The economy and the stimulus package

Just about to call it a day in San Marcos, Texas.

It has been significant to meet so many people on this trip who have lost their jobs in the last couple of years. Most often when someone mentions that they've been laid off, others standing around chime in with their own similar stories. Definitely a lot of people who seem to take a bit of solace in sharing a common, difficult experience. Can't say that I've seen so much of that in Canada.

Today we stopped in at the Peterbilt truck plant in Denton, Texas. It was very cool to see these impressive machines come together from scratch. I haven't spent anytime in Windsor or Oshawa, so in a way, being around the well lit, loud assembly line felt like a very American experience. At the risk of getting predictable, it made me think of another Alabama song:

"Hello Detroit, auto workers, let me thank you for your time.

You work a 40 hour week for a living, just to send it on down the line."

The plant can pump out as many as 150 trucks a day with two shifts going around the clock. That's when the market demands it. Right now they're building about 60 a day. One of the plant supervisors who hosted us told me that things are looking up. Demand for Peterbilt freight-haulers is on the rise. That's a good sign for people in Denton and likely for the people we've met all over the country who have lost their jobs. That same plant supervisor figures trucking should be one of the first sectors to feel hints of recovery. As soon as people and businesses start getting busy again, goods need to get moving.

And what about the stimulus package? It turns out that Alex Debogorski is delivering it on a daily basis. Often when he poses for a picture with someone he waits to see if they're smiling as widely as they should be. If the grin doesn't cut the mustard, he gives them his tailor made "stimulus package." He tickles them. It's a sweet gesture and just about always gets people laughing, which shows up in beaming photos.

Jay, Alex and I stopped in to the French Quarter diner in Temple, Texas, off I-35 for dinner. It's a little road side shack with heaps of natural character. Also really, really good grub. Afterwards the cooks and wait-staff came out of the kitchen for a group photo shoot with Alex. Eventually the cameras were turned on Jay and I. Alex gave us our first "stimulus package." It worked. Despite being uncomfortably full of road food, we laughed our heads off. And Alex assures us, and others, we won't be taxed on it. Good night.

Loren

If you wanna play in Texas, you gotta have a fiddle in the band

Hola a todos de Texas. The lone star state is a great, big place. Beautiful, wide-open high plains. Jay and I are attempting to look the part with our new belt buckles.

Alex fits in more naturally. He's a cowboy, of sorts. Down here people wonder where his drawl accent is from. They say he's sometimes hard to understand. I reassure them, in Canada people also wonder where his drawl accent is from and sometimes struggle to understand him.

And after a couple of years of visits, Alex has friends in this neck of the woods. The cowboy hat he's been wearing was a gift a while back from Tammie and Fred out of Fort Worth. We're hoping to cross paths with them while we're here in Texas. Maybe at the Peterbilt truck plant.

Ever since we crossed the border from New Mexico I've had that Alabama song stuck in my head:

"If you wanna play in Texas, you gotta have a fiddle in the band.
That lead guitar is hot, but not for a Louisiana man.
So rosin up that bow for faded love and lets all dance.
If you wanna play in Texas, you gotta have a fiddle in the band."

Not sure what that all means to our traveling, non-musical band. But I know that beyond the belt buckles and Alex's hat, we've been missing something. Couldn't put my finger on it. Until we stopped into Shepler's Boots and Jeans.

Alex decided on a pair of boots (s#&t kickers, as I've always heard them called) with leather uppers and ostridge-belly bottoms. Now we're fitting in. Or at least Alex is.

All the best, gang.
Loren

The wild Southwest

Hello from sunny Albuquerque, New Mexico. Just pulled in here after 2 days off the grid around Jamestown, New Mexico. We stayed with Mark Bush, his wife Tina, and their son: Cowboy Zach. What a kind, generous family. They call the 7600 acre "Bass Ranch" home. Tina's family bought the land with winnings from a poker game a couple generations back.

When I say "off the grid" I mean that literally and figuratively. For the last two days, I've been mostly out of cell and computer range so blogging was a stretch. During those two days, I was also getting my boots dusty in the red hills of New Mexico, sleeping under the creepy watchful gaze of a monstrous taxidermy'd elk, and getting out into the fields to shoot Mark's assault rifles and Dirty Harry revolver (44 Magnum). New Mexico is as beautiful and as wild as I had imagined.

Arizona was also beautiful. We made it up to the Grand Canyon and got to peer into that giant hole. But alas, the crack and kick of the 44 Magnum has made everything that happened before it seem like a distant memory. Now having pulled into Albuquerque, I think it's time to dust off my boots, get a latte, go for sushi, and put this cowboy-hillbilly fantasy behind me. But I gotta tell y'all, it ain't gonna be easy. Especially in Texas.

Loren