Suntana's Blog Trek

Yay! I did it. I finally achieved what was thought to be unachievable. No, I didn't finally get to meet Kelly Monaco, Julia Roberts, Jennifer Aniston, Heather Graham, Julie Bowen, Christina Aguilera or any other talented women who just happen to be easy on the eyes. Scientists and Experts of every discipline the world over thought my mission stood almost zero chance of success. No, no, I did NOT get High Speed Internet yet. And no, I did NOT get my newer computer running yet. The mission I am talking about is something on which I embarked almost 3 years ago. Earlier this year, I told one of my friends here on MyOpera that I had seriously made up my mind to achieve this goal once and for all before the end of this year. WHAT? What could it have been that I told my friend? What was I so determined to do before the end of this year that neither rain, sleet, snow, hail, a Stampede of Guinea Pigs or any other obstacles would dare prevent my success? No, I did NOT finally get a Cellphone.

Well, up to now, my Blog's entire Photo Albums gallery has consisted of 1 … ONE photo. My friend brought up this glaring observation in casual chat. So, I told my friend that I was officially declaring at that instant that I was making it my goal to add a SECOND photo to my Photo Albums before 2011 was over. And as of yesterday, add a second photo to my Photo Albums I did. Actually, I got really bold & adventurous and added 5 photos to my Photo Albums. That is correct, my Blog now has 2 Photo Albums consisting of a whopping 6 photos. I am cooking now. I am on fire.

I guess I should now move on to elaborate on just what's behind this photo-fortifying of my Blog. Just what do the photos entail? Ideally, I really would have liked to have created this Post way back on July 4th or shortly thereafter. But, I didn't have the photos to go with the Post. I kept trying to get my niece to get her Dad, my older brother to send me the photos that I would need to create the Post. But, my acquisition of the photos kept falling through the cracks. So, one day I had a novel idea … Why don't I just E-mail my brother myself and ask him to send me the photos? I did that and Ploop! The next day I had the photos. I should have gone this route from the get go.

Nevertheless, this past 4th of July, as per my older brother's idea, he, my sister-in-law, my Mom & Dad and I went on a Road Trip. Yep, we filled up the ice chest with Sodas and water. We packed up the Fritos, Chips, Bean Dip, Cookies and what have you. We then headed on out on our Road Trip to the 60s. We set out to go visit some of the farms where we had lived wayyy back in the 60s when my siblings and I were just growing up. I am talking about places I had literally NOT seen in decades.

We arrived at the small Texas town, which is the base for the 2 farms we were going to visit. We made a fuel and restroom pit stop. We then slowly navigated through the small town while nostalgically looking around as we then headed out to the first of two farms we were going to go visit.

We finally found it. Our first stop … Below is a photo of the house where my family lived way back in 1969.



My family lived in this house approximately 2 years before moving yet again in early 1969. The Kitchen was there in the immediate forefront. The Living Room / Parents' Bedroom was to the left. Further back were 2 more Bedrooms. The house used to be Brown back then. We used to have a pretty nice green lawn there in front. You can go visit my Road Trip to the 60s Photo Album to see the full screen version of this photo. Plus, while there, you'll also be able to see a full screen photo of me looking into the window of what used to be my bedroom.

Our next stop … Below is a photo of the Farm Shop where my Dad used to work when we lived in the Chuck's Mansion 1969.



My older brother and I helped our Dad there at the Shop at different times. That brings me to the other significance of this photo. See that silver Butane Gas Tank there on the right of the photo? Right around that location is where back in 1969, the Gasoline & Diesel Pumps and their huge Tanks chronicled in my October 2008 Gasoline Pump Remodeling infamous incident Blog Post were located. You can go visit my Road Trip to the 60s Photo Album to see the full screen version of this photo. While there, you can see a photo of the Farm Workers Housing that was next to the Farm Shop.

While on this farm, we really wanted to visit another house where we had briefly lived before the house in the 1st photo. And we had also wanted to visit the house of some friends of ours from back then. But, we had to pass on those 2 visits because we felt we were pushing our luck with possible trespassing. Plus, one of those visits would have involved going off onto some questionable dirt road with my brother's new truck.

So, we headed on back to the small town. We did some more nostalgic looking around. We passed by our old Elementary School and the Grade School. The original High School was still there, but I never attended that one.

With it being pretty much Lunchtime, we decided we should see if we could find someone to feed us. Well, it just so happened my Dad had called some old friends of ours the day before to inform them that we'd be visiting them. Okay, so it's NOT like they had promised to feed us, but we could hope, right? I literally had NOT seen these people we were about to visit, in 42 years! Needless to say, the meeting was almost surreal. We all sat around outside in their porch and chatted for about half an hour. Feeling sorry for us and seeing that we wouldn't go away, they finally decided to ask us to join them for lunch. But, seriously, in anticipation of our reunion, they had prepared an awesome, delicious Mexican lunch. We then did some more chatting with obviously a lot on which to catch up after so many years. There was also plenty of photo viewing by both us and our friends. We then said our goodbyes and headed on out to our next destination.

We traveled on to another farm where we lived back in 1966.
Below is a photo of our old house on that farm.



The house is really a duplex. My family lived on the right side of that duplex house. The entry to our side of the duplex house is the door there on the right. Our Living Room was there on the front right. Going back is the Kitchen, followed by 2 Bedrooms. There used to be a nice green lawn there to the right of the house between it and the Farm Shop where my Dad worked.

We then proceeded to journey on back to our area of Texas and back to 2011.
Throughout our entire Road Trip it was interesting seeing how memories of this, that and the other fade and fog up at different levels between different people. There would be cases where some of us recalled something vividly while others recalled them either only vaguely, differently or not at all. For example … On our way to our old house in that last photo, I casually commented, "Hey, I remember when those friends we just visited used to live in a house over there somewhere." My Mom quickly jumped in, "No they didn't." I asserted, "Yes, they did." My Mom countered, "Nope! Never happened." I stood my ground, "Yes, they did. And I am NOT backing down on this one. You all refuted that certain other memory of mine a couple years ago, but I am 100% sure on this one. I am NOT giving you this one." After we had visited our old house and were on our way back home, I brought the issue up again as I pointed to something more concrete this time, "THERE! That house over there in the distance. I'm pretty sure that has to be where our friends lived. It seems to be in about the right location." This time my Mom went, "Hmmm??? You know … I think it's coming back to me now. Yes, I believe I do remember now that they did live there." Swooooosh! And Chuck Scores! Nothing, but Net! I KNEW I was right. I hate to brag, but albeit I of course had my micro memory voids here and there ... overall my memory was more intact than everyone else's.