“Maybe it’s time to leave Fort Stockton,” Tilda said while she poured him a cup of coffee from the chrome Westinghouse electric percolator. Her words hung in the air. He was deep into page three of the Stockton Telegram-Dispatch, not really listening.
When they finally did sink in, he dropped the paper on top of the Formica kitchen table. “What did you say?” He was incredulous.
“Take the early retirement you’ve been offered. The kids are in California, Colorado, and North Carolina. Nothing to really keep us here.” She’d just been waiting for the right time. She reached into the pocket of her apron and pulled out the Spartan brochure she’d received in the mail weeks earlier. Opening it to the Spartan Manor Model 25, Tilda slid it over next to his coffee cup.
Cal Floyd worked at The Facility outside of town, managing the division that raised the animals and did the testing on them for ladies’ cosmetics. It had taken a toll on him. Tilda’s suggestion struck a nerve he didn’t even know was exposed.
“I’m serious,” she said after he’d caught up to her train of thought. “Sell the house. Walk away from the snow globe of Fort Stockton and leave it all behind. See the world while we can.” After decades of marriage, Tilda knew when it was time to talk and when it was time to leave Cal to his thoughts. She went out into the garden out back and sprayed her roses while she sipped her coffee.
A week later they were signing papers on the same kitchen table, listing the house with Evie Holiday, Fort Stockton’s most successful realtor. Three weeks later, Cal and Tilda had a contract at full asking price, a deposit down on the Spartan at a dealership in Odessa, and were spending the morning down at Buckboard Buick picking out just the right new car to serve as the tow vehicle for their new life.
They settled on a new ’47 Buick Super Estate wagon. At $2,805 it wasn’t the most expensive Buick, but it was the best Buick car Buckboard had in inventory. Chariot Red to match the wheels of the Spartan. They were going to hit the road in style, to be sure.
Six weeks from when the idea had first been presented to him, Cal was behind the wheel of a new Buick woody pulling away from the house they’d raised a family in and heading to places unknown, only a shiny aluminum single axle mansion in the rear view mirror. Cal was still amazed at what they’d been able to sell, give away, or throw out in order to condense their world into the tiny cabinets and closet of the Spartan and a few suitcases in the back of the Super Estate. He’d never felt freer or less encumbered.
They made it to the Palo Duro Canyon for their first night, exhausted from the emotion of leaving town and setting up camp, they fell into bed, wrapped up in the warm wool of the Spider Rock Pendleton blanket and slept like proverbial logs.
They awoke next morning, bright sun streaming through the porthole window of the door near the foot of the bed. Only in full light did the real beauty of the mahogany become apparent to Cal. Tilda rolled over and they embraced as the Pendleton slipped down and he was overtaken by a different natural raw beauty. Rare had been the mornings that began with such unbridled, passionate lust.
Afterwards, Cal stepped outside while Tilda made coffee. She found him slumped over the checkered picnic table clutching his chest.
10 responses to “ANYTHING BUT SPARTAN”
Despite Cal’s inauspicious opening salvo, the Palo Duro morning breeze brings scents of challenge and opportunity for Tilda. She sings,
Heads Carolina, tails California
Up in the mountains, down by the ocean
Where it don’t matter, long as we’re a goin’
BTW, the sets of fender skirts are ‘to-die-for’.
On BOTH vehicles! Battin’ a thousand on the skirts.
The Moral of the story is Make Sure She can Drive the Buick
Forget about Wheaties.
A Rice Krispie Treat is the true breakfast of champions.
No doubt. But apparently pancakes are safer.
Life is uncertain, eat dessert first is my motto . . .
A number of years ago, something similar happened to my next-door neighbor. Carl and Alma were hard workers – he worked in the train shops and she was an RN. Carl retired first and they had planned to start travelling as soon as Alma retired. I remember how happy she was the last week she worked – day shift the whole week. She had a heart attack on the first night of her retirement – just went to sleep that night and never woke up. A lesson to all of us – enjoy yourself as much as you can as you go along. Tomorrow isn’t promised to any of us.
That ominous black cloud hanging over my catoon self, kept getting darker and darker – even as the story kept getting sunnier and sunnier!
As my old college country-boy roomie at SFA, from Cleveland, Texas always said: “Well, shoot!”
Whoopsie Daisy. Hate It When That Happens,
But What a Way to Go!
OMG!
The result of unbridled passion?
A great Woodie?
Hopefully there’s a continuation where Cal survives and continues to enjoy Tilda, the Sparton, and the Buick, and the joy of a Woodie.
At my age and health,I should probably ponder my own future, but having planned most stuff, I’d rather live each day as it comes and enjoy every minute, preferably with family, old cars, and friends, old and new.
Good morning, All.