Lubbock -- A Meeting Place

There aren’t a whole lot of cars on the road through north Texas to Lubbock and not many curves, or hills, or anything else.  It’s an easy drive and really beautiful in its own way  We drove through the late afternoon listening to BW Stevenson singing, “Please Come to Boston” and “My Maria”, it was fantastic and Marty would have been harmonizing with us making us sound better than we did.

We pulled into Lubbock in the late afternoon.  The population is larger, but it still has the same small-town feel.  You can find your way around Lubbock easily, it’s all about sequential numbers and the alphabet and it’s square and flat.  It doesn’t fit just anyone.  Marty and I fit perfectly there.

I met Marty at a mutual friend’s birthday party in 1973.  A long time ago, literally a lifetime ago.  It feels good out there, it feels good in my soul.

We stayed with Skip’s brother Mike and his wife Pat.  Mike is a little older and he was part of that high school class that always seemed a bit intimidating.  Not anymore, both Mike and Pat are artists and part of a burgeoning art scene in Lubbock (yes, it’s true) and are consummate hosts.

Skip and I got up early on Saturday to go watch Texas Tech play Oklahoma State in football.  It gave us a chance to wander the huge Tech campus.  It was a cool panhandle morning as we made our way past familiar and unfamiliar buildings dotted with new and amazing sculptures.  The weather was perfect, and Skip and I meandered through the unfamiliar and familiar.

TTU has done an excellent job with incorporating art into the campus and sculptures and fountains dot the west Texas campus.  Marty would have loved the steel and stone figures sitting quietly in front of various buildings.  

The sun was bright at Jones stadium as were the Red Raiders as they beat OSU in a great game.  Marty, Skip and his ex-wife Sharon went to every game for a couple of years and Skip and I always had a great time.  I think the women Marty and Sharon silently humored us, maybe it wasn’t that silent.

After the game we headed out to Buffalo Springs Lake just east of Lubbock.  It’s not big lake but it is a beautiful lake in a small panhandle canyon.  Jerry, Marty’s brother, had a good friend whose relatives lived at Buffalo Springs back in the day and we would go out there and party.  At one-point Jerry bought a small sailboat and we would sail around the lake like real sailors (not).

We spent the evening talking, remembering hometowns, families and good and bad times.  Lubbock has always been a special place for me.  I went to college there, met some amazing people, met my wife, had a first shitty job, bought our first house (for 15k), got a dog, and lost that shitty job which led us to Paris.  

We got up early the next morning and hit the road for Pendaries New Mexico.