Kansas, Neal and a Road Trip

          Kansas, Neal and a Road Trip


I got a telephone call a few weeks ago from a dear friend of mine.  Receiving a call from Chuck wasn’t actually that remarkable.  He called frequently or maybe I called him, usually to make plans for a get together with him and I and our wives.  Most of the time it was to catch a movie, grab a bite to eat and share some conversation on where our lives were at the moment and to express the usual “what’s new with you” sort of gab old friends do.  This time, however, the call was a bit different.  Chuck’s opening statement to me was, “Hey dude, wanna go on a road trip?”

I was taken aback somewhat by this out-of-the-blue statement, but recovered soon enough to respond with my usual well-thought-out answer.

“Huh?”

Chuck laughed at my confusion and proceeded to explain that he had recently talked to an old friend of ours who lived out of state, had actually talked with him for quite a lengthy period of time and had tentatively started making plans to get together at that friend’s house.  The out-of-state friend’s name was Neal and he had suggested to Chuck that maybe I might want to come along.  Since I had recently retired and had no particular appointments or pressing need to stay home, I said, “why not?”

We planned on leaving about three weeks hence and it wasn’t long before the scheduled departure date was upon us.

Chuck picked me up around 7 am on a Sunday morning in his new Chevrolet Colorado pickup truck, his vehicle of choice for this trip.  The clouds were low and dark gray, looming over us and warning that the oncoming day would soon become a wet one.  I’d been watching the weather forecasts for the last week or so along the route of our trip and the upcoming prospect of rain wasn’t a surprise. 

We were a little lucky, though, as the rain didn’t start for us until we were through Columbus and heading west.  The precipitation started then and would vary in intensity throughout the day from a light rattle on our windshield to some much heavier cloudbursts as we rode along. 

Western Ohio, Indiana and Illinois passed by in a rain-choked blur.

Driving and riding in the rain is not particularly fun.  Chuck and I made the time pass quicker by talking and relating to each other the stories we remembered about Neal and our childhoods.  Neal had been a neighbor of Chuck’s and ran in the same gang as Chuck and I did even though he was a year older than we were.  Our stories about the “old days” brought lots of grins and laughter as the wet miles hissed and gurgled by under our wheels.  Our memories of the shenanigans the three of us got into as youngsters sparked other recollections and the hours passed pleasantly.  Our conversations then started drifting into other memories of days past and a lot more stories were told.  I won’t say there weren’t some embellishments added to some of our stories, but I won’t say there weren’t either.  In any event we kept each other entertained for the majority of the day.

After a long chunk of that dreary Sunday had gone by, we passed through the northern suburbs of St. Louis and into a rainless Missouri!  Hurrah, we exclaimed in delight as we watched the roadway turn from a slick wet mirror into dry pavement. 

Since neither of us is as young as we’d like to think we are, we’d decided earlier not to make the whole journey to where Neal lived in one day.  Better, we thought, to call it a day halfway through Missouri, catch a decent night’s sleep and arrive at Neal’s place fresh late the next morning. 

We stayed at a nice Hampton Inn and ate supper right next door at a Cracker Barrel.  It was close enough that we could walk from the hotel to the restaurant.

And, of course, it was raining when we walked back to the hotel.  The weather gods apparently wanted one more crack at us.

The next morning, after a remarkably good hotel buffet breakfast, we hit the westbound road again and soon were skirting Kansas City and heading southbound for the last hour of the trip.  It was sunny at last and we were enthusiastic about the upcoming day.

We found Neal’s nice duplex with no problem and soon the three of us were shaking hands and smiling so hard it looked like our faces might crack open.  I hadn’t seen so many teeth since the last “Shark Week” on television!  It was a true joy to see Neal again after all those years – 42 or thereabouts.  That’s a long time, gentle reader, a very long time.  I looked at Neal’s face and wondered if I had seen him on the street would I have recognized him.  At first I thought not, but after about 20 seconds all the pieces fell into place and there was the guy I remembered standing there in all his glory. 

How cool was that!

We at once commenced jabbering at each other about our lives and what we’d been doing, both yesterday, the day before and over the past four decades.  Each of us told our stories.  Some of them may have even been true!  Naw, most of them were true although a few of them did stretch my credulity a little bit, but that was OK. 

We were among friends.

Neal’s health had taken a turn for the worse some years before and he was presently taking treatments for a severe disease.  I won’t disclose his disability in this blog, that’s no one’s business but his and whoever he wants to share that information with, but be sure that his problems were severe and he needed frequent treatments to sustain his health.  He was very open about his ailment and we expressed how concerned we were about his condition.  A little later that day we rode with him to a doctor’s appointment that he couldn’t break. We used that trip to continue our discussions and soon the waiting room of the doctor’s office rang with more of our stories and laughter. 

After his appointment was over he took us to a good barbecue place in one of the nearby Kansas City suburbs and we enjoyed some of the justly famous KC barbecue.  Lip-smacking good!

Neal drove us around after that, showing us places from his past. Where he used to live, where his business had been located back in the days before the depression, what he’d done there and how his life had been like a roller-coaster with a number of good highs and some not-so-good lows.  How he’d even lived in a travel trailer for a few years until he got back on his feet. 

We returned to his place after this grand tour and soon his wife Nancy got off work and joined us.  Chuck and I introduced ourselves then and we four then dove back into the conversations that we’d been having.  There was a lot of catching up to do as you may imagine!  We called it a day early that evening as Chuck and I had to drive to our hotel and we’d not checked in yet.  We said our good-byes and headed out, promising to meet again the next morning.

After a good night’s sleep at this hotel and another hotel buffet, Chuck and I went out and I got a couple geocaches before my cell phone buzzed and Neal said he was on his way to our hotel to pick us up. 

The three of us then went for a drive and I got some more geocaches that morning, bumping my total for Kansas up to 8 or thereabouts.  Then it was off to a good Mexican restaurant for lunch.  After this quite tasty south-of-the-border repast we adjourned back to Neal’s place for more catching up.  Later that day we drove to a nearby grocery store for steaks, spuds and salad makings and Neal soon whipped us up a wonderful juicy steak dinner.  Quite the chef he was that evening!

We took some photos of each other then to commemorate our visit and to remember each other by.  He drove us back to our hotel late that evening and we said our good-byes there.

It was tough saying goodbye that night.  We all realized we were older men, not in the best of health and who knows what fate had in store for us in our futures. 

Chuck and I talked that night a bit about how the visit had gone before settling in.  We both knew that Neal had gone through a very rough patch back in the ‘70’s and we’d wondered if he would open up about it.  We’d agreed beforehand that whether he did or didn’t, that was fine – it was his life after all.  We were curious about that time period, though, and hoped Neal would “fill in the blanks” in his history.  We were pleased, we agreed, when Neal had matter-of-factly told us about those bad days and how much he regretted the act that had initiated them.  He had done the required penance for his actions and had moved on, marrying a wonderful lady and living a much better life, perhaps, than he may have done without the cloud in his past.  Chuck and I applauded his courage, by the way he’d recounted his transgressions so forthrightly, by the strong faith he’d been blessed with and which had been so obviously good for him and by his steadfastness in handling his ongoing disease as best he could.

We both liked Neal and were very pleased to have seen him again.

Our trip home on Wednesday was almost the exact opposite of our westward journey, bright blue skies, sunshine and an inviting road leading us eastward and toward home.  Chuck even let me drive his new truck for a few hours!

So, gentle reader, what can I take away from my little road trip with a friend? 

Perhaps that it was fun to take a little break from the here-and-now of our everyday life and hit the road with a buddy.  Perhaps that it had turned out to be a bit of a pilgrimage to a land of lost days, half-remembered times and a childhood that seemed bathed in a golden light for all of us.

But mostly it was a chance to say hello to an old buddy, to renew a friendship that had lasted the long, long years and to hold on a bit tighter to our lives which seemed to be rushing by far, far too fast toward an uncertain future.