The Great Winfield Disaster
- Michael Jay Tucker's explosive-cargo
- 5 minutes ago
- 4 min read
Okay, folks, today I start a new one. A painful one. An embarrassing one. One in which I make a bunch of incredibly stupid decisions and afterwards everyone thinks something like “Whoa...dude...WTF?” Except without the acronym. And maybe with a wee tiny soupçon of “Have you lost your freaking mind, you daft dimwitted doofus?”
But, I’m big enough to admit when I’ve been wrong. That’s just the kind of swell guy I am. Honest to a fault. Maybe more Fault than Honest. But, whatever.
Anyway...
It all started because we went to visit Martha’s friend Judy. Well, technically she is just a friend. But they’ve known each other since 1963, and they are closer than most family members. When asked, I usually just say that she’s Martha’s sister. It’s true enough, even if it isn’t quite the case biologically.
Judy now lives in the town of Winfield, Kansas, where she has been a journalist for something like 30 years. She’s a good reporter and a good writer, and I quite admire her.
But, she also has some mild health problems. Nothing too serious. She’s just got a few signs of the wear and tear that the space-time continuum inflicts upon us all. She has some mobility issues, for instance, and normally uses a cane or a walker. (And that’s going to play a big role in the rest of my story.)
Anyway, the plan was that we’d drive to Winfield from our home in Georgetown, Texas. We would spend a week with her there, and then she would drive back with us to Texas. She’d spend another week with us, and then we’d put her on a plane and send her back to Kansas.
About the photos: Three today, plus a video (see below). I’m just going to do pictures from our trip with Judy back to Georgetown from Winfield. First, here’s Martha and Judy inside Twisted Root Burgers in Waco, Texas. Second, an exterior shot of the same restaurant. Has a wild B-movie vibe. Well worth a visit if you’re in the Waco-area. Third, a shot of the very cool Sinclair station in Perry, OK. I had no idea that any of the Sinclair dinosaurs were still around. But, why not? I mean, if it worked for Jurassic Park...
So far, so good...but, I did have a couple of small problems. For instance, I wondered how was I going to deal with this Winfield visit in my travel blog? I mean, we’ve already visited there several times, and I’ve already written about it. What else did I have to say about the place?*
But...I told myself something would come along.
And you know, it turned out I was absolutely right. Something did come along. In fact, several somethings. A whole dang herd of somethings. Several of ‘em stomping on my poor little head. And chortling. It’s the chortles that really hurt. Particularly when they’ve got back spin. All those little pointy parts, you see. Though sneers can get nasty, too. I mean, there’s a real risk of Inflection. You can never tell when you might get a bad case of Declension.
The result being that I got my story, all right. And Judy...remember, she’s a working journalist...she got a story, too. And Martha, who likes to write, got a story as well. The whole dang crowd got stories.
Except, in all of them, I...yours truly...come off looking like the Biggest And Dimmest, Lowest Wattaged, Block-Headedest, Lamebrainedest, Double-Stuffedest Ding Dong in recorded world history.
And that includes my own version of the story. Because ...to repeat...I’m so dang honest. (Argh.)
So, stay tuned, everyone. Next up, we have The Bus.
A.k.a. “But it seemed like such a good idea at the time.”
Did I mention Argh?
More to come.
Footnote:
*And...well, not always happily. You’ll recall that on my last Winfield trip, my friend “Fred” had just found out he had ALS. He died a few days after we got home. Not a fun memory. Though, I am grateful to Winfield because my friend, somewhat improbably, had actually visited the place years before. He’d been passing through on a bus. And he loved small rural towns like it. In his final days, I sent him photo after photo of the town. They seemed to comfort him, somehow.
He told me, once, before he was sick, that he wanted to retire to a town like Winfield. I wonder, if fate had been a little kinder, could he and Judy have ended up as neighbors? They wouldn’t have been friends. Fred was not an easy man to get close to. But they could have known each other and at least been sociable. Alas, that just wasn’t in the cards.
And, finally, the video. This is an actual recording of me contemplating the rest of our fun-filled adventures on the way to Winfield. (Okay, I’m kidding. But I thought it went along with Halloween, which isn’t too far away.)
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All text and media Copyright©2025 Michael Jay Tucker
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