If you're lucky, and loved, after you're long gone, you'll have a key chain with your name on it attached to a fence at a picturesque rest stop near San Marcos, Texas. Milo did, Melissa did. Rest in Peace, y'all. The land was beautiful as I drove west to Blanco, Texas, on my way to London. Brushing up on my Matt Kirk tunes, I cruised to the Matt & Ma album and looped it, nothing like a voicey, legendary Texas river gal singing Prine, Cash, and Don Williams tunes, and others, with acoustics, strings, and sway; the music somehow made the drive perfect, Matt's shaker driven, harmonica laced Hypothetically Speaking made me think of trunks and limbs and twigs, "When we start a family tree," Sylvia Kirk, we know where Matt got his chops (He sings Jimmy LaFave better than Jimmy LaFave).
After some eggs in Blanco, 18 holes at Lady Bird GC, and an afternoon dash to Junction, Texas, I was settled in at the Sun Valley Motel. London was 20 miles outside of town, no lodging was available there. The baby back ribs at Lum's BBQ hit better than anything in Lockhart, but I'm spoiled by my hometown joint for brisket, not even sure why I try it anywhere else. Keep your brisket secrets, Hutchins BBQ, can't find better anywhere. An old Indian man on an old walker kept popping up all around the motel, smoking darts (cigarettes); across the parking lot, then two rooms over, puffing away, by the ice machine, keeping an eye on me it seemed, I ignored him and slept like a rock.
After a 10 mile town bike ride the following morning I left Junction impressed with self promises of a lengthy stay in the mid near future. A poem on a town painting in my motel room summed up the place...
Are you seeking recreation,
with surroundings more than fair?
Peace and rest and relaxation,
from a world of weary care?
Come then--come away to Junction,
where the air is pure and sweet,
Mid the rock ribbed hills of Kimble,
where the Llano rivers meet.
Forest, field and rippling river,
rocky hilltops rearing high.
Bring the body rest and comfort
and delight the weary eye.
Spend a little time with us--
you'll recall it with delight.
Junction, Kimble County, Texas;
Tourist Camp.--J. J. McWright.
...and I dug how J. J. made the signoff part of the poem, probably written in the middle of last century, probably a legendary figure around Junction, great use of punctuation and letter casing. The 20 mile drive north to London featured blue skies, blue as the Sea Of Cortez, populated with large and small puff clouds, white like cotton, white white. After Moscow and Berlin, I was worried London was gonna be a blip, or a blur, or a blurp, or a bust, but no, London was intact, 200 folks strong, alive. The famous London Hall, London Park, London Pub, London Grocery & Grill, London Baptist Church, London Methodist Church, London Cemetery, London Water Tube, London VFD, The Queen Of Junk, and no Dollar Stores or Dollar Generals anywhere in sight, I liked London, classy signage.
