Texas Time Warp Part I: Deer and Wild Boars

This past week, I went to Austin, Texas for both business and pleasure. When I travel to Texas for work, I almost always incorporate a visit to see my family as I did last week.

After traveling to a conference in Austin, I rented a car and drove to Mema's house, about a four-hour drive. Unfortunately, I left Austin during rush hour traffic. I called Mema to let her know that I was on my way. "Watch out for deer and wild boars," she says. "Wild boars? Since when?" She proceeded to tell me that my uncle's wife, Marsha, had hit a wild board recently (turned out to be two years previous), and they were "everywhere."

Within minutes, Mom calls. She and Gary are on their way to a church Thanksgiving dinner for which she had spent the day cooking. Before they walked out the door, she wanted to make sure that I was on the road, doing OK, and to let me know to "watch out for the deer and wild boars." Really?

Sufficiently warned, I continue on in the Austin traffic, not making much progress. Aunt Freddie calls to check my route to Mema's house. "Are you taking 183 through Brownwood? Maybe you should go through Commanche." After consulting her map, she concludes that 183 through Brownwood was the way to go but "hey, watch out for the deer and wild boars." "Aunt Fred, you are the third person in 10 minutes to tell me to watch out for deer and wild boars," I said.

I saw one deer outside Lampasas (can you say that without a Southern accent? I didn't think you could...) and no wild boars. How disappointing....