Even small trips are entertaining

Since exotic trips to Dallas, Albuquerque and Galveston are usually beyond my means, small trips become mini-vacations.

Over Labor Day weekend, I traveled to Levelland in West Texas to visit Chance, my former black wiener/Lab foster dog.

Leaving Portales at 6 a.m. to arrive by 9 a.m. to greet a cable guy scheduled between then and 1 p.m., Chance’s barking woke me up when the dude arrived at 4:30 p.m.

Between Dora and Morton, Texas, I read a sign about Buffalo Soldiers (African-Americans) getting lost without water for four days while attempting to drive Comanches back to their Oklahoma reservation. Four soldiers died of thirst.

Near a home with a confederate flag, I stopped for an idling motorcyclist. I was relieved he gave a thumb-up because his tattoos and garb made me nervous about getting out.

A welcome sign in Morton read, “Home of the Fighting Indians and Maidens.” This offended me. I have never known a maiden to fight.

Handwritten names and ranks on an automotive garage, presumably listing the town’s veterans, was headlined, “Our prayers, love and support are with this generation of the brave…”

“The New York Store,” shuttered, was apparently too cosmopolitan.

A convenience store clerk wouldn’t cut a man slack for lacking two pennies. When I provided it, the customer shook my hand like I’d invented a cure for pettiness.

Then I lacked a penny for flavored water, so — out of spite — I gave the clerk a $20.

In Whiteface (population: 449) — rivals with the Indians? — I got buzzed by a yellow crop duster. Since I drive a Japanese car, I worried he might be having a flashback.

Outside the automotive section at a big-box store in Levelland, I discussed a $21,000 trike motorcycle with the 70ish bearded Jim. With his wife, he was going to ride up to 85 mph for a three-week trip to the East Coast.

Maria, a 30ish Mexican waitress at a Mexican restaurant, didn’t seem concerned (at the time) about Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) as I asked her if she took classes at South Plains College in town. When she said no, I felt bad for insinuating waitressing wasn’t enough.

Jean, 24, an SPC student from Estonia, was fascinated by American students wearing shorts.

At the SPC equine grounds a sign warned participants the college was not responsible for their deaths.

A white woman told me about her German Shepherd scaring off a “big black man” breaking into her furniture store.

Two white teenage boys walked into a rundown garage with skateboards and guitars — a true garage band.

Richard’s BBQ is open from 11 a.m. until “Sold Out.” The 60ish black man, smiling through gold teeth, said the secret to his famous peach cobbler is, “My wife makes it.”

A mailbox resided inside a green, rubber largemouth bass.

Levelland is also home to the “Portales Select Peanut Company,” the “I Don’t Know” restaurant and a black tin cat that scared Chance.

Returning between Dora and Portales, a neckless, waist-up scarecrow wearing a bluish-plaid shirt — arms outstretched in a desert-brush field — with a red hardhat for a head capped my 180-mile round-trip vacation.

Contact Wendel Sloan at: [email protected]