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Wednesday, November 13, 2019

On the subject of Del Rio

After 25 years away, this spring I finally returned to the place where I spent most of the first four years of my adulthood.   Before we left, I knew I had difficulty visualizing the town, the area.  So on one level, I had a hard time remembering how things looked, but I figured I'd return and look around and it would all come flooding back.  But no.  Not at all.
I drove around town, and I recognized the names of Don Marcelino's restaurant, and Wal Mart, the Sirloin Stockade, Wright’s Steakhouse…  but ... that was it.  I knew the main street names were Avenue F and G, and there they were.  But I could never tell you where I was at when the guy ran into my rear bumper.  Absolutely nothing looked even remotely familiar.  I remember the guy we’d see occasionally at a stop light, with an old hound dog standing on the roof of his truck, but I didn’t see them now, and I’m not even sure where that stop light was.
On some level, I have been really dismayed by this blindness into my own history.  I have very fond memories of some of my time there.  That is to say, I really enjoyed the job, but more than that, the people I worked with.  While living there, I remember going west as far as Langtry, Texas to the Judge Roy Bean saloon.  Going north to Sonora Caverns, and of course, trips to San Antonio.  I remember those areas, at least a little.  I remember the feel if not the detail of the River Walk in San Antonio, but the road to and through Del Rio itself?  Nothing.  It seems like a blank slate. 
In 2019, I found myself amazed all over again by how devoid of trees and how flat Del Rio is.  On some level, I knew it was that way.  That treeless expanse has always been my 'first impression' remembrance of the area, but the reality now vs. my memory is like seeing the Grand Canyon in person after only ever seeing it on a post card.  I drove past the home of someone whom I used to work with, where I have fond memories of being welcomed as a part of their family for a holiday gathering... and I did not recognized the house or street at all. 
I have pondered on that blank place in my memory over the past few months.
It dawns on me that if I go back to my earliest childhood, I would read the books on the bookshelf in the hallway when we lived in the old homeplace.  There was a battered copy of Swiss Family Robinson and Robinson Crusoe, there were the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew books, and there were others.  And I would read them, forget the contents and read them again.  I may not have been completely surprised at the climax but I was pretty good at suppressing the details so as to make the stories new again.
That self-training kept me entertained on long summer days and nights, and has allowed me to watch and re-watch movies over the years, without really remembering the details - just the impressions of big ideas or themes.  It causes me to be unable to remember quotes or even lyrics, exactly as they are uttered, because I remember the impression or feeling it left behind more so than the words.  It makes me want to avoid Robin William's "What Dreams May Come" even though I recall it is in places visually stunning, because I feel the death involved in the storyline, even though I can't recall the details.
Back to Del Rio, Texas. It is a small town nestled along the banks of the Rio Grande River, just across from Cuidad Acuna, Mexico.  My earliest knowledge of Del Rio comes from a childhood where I read everything I came into contact with - and back then almost all coupons had an address of 1 Fawcett Drive, Del Rio Texas or something similar.  To this day, many manufacturer or retail coupons are still processed there.  So I at least knew it existed.  After being stationed there, folks would say, "Oh, I remember Del Rio... We used to listen to the radio station..." At some point in time before I was there Del Rio had a super-powerful signal and broadcast across much of the western USA.  The area near Laughlin and Del Rio was home to filming of several movies over the years, including Lonesome Dove and John Wayne’s The Alamo, which were filmed at the Alamo Village outside of Bracketville just down the road.
But that evening in late September 1990 that I arrived, it was well after dark, and my aunt and uncle dropped me and ran.  I was given a key to a strange room in the base’s hotel (the Temporary Lodging Facility or TLF).  When I opened the door, a woman cried out… I closed the door and went back for a different key to a different room.  Waking up the next morning, my first morning there, I was a 19 year old Arkansas farm boy named James, who, having grown up surrounded by farms, and woods, and hills, went outside to see ... nothingness.   There was something, all right.  But not trees.  Not hills.  Just wide open country covered with scrubby bushes.  So the first jolt to me was this feeling of surreal surroundings - I may as well have been on the surface of Mars.  I was disoriented.  Out of place.
Then I had to get in touch with my sponsor.  Thus far, in my 6-month Air Force career, all the Non Commissioned Officers that I had been around were instructors of some sort - drill sergeants, teachers.  They were all 'up there' and beyond me.  My sponsor, the one whose job it would be to show me around and get me acquainted with life there, was appointed by the Air Force. His name was Sgt Gomez, and being in Del Rio, obviously he was of Mexican descent, was an eight foot tall drill sergeant of a character, and would yell a lot.  But actually, as I recall, he showed up to pick me up, riding with SSgt Trusty in his Dodge K-Car, and they took me out to eat in town at a Chinese restaurant.  This eight foot guy turned into someone who was slim, soft-spoken, probably 5'6" or thereabouts, and super-nice.  While we were ordering food, I was yes-sirring and no-sirring, but it did not take them long at all to tell me to cut it out.  "We work for a living!!" they said.  This Chinese food experience was my first...  Following the firsts over the past 6 months of 1) having a physical, 2) riding in a taxi 3) riding in an airplane (a handful of times) 4) riding on a city bus (town pass in basic training) 5) riding on a Greyhound (going to tech school) 6) seeing the ocean and 7) walking on a sandy beach (in Biloxi) 8) sleeping and bathing with 40 other guys who were all different from me but who all had shaved heads, wore brown t-shirts and wore BDUs or white-t-shirts and blues 9) running and exercising and doing the confidence course and feeding punch cards through a computer and shooting an M16 and............. all that stuff.
Now, here I was, all alone, but for these two guys who had so little in common with me but who were willing to be patient while I adjusted to uniformed life.  At work, I was introduced to the shift supervisors, who were civil servants named Rob, Pete, and Maria.  Rob was a retired Tech Sergeant and Pete a retired Master Sergeant, and I’m not sure about Maria... I never worked directly with Maria, but she was a nice lady.  Down the hall was Edith Morgan, now Smith, who was the database manager.  Chief Henson was from Alabama, and nominally ran the office, but Edith was really the one who knew and orchestrated the important stuff.  TSgts Boykin and Prys were there then as I recall.
I was assigned to work with Rob, who became something of a foster-father to me.  He was a bit rough around the edges, but had a heart of gold.  The first time on mid shift a couple weeks after I started, he sent me into the break room to make coffee.  The Bunn coffee maker there was 8 or 10 cups, the can of Folgers Coffee said a scoop per cup or something similar, so I started scooping it in.  When it was done, you could stand a spoon up in it.  To give me credit, I did drink most of a cup before we poured it out and started over again. 
The folks at the Squadron and in the office kept asking me in those first days, “Your name is James, but what do they call you… James, Jim, Jimmy?” and I’d just answer, “Any of the above work… I’ve likely been called worse!”  I soon became Jimmy, because the organization already had an overabundance of James’s and Jim’s, and it was fine by me.
In the four years living at Laughlin, I lived as Jimmy Wheeler, kid from Arkansas.  I made some great friends, and went home every chance I could to see my family, and plant some trees.  When I left four years later, I left all that behind.  I kept in touch with a small number of people, and in Alabama, I was once again surrounded by hills and trees and people that called me James.
After almost four years, I had stepped out of the character Jimmy on the set of the Alamo, and became James, once more surrounded by normalcy, and got busy with work.  Looking back, it really seems almost that simple.  I forgot the story, the quotable moments, except for what I brought with me.  I kept in touch with a few friends over the years but lost touch with many more.
I suffer now from a sense of loss, but it’s not heartbreaking.  More introspective.  I talked to Rob off and on over the next few years – even went to dinner with him and drove caravan with him once when he went to Alabama for training.  I missed his wedding and his funeral, and for that I am truly regretful.  I don’t need to get into the dark places where I lived when he was at his end.
Jose, who at Laughlin was a staff sergeant who went on to Office Training School and became Lieutenant Acosta, came driving onto my base in Alabama, where we randomly crossed paths, and there we became friends while being stationed together again for a while.  I’ve spent nights at the Wallings’ home while traveling across country, and we briefly lived with my friend Gwen in Oklahoma before moving to Pennsylvania.  I chat with or interact with Mike and Tess and even Abe once in a while on Facebook… So some connections from Del Rio remain, no matter how tenuous.
I am thankful to have rediscovered Pete, and have had (online) conversations with him in recent weeks.  I remember going to his home for a holiday gathering at some point and being made to feel very welcome, not a guest at the table, but a part of the family. 
The Alamo in San Antonio
In San Antonio, this spring, we had a great conversation with a local AT&T (not wireless) employee who was at our AirBnB to fix the internet connection.  He was a soft spoken Hispanic gentleman, telling us about sights to see, about float trips down rivers in south Texas and taking the time to relax and enjoy life.  He WAS Texas, just as I remember it.  An ordinary nice person relating his experience and being hospitable.  Going out west in June, we could sit on the porch in front of or inside the dining room of the Starlight Theatre in Terlingua or the White Buffalo in Marathon, and listen to tales being told, and feel at home.
Julios Chips in Del Rio
I am thankful to have the opportunity now to see some things for the first time (again).  To see things that I could not see at 19.  I am thankful to go sleep under the Milky Way and see its bright beauty, but to also see the mesquite and desert willow and agave in bloom.  To see torrential downpours that flooded side roads from the highway I was on, showing me more water in a day than I remember seeing in almost four years before.  To see the wide open spaces and grow past the otherness and embrace the diversity.
Starlight Theatre in Terlingua
But the scant couple of hours I spent in town, that day in June, from the stop at Julios for their world-famous chips to the pit stop at Wal Mart for supplies, and the driving around town between… I am still not sure how I feel about having such a blank spot inside of my psyche.  It was a long time now (but not that long…) since I played the role of Jimmy in my own “Alamo” or was it maybe “Jimmy’s Lonesome Dove.”  The figurative movie set where I lived, breathed, and worked for almost four years was abandoned by the star but not dismantled and it was disorienting to step back into it and see that others continued the story without my presence.  Much like the child-me that forgot about Robinson Crusoe and Frank and Joe Hardy so I could reread with excitement the next time, and again. I am ready to pick up the book and read it again. To watch the movie and know that the book that I read before can be different and it’s okay.
The me of today wants to go exploring there, to SEE what the blind kid that once lived there could not.  To cross back into Acuna and see if there is still good food and nice shopkeepers and beggars trying to get me to take their Chiclets Gum packets (I’ve read that Chiclets is no more… what do they do now??).  I remember so much but so little at the same time.

Thanks for letting me wander down memory lane.  This is not a post with an ending… Just … sharing my momentary disorientation.


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