I wanted to go. I really did. It had been exactly half of my lifetime, and I hadn’t seen any of them for at least that long. So I rode past the cemetery where friends rest, past the factory where I worked for one restless summer, and along the riverbank and into the past.

The warm-up parties were in full swing in the hotel in which I’d registered. I could hear them all as I checked in and found my room: women and men, voices too loud, trying to have too much fun.

She had seen too much sun. Wrinkled. Sun-damaged skin. Still pretty. But immensely aged. I used to chase after her when I was drunk. That was back in my drinking days, of course, when I lived here. Now she was just – different. A lifetime different.

And if I hadn’t been introduced to her, I’d not have known who she was.

I’m sure she wouldn’t have known me either.

During Friday night’s warm-up for out-of-towners I watched a friend greet a former girlfriend – both married to others now: the way each looked at the other for far too long; the hug that lasted too long. And all this in front of his wife. Had I not been temporarily dumbfounded I’d surely have made a feeble joke, tried to draw the wife away from the embarrassment of the moment. But I couldn’t.

So much for the evening’s warm-up for out-of-towners.

About a thousand were scheduled to attend Saturday’s event. I walked into that morass of humanity, looked around for a couple of minutes, and then turned around and walked out and away from the past. I never looked back.

So, here’s to all the hometown girls, to all of you who broke my heart, to some of you who didn’t, to the ones whose hearts I broke:

You’re in my memories, to remain forever young.

I’m sorry that I couldn’t bring myself to see you all, but I know you’re just as beautiful now as you were back then.

And I adore you all to this very day.

April 2000

There’s a restaurant/truck stop in the vast nothingness that is Saskatchewan that has become a regular haunt of mine. Well, regular in the sense that I always stop there when passing through. Why? Because of the butterfly sausages, hash browns and eggs over, of course. Day or night, rain or shine, they’re always the same. There’s something to be said for such consistency in this day and age, don’t you think? Particularly at a roadhouse where the cooks are moving through faster than the trucks.

I’ve not been through here in the last eighteen months or so, but there is one other constant, besides the food, and that is Mel, the waitress. The first time I showed up and sat down, Mel came over to ask the usual questions: where are you headed? where are you from? how long have you been on the road? are you coming back this way?

Over the years I have become a regular, and we have entered into an easy banter about nutty cage drivers, speed traps, truckers (of which there are many that stop here) and motorcycles. She wants to own one some day. Not a Harley of course — too expensive. Rather, something foreign and more affordable.

This time, however, I am in my car. Mel hasn’t recognized me, perhaps because of the length of time since my last stop, but more probably because I’ve arrived by car, and I am sans beard. This has allowed me a great opportunity to pay more attention to the eat-in crowd.

The foursome at the table in front of me consist of two women with their backs to me, and two men facing, one older, the younger on the outside of the booth. The men wear baseball caps with truck logos on them. The younger one wears cowboy boots. Okay, he wears at least one cowboy boot, since I can only see the right foot from where I am sitting. The boot is well-worn and muddy, and has a leather boot strap for half of a set of spurs.

Talk of favorite country and western singers and songs floats across the table. Johnny Cash is mentioned. The titles of trucker movies prevail, although I don’t recognize any of them.

My meal arrives, transported by Mel. She hurries off to wait tables. I must have arrived just before the truck-stop late-dinner rush. I eat in a silence broken by random bits of conversation that echo around the diner.

It is dark and very late, and I am in a hurry to get back on the road. I walk past the four people at the table in front of me, pay my bill and walk out to my car.

I forgot to look for that other spur.