I've Always Been Crazy

People will often ask me, “how do you plan your trips?”

There is a simple answer that comes across as convoluted. First, I find where I want to go, often through Atlas Obscura or Roadside Americana. Then, I use a Rand McNally Road Atlas to plot a course in that direction with a goal to incorporate other interesting things like the World’s Largest Anything.   

This just takes a little strategic planning and knowing how to read a map instead of relying on Dear Google because while AI is intelligent, it is not smart. I am not a fan. I don’t want something to think for me, but also don’t want it to try and kill me. Previously, Dear Google has put me on a wee tiny road and almost sent me off the side of a mountain on a non-existent side street. Maybe it was there at one time, but clearly the Google Mapping Mobile had not been through in a while.

It has also sent me through a treacherous area filled with rockslides on a dark night. My daughters took glee in recording my rantings at Dear Google during this dangerous excursion. They loved hearing me unravel so much that they have retained the audio which, I confess, is hilarious even if I sound a few notches above my normal, day-to-day crazy.

As a sidebar, I have written to the powers that be at Dear Google recommending that they put in a feature that will be upfront and honest when you ask it for directions. Surely their software engineers can easily write a program that says something like, “if you choose to take the route I have selected for you, please know that your life and those of your loved ones could be in imminent danger. If you would like me to select a safer route, but one that will take five minutes longer to reach your destination, please say so now.”

I even suggested that they name it Genie, as in “your wish is my command.”  

Back to RV’ing. It also greatly helps if you have the ability to calculate mileage and driving times between destinations so you don’t put yourself out on the road for too long. Driving an RV is not like driving a car, and you have to take that into consideration or you will wear yourself out in short order. Finally, you need a dogged determination to drill deep into campground reviews so you don’t wind up staying in a rundown dump where people go to get lost from society – and those places are out there.

This morning’s destination was a place that I had known about for a while but hadn’t figured out how to get there. My original plan was to add it on to a trip to Big Bend National Park in Texas, but the best RV parks near there are not open in late summer due to the heat. Once I settled on the endpoint of this adventure, Yosemite National Park, I surmised that it was feasible to wedge in a side trip to West Texas if I would hang a sharp left off I-40 at Amarillo.

The Waymore Liquor Store is located at the corner of Hall Street and Waylon Jennings Boulevard in Littlefield, Texas. It is essentially an old gas station that has been converted into part car repair, part small liquor store, yet it attracts visitors from all over the world. Waymore is owned by James Jennings, brother to Waylon, and it houses a family museum of Waylon’s personal and professional memorabilia. I mean, how do you not want to go there?  

Whether you are a fan or not, Waylon Jennings was the real deal, a genuine American legend whose contribution to music spans several genres. The son of musicians, he was playing guitar and singing in public before he was 10 years old. With his raw, God-given talent, he reached the mountain top of country music and achieved fame with both his own and multi-artist groups. Along with Willie Nelson, he is given credit as a founder of outlaw country, though he thought the whole thing was silly and said as much in his song, Don’t You Think This Outlaw Bit’s Done Got Out of Hand?

When I arrived at the Waymore Liquor Store, I was hoping for two things. First, that James Jennings would be there, and that I could fulfill Frank’s request for a large size shot glass. Neither happened. Instead, I met James’ wife, Helen, and she was as good a tour guide as you could ever hope for. I spent an hour talking with her, learning not only about Waylon and his family, but personal tidbits about other music legends such as Buddy Holly and Johnny Cash.

In fact, one of Johnny’s coats was hanging in the museum, and I desperately wanted to try it on, so I had to ask. I felt like Helen trusted me because she had been open about why James wasn’t there this morning – he was home vacuuming because she had asked him to do it, and I knew about her upcoming hip replacement surgery scheduled for mid-September.

The coat engulfed me, and I was so thrilled I forgot to ask Helen to take my picture, so the moment will remain a memory.

As I handed the coat back to her, three tall, broad, very Texan’ish looking men sauntered in. They didn’t say much, but as I am apt to do, I managed to bring them around into a conversation, and Helen asked where they were from. They said they were on break from working nearby on those terrifyingly large wind turbines. Like me, they just wanted to see All Things Waylon.

Because I am irrationally concerned that being too close to a wind turbine is flirting with death in that it might fling off one of its enormous blades or fall over on me, I asked, ‘aren’t you scared being up on those things?’

“Nope. God protects us,” said the one with eyes as blue as the Texas sky.

Alrighty then. 

Right before I left on this trip, I had read an article about white evangelicals and how they believe that if they are good enough people, God will protect them from COVID, but if they happen to die from it, then it was just their time and God was calling them home.  I wondered if this was Blue Eyes operating principle as well.

To me, it’s kind of a conundrum where connect-the-dots doesn’t work. Here’s the problem: if an evangelical dies from COVID – or from falling off a wind turbine -- doesn’t that imply that they were not ‘good enough’ because if they were, God would have protected them? Not that you can do anything about it, but what happens to your reputation if you die from COVID? Doesn’t this raise suspicions that you weren’t “good enough for God’s protection?”

The streak of mean in my brain wanted to delve into this or respond with a wise ass quip like, ‘then I suppose you don’t use man-made equipment to keep you safe up there since God will protect you,’ but my better angels reminded me that I did not have the home field advantage, and I kept my tiny pie-hole shut.

The three men meandered around, peering at the well-maintained displays. They talked in low tones between themselves and asked Helen a few questions, but suddenly they said their goodbyes and were gone. I guess their break from the turbines was over and they needed to get back to God so he could keep an eye on them. 

After they left, I asked Helen, “do you get a lot of visitors?”

“Oh yes. All the time. And they come from everywhere. Not too long ago we had a tour bus of 52 Germans stop by, and they were polite enough to call before they showed up.”

She continued, “I was talking to them like they understood everything I was saying, then I realized that they probably didn’t speak English, so I stopped and told them to just look around.”

Helen stared at me with a hint of sadness. She said, “I don’t know how they could know Waylon if they couldn’t understand his words.”

I had to think about that. Finally, I replied, “it’s like opera. You don’t have to understand the words to know and feel the story. You can hear it in the singers’ voices. Waylon was like that. You could hear everything in his voice.”

Helen looked at me as if I had solved a riddle for her. “That makes sense,” she said.

I think she wanted to cry, and I did, too. From the moment I walked in, I had been overwhelmed by being surrounded by such amazing American music history, but I was also feeling regret because Frank wasn’t there with me. He would have appreciated it so much more than I ever could, and I fought to keep the lump in my throat from exiting in the form of tears.    

I told Helen about Frank being a Grateful Dead fan and the crossover between Jerry Garcia and country music, especially his pedal steel guitar work. I also told her about introducing my gentrified city boy to the music of David Allen Coe, his first real taste of country music.

“You know Waylon’s grandson, Whey, he’s a musician, too, and he is married to David Allen’s granddaughter. They just had a baby.” Later, Helen played me a song from one of Whey’s CD’s. I am not sure if it is because I wanted to hear Waylon in Whey’s voice, but he sure sounds a lot like his grandfather to me.

As I continued to take all of the family’s memories in like a long drink of badly needed water,

I was struck by the blend of the professional and the personal Waylon Jennings. This was not your average collection of musical memorabilia, rather it was one that focused equally on the artist’s family. There were multitudes of classic, forward facing group photos that could have been any family anywhere, but these happened to be ones of people that had been, were, or about-to-be famous.

I spent a lot of time looking at Waylon’s first guitar, a gift from his mother. It was pristinely housed in a curved glass display case, the kind you would find in a dusty old dime store. On top sat a cookbook, Leather and Lace. It had been written by Waylon and his wife, Jessie Colter, and it was open to his favorite dish.

I felt like I was digging my fingers deep into the sands of time, pulling out treasures that few would ever see.  

A particular movie poster caught my attention. It was from Mackintosh and T.J., and starred my personal cowboy hero, Roy Rogers. It was his last movie, and Waylon had written several songs for it. This is something I did not know, but I told Helen that I loved Roy Rogers, and he was the last of the great ones. She agreed and asked if I knew how much he paid for Trigger, but of course I didn’t. She said he told Waylon that it took him three years to save the money to buy him.

Right then and there, I was playing Six Degrees of Separation. Roy Rogers told Waylon Jennings about Trigger. Waylon’s sister-in-law was telling me and suddenly, I was only three degrees removed from Roy Rogers.

I don’t suppose anything could be better than this. 

I shared my personal Roy Rogers story with Helen. It involved a distant cousin named Clifford who had severe cerebral palsy and was confined to a wheelchair. He was a huge fan of Roy, and desperately wanted to see him when he brought his traveling show to Raleigh. But this was before we knew better, and the place where Roy was performing was not equipped for disabled people to enter so Clifford could not go.

Somehow, Roy found out about Clifford and went to visit him at his home. He even brought Clifford a color TV, just the same as the door prize that was being given away the night of his show. This was a big deal in the 1960s. Owning a color TV was still a brand-new privilege reserved for those with money, something else my cousin did not have.     

Helen and I agreed this is an example of what it is to have real class, and there just aren’t a lot of folks like that left in the world.

Helen continued to talk and share stories about Waylon and his friends.  She pointed out a long leather coat that Waylon had worn. She asked, “did I tell you about the time that Waylon was in New York with Buddy Holly?” I replied, “no, but please do.”

She said, “well, they were walking around, and Waylon said to Buddy, ‘boy, they sure do have some pretty girls here,’ and Buddy said, ‘Waylon, they ain’t women.’” 

She took a breath before finishing with “and it won’t long after that Buddy was killed. You know, Waylon was supposed to be on that plane, too.”

This is probably one of the most famous stories in American music history. Best known as The Day the Music Died, the lives of Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and The Big Bopper were lost on a snowy night in Iowa. Waylon was indeed going to be on the plane, but in an act of kindness, he gave up his seat to the flu-ridden Big Bopper so he wouldn’t have a long ride on a bus with a broken heater.    

I asked Helen if she thought it was like everyone said, that Waylon never really got over that night, and the guilt he felt contributed to his problems with addiction, and she nodded.

She retold the moment when Holly found out that Waylon was taking the bus and jokingly said, “I hope your bus freezes up again,” and in retort to one of his best friends, Waylon said, “well, I hope your plane crashes.” Less than ten minutes after take-off, Waylon’s words came to fruition.  

Now I really wanted to cry. 

I told Helen that right after we were married, Frank and I had seen Waylon perform with The Highwaymen in Fairfax, Virginia. I also mentioned that Johnny Cash called out his special guest for the evening, Robert Duvall, and even though our seats were not that great, it was thrilling just to be in the same arena with so many gods of country music.  I asked her how it felt to always be surrounded by such legacy. She smiled and said, “it’s mostly just family.”

Shortly, it was time for me to go. A whole lot of long, hot Texas road lay ahead, but first I had to grab a tee shirt for Frank and a souvenir bottle of liquor. I asked Helen what Waylon liked to drink. She said, “well, he called his ranch Southern Comfort, but if you look right here, there is a photograph of him with a bottle of Jack Daniels,” so that is what I grabbed. My plan is to get a gold permanent marker and write on it:

Bought at the Waymore Liquor Store. DO NOT DRINK.

As I was paying Helen, she said, “do you mind doing me a favor?”

“Of course not, what can I do?” I replied.

“Well, I am pretty scared of this surgery I got coming up, so on September 13th, would you please pray that I will be okay?”

I assured Helen that I would, and then she walked me out to Wanda. “That is a really nice RV you got there,” she said. I told her that she is my prized possession and that I had bought her with my retirement money. Then, I asked if I could take her picture standing in front of the Waymore Liquor Store.   

“Oh sure,” and she stood in front of the building next to an old wagon wheel. “I hate it that James ain’t here. He knows so much about everything here. You know he is home helping me out, vacuuming the bedrooms, ‘cuz it is hard with my old hip.”

I told Helen that I was just as happy to have spent time with her. I feel like I got a lot more out of my visit. When she realized that we both spoke the language of country music, she opened up to me like a flower in full bloom and shared all the truly important parts of a famous person’s life that the public loses sight of once we place them on a pedestal.

As I left Littlefield, I picked up the FM or ‘Farm to Market’ Road that would carry me all the way through to Roswell, New Mexico. I was headed to the new International UFO Center, and to see the only McDonald’s in the world shaped like a UFO.  The streetlights painted to look like alien heads will be an added bonus. A little later in this trip, I will get to cruise the Extraterrestrial Highway in Nevada again and squeeze in a short visit with my friends at the Little A’Le’Inn.

I probably should have a bumper sticker on Wanda that reads, ‘Will Brake For Aliens.’ Undoubtedly, this minor obsession would seem a little crazy to most people, and I am okay with that. After all, one of Waylon’s most successful albums was entitled, I’ve Always Been Crazy, and that’s the slogan on the tee-shirt that I just bought for Frank. I consider it a sweet and gentle reminder that, for better or worse, he signed up for ‘crazy’ when he married me, just maybe not this much.