I recently sent this as an email to a couple of close friends. Whiskey Prajer said I should have blogged it, so I am taking his advice to heart and sharing some of my most intimate moments with all ya'll:
Have to tell you this: last night reading in bed with Kman, which is our favorite part of the evening, I was telling him about an article I read in the online version of the Alpine Avalanche newspaper (Alpine, Texas in the Big Bend).
A big money guy out of Dallas just bought out the bankrupt Lajitas resort and was recently down there looking around at his new investment. There is an artist lady who has been virtually a squatter on the Lajitas property, down by the Rio Grande by the name of Collie Ryan. She is a hermit most of the time, but very cordial and approachable. Sells mandalas painted on old hubcaps for extra money. Lives very close to the earth rather like a monk. The big shot owner walked down to her place with a couple of his investors (including Cowboy alums, Charlie Waters and Mike Montgomery) to ask her what and how she thought Lajitas might ought to look like in the new and near future.
Conversations ensued about this and that, mostly on the vein of opening the resort up to the general populace and remove the exclusivity of ownership and usage. Big shot remarked to the Avalanche interviewer that he admired Collie, wanted to introduce his 5 year-old son to her, and after a studied pause, said that her lifestyle was something he would love to follow, but just couldn't. (Collie lives mostly in an old rusting hull of a school bus, but has built nice covered patios with an outdoor kitchen and outdoor shower, paved the area with stones brought from the river. Decorated with her own art, etc. Really very pretty in a primitive way.)
I sighed, and said how I admired Collie as well and was a wee bit envious of her ability to make her life simpler; how living in the Big Bend on your own terms was surely heaven on earth.
Kman sat up further in bed rather abruptly, and got this look of mild horror on his face, and blurted, "Well, I sure as hell don't wanna live in no f- - -ing bus!"
The look on his face, the way the words tumbled out - bad grammar and all, sent me into a spasm of tear-streaming laughter. I rolled and kicked on the bed clutched into uncontrollable hysterics until I had to go get some toilet paper off the bathroom roll to wipe my eyes and blow my nose I laughed so hard.
Then, he got tickled watching my response, and off we went again on a hilarity fit. One or the other would repeat the phrase "No f---ing bus!" and the fit renewed. Even for the next 45 minutes or so in the dark after lights were turned out and books tossed aside we each felt the bed shake with our after-giggles.
Life may deal me crap most days, but when I can share laughter and books, the turds float away.
How's that for a philosophical moment?
**Update to this story here complete with photos and music links for Collie Ryan
5 comments:
LOL!
Is Sul Ross University in Alpine?
K, yep Sul Ross has a nice campus there. Bout the only thing that keeps Alpine awake. (Other than the trains that blow through the middle of town, including a 2 AM whistle-blasting express.)
I read somewhere that Alpine was more ture west, while it's sister city, Marfa, was more like The Hamptons now with all the "furriners" from out of state.
I'm with the K-Man! That bus looks disturbingly like a much hotter version of fine mass transportation vehicle And we all know how that long, strange trip ended.
Gasoline and a bed don't make for a comfy home.
DarkoV, you don't drive it once you purty it up, fool!
Thanks for the stop by!
Great story, got a big smile out of me.
Post a Comment