Jim Morrison, My Friend K, The Trip, and Someone I Know

Fallon does Morrison on YouTube 

That video reminded me of the time my son John​ Ryan and I helped my friend K Brown move to Minneapolis from Guthrie, Oklahoma.

I hope you're sitting down to read this and have a minute or two, because I tend to wander while telling a story.

At the time this story starts I had been divorced for nine years and had not been in a relationship for more than a year. Scott was the first man in that nine years that I had actually wanted to live with. We broke up because I wanted a baby. At thirty-eight, I thought my time was running out. He didn't want a baby.

The break-up was painful, but unlike my romantic eleven-year-old son, I knew no one dies of a broken heart. I had no contact with Scott for more than a year. The amazing part was that I made no attempt to contact him. I used that year for me -- got physically and mentally healthy.

K was my best friend. She was my mother's age and probably the wisest person I ever knew. And the most elegant smoker in the world. Made me wish I smoked, which I just never could do. One of the few vices I didn't pick up. Thank goodness.

Minneapolis was her home town. Hers was a large family but none of them lived in Oklahoma. Her son lived in California and her grandchildren in Kansas. She had a vast array of friends near her, but as a widow, I think she just needed family. She needed to go home.

Plans were made, a U-Haul truck rented, and plane tickets back to Oklahoma for my son and me purchased. We'd be in Minneapolis for Thanksgiving.

Then a couple of nights before we left Scott called. He wanted to take me out to dinner. Hmmmm. Okay. But not until I got back from Minnesota. K's advice? "Don't worry about it. Let's just have a good trip."

K's friends helped us load the big truck with all K's worldly goods. I don't know how big, but really big. Bigger than anything I'd ever driven. It was big enough that I was grateful it was an automatic with power steering and breaks. Big enough that John Ryan had to CLIMB on top of the hood to wash the windows. Of course he wasn't as tall then as he is now. That was thirty years ago.

Anyway, I was feeling pretty full of myself, sitting up high above much of the rest of the traffic north bound on I-35. We pulled through a weigh-in station as we came into Kansas. Just like those other truckers. And discovered we didn't have to, because our truck wasn't that big.

We stopped in Wichita for lunch with K's grandchildren and former daughter-in-law. K's son and his family are Native American. That former daughter-in-law makes dee-luscious Indian tacos. From there I-35 angles northeast to Kansas City, Missouri, where I planned to meet a friend.

I had no idea Kansas City is so hilly. The rest of Kansas is just across the river and is flat as a pancake, as far as I could see -- literally. The skies were threatening, the temperature was dropping, and snow plows passed us as we turned into the parking lot at my friend's office building. Making sure I parked where I wouldn't have to back out.

I hadn't seen a snow plow since Gallup, New Mexico, on a trip some five years earlier with my son and my grandmother. (But that's a whole 'nother story.) I didn't know it was going to snow in Kansas City. And me driving an unfamiliar truck. A big truck. We didn't stop long.

I hoped to get ahead of the snow. Well, I didn't and it snowed. And snowed. By the time we got into Iowa, we had driven out of the snow. It wasn't sunny, but it wasn't snowing.  The plowed fields in Iowa were black with snow wind-scattered across them. They were so black I thought there must have been a terrible fire.

K was quick to explain to this red earth Oklahoman that that was the natural color of the soil. Black!

It rained most of the way into Des Moines. Everything was muddy and drizzly. It was near midnight. I was the only driver on this trip and I was exhausted. (K did not know how to drive. I had endeavored but failed to teach her in my standard transmission yellow Chevette. My son summed it up nicely, "Mom, she makes the car fart!" If you've ever tried driving with a clutch, you'll understand.)

And most of the motels along I-35 were full.

K and John Ryan let me take a shower first and go to bed. They were watching TV. You know how those motel rooms are -- two double beds and a couch.

(And this is what the Jimmy Fallon bit reminded me of.)

Through my half-awake eyes, I saw what looked like The Doors on TV. Now you know and I know that Jim Morrison died before my son was born, so it couldn't have been him. And music videos were not that common on TV in 1986.

I thought it was pretty odd that someone was impersonating Jim Morrison and The Doors. Elvis impersonators were weird enough, as far as I was concerned. I drifted off into much needed sleep.

Weeks later I learned that it had been old film of The Doors. And years later I saw the Fallon impersonation of Jim Morrison. Very funny, but not weird.

So we got K moved and flew home to Oklahoma. Minneapolis, by-the-bye, was a beautiful, clean city. We first saw it glinting in the setting sun. All glass and steel rising from the winter brown prairie.

After we got home, Scott came to pick me up for dinner. He asked me to marry him. And I said yes.

I called my brother, who did then and does now, live on the Texas Gulf Coast. "Guess what," I said.
"I'm getting married."

"You are? Is it anyone you know?" he asked.

Yep. We married New Years Eve. And he's someone I'm still enjoying getting to know.

The Race -- On Writing

Today is R in the 2016 A to Z Blogging Challenge. The 20th letter in the alphabet. Eight more letters. Nine more days. It's getting hard to sit down at the keyboard. To think of a topic or title that's appropriate. Maybe if I blogged about cooking. Or astronomy. Or rivers.

But I write about writing -- the mechanics of the craft, research (ah, that would have been good for today), book reviews with a nod to the author's style, bits of flash fiction and flash nonfiction, or excerpts from my book Murder on Ceres.

I read about bloggers planning ahead, deciding on a theme for the Challenge. Maybe even getting a few pieces written and ready to go. If you know me at all, you know I'm not that organized or that mindful.

That is not to say that I wait 'for the muse to strike' before I write. I had in mind a piece of flash fiction for today, but the story was like Topsy, Peter Rabbit's sister, it just grew and grew. Until it wasn't finished for today.

Inspiration for stories comes from everywhere. The Race comes from my exercise teacher's story about her grandmother's arranged marriage jammed together with an NPR story on this year's Paris-Roubaix.

Begun in 1896, Paris-Roubaix, sometimes called 'The Hell of the North,' is a one-day, 161 miles plus professional bicycle race. What makes The Race unique is the cobbles. Normal, fairly smooth road racing gives way to extended patches of cobbles -- old, loaf-sized paving stones that are anything but smooth.

The concept of smooth sailing giving way to bone-jarring, treacherous cobble stretches, is the storied path of true love and, in my story, the path of a marriage.

The moral of this blog post might be "be careful what you say around a writer, it may end up in print." Or "don't plan a project that's too big for the time or space allotted."

Love, Marriage, and Taxes -- Creative Nonfiction

           

He used to do our taxes. Every year. You know how some people get really aggressive when they’re behind the wheel in city traffic? That’s the way he did taxes.

Back in those days a booklet would come in the mail along with the basic filing forms. The booklet, printed on roughish, beigish-grayish paper gave you current tax rules, listed the forms you needed and gave you the postal address of the nearest Internal Revenue Service Office processing tax returns. Ours had to be mailed to Austin, Texas. We had IRS offices in Oklahoma, but they never got the pleasure of processing annual tax returns. I’ve never been to Austin, but my tax returns have.

Some of the forms needed would be included in the booklet. Some not. You had to collect up all the forms necessary for your particular situation not included in the booklet. The post office and the public library kept them on hand “Free to the Public.”

He approached tax season as though preparing for battle. Not the assaulting side, you understand, but the side being assaulted. He would make a list of forms and send me to retrieve them. Any little hiccup in our daily life during that time was not only a personal affront but a shot across the bow.

Once the dryer quit working. We both worked full-time and had a toddler. Considering our income, he should have considered us lucky that he could fix it. Right then in the middle of tax season.

And there was the time I locked the keys in the car at the post office. The post office was thirty minutes away from home. He was a model of restraint and kindness, or at least silence, when he arrived with the spare key and took away the forms.

Each year there was a nontax-related disaster for him to overcome. And each year I would take the children away from the house while he prepared our tax returns. It was best that they not learn any new words that would get them in trouble at school.

Somewhere along the line I volunteered to take over tax duty. Somewhere along the line, tax preparation companies started making software available at a reasonable cost. Each year I am so grateful to them.

And each year I put it off to the last minute. Today is the deadline. I finished them yesterday. I’m always afraid it’s going to be too hard. I won’t be able to find all the information I’ll need. Somebody’s going to get sick and I’ll be too busy with them in the hospital. If I’m lucky, it’ll be me.

My computer will conk out. The internet will go down. There’ll be so many of us at the last minute that the IRS’s website will crash.

We’ll have to pay.

We won’t have enough money to pay and I’ll be arrested. I’m sensitive to tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, and eggplant. What kind of food do they serve in jail. It will be Federal Prison who knows where. There are Federal Prisons all over the country. I could end up in Kansas. I won’t know anyone there. Will they let me watch Downton Abbey?

After the appropriate number of sleepless nights, I did our taxes yesterday. He stayed away while I did them. In fact, he kept a low profile all last weekend, knowing that the end was near.

It wasn’t as difficult as I expected. The software has simple, easy to follow instructions and walked me through the process, step by step. It never has been as difficult as I imagined, but this could have been the year. And, HOORAY! We don’t have to pay. I won’t be going to prison anywhere. At least not this year.

He came home all smiles. He didn’t comment on the last-minute-ness of my tax work. He didn’t make any suggestions about how I could do it differently next year. He just brought me a present. A bottle of Riunite Lambrusco.

He remembered my favorite wine.

“I had trouble finding it.” he said. “I looked all over the store. It was on the bottom shelf. Guess that’s where they keep the cheap stuff.”

This I promise myself. I won’t wait until the last minute next year. I’ll put important documents and receipts away promptly – somewhere it makes sense so I will be able to find them. I’ll consider investing in one of those bookkeeping software programs. Next year I'll start as soon as I get my husband’s W2. Next year.

This year, I had a nice glass of  red wine with grilled chicken. It’s nice being married to someone who loves me and buys me cheap wine because I like it and won’t mention that you’re supposed to drink white wine with chicken.