FOR THOSE OF US WHO TRAVELED OUT OF TOWN...

By Juan Montoya
It's the time again for the Montoyas to head north to the central Texas location and meet the dispersed tribe for Thanksgiving.
For us it's Bastrop, in the watershed of the Colorado and Guadalupe rivers.

There, the dispersed members of the Montoya-Mendoza-Pego, Kelm, Womack, and Hoenstein branches gather at sister Mary's Hill Country home to reconnect over the year's absence.

Some have traveled from the Midwest (Great Lakes), others from Dallas, Corpus Christi, and from South Texas.

For those who traveled from the Rio Grande Valley (and Brownsville, in particular)  it's noteworthy that we could still hear George Ramirez KXIQ low-power FM station all the way Sebastian on the footlomas  of the King Ranch.

From there on, it was the cactus and mesquite-strewn Yturria and King ranches until you hit the Sarita US-government's listening post 47 miles north of Raymondville.

The checkpoint and road beyond is bristling with cameras, DPS (zorrillos), sheriff units and the various Border Patrol and local police units from the outlying towns. At the checkpoint, drug-sniffing (and human, we guess) dogs are led past each car as the long line rolls by the agents.

After that, it is the long flat stretch of cotton lands at the start of the Coastal Bend and up past Robstown and past Corpitos on the way to Sinton and Highway 77. After that speed trap it's up to Refugio (pronounced Refurrio by the natives), the home of seven-no-hitter pitcher Nolan Ryan, and 183 to Goliad, Gonzales, Cuero, etc, the incubator of the Texas Revolution (Come an Get it).

From there on, on the back roads of the Texas Hill Country, it's on to Bastrop, and our destination. The sky had cleared up by Wednesday afternoon and the air was crisp and the sky clear blue.

This morning (Thursday) we can smell the three turkeys in the oven (actually one in peanut oil in the cooker outside) and the people puttering around in the kitchen fixing the makings.

There is a gaggle of ankle-biters of all colors and sizes verbally having a great old time getting to know each other as us older guys reconnect on family news: who's not here, who passed on, who's coming.

The prayers will be said (English, Spanish, sometimes Ojibway) and the tribe will sit to feast. We've had reps from Scotland, South Africa, Native America, Mexico, and even Central America before aside from the run-of-the-mill American Puritans.

Afterward, we will join in on the traditional sing-along which is of particular enjoyment to our stroke-afflicted brother who struggles for speech, but who surprisingly seems to remember all the words to the Beatle songs we sing to the accompaniment of a badly-played guitar.

We hope everyone everywhere can partake of this enjoyment and fellowship as our extended tribe does. It's truly something to be thankful for.