The Shoelace

“I’ll have a Manhattan with Templeton Rye please,” I say to the eager bartender as I slide into a comfortable seat at the quaint hotel bar.  The dark wood decor and raging fireplace are a welcoming sight.  We have just arrived in Santa Fe, New Mexico and checked in to our hotel at the Inn of the Governors.  After a ten hour drive across the midwestern desert of nowhere, I need a stiff drink.

The bartender sets down the largest Manhattan I have ever seen, gives me a smile and a hearty “cheers.”  God bless him.  Like every great barman across the land, he can tell what will fix me just by the look in my eye.

Taking my first sip of the lovely elixir, the seventy-something lady sitting next to me at the bar turns my way and says “hey there cowboy.”

I’m kidding.  But that would have actually made my day and certainly made for a more interesting story.

Her name is either Kathleen, Kathie Lee, Linda, or Mildred.  I couldn’t quite catch it as she quickly introduces herself and proceeds to tell me everything about her life beginning with her own conception.

Mildred’s husband sits at the bar next to her sipping on a large beer.  As she rambles on, I look his way and see that “dead inside” look in his eye.  After what is likely fifty years of marriage, he has learned that when she revs up and starts gassing, to go as dormant as zoysia grass during a Midwest winter. 

Mildred and her husband are biochemistry professors at U of A (her phrasing – it stands for University of Arizona).  They both went to Kansas State University and Mildred was the very first woman to graduate with a biochemistry degree from that institution.

Just writing that paragraph made me sleepy.

Just as Mildred was telling me about her Kansas State connection, my wife joined me at the bar.  She is also a Kansas State Alumnus. 

The timing couldn’t have been more perfect.

“Kansas State,” I exclaimed.  “Why my wife here is a K-State alum.  How fun!”

As Mildred starting grilling my wife about her days in Manhattan, Kansas, I gulped the remainder of my Manhattan, Whiskey and ordered another.

As the two converse about their centuries ago college days, I look over at Mildred’s dormant husband.  After studying him for a few seconds, I return my eyes to the bar and think about the definition of dormancy.  Not dead, but awaiting regrowth from the root in the spring.

Yes, that’s me.  At least for the moment.

Earlier this same day, we are motoring down U.S. highway 412, heading west across the panhandle of Oklahoma.  We skirted the southwest edge of a winter snow storm as we rolled through forgotten corners of the state of Kansas.  Blue skies, brightly colored and inviting, are visible on the horizon ahead.  The break between the gray clouds and sunshine seem to sit perfectly at the Oklahoma/New Mexico border – inviting us out of the dreary Midwest winter, and into the golden glow of the west.

It is the day after Christmas, December 26th, 2023.  Always a bit of a melancholy day for me.  Christmas fun is over, and with the advent of the new year coming in a few days, so goes another twelve months into the record books.

The road trip west will be a long one.  We will hit Santa Fe, Sedona, San Diego, Palm Springs, and an extended stay in Paso Robles on the way out.  The trek home includes Laguna Beach, Las Vegas, Winslow AZ (standing on the corner), and Colorado Springs.

Nine weeks in all and we have just reached our first stop. 

The second Manhattan hits me hard.  We escape the clutches of Mildred and her husband Zoysia, exit the bar, and wander off into the cold crip Santa Fe evening in search of a cozy dinner, a bottle of wine, and dreams of our adventures yet to come.