A Walk Across Texas

Chapter Twenty-Nine

ChapterTwenty-nine We thought way back To when this walking began. Many were the times When we thought it would never end. Walk across Texas With its wonderful sights. Walk across Texas With its beautiful nights. Norm had gotten up early and had changed all of the clocks he could find to the new Daylight Savings Time. Stephanie, who had already left for work, later told us she had arrived an hour early. Barbara and Jane had called and said they would join us this morning and we would go to church. While we waited, we talked about our trip. We looked at a map of Texas and with our fingers traced the route starting at the Oklahoma border and followed it to Highway 180 and then east to Weatherford. We had done this repeatedly during the walk, tracing our progress. I wondered what Samantha, my eight-year-old granddaughter, would think about the walk and how many questions she would ask me about different things. Eddie has a way of not looking exactly at you sometimes when he talks and makes a statement. His voice has a growling sound to it. He looked away from the map and said, “Boys, that is quite a distance. And, we’re almost home.” We heard the dogs barking and saw that Jane and Barbara had arrived. We walked outside and greeted them warmly. I said, “It’s nice to be around some women who have bathed and used some nice smelling perfume.” They both laughed. “What kind of women have you been around? Those that smell like wild hogs?” asked Barbara. Norm and I climbed into the car with them and we drove to All Saints Episcopal Church. Father Scott Wilson is the priest and after the services he stood in the front door greeting people. When he got to Jane, he asked her where she was from. When she said Granbury, he asked if she were visiting somebody. “Yes, him,” she said, pointing at me. “And, what are you doing here? Some kind of work?” he asked. “No, I along with my friend Norm Snyder here, and one other friend, are making a 450-mile walk across Texas. We only lack twenty-eight miles from here,” I said. “Are you serious?” he asked. Both Norm and I assured him we were. He shook his head in disbelief and then wished us well. We left church and ate lunch at a restaurant on the town square that stretches around Weatherford’s beautiful old courthouse. We drove around town before returning to Stephanie’s. As we said our good-byes, I told Jane, “Sweetheart, I’m glad this is almost over.” “So am I,” she said. Afterwards we decided that we would walk half of the remaining twenty-eight miles this afternoon. But, first we drove our route that would take us over Highway 51. After a few miles, Eddie said, “There is Comanche Peak.” We all looked south and saw the famous Hood County landmark that looked like a giant melted chocolate bar. We passed some mares with new colts standing in a pasture. The mothers licked the colts’ forelegs. “You know how many rivers and creeks we have passed on this trip?” asked Eddie. We didn’t so he began listing them. “We crossed the Canadian once, the Red River twice, the Pease River twice and the Double Mountain Fork, Salt Fork, Clear Fork, and the Brazos, I think three times,” he said. Then he began reciting a long list of creeks including Stroud and Ioni that we had also walked across. We had reached the bridge just north of Granbury. We decided that since a group of people planned to meet us for the final three-mile walk into the city, the safest route would be from Thorp Spring into Granbury. But, we all had concerns about walking over the bridge. We talked about that and Eddie finally said, “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” His play on words sounded funny. So I exploded into laughter. Eddie joined me. Norm looked at us with concern. “I think you guys are losing it,” he said. Eddie stopped laughing long enough to ask, “Do you know why we haven’t seen any dead armadillos?” “Why?” asked Norm. “Because there’s no chickens to show them how to get to the other side of the road,” he said. I thought maybe Norm might be right. We were getting a...