Going back to my childhood, I remember a time when my big brother and I hopped into our parent’s old Nash excited about the impending road trip to our grandparent’s home in the country. The memory of our vacation brought back to me a realization of whose child I am and where I came from. It gave me roots.

Mom packed a large brown grocery bag full of sandwiches and cookies, wrapping them neatly in waxed paper. Then she put iced tea in a clean, clear, glass, one gallon milk jug with the “Borden©” logo and Elsie the cow outlined in red. Ice chests were still a decade away, technology for plastic baggies hadn’t been born yet and there was no air conditioning for the old Nash.

In 1958, my dad filled up the tank at a “full-service gas station” for twenty-two cents a gallon. They checked his tires, washed his windshield and pumped his gas. With packed suitcases, pillows and blankets, road puzzles and coloring books, we were on our way. Mom taught us a new song that day that I sing to my grandson today which goes like this:

“San-An-Toni, An-Toni-O,
She hopped upon a pony, and rode away with Tony;
If you see her please let me know,
And I’ll meet you in San-Antonio.”

She knew all the verses to “You Are my Sunshine,” “Hush Little Baby,” “America the Beautiful,” “Texas Our Texas,” “The Yellow Rose of Texas,” “Home on the Range,” “Down in the Valley,” and the infamous “San-An-Toni-O,” just to name a few. Being raised in a musical family gave each of us the opportunity to play an instrument, sing along, or danced to records.

After driving about forty-five miles per hour, for what seemed like more hours than telephone poles, dad put his arm out of the window to signal a turn and then slowly pulled onto Rockport Road. They didn’t call it Rockport Road for nothing. It was made from some of the finest gravel and red dirt in the state and city cars like ours had to drive slowly in order to avoid the potholes made by the rains. Dad always referred his parent’s home as “The Ranch.”

When my dad grew up here in the 1930’s, this was a family owned and operated dairy farm. The area used to be a mom and pop farming community and Rockport Road was a major artery that went into San Antonio. Rains often made travel unruly but not intolerable since the farmers depended on it to bring their crops and cattle to market.