Surreal? You want surreal? How about sitting in the Timpson Whataburger surrounded by large men wearing hats and talking in low voices with deep East Texas accents while you daintily nibble your Whataburger® with jalapeño slices and fries and wirelessly access the Internet. Owing to various conspiracies this is only my second Whataburger this trip, but I have to say they’re even better with a sliced jalapeño in ’em.
Downtown Timpson, my father’s home town, where I started elementary school in 1947. Hasn’t aged all that well, but neither have I:
This was after going by the Timpson cemetery and photographing my parents’ graves, all to kill some more time until Maebelle got out of Church in Garrison so I could see her for a few minutes before blasting back across east Texas on I-20 to get to DFW before my plane back to civilization left.
Downtown Garrison, my mother’s home town, where she lived her last thirty years:
And what was I doing back in Texas, you ask? Well, last year before the reunion fiasco I told Mel, my 95-year-old friend in Midland, that if he’d take care of himself and stay alive, I’d come see him again. The old fart, half-crippled but not having lost a single brain cell, remembered my promise and held me to it.
“KEEP TEXAS PURDY,” the sign said, and I figure I’ll do that by not going back. But I have to say, that it was fun to listen to the car radio as I drove across Texas.
Like that advertisement for some kind of remedy in a capsule “filled with real liquid.”
Or the athlete’s foot remedy slogan: “Kiss your itching and burning feet goodbye.”
Meanwhile, back home, here’s the Gay Freedom Flag that flies at Castro and Market:
