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Booking down the Road Rolling north on I-35 in my Karmann Ghia convertible, it's a beautiful autumn day. Leaves are falling, the Cowboys are losing, and the stretch of freeway between San Antonio and Austin, normally the most congested portion of the route between Mexico and Kansas, is actually moving along quite nicely. I was coming home from the San Antonio Book and Authors Luncheon, where North Carolina novelist Clyde Edgerton delivered a spellbinding reading from his latest, Where Danger Sleeps. Clyde's honeyed drawl was still ringing in my ears when I pulled into Austin. Traffic on I-35 slowed to a crawl after Onion Creek, and being reminded of the fact that this is the same route traveled by millions of longhorns during the heyday of the Chisholm Trail, I was tempted to moo instead of honking my horn. Coincidentally, the bottleneck was thickened by herds of book lovers hoofing it to the Capitol extension to see and hear and schmooze with more than 100 Texas authors at the Texas Book Festival. My four-year-old son Dashiell and I joined the throngs to attend readings by several featured authors. Although we enjoyed Dallas novelist Doug Swanson's (Big Town) reading, Dashiell felt that his delivery was a bit rushed: "I think he was in a hurry," he said. "I think he had to go somewhere after he read. Maybe it was an emergency." Children's author Angela Shelf Meaderis didn't disappoint, she held a tent-full of adults and children in the palm of her hand. We left her reading with lighter spirits and a much heavier book bag. In the hallway we ran into my friend, Mitch Lobrovitch, who writes for Barney, and later, we shook paws with Clifford the Big Red Dog. We also chatted with Gary Lavergne, whose excellent biography of rabid rifleman Charles Whitman, Sniper in the Tower, was published this year by University of North Texas Press. Back on I-35 again, as we merged with the cattle trucks and Ford Explorers, the trail drives came back to me. The romantic era of the cowboys and Indians and buffalo is still with us, at least in spirit and legend. Modern Texas, and America as well, may be a nation on wheels, but we're still intoxicated by the smell of trail dust and saddle leather. It's a theme that's woven through many of the books I've picked up on my book-trailing weekend: Through the Shadows with O. Henry, by bank robber Al Jennings, The Longhorns, by J. Frank Dobie, North to Yesterday, by Robert Flynn, and Blessed McGill, by Bud Shrake. I find the same theme in rock 'n roll songs like "Route 66," the saga of Lewis and Clark, Charlie Siringo's fabulous trail-driving memoir, A Texas Cowboy, Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove, and the works of Mark Twain, Jack Kerouac, Willie Nelson, Wallace Stegner, Cabeza de Vaca, and countless others. Travel means adventure and discovery which equals self-discovery. That's the theme. I don't need a new age guru to tell me that the journey is the destination. I used to be in a rock 'n roll band, and I've seen the USA in a Chevrolet (van), and I know that one of the greatest discoveries you can make on the road is the face staring back at you in the rear view mirror. I like to think of Lewis and Clark as a struggling rock 'n roll band on a high mileage, low budget tour. Dashiell's favorite score of the weekend was a new Curious George book. In this one, as in all the others, the Man in the Yellow Hat admonishes George to be a good little monkey and not get into trouble while he's gone. But as soon as the Man leaves, George goes on one of his wild adventures and gets into lots of trouble. I think there's a little bit of Curious George in every Texan. (11/13/97) |
Interested in the books mentioned here? Click on the links below to purchase them from Amazon.com.
Big Town
Sniper in the Tower
Longhorns
North to Yesterday
Blessed McGil
A Texas Cowboy
Lonesome Dove
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