April 4, 2002

Packing and closing the ranch house are the same routine every trip. I use a king size bed to lay out the clothes to fill a 22-inch roll aboard bag. On airline trips, my wardrobe borders on the frugality of the costume closet of a burlesque house. On automobile travel, however, if I bring along overboots, the next move is to include a snow shovel.

The point of the trip makes a difference, too. On this one, I was headed for Natalie Goldberg's Writer's Workshop in Taos, New Mexico. Her project requires tablets, pens, and half-dozen books. "The weather," the instructions say, "can be snow flurries to basking in the mountain sun." Dress code is skipped over as nowadays dungarees topped with slouchy tee shirts and grounded by faded white exercise shoes are the prevailing fashion. I carry a jacket and bow ties matched to dark slacks from long habit and deference to my mother's rules of etiquette, but today a Granny Goose costume combined with a Hobo Bob suit will do anywhere from the Ritz to Joe's Grill.

One new addition to my gear is tea bags. Sounds harmless enough, doesn't it, to go in the kitchen for tea bags? Wait up before answering. There's a ticking sound. No, there's a thonk, thonk, thonk coming from under the sink. And what does that "thonk" mean? It means a water leak to be controlled by calling a plumber 30 miles away or cutting off an electric pump 150 yards from the house.

Before I choose, the telephone rings. The following exchange ensues. Only my side of the conversation is available. Piece in the other party's conversation by use of your imagination. Me: "He jumped the fence and hit on his back?" Pause. "Thought he told you the horse was broke." Longer pause. "What to do? Well, tell the horse trader we'll swap him the corral-hurdling black bull in the 'two section' for his pen jumper, if he'll throw in a Johnson halter stout enough to snub his horse to a post." Scratchy noise on other end of the line. "Be sure and tell him our bull lands on his feet. Not going to hurt his kidneys or break his back. Don't let him trick you. He knows what happens when you throw a calf too hard." More scratching. "Bye."

Lying on the kitchen floor by the sink, I find the pipes too rusty to locate the leak. The "thonk" sound is inaudible from floor level. However, given a better perspective of the problem, I put a biscuit pan under the drip, changing the sound to a metallic urgency more like ball bearings spilling on concrete than water leaking.

Back to packing my bag, one of the two clean long sleeved shirts is missing a button from one cuff. My sewing kit is over at Merton. The other clean shirts are at the laundry in San Angelo, including the missing cuff button. I find four turtlenecks wilted enough around the collars to be comfortable, yet not so wilted a bandanna handkerchief won't support the roll below my chin.

The telephone rings. Me: "The clutch is out?" Pause. "You stranded in the pasture?" Muttering sounds over wire from a cell phone connection. "In San Angelo at Wilson's? Is that what you're saying? WILSON! W-i-l-s-o-n, the gosh-a-mighty garage where we have traded for 20 years!" More noise and interference. "Five hundred pounds? I thought you had put out molasses tubs. I didn't know you were feeding cubes." Short pause. "Oh, five hundred dollars to fix a clutch. Where do clutches come from nowadays? Germany?" Before hanging up, "She what? You mean the mare we junked died from a fall coming down the loading ramp at the scales. Okay, okay, call that trucker. Tell him when the contract comes up at the rendering plant, he can use me as a reference."

Once off the telephone, I abandoned a packing procedure equal to the finest rollers of surgical bandages to ever grace the operating rooms of Mayo Brothers' clinic to adopt a clothes tumbling and paraphernalia tossing act worse than a rag picker's dreams. I stuffed turtleneck shirts in pockets. Stuck my coat in button side down, sleeves flared to the side. Socks fell where they might land in pairs or singles. Toiletries went in the top of the bag in whatever condition they were from my last trip — empty or overfull.

Going out the door, I remembered to leave emergency numbers on the breakfast table. In a firm hand, I listed the stopovers on the way to Taos: Hobbs, Socorro and Santa Fe. By each one I printed "Call" and added three digits — 911.

April 4, 2002