To My Grandfolks House We'd Go [reminiscence]

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My father had been an orphan since he was 13 years old.  So I had only one set of grandparents, my mother's folks, who lived four or even five hours north of us in the town of Cleburne, Texas.

They sometimes visited us at our home, and even brought my great-aunt - who didn't drive - with them now and then.  But we went to their house more often than they came to us.  Altogether we probably saw them once a year or so, most often with our family doing the driving.

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We usually went on a fairly small state road that went through Lampasas, Texas, so we thought of that as the Lampasas route.  For some reason, the children liked that way better.  My Dad, though - maybe just for some variety - sometimes directed us through the other route, passing through Waco on a U S highway. 

Whichever route we took, we very seldom stopped along the way.  But there was one real landmark on the Waco route.  The highway actually passed the city center on the East.  At the junction with the Business Route into the city, there was a roundabout, the only one I ever saw until I went to Europe many years later.  We called it "the Waco circle," as just about everyone did.  That could have been because there was a well-known restaurant there called "The Circle."  I'll bet there are even now thousands of us still vertical and compos mentis who remember that diner-type place.

Every time we passed, my Dad would share a memory of an earlier time when he had stopped there at The Circle.  It was more or less halfway between Austin, where he had worked for years at the university, and his hometown of Fort Worth, where he still had friends, including former associates at the Star-Telegram where he'd worked on and off for a number of years.

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The only thing I can remember about the Lampasas route is that quite close to Austin was a tiny town - just a few buildings strung along the little state highway - called Coxville.  There, somewhat hidden by trees and overgrown bushes was a small, dingy, orangeish building with an old sign on it: "The Coxville Zoo."  It seemed to be open for business despite its rundown appearance.  But even my sister and I never wanted to stop for a visit.

It sure was a landmark, though, and a welcome one too when we were heading back from Cleburne, since it meant we would be home soon.

I think it was on the Waco route, or maybe on an alternate route between Waco and Cleburne, that we sometimes went by a town called Waxahatchie, known in those days for its honey, and another even littler place called Hico.

That's pronounced HIGH - koh.

But whenever he drove us by there, my Dad would holler out: "HIGH-koh, (pause), HEE-koh, (then rapidly) HIGH-koh  HEE-koh  HIGH-koh!"

We thought it was silly for him to say this, everytime we went through... but how silly is it that I remember it now, 60 years later?

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There was one especially memorable time the four of us piled into our little sedan - a two-door black Ford from about 1947 or '48 - to go to Cleburne for Christmas.  It may have been Christmas or the day before, but there was even a little more than the usual excitement that morning as we hustled our way into our places in the car.  My parents did seem a little more breathless than we usually saw them, if I'm not imagining it.  So we set out on the Waco route.

I may have read my Classics Illustrated or one of my biographies of great Americans as children - like Patrick Henry, Boy Patriot, or Abigail Adams, a Girl of Colonial Days - while my sister looked at her insufferable Photoplay magazine. 

But as we approached the Waco circle, my mother and father had apparently had a private little conversation, with a sad result.  We drove all the way around the circle.

"Hey kids!" Dad called out as we headed now in the opposite direction: "We're going home again just for a few minutes!"

Both my parents seemed upset, an unusual situation for us, so neither I nor my stupid sister even asked why or said anything else.  Oh, maybe one of us asked if we could go to the bathroom.

The point is, as we figured it out in a moment or two more, that we realized that our secret Christmas presents - the ones Santa brings in the night - had not made it to the car that morning in all the rush. 

No, despite its adding four hours or so to our car trip, we didn't complain.

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