Exclusive to The Live Oak County Register by F. Pratt
Somewhere in the vast expanse of our native state lives Harold Twizlet, certified public accountant and seasoned time traveler, having forayed into the past on U.S. government secret reconnaissance missions since 1974. Twizlet told me that he first began work for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and its brainchild, Project Perseus (so named after the Greek hero who flew on a borrowed pair of sandals), when he visited the siege of the Alamo on March 6, 1836, then Lincoln’s assassination on April 15, 1865, and, finally, the office of Carl Jung during a conversation between the noted Swiss psychotherapist and his colleague, Sigmund Freud, on May 3, 1912. Intriguing stuff!
So much so that this reporter was determined to interview Twizlet in his hometown of Nacogdoches, a buzzing metropolis of at least 34,000, not counting the ostrich farm. (Nacogdoches lies on the banks of the Little Dirty River, noted for being dirtier-- and littler-- than any other river in the Southwest.) Nacogdoches is also home to Bill Baker’s Broadway Barbecue. Its menu includes Bill’s famous barbecue brisket, which has become even more popular since the cook started using mesquite bark as a fuel rather than a condiment. Mayor Dusty Vidalia agreed to introduce me to Twizlet at Bill Baker’s, as the celebrated time traveler wishes to keep his home address top secret. (He wished to keep his hometown secret, too, but I see I let that slip.)
My first challenge was to locate Nacogdoches, rooted in the Piney Woods area of East Texas. My usual transport is our trusty Texas bus system. I hadn’t realized, however, that the only bus station in East Texas is actually located in Shreveport, Louisiana, necessitating a flight from Houston to Baton Rouge and a Yellow Cab to Shreveport. From there the trip was only nine hours by Greyhound to Nacogdoches, via Houston, the very city I’d embarked from before sunrise that day. (I learned later on that, initially, if only I had managed to find transportation to Lufkin, which is about twenty minutes south of my destination, I could have nicked a couple of hours off the trip to Nacogdoches by hiring Lufkin’s premier vehicular conveyance, Rudy’s Limousine Service, a 1994 lime green Ford Escort station wagon with Mexican plates and, courtesy of last month's flood, absolutely no floorboards.)
But enough of my travel time: on to Mr. Twizlet’s time travel.
You might ask why I don’t just hop onto San Antonio’s Anderson Loop with my Ford-150 full-size pickup and drive directly to my points of call. First, I don’t own a Ford-150 full-size pickup. Second, our great state has the unfortunate habit of designing traffic loops around its major cities (even Nacogdoches). Back in my driving days, I once spent a week on the Anderson Loop without food or water or a clear sense of how to disengage myself from it. Talk about time travel, or, more to the point, travel time. These days it’s strictly the bus for me. That in itself is confusing enough. I once spent five hours perched on a bench, waiting for the bus in the blistering heat, only to learn that instead of a bus stop, the bench was simply one of many scattered about Phil Hardberger Dog Park for dog watchers to enjoy the steady parade of panting canines that bound along every day. No wonder I straggled home with fleas.
But again, on to Mr. Twizlet’s time travel.
You may also be asking yourself, however, based upon my coherent writing, if I am indeed a native Texan. You would be ill-advised to judge Texas speech by the linguistic skills of our fine residents in San Antonio. Truth be told, we are a military town, and half the population was born in Germany, where we apparently have a naval base, located in the depths of the Black Forest. The other half, of course, crossed the border illegally from Mexico, and I can only applaud them for their prowess in navigating their way across so many miles, with so many loops.
Well, you were right, after all, about me. I am a transplanted New Yorker. If my dependable spouse hadn’t conquered Google Maps so masterfully, we’d probably still be in New York, but here we are in the Sunshine State.
And there I was, finally, in the entrance of Bill Baker’s Broadway Barbecue in Nacogdoches one sweltering evening in February-- the exact date, as per Mr. Twizlet’s terms, must remain top secret-- scouring the booths for two middle-aged men in cowboy hats. As every booth was occupied by two middle-aged men in cowboy hats, I was hard put to figure out which one of them contained Mayor Vidalia and Mr. Twizlet.
“Which one of you is Twizlet?” I yelled from the entrance.
A middle-aged man in a cowboy hat jumped to his feet, leapt over a booth, and collared me. “Don’t call me by that name,” he said.
He pulled me to the booth from whence he sprang and pushed me down next to the mayor, who was studying a road map.
“Ah, quaint relic from a past century.” I eased the map out of his hands. “Why, a Texas road map! Why do you peruse it so intently?”
Mayor Vidalia stowed his glasses back in their case. “Looking for a route to the state fair.”
“The state fair in our fair state! What does that have to do with time travel?”
Twizlet kicked me.
Vidalia said, “It has more to do with travel time than time travel. We have to get Twizlet here to the state fair tomorrow by ten because that’s where he’ll take off to visit Custer at the Battle of the Little Big Horn.”
“Right here in Texas, if I’m not mistaken.”
“You are indeed mistaken.” Twizlet rolled a cigarette. “It’s in Montana.”
“And you’re planning your route.”
“What?” Twizlet dropped his cigarette. “What are you talking about?”
“Your route to Little Big Horn. A word of advice: forget driving. The bus will get you there in the blink of an eye.” I picked up the menu to find something not fried or barbecued.
“I can get there faster than a blink of an eye once I get to the time machine.” He blew a smoke ring.
The waitress appeared and I ordered a Reuben sandwich.
“Not on the menu. Gotta go outta town fer that.”
As I had not factored travel time for a Reuben sandwich into my Nacogdoches visit, I sighed and requested “something edible.” The waitress glared at me and walked away.
(To be continued)