of our family reunion, there are petroglyphs carved into the cliffs by a prehistoric hunter-gathering society that once populated the area. Nearby, there are also dinosaur footprints preserved in the dried mud of an ancient riverbed, graffiti etched by members of Coronado's ill-fated expedition for the Seven Cities of Gold, and the infamous mummy's cave. More a shallow indentation in the rocks than an actual cave, the mummy's cave once yielded the preserved remains of a small boy who had been dead for around 4,000 years. The body eventually made its way to the PSU Museum, where I once saw it on display in a glass case. Lying in a fetal position, he still had a head full of dark hair, teeth, and finger nails, and a face like a mud pie. Once was enough for me to see the poor, little mummy, who exuded a creepiness that sped my exit from the museum. I don't know why people still want to hike up the grueling incline to get to the mummy's cave. There's not much there anymore, and it's filled with bat guano, and it smells.
* * * * * *
The Black Mesa campgrounds are actually about a 10 minute drive from Black Mesa, itself. We arrive around noon, just in time for lunch. Normally, due to the large size of my dad's family, I expect to see more than one hundred people at these reunions. This year, there are a little over half that many. All the surviving brothers and sisters are there--eight, in all, plus quite a few of their kids. I greet my cousin, Ladonna, with a warm hug. I haven't seen her since 1989, and we were once very close. She's living in Denver with a great husband; her daughter didn't make it down, but she's an aspiring actress who's had small roles in "Nip/Tuck" and several other television shows and movies. Ladonna's sisters make their way over to me and we also hug. And then my cousin, Jan, from San Antonio, comes over, looks at my feet, and raises her eyebrows, nodding for me to look down. I do, and am shocked to see a scorpion on my boot (I had the foresight to pack hiking boots rather than sneakers, a lesson I've learned from previous trips). I kick the critter away but he's already dead; he must have somehow been crushed in all the hugging. My cousin, Jan, picks him up and ponders whose food tray to put him in. I like it that Jan hasn't changed much since we were kids. I spot Jan's brother, Paul, who, like their father, seems to harbor a genuine dislike for most of humanity, and rarely ventures past the county line. I ask him if he's ever been out of the area, and he says that he once went to L.A. and had never seen so many people, and hoped never to see that many again. He says that cured him of wanting ever to go anywhere. My dad's brothers and sisters are doing well, for the most part. Betty and Nellie are in different stages of Alzheimer's, a family disease that has already claimed the life of one sister. My Aunt Phyllis, the world traveler, is funny and still sparkles with intelligence. She tools across the U.S. and Mexico in an RV, with only the companionship of her dog. Ladonna's father, Don, looks good but I immediately establish that he can't hear a word that I'm saying. Don was the ornery uncle, the one I most enjoyed when I was a child, because one could get away with just about anything and he wouldn't tattle. As we prepare for lunch, everyone joins hands as my cousin, Clay, the minister, says grace. I can't look at Clay without remembering that he once thought he was Underdog and tried to fly from his top bunk. Better the top bunk than the rooftop, since Clay went crashing to the floor, sustaining surprisinly minor injuries. I look around for my cousin, Leslie Gail, who was gorgeous the last time I saw her in 1989. Leslie Gail is an artist, something of a bohemian, and somewhat anti-social. At every family reunion, she pitches a tent away from the rest of the family, comes in for meals, visits briefly, then returns to her tent. Someone tells me that she is here, but, for the life of me, I can't find her. She allegedly shows up a couple of more times throughout the day but, as in past reunions that I have attended, I am not afforded so much as a glimpse. For me, she remains as elusive as Sasquatch.
After lunch, my sister, her oldest daughter, my partner, and I decide to drive over and climb up Black Mesa. The road from the campsight is picturesque, other-worldly. Mesas surround the small village of Kenton, Oklahoma, which still has its original general store, though not much else. We pull into the mesa's parking area and my sister immediately heads for the steep face. It is obvious that she is planning to scale the face of the mesa, rather than taking the meandering trail that twists around for approximately four hours before leading a patient hiker to the top. Oh no, her daughter exclaims, we're NOT going up that way! So we meander around the trail for awhile, passing lounging cattle who eye us disinterestedly as they chew whatever it is that they are chewing. Finally we hear voices and spot my youngest nephew, and the minister's son high atop the mesa. Just below them, not quite at the top, are my sister's husband, my niece's husband, my oldest nephew, and my niece's 3 year old daughter. My niece freaks and wonders aloud just what the hell they're thinking taking her child up there! She immediately forgets her discomfort and concerns for her own personal safety, and begins walking up the face of the mesa, my sister trailing her, both of them clacking noisily in their flip-flops. My partner and I follow as I eye each rock and bush carefully for rattlesnakes and scorpions. Once in shouting distance, my niece informs her husband not to take another step towards the top, to bring her daughter down NOW! He obliges and everyone starts back towards the bottom. But, I figure since I'm halfway to the top, I may as well continue. However, with everyone else out of sight, I stop at the three-quarters point, realizing that if I should get bitten by a snake, or fall and break a leg, I'd be stuck way up there by myself, and it would be awhile before I'm found. I promptly make by way back to the base of Black Mesa, where we load up the Journey and head back to the reunion.
My cousin, Karen, from New Jersey, is sitting with her husband at a picnic table watching some of the older boys play horseshoes. A few years back, when I was in New York at a theater conference, Karen and her husband rode the train over and took me to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (since they are members, admission was free), and through Central Park, and we had a great day together. I had missed them last year when I was in New York, so it's good seeing them again. My other cousin, Mary Sue, who is a force of nature, and lives in Iowa, makes it late to the reunion. Mary Sue is funny and super-smart and very, very outspoken; she's also organized and always willing to take charge of any situation, no matter how dire. I have long known that Mary Sue is a very good person to have on your side. She reminds me a lot of my sister. Indomitable is the word that immediately springs to mind.
It seems like I am doing a lot of smiling and talking, which normally would be exhausting, but I realize I'm having fun. I really like my cousins, most of them anyway, and the day seems to slip away quickly. Suddenly, it's after 9 p.m., and time for our party to head back to town and the Townsman Motel. So off we go, three carloads full of dirty, tired people, and when we finally pull into the motel parking lot, we realize that we have forgotten Dad. It seems that everyone thought that he was riding with someone else. Luckily, he has his own van still at the reunion. The question is, can he see well enough at night to find his way through that perilous country back to town. In the back of my mind is another question, of equal concern. Dad has been diagnosed as being in the very early stages of alzheimer's, although the only symptom I've noticed is that he sometimes asks the same questions two or three times. We decide to give him a few minutes. I'm going to shower and if he isn't back, my oldest nephew and I will drive back out and find him. By the time I climb out of the shower, my dad is back and already in bed in the motel room next to mine. Whew! Since he was raised in that country, he could probably find his way with his eyes closed. But still....
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