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Friday, March 12, 2010

My Memphis State Roomie

Before we left on our Retirement Tour 2010 my roommate at Memphis State University found me on FaceBook.  I'm usually the one who searches and finds people, so that tells you that this roomie is special.  We promised to stop on our way through Arkansas.

Now Joe and I had been through Arkansas several times.  As we entered Arkansas this time we each realized we had specific memories of the terrain, sites, cities in AZ, NM, OK, TX, MS, LA....even MO, but neither had a memory of anything in Arkansas.  Nothing.  Zilch.  Best we could come up with is that all of those surrounding states are unique to an East Coast eye.  Arkansas is very much like the mid-Atlantic--Virginia and Tennessee where we grew up.  Must have been that; but this time we found the heart of Arkansas.  A beautiful state with lovely people.

Kay Rose Shurgar was the best roommate I had in college.  We met in a 3-girl room the first semester and moved to a 2-girl room the second.  I had mono the first week of school and Kay, who not surprisingly became a nurse, helped me through that first semester and literally nursed me the through a myriad of maladies that second semester.  She stayed up one night thinking she would have to give me an emergency tracheotomy during one bout of the flu or pneumonia that second semester.  Did I say she "became" a nurse...she didn't know a thing about traches then but she was going to help no matter what!! : )  She still has that same spirit.

After almost half a century, it was like we had not skipped a beat in our mutual admiration since our first meeting.  We regaled Joe and her husband Jerry with some of our crazy, stupid funny, funny antics and winked a couple of times when we knew we could tell more, but some secrets need to be kept.

It also developed that Joe and Jerry, who is retired now, had similar interests and the most incredible thing was talking to someone who had different life experiences but the same understandings of the world around us.  Jerry is a fly fisherman and promised he'd help me the next time we get together.  [To Jerry:  even though we know that I have a terrible memory--Kay was always my memory bank--but this is one promise I will not forget!  PS  Thanks for the flies.]

Their cabin is absolutely perfect and in a beautiful setting with a year-round creek running into the Cadron River at the bottom of their hill.  We met their next door neighbor who was their architect and builder so he could hear first hand the many compliments we had on the innovative features he employed--like corrugated tin and a wonderful metal roof that I kept praying we would be able to enjoy in a storm; first time I've prayed for rain on a vacation.

Occasionally you meet someone who gently tweaks your life and you carry a bit of them with you.  I'm not talking about big changes that come from big events or people.  Just the quiet admiration of a person, or in this case a couple, that after meeting you feel like you have changed a bit for the better.

That's what this visit was like.  The best part of a wonderful vacation.

[To Kay:  Did I summarize the visit?  Didn't even mention that you guys almost froze to death sitting with us outside!! ha]

An Overview for ourselves to help us remember and the last few days of our "Retirement Tour"

So, the standout locations with great memories attached are:
  • The hawk? vulture? wing-tip impressions in the snow at Port Tobacco
  • The huge bonfire at the top of the sledding hill
  • Shield's Tavern in 'olde' Williamsburg with our own minstrel
  • Almost deserted Okracoke Island on the Outer Banks, NC in the rain huddled up watching DVD movies
  • Charleston and Fort Sumter and some of the best food on the trip
  • Exciting Savannah and visiting with my cousin Judy Compton and Fred Maher
  • Okefenokee Swamp boat trip
  • The infamous Confederate Andersonville Prison in GA where scores of Yankee soldiers died
  • The Katrina devastation still evident in Pass Christian, MS and along the Gulf to New Orleans
  • Staying in the French Quarter and being at a Mardi Gras parade in New Orleans, including the characters we met
  • The bayou country small-town Mardi Gras parades
  • The adamant declaration of a B&B owner that there was no segregation in LA but also admitting that there were a lot of private schools
  • TABASCO's Avery Island
  • Fast and furious at times airboat ride on Bayou LaFourche seeing baby alligators, beautiful birds, dark bayous overhung with Spanish moss and thousands of nutria skittering across the water..also understanding the saying: "Dumb as a coot" (they tried to outrun the airboat!)
  • Visiting with Liz Grubaugh in Rowlett, TX
  • Oak Alley Plantation B&B and seeing the tops of tugs across the levee
  • Dealy Plaza in Dallas (and the ensuing debates)
  • Big Bend as a destination, but marveling at the scenery in the entirety of the gargantuan vistas along deserted roads in West Texas
  • Following the Rio Grande along the TexMex border
  • El Paso and looking over to the enormous city of Juarez at night
  • Carlsbad Caverns
  • Fairyland feeling in White Sands, NM.  Pictures do not do it justice.
  • Reliving the Manhattan Project and the history of flight at a museum in Alamagordo
  • NOT being able to get to the Trinity Test Site...so it's still a bit hot, radioactively, that is
  • Globe, AZ a very hard-bitten little town in the coal mining area of AZ...who knew?
  • Losing/finding my computer on the casino floor at the Stratosphere in Las Vegas where the room was $29 and the tax was $28.85
  • Brunch at the revolving Stratosphere restaurant
  • Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon NP in Utah--pictures do them justice
  • The Luxor in Vegas and a much better brunch (King Crab, etc. etc.) for a much lower price with my cousin Rachel and Frank Williams off the strip
  • Seeing the half-constructed giant bridge across the gorge where the Hoover Dam between Nevada and Arizona
  • The mad dash from Las Vegas to Albuquerque to visit cousin Norma Goodwin and her daughter Janie and Chris' Route 66 Mustang shop..a wonderful step back in time
  • Visiting my college roomie whom I hadn't seen since her wedding 46 years ago
  • Oak Ridge and a good visit with my brother Bob and Milinda Compton in Oak Ridge, TN
Our trip was essentially a route from DC through MD on 301 to Williamsburg; the swampy area south of Albemarle, NC; Ocrakoke Island; through NC to Charleston, SC and Savannah, GA; across the southern route to Andersonville, GA, the Gulf coast, New Orleans; all around the bayous of Louisiana; up to Dallas; across and down Texas to Big Bend; the Rio Grande; El Paso Carlsbad Caverns and White Sands, NM; diagonally across AZ and NM to Las Vegas across Hoover Dam;  Las Vegas where we picked Tim up who was taking a break before starting with a new Utah law firm; Zion and Bryce parks, Utah; Vegas/Hoover Dam again--this time during daylight; Albuquerque, Oklahoma City, Ozarks (the highlight of our trip), Oak Ridge and HOME!