Turning South

   Yesterday was bookended by two events that have me thinking of making the most of our time together.

First, during staff meeting I opened our website (www.secondb.org)to see Amy and son Landon Gantt right there on our homepage.  Knowing that the Gantt family moved to Portland, OR, two months ago, I asked the rest of the staff how long we could leave former members' pictures on our homepage? The consensus was not long.
 

Then, last night I read in Texas Monthly online that famed Texas novelist Larry McMurtry is closing down his iconic bookstores in his hometown Archer City. I thought again of the Gantts and a road trip Amy's husband Joe and I took to visit McMurtry's bookstore.

 

Last June, Joe and I hopped into my Subaru wagon and headed east to the campus of Austin College in Sherman to join our youth at camp. Joe was serving as a youth sponsor and agreed to keep me company as I couldn't leave until after church on Sunday. We drove down Hwy 82 towards Wichita Falls and our talk turned to McMurtry's store and how it was the perfect store for both booklovers and Texans. We didn't see how we could profess to be either one if we didn't stop by in Archer City on the way back.

 

Five days later, with a map of Texas in one hand and the steering wheel in the other, I turned off at Wichita Falls and headed south for 25 miles past the burned grass and frozen pumpjacks that constitute what is left of Archer County, the one exception being the town square of Archer City itself, which still has some life because of McMurtry's bookstore and lore. We pulled in and looked off to the left of us where we saw the burned out hull of the Royal Theatre, which was made famous by McMurtry's book The Last Picture Show and the movie it inspired.  We parked across from McMurtry's Bookstore Number One and went in.
 

What we found when we stepped inside was part bookstore, part museum with enough Texana history and movie memorabilia to make us both salivate. We knew our wives would not appreciate our lollygagging, so we limited ourselves to thirty minutes in the bookstore. I perused the miles of racks and found an Oxford sociology of American religion and an old Barclay's New Testament commentary. I can't remember what Joe bought, but I bet it had something to do with his favorite subject — politics — preferably of the leftward-leaning variety. When our thirty minutes were up, we met back at the register, and there behind the counter was McMurtry himself.  He was stacking books and never turned to look at us — a perfect statue of himself, just the way we wanted to remember him. We walked back out into the hot sun, crossed the street to a local cafe, sat down and ate potato salad, then loaded up for the trip home. We talked all the way home about camp and the church and where we had been and where we might be going.

 

What we didn't know at the time was that Joe and his family would definitely be moving to Portland. We knew about the offer there, and he had accepted it. But we were still holding out hope he might get a counter-offer here in Lubbock. We didn't know for sure. And we certainly didn't know that McMurtry would soon be closing down the bookstores. We didn't know that a road trip like the one we were on just wasn't going to be possible for much longer. Today I'm really grateful we shared that experience together.

 

I guess the point of all this to say turn south — take the long way, the road less traveled. Go ahead and hop in the car and make the memory. And talk and get to know each other along the way. You'll be glad you did, and our church will be stronger for it.
 

 

For as McMurtry once said, "If you wait, all that happens is that you get older."