Memories – Let's Get Out of Here

Snowcones_Fotor — My mother, grandmother, and aunt in Farmersville in the 1950s

The places we visit are never as perfect as they are in our memory. My grandmother’s house in Farmersville, Texas no longer exists. A remodeled version of the Dairy Queen I visited as a barefoot child sits beside the highway and still serves up chocolate dipped cones and cheeseburgers. You can see the Dairy Queen from the overpass where I used to stand with my cousin and spit on the cars passing below.

DSC03124_Fotor — Dairy Queen – Photo by the author

My husband and I drove up to Farmersville on the weekend, a short day trip from our home. Over bridges spanning the lake, past trailer parks and fireworks stands to the little town that was once the Onion Capitol of North Texas.

IMG-0718_Fotor — The Onion Shed in Farmersville, Texas – Photo by the author

The Onion Shed sits near the town square. In the 1960s I helped my mother and grandmother fill burlap sacks with discarded onions, the rejects spilled and tossed onto the grass from the railway cars where the Collin County Sweets were loaded for shipment. No longer filled with the round yellow bulbs, you can find a flea market there on the first Saturday of each month.

IMG-0719_Fotor — The plaque at the Onion Shed

Clay Potter Auction_Fotor — A portrait of Audie Murphy among the items for sale at the Clay Potter Auction House

We wandered through antique stores on the town square. I am always surprised to find the toys like those from my own childhood, stacked on dusty shelves and labeled “vintage.”

There were no toys in my grandmother Mattie’s wood frame house. A print of Jesus knocking at the door and a framed copy of the TV Guide with Johnny Carson on the cover decorated her living room wall. If I slipped from my mother’s view I would have just enough time to explore Mattie’s bedroom. I could hide under the fuzzy chenille bedspread and peak out through the fringe skirting the bottom where it brushed the floor. Visiting children were turned out into the yard, chased from the house by apron-wearing women too busy with cooking and serving to put up with our foolishness.

IMG-0723_Fotor — Window display – Photo by the author

Small towns often have treasures tucked away, to be uncovered by those with time and patience to wander. The post office sports a mural painted in 1941 as part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA).

Mual_Fotor — WPA mural in the Farmersville Post Office – Photo by the author

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A short walk to downtown from Mattie’s house, over the railroad tracks and to the pecan tree shaded park, and I could find the snow cone stand there in summer. Crushed ice in a paper cone that dissolved as the treat itself melted to slush in the heat. But I could drink the last of it, my hands, lips, clothes stained red, purple, blue, green.

DSC03111_Fotor — Old Electricity Generator in the city park – Photo by the author

There were no snow cones for sale on the day we visited, but I bought a Dr. Pepper from one of the stores. Andrew and I sat and shared the drink on a bench near the old movie theater downtown.

DSC03105_Fotor — The movie theater in downtown Farmersville, Texas – Photo by the author

Closed for years, posters from films starring the hometown hero, Audie Murphy, hang on the front. I imagine my mother there on a Saturday night, palms slick with butter from the popcorn.

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We ended our visit with a stop at the Odd Fellows Cemetery. My grandparents, Grover Cleveland Cullum and Mattie Elizabeth Watson Cullum, are buried there, as are their parents. We searched for their graves but couldn’t locate them. I hadn’t been there in years and the day was too hot for much effort. The one place in town that hadn’t changed but I couldn’t rely on my memory to find the family plot.

We did see some interesting gravestones.

DSC03115_Fotor — Farmersville 100F Cemetery/Odd Fellows Cemetary

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“Some of these people were alive during the Civil War,” Andrew commented.

“Yes,” I said.

Tired and sweaty, we climbed into our air conditioned Honda and headed home. Past the shops downtown, the onion shed, the park, the railroad crossing, stopping at last near the overpass so I could hop out and snap a photo of the Dairy Queen. Then onto the highway and home, leaving behind the layers of memory. My mouth, dust dry as I lean over a metal guardrail, the low mournful train whistle in the dusk, the sharp scrape of sidewalk on bare feet, the candy syrup from a grape snow cone, icy cold contrast to a dog summer day. The scent of sweet onions, yellow and round as baseballs, hidden like Easter Eggs in the soft green grass.

My new car is a spaceship. The dash has more buttons and dials than Doc’s DeLorean did in Back to the Future. It runs on premium gas, though, and not recycled garbage. My brand-new Honda Civic Sport Touring might be the last car I ever buy.

“What are you going to name your new car?” Andrew asked me as I scribbled my name in blood on the finance agreement.

Unlike my husband, who has had a Marilyn, Penelope, Zephyr, and Lexi in his driving life, I’ve never named my cars. At least not with anything I’d repeat in polite company.

I bought my first car forty years ago – a 1974 Subaru sedan. A short in the electrical system caused the headlights to go out after 15 minutes of driving. This didn’t stop me from traveling at night, I’d drive as far as I could, then I’d pull over and wait for the car to cool down and the lights to come back on. When the brakes went out, I drove for two weeks using only the parking brake because I was between paychecks and couldn’t afford the repair.

A sensible four door, it was not the first car I wanted, but according to my mother- the co-signer on the loan, it was the first car I deserved. She took one look at the green and white 1976 Shelby Mustang Cobra I lusted after and imagined my mangled body entombed in twisted metal.

I’ve had trucks, SUVs and sedans. Some of them came to dramatic ends. When my kids were small, I hauled them around in a silver two-door, 1979 Buick Riviera. It caught on fire one day, the paint bubbling up on the hood when we parked. “Mom! Is that smoke?” must be one of the scariest phrases ever heard.

Another car, one my then father-in-law bought for us for $50, shot flames from the exhaust every time the engine backfired. That car could clear traffic. When it looks like you’re driving a Mad Maxx rocket powered vehicle folks get out of your way.

I drove the car I traded in, a 2009 Honda CRV, for ten years. We took our last family vacation in that SUV, four of us on a road trip from Texas to the Grand Canyon in Arizona. My twenty-one-year-old son took most of the driving duty because my ex-husband felt I drove too slowly and my older son drove too recklessly.

By 2011 I was divorced. I folded the seats down in the CRV and used it to carry most of my belongings out of the house I’d shared with my husband, and into my new apartment and new life. When I paid off that car, I stood in line at the tax office to remove his name from the title.

Last year, in October 2019, my new husband and I drove to our wedding in the 2009 Honda.

I’ve never been sentimental over a car, but the sight of my gold CRV sitting on the dealer’s back lot felt like I was dumping the family pet on the side of the road. “We’ll send it over to auction,” the salesperson told me as he pointed out the trade-in value.

Auction, I imagined, would be the automobile equivalent of working in a 19^th Century coal mine. I handed over the keys and gave the car a little wave, hoping to inspire the SUV with enough confidence it would last another 157,000 miles.

We tie so much of our identity to the car we drive. The SUV with room for kids, dogs, and sports equipment. The trucks for hauling, whether it’s farm supplies or groceries from Central Market. Smug hybrids and cushioned land yachts on either end of the mileage spectrum. Like my husband, the true believers among us opt for manual transmissions.

I’d hoped to drive the ’09 another hundred thousand miles. The worn shocks bounced like a Conestoga Wagon on the Oregon Trail, and a mysterious clicking emerged from under the hood, like a time-bomb for engine failure.

“I guess I need to look for a new car,” I told Andrew. “If I buy one now, I can pay it off before I retire.” Spending a large sum is always best when justified under cover of fiscal responsibility.

We narrowed the field down to a Honda model, and like Goldilocks I discarded several models as too large or too small before declaring the Civic as just right. Thinking of grandkids and sticky fingers, I wanted leather seats. The hatchback option gave us room for camping equipment. During the test drive I appreciated the 1.5L Turbo engine.

“Do you have one in blue?” I asked.

This last car, unlike the first car, is one I picked for myself. As I make the payments, I remind myself this is the car I deserve. In ten years, we might all be riding around in flying vehicles, leaving earth and asphalt behind.

I’ve named the car Hollis—pronounced “Haul-Ass.”