Finding Direction: The Wind Vane Chronicles

The trip we just made with all of Tom’s siblings (except a much older half-brother who died many years ago) to the Ozarks of Arkansas near Mt. Home, Arkansas (see here) was 60 years in the making, I suppose.

You see, the three boys moved with their parents (and an uncle, aunt and cousin)  there in 19 46 and stayed until 1954.  The three boys and their cousin had never been back together.

Tom, who was two years old when they moved there and 10 when they left, had long wanted to return with his older half-brother, Dickie, who is 16 1/2 years older.  He knew Dickie, who graduated from high school in Cotter, could tell him and show him a lot more than Tom could remember.

The wishful thinking on Tom’s part never materialized until just a couple of months ago.  What had been hoped for and longed for for many years finally came to fruition largely by coincidence and the grace of God.  It came about in much the way our two previous reunions this year did – last minute – with my family in the “Great Road Trip of 2009″ – my mom, sister & me – and our “Great Wolf Lodge” reunion with all our kids, grandkids (but two), and again my mom and sister.

The Andrews family gathered for two days here in late April, but Tom and I could not at that time make further plans.  For Tom, this trip/reunion was his “once in a lifetime” dream come true, as my two were with my family.

We journeyed from Maryland, Florida panhandle, south Louisiana and here to Memphis (a seven hour/362 mile trip for us in horrible rain/storms).  But, we made it.  And fittingly, our first night together was spent eating Memphis BBQ at the “Rendezvous,” in the alley across from the famed Peabody Hotel downtown.

You may remember this place from the movie “The Firm.”  It was highly billed and certainly full of atmosphere, but we found the ribs lacking, ourselves.

All three of the Andrews brothers were born in Memphis, so they set off the next morning to find the three different houses they lived in during that time.  They found all three and the hospital where Jim and Tom were born, which Tom and I could not find five years ago.   They got good pictures, picked up a 15 passenger van and the trip was off to a good start.

Until noon, when they started trying to pack the van for the eight of us (we were all at a hotel just east of Memphis).  We had two scooters, countless big suitcases, bags, sacks, food, ice chests, pillows, bottled water, snacks, tissues  loose jackets, more bags, purses, suit bags, dirty clothes from the night before, more snacks, candy, cameras galore (all except ours, which we forgot to take and were totally bummed out about), our GPS, tons more cell phones than cameras.

Tom and Steve, his brother-in-law, had us all pile our junk belongings out on the curb by the hotel door while they surveyed the scene.  Some 35 minutes later, somehow they found a way to stuff everything in every nook and cranny of the van and we were ready to carefully insert ourselves into the vehicle.

We wanted to take a photo of the operation, but all of the cameras had disappeared somewhere into the guts of the over stuffed van.

After a long discussion about who had claustrophobia and couldn’t sit in the back, who was subject to motion sickness, who needed to be up close to Tom – the sole driver for this great expedition – etc, we managed to squeeze  ourselves in for what was supposed to be the leisurely 4 hour, 11 minute journey (according to “Mabel,” the name they gave Tom’s GPS voice) up to Gassville, Arkansas, where we had a big house rented for the next three days.

Tom started the engine, we pulled out of the hotel parking lot, and that’s when the fun really began.

To be continued . . .

Dee

P. S.   Here’s a photo of us later on the trip getting out of said van for a Sunday buffet brunch, sans luggage, but with two scooters: