22 PUNCHMAGAZINE.COM {sloane citron} Mike might be forgetting some names and thoughts, but he is all there on the fairways. As I like to do, we played scramble golf where we work as a team rather than against each other. The course, while still mostly as I had recalled it, had been changed. They cut down about half the trees and made the course easier. And the fairways and greens were in much better shape than I remembered. The most significant thing was that there were now homes lining every hole, displacing the challenging rough that was once was filled with yucca plants, rocks and foot-high tumbleweeds. I felt as if I was playing down a street of some new suburban home development. We played well, Mike outdriving me down the middle of the fairways on most holes and I putting it on the green in regulation. My putter (borrowed, of course) was on fire and I made about six putts over 15 feet. Together, we played a solid round. After we played, we headed to the club’s fine restaurant and sat down for conversation and food. We have lots to say to each other, though much goes unsaid because neither of us are big talkers. But being side by side, like we have been since about 1968, was all that mattered. I love the guy. Mike kept telling me how important it was that we spend the day together since he’s not been getting out with friends as often. But he’s still at it: he’s helping run the ranch he and his wife own; still doing his part at the shop; and still buying old cars (barn finds) that he encounters. He’s moving straight forward, though with changes looming. The next day, Dan, Trudy and I enjoyed some spectacular views from the porch, with wonderful conversations about all our old Amarillo friends. (“Now didn’t his son go to UT? I believe he’s a vet in Dallas now.”) The next day, reluctantly, Dan and I packed it up and drove to Denver, back into the reality of our worlds. Amarillo is important to me. It’s a unique, somewhat beautiful small city of 200,000 where everyone seems to be connected. I like tracing my childhood life while I am there, by way of my old schools, homes and people. There is a continuity in my old hometown. But, of course, nothing stays the same. The golf course is changing. Mike’s changing. I’m changing. Together. Each year, I go to my hometown of Amarillo, Texas, so that I can see regular life in these United States. On my recent trip, gas was $2.79 per gallon, and if you signed up for the gas card you could get it down to $2.59. There’s a start for you. I flew into Denver to spend the night at my brother Dan’s (he is a doctor there). Next morning, we got up early and started our road trip south, driving through Colorado Springs with the Rockies as the backdrop, then into New Mexico with its Southwest pines and rough terrain, before the final stretch into Big A. It’s an easy seven hours with a couple of stops to use the bathroom and get some bad food. We bring CDs but mostly keep the sound off so we can talk—that’s the true beauty of being on the road together. We have a dear, lifelong family friend, Trudy Klingensmith, who has a simple, ramshackle cabin that her parents built 70 years ago in the Palo Duro Club, just south of Amarillo. The views change throughout the day but are always captivating. The club is in an offshoot of the Palo Duro Canyon, the second largest canyon in the United States, spectacular to traverse and fascinating to read about. You probably haven’t heard of it, but it’s worth the trip. We sit on Trudy’s large porch overlooking a gently flowing creek, high above golden fields with hills beyond. We watch for green herons, turkey vultures and assorted ducks. We walk along dusty roads hunting for arrowheads and fire-cracked rocks from the Comanches and Cheyenne who roamed this canyon for thousands of years. Life takes on its own flavor here, wonderfully free from the world’s distractions. I take a break from the cabin and spend a day with one of my oldest, dearest friends, Mike, who stayed in Amarillo to run the printing company his parents established. Mike has the beginnings of early dementia, and I wanted to reassure him that I was there for him. We always play golf, both having grown up with the sport. In Amarillo, it’s easy to belong to a country club and Mike still does. For many years, we had been playing the “new course” at Tascosa Country Club since it’s easier to get a starting time there than at the old course. But what I really wanted was to play the original course, the one that I had played hundreds of times since I was about five years old. This time we got lucky: the night before it had rained heavily, and it was overcast when we showed up the next morning. I pleaded my case to the starter (my father was one of the original founders of the club since Amarillo Country Club did not allow Catholics, Jews or Blacks) and he got us right on. amarillo by evening
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