June 21, 2021
Two weeks ago, when I was in the Trinity Alps I opened a can of smoked baby clams to eat with some crackers. Inside, I was shocked to find that there were only four clams and they weren’t babies at all. They tasted okay but lacked a little of the delicacy of the smaller ones. When I was in Moab I opened another can. This one was filled with the expected babies— about 10 or 12 clams in all—tender and delicious. Last night I opened a third can. This can had about 30 or 40 tiny, baby clams in it. They weren’t as delectable as those medium babies that I’ve come to expect. They hadn’t developed much innards and were mostly skin. There was also a little sand in them. I ate ‘em anyway.
I tell you this story to ask which can of clams do you think Denton is like? Well…(drumroll please)….it’s like the first can of clams with the big ones, except the can is the size of a picnic table.
It seems that everyone in Denton or coming to Denton wants to own a McMansion that is packed into a McMansion development with outdoor malls. I don’t mean to disparage these homes. They are beautiful and look to be well-built. But they are big and they have obliterated the farms and ranches that were here when I was here 47 to 42 years ago. I looked up the current population of Denton which is close to 150,000. That’s three times the size when I lived here.
On the positive side, I’ve seen quite a bit of diversity. An old Asian man jogging in the park waved at me this morning followed by a middle-aged East Indian man who was also jogging and said hi. A young African American man was busking yesterday on the town square playing some sort of electronic beat box. It was slightly better than annoying which lead me to believe there is an appropriate level of tolerance in this town. I also noticed black families and other minorities in some of the upscale neighborhoods I drove through.
I’m composing this journal entry this morning at Evers Park. I’ve made an oatmeal breakfast and tea here for the past two mornings. I boondocked Saturday night in the back parking lot of the last apartments I lived in when Steve Martin was putting arrows in his head. Last night I slept in front of some apartments between one of my old elementary schools and my best friend’s house in the fifth grade when “Rock the Boat” could be counted on in the roller rink I went to with him. ( Mike moved to Minnesota the summer before sixth grade—making our friendship brief and intense in the scheme of things.)
The mosquitos have gotten a piece of me each night. I’m reminded of that drawing I’ve seen on signs at mass transit train stations. It shows the profile of a yellow stick figure staring down with a dotted line going from the pupil of his eye to a couple of lines on the ground with arrows indicating the space between the lines. The sign says, “Mind the gap”.
My gap is the space between the tail of my pickup and the end of my camper shell. The shell is about an inch and a half longer than the truck bed and that’s where those little buggers are getting in. I stuff a blanket in but there are still holes. I’ll have to find a solution.
I’m just telling you this to avoid the hard topic of talking about place here in Denton. The change is just overwhelming. I tried to write about it yesterday but I was dissatisfied and tired of my efforts. I’m trying to remember Anne Lamott’s advice on writing in her book bird by bird, which is, just what the title says, to take it one bird at a time. (Contrary to what you might think of the title the book is about writing not birding. But just let me say that the Great-tailed Grackle’s are out in abundance here in Evers Park. Yesterday I saw one chasing a Scissor-tailed Flycatcher.)
But back to the topic. On another day I will try to describe what the change is like her in Denton, but for now let me summarize where I am with the six places I lived from ages 8 to 13. In order they are:
First apartment—haven’t found it and probably won’t due to the fact that by the time I arrived in Denton I had developed an acute near-sightedness that went undiagnosed for that first year. For all practical purposes I was blind to distance and lived and went to school on little floating clouds surrounded by the fog of the more general world. Getting glasses in fourth grade was life-changing. It felt like a chorus of angels were singing to me when I first put the new glasses on my face and went running across a grass lawn. Suddenly I could see individual grass blades and my whole body was foreshortened as if my eyes were cameras pointed at my churning legs. At home, on my top bunk, the textured ceiling two feet from my face turned from a soft, rolling landscape to sharp mountains with deep cut valleys.
The Ramshackle Farm House—Gone. House and Farm.
The Texas Ranch House Mansion—Gone. Mansion and Ranch.
The Shady Oaks Ranch—Gone from what I can surmise. Further exploration required.
The Denton KOA—Gone. There is a KOA out in Sanger, but I can safely say the KOA I lived in is gone though I still need to go by there to see the land.
Londonderry Lane Apartments—Still there but now named Forest Ridge Apartment Homes. Some newer apartments around the corner are named Londonderry Oaks. I really think they should have kept the original name. It is on a street named Londonderry Lane after all. What strikes me as funny is that the place I lived in with the least character is now the only place I lived in Denton that I can gaze on to help spark memory.
The plan today is to try to suss out these last places that I’m not clear about. I did reconnoiter the general area of The Shady Oaks Ranch this morning after suddenly becoming aware of where I was and how to get there. Becoming clear about where I was involved suddenly remembering an unintentional, yet hurtful, insult I overheard about the cheap, plastic skate board I’d just successfully petitioned my dad to buy for me at a five and dime-type store we were in. It’s strange how many memories about place are linked to negative memories. Does my brain need some fine tuning or is this just the natural order of things? The other place I will look for today is the land that held the Denton KOA where I learned to be a pool shark—pool as in billiards. Although, come to think of it, I did play my share of sharks and minnows in the campground swimming pool.
I may leave Denton tonight and get some distance toward New Orleans where I’m going tomorrow. Might even treat myself to a motel room and the shower I’m due for.
Spotty West Goes East 