It's 9AM

Where Should We Go Today?

Mar 22, 2024

The last time I was in Baton Rouge, I was with a girl who wanted to marry me.

I was just back in the States and her Mom told me if I could get a beat up Buick running, I could have it.

It was frozen under years of dust and pollen, packed with stale air and stillness.

It belonged to her ex-husband who absconded with his secretary to beaches and quickie divorces, leaving her with five kids and the car.

I went to work on it with more can do attitude than mechanical aptitude and after a new battery, an oil change, thermostat and radiator hose, I got it running.

Four new used tires later, I had a ride out of Louisiana and a way back to Arkansas.

Which was good because the car lasted longer than the relationship.

California was calling and I wanted to share some of what I’d seen while away with the powers that be making movies out West.

That good little Catholic Cajun wanted a white picket fence and two story house somewhere between Lake Charles and New Orleans, with a lot of babies.

Good for a lot of people, but not so much for me at the time.

I wonder about her every so often. The way one wonders about what might have been when what you’ve got ain’t quite as shiny as it once was.

Or on days like today, when BR is on the GPS as the place to get to for a three day tournament.

We’re driving down through Pine Bluff, all old highway the entire way, which is faster than Interstates that make the same trip, but add distance east and west.

And down.

It should be a good tourney for learning.

The drive would be pleasant except it’s calling for rain the whole way down.

Then sunny skies until the drive back when rain returns.

The sound of wipers swishing will probably not have me wishing for memories, but they’ll come none the less.

My Dad worked oil rigs in Louisiana and one of my step-mom’s and her daughter were from Natchitoches, LA, which is not easy for anyone to say unless they’ve been.

I’ve done that drive at least a hundred times, but not once since the early 90’s.

And I know it will have changed and I wonder if I’ll notice, or just catch glimpses of what once was out of the corner of my eye.

Hanging out like ghosts whipping by at sixty five or seventy miles per hour.

Lost in the wind.

Lost in the past.

And found again, if only for a second.

I’m sure I’ll get questions about secret smiles today.

Which is okay.

It won’t be a lie when I say, “Just glad to be here.”

go grab TEMPORARY MERC and devour it this weekend.

AND keep going in ROGUE – TEMP MERC, book II.

Then: