YONDERING

 DONE DOING

I have ever enjoyed yondering. I delighted in the expanse of the open road, and traveled when I could and as I might.

I reveled in the solitude, comfortable behind the wheel of my truck, surveying the passing scenery.

The roads to the West —  U.S. Hwy 290 westward from Austin, melding in time into I-10 —  have beckoned, leading me to Arizona, then I-8 to Yuma, where my parents resided  — and then on to their later location in El Cajon.

And north from El Cajon on I-15 to Utah, where my daughter and her family took root.

I had a tradition of having alongside in my truck a large package of Fig Newtons—  and there was no sense of a need to ration them. 

I enjoyed.

I have variously traveled west to California to visit my parents — from Corpus Christi, from Austin, and from Denver —  all these trips are recalled as wonderful memories, of holiday or vacation journeys.

Training courses at the NCR schools, in Dayton and in Denver, called out my vehicle  to drive from Galveston, Corpus Christi or Alice—  for while I would fly on occasion, I preferred to drive.

From Corpus Christi I relocated in 1959 to Austin to attend the University. I went briefly to Tucson, then drove back to Austin. In 1962 I drove to Galveston to work for NCR; then to Alice in 1966. In 1968 I drove my big black 1964 Cadillac to Denver to attend an NCR training school. In 1969 NCR moved me to Victoria. 

I bought a 1973 Chevrolet pickup.

I left my job as the manager of the Victoria office of NCR in 1977 to work in law enforcement.

In 1979 I left my job as an Investigator with the Victoria County Sheriff’s Department  to go back to Corpus Christi. 

In early 1984 I drove a blue 1983 Chevy Suburban to Ft Worth for a Gearhart-Owens school on oil well tools. I lived and worked in Laredo for that company for four months in the summer of 1984, then back to Corpus Christi.  

I moved in 1987 to Austin, then drove to Denver in 1990. I drove to a new job in Birmingham in 1998,  then back in 2003 to Alice; to Utah in 2013, and finally, in 2014 to Victoria —  where I shall remain. 

All these treks have been made in whatever vehicle I owned —  since 1973  usually in a pickup truck.

From Victoria I have made two brief sojourns — one to Galveston, another to Corpus Christi.  The visit to Galveston in December 2014 was a nostalgia trip in the guise of a birthday treat.  Gratifying —  as a sentimental journey. But I found the traverse to and from Galveston rather tedious.

The later Corpus jaunt was a shopping expedition. Largely a waste of time. And again the road was unusually long for such a short trip, and decidedly unpleasant.

As I sit in my recliner, during my ninth decade, I find my mind wandering along the beckoning highway.

But my body obstinately declines the invitation.

I have decided to accept that I am finally through yondering.