A STORY WORTH TELLING
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“It’s not the destination, it’s the journey.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
While putting these words together Saturday, I kept an eye on the weather and admiring nature’s icy artwork.
Winter is a playful paradox, delivering devastating damage and serene beauty in one cold blast.
I’m good at some things, but I am not good at winter. I don’t like cold weather. When temps slip below 60 degrees, I’m finding a flannel shirt and kicking the heater up to “comfy.” I’m also not good at being told I can’t do something when determination leads me to believe otherwise. It’s an affliction akin to being “bull-headed like your father,” as my mother lovingly put it. That personality flaw and this weather reminded me of a Sunday afternoon journey a few years ago that was going to prove either me or my mother right.
It started with a weekend trip home to East Texas. At the time I lived in the Hill Country working as publisher of the Boerne Star. Church was concluded, I had a tempting offer to enjoy a home-cooked lunch and the forecast carried a warning.
“Better stay, go to Boerne tomorrow,” Mom warned.
“Can’t,” I retorted.
“Press day tomorrow.”
“Might have to wait,” she said.
“You know the business,” I replied with a laugh. “The paper goes to press on time. To borrow from the postal service: ‘Neither sleet nor snow, nor high water …’ You know how that goes.”
By 1 p.m. I was rolling south when light snow began falling 17 miles out. Roads were good through Nacogdoches and on to Crockett. But the farther I went, the faster the snow fell and the slower I drove.
I topped off the tank in Caldwell. Traffic diminished as roads deteriorated to little more than tire tracks marking the brave few still on the road.
“Should I stop?” I asked myself.
“No way,” my other self said. “You have a paper to publish tomorrow.”
Continuing to talk with myself because it was all the company I had, I reflected on the unknowingly fortunate choice of vehicles I made.
I had a Dodge pickup at home and drove a Ford Taurus on this trip.
Not just any Taurus, but a model designated “SHO” representing “Super High Output.”
It was Ford’s mid-1990s offering of a sporty sedan packing a highperformance Yamaha engine and a five-speed manual transmission.
It ran like a muscle car and handled like a sports car.
Darkness dominated the white landscape before me as I drew closer to Interstate 35 at San Marcos. I had just a few more miles of the highway to traverse to New Braunfels before turning off on the last two-lane road leading to Boerne.
Then I topped a hill and saw the taillights of idled autos stretching into the distance because of a wreck on the ice blocking both lanes.
An exit appeared.
Without thinking, I took it.
“Good choice,” I smiled as the service road ushered me past the freeway “parking lot.”
Traffic leaving New Braunfels was no problem. I was in the only one on the road.
I never saw another car in the 45 miles that took an hour and a half to drive. Slow speeds, front-wheel drive and matching gears to traction proved to be the perfect combination.
I called an employee at his home.
“Daniel, I need a favor. I am almost to Boerne. See if you can get me a hotel room.
I’ve made it this far, but no way I’m gambling on the hills and turns to my house tonight.”
“Couldn’t go anyway,” he said. “Highway department closed all roads out of town.”
A big sigh of relief and a heart filled with gratitude marked my arrival at the historic Ye Kendall Inn in Boerne that shared a parking lot at the time with the newspaper office.
“Well played, Daniel,” I said with a smile.
Lying down just short of 1 a.m. and reflecting on 12 hours navigating winter weather, I thought to myself, “What a trip.”
Then that other self chimed in again. Or was that my mother’s voice?
“You know you could be stuck in a snowbank, don’t you?” it said.
“But I’m not,” I replied to myself.
I lived the journey, made the destination and the paper went to press on time the next day.
