[This is the first of several Christmas-related stories I plan to post through the end of the year. This story is from my book, Christmas Memories from Seven to Seventy, available through amazon.com.]
"I'm leaving tomorrow to see my roommate Perry for a few days before classes start back,” I told Mother as I finished off my second piece of pecan pie. I had waited until Daddy left before I
broke the news.
“We were hoping you would stay longer. It’s just the day after Christmas.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“How will you go?”
“Hitchhike partly, then the bus,” I said.
“Doesn’t he live way down in Laredo?” she asked.
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“That’s an awful long way to go.”
“I’ll be all right.”
I wasn’t asking permission. I was on my own as a freshman at Hardin-Simmons, paying my own way. Daddy didn’t have any money to help me. But I thought it would go easier if I told Mother first. He’d tell me I didn’t have a lick of sense when he found out what I was going to do.
“That’s an awful long way,” she said again.
“I’ve been hitchhiking since I was in the first grade.”
“You started with your Daddy,” she said. “Then you and Lee Roy went together.”
“I’ve been catching rides by myself since I was eleven or twelve.”
“That’s just to Sweetwater and back home,” she said.
“I’ve hitched a ride home from Abilene all fall,” I said.
“That’s just forty miles,” she said.
“Arthur Lee and I hitchhiked all the way from Thalia back here to Sweetwater,” I said, dragging a teenage cousin into my defense. “That was nearly a hundred and fifty miles.”
“I wondered why your Aunt Lillie let you all do that,” she said. “If you’d waited a day or two, you both could’ve ridden down here with Leta.”
“I’ll be all right.”
“Laredo’s over four hundred miles,” she said.
“I’ll be all right.”
“Well, you better get an early start,” she sighed, ending the conversation as she turned to walk out of the kitchen.
I spent most of the afternoon with a friend who lived a few blocks away, staying at his house until I thought our supper would be nearly over. That way, I wouldn’t have to hear as much from Daddy about what a dumb thing I was planning.
When I got back, my younger sister Marie was working at the drug store, and my younger brother Leonard was finishing eating.
But Daddy hit me with it as soon as I slid into my chair at the table: “That’s a thunder of a note – hitchhiking all the way to the Mexican border,” he yelled. “Haven’t they taught you anything in
college?”
“I’ve learned the value of friendship.”
“What about respect for your parents?” he said.
I didn’t say anything as I dug into chicken and dressing warmed over from Christmas dinner. I glanced at Daddy while keeping an eye on the remnants of chocolate cake and banana pudding.
“You’ll see your friend when you both get back to Hardin-Simmons,” he said. “Couldn’t that hold you?”
“Daddy, you’ve hitchhiked long distances yourself. I don’t see–”
“I hitchhiked because I couldn’t afford a car. But you don’t have to strike out to Laredo when you’ll see your friend next week anyway.”
“But Daddy –"
“Don’t ‘but’ me,” he said. He got up to leave the table, pulling his sack of Bull Durham out of his shirt pocket, and headed for the front steps to roll his first after-supper smoke.
As Daddy left for work the next morning right after breakfast, he said, “Be careful,” and hurried out the door.
With a suitcase and a few dollars, I left the warm apartment and the remains of cakes and pies as well as the box of chocolate-covered cherries. For as long as I could remember, during the holidays, the
cherries always bedecked whatever house or apartment we called home.
I went south from Sweetwater through San Angelo down toward the border town of Del Rio before heading east toward San Antonio. I made good connections after an early start, but standing alone on a road somewhere between Eldorado and Sonora that afternoon, I started thinking about those chocolate-covered cherries.
I didn’t have to wait long to catch a ride to Del Rio, but it was dark in the darkest time of the year before I got to San Antonio, and I was still about 150 miles from Laredo.
The man who took me the last leg of the trip into San Antonio asked, “Where you headed to in San Antone?”
“I need to go to the bus station,” I said. “I’m going on to Laredo, so I better take a bus the rest of the way.”
“Greyhound or Trailway?”
I hadn’t thought about there being more than one station. Sweetwater had just one. But, trying to sound like I had it all planned out, I said, “Greyhound.”
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll carry you by there.”
I found a seat about a third of the way back on the bus. All around me, I heard conversations in Spanish, and I could pick out only a word here and there. In the dim overhead lights, I could see
I was one of few Anglos. From a row or two behind me, I heard two Mexican girls singing, “Noche de paz, noche de amor,” the Spanish version of “Silent Night.” A little of the Christmas spirit
came back, and I hummed along with them.
It was near midnight when the bus pulled into Laredo. Strings of red and green Christmas lights sparkled behind the lunch counter in the bus station. I dug into my jeans pocket and pulled out a
crumpled dollar bill, ready to buy my second hamburger of the day. But as I sat down on one of the stools, I saw there was nobody behind the counter. A Mexican janitor, sweeping nearby, said, “No
open this time of night.”
I’m sure I looked disappointed, so he pointed to some vending machines around the corner from the lunch counter. Tom’s cheese-flavored crackers weren’t as filling as a burger would have been. But I had to settle for that snack with a soda pop to wash it down.
I sat down on a nearby bench and decided it was better to sleep there than travel to Perry’s that late at night. Sleep didn’t come easily, thanks to the hard wooden bench, buses unloading passengers throughout the night, the Christmas lights flashing in my face and somebody feeding nickels into the juke box. Some guy kept playing Gene Autry’s “Here Comes Santa Claus” and “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”
When morning finally came, I stretched to get the soreness out from lying on the bench. A Mexican woman was behind the lunch counter which was closed the night before, so I bought a sweet roll
and a glass of milk before getting on a bus for Chihuahua Street.
Sleepy and disheveled, I stumbled off the bus a block or so from Perry’s house, found the house number, and rang the doorbell. Perry’s mother opened the door and looked at me, eyeing my suitcase and wondering who I might be. I hadn’t checked with Perry about coming to see him, so I was the only person who was in on my plans for this trip.
“I’m Lawrence Webb – a friend of Perry’s – from Hardin-Simmons. Is he home?”
“Why, yes. Come in,” she said with a smile as she turned and called, “Perry! You have company!”
Perry came in, followed by our fellow roommate Homer, who was there by invitation. I was surprised to see Homer, but I’m sure my surprise didn’t equal that of everyone else.
Even so, the whole crew – Perry, his parents, his younger brother Allan, and Homer – welcomed me and made me feel at home as they peppered me with questions about my trip down.
“You should have called us when you got to the bus station last night,” Perry’s father said.
“I didn’t want to bother you in the middle of the night.”
Their tree was still up, and its lights added to the welcome as they twinkled “Merry Christmas” to me. During my stay, we crossed the border into Nuevo Laredo – my first trip out of the country. And I ate authentic Mexican food every day. I said, more than once, to anyone who would listen that West
Texas tamales and frijoles didn’t measure up to Laredo food.
A few days later, when Perry’s folks took me back to the bus station, the red and green lights at the lunch counter seemed to twinkle more brightly and happily than when they flashed in my face the night I tried to sleep on the hard bench. Recalling my days with Perry’s family, I also felt an inner happiness twinkle “Merry Christmas,” like those lights.
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