February 24
To know where I’ve been today. I’m sure that this is what grieving is all about, this carelessness, this listlessness, this teapot that’s about to boil over. I know it’s inevitable now, but I haven’t accepted it yet. Let go Mama Hayes! Let go!
Today has been nice outside; and I’ve avoided my room which I now have to share and walked through the grassy fields by myself hoping to scare up a covey of quail. Quail in the bush, through snow but without Daddy Hayes’ 12-gage shotgun. Let’s hope that it’ll be over by tomorrow.
For a good deal of the night Thomas rested his head on the cool window and watched for lights as they streaked past him. Because it was dark Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi all looked the same to him; and he never knew when the train went through the junction at Corinth, though he tried to stay awake for it.
All through the night the chuff of the train wasn’t enough to keep him awake, and he didn’t have the experience for it to awaken emotions, as it did for those who frequently rode up and down the old Confederate line. Having come from the top of a mountain he hadn’t heard the chugging, the tolling, or the whistle of a train before he hopped on one, but though unknowledgeable in that sense, he still experienced the trill often evoked in travelers as they begin an adventure. Though he hadn’t experienced it before, the steady pace of the train spoke to him. For he was forging his own destiny.
His father’s stories about the war, about the battle during which the Union and the Confederacy fought to control a critical railroad crossing, the crossing in the middle of the town of Corinth, intrigued him so much that he wanted to see for himself the trenches that testified to a new kind of warfare. He felt sure that he’d recognize the battlefield from his father’s description of it, the rugged country cut by valleys and ravines, except that he went through the town and the surrounding area during the night. And as he thought of it, he realized that his father, instead of a victory, had celebrated a sneaky retreat.
He saw how his father glossed over defeat. He couldn’t count the times that he heard his father talk about how General Beauregard tricked the Yankees with such great passion that one would’ve thought that the South had won, when the opposite had been the case. He overlooked the truth, that afterwards no Confederate train carried men and goods between Chattanooga and Memphis. Now Thomas could travel freely between the two cities, and he was almost thankful that the North had won. It would’ve been easy to make an excuse for the South. It was silly, however.
But why did Thomas feel so strongly drawn to the West, why had he thought so much about it and heeded the call of Horace Greeley? All he knew was that he had an urge and that he had to get away from a home that was in a perpetual state of tension.
The train chugged on through the night and reached Memphis before the sun. Then when Thomas that morning looked out of his window the city was there. It sung to him a sad song, and suddenly he was struck with homesickness, a tinge that grew in intensity. Homesickness, and around him loomed strangers, a human mass on the streets, the dizziness of facing people in a hurry, in a city built next to a busy river. He came to town at the same time as the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show and learned from it about the Oklahoma Land Rush by seeing a reenacted with covered wagons and real Indians. On horses, wagons, bicycles, and on foot, people raced each other to claim plots land in what was known then as the Cherokee Strip. Little did Thomas know then that it would be where he’d seek his fortune. Then standing on the east bank of the Mississippi, and while getting ready to board another train, he felt as if he were about to enter a foreign land and by then had gone past, in spite of his loneliness, the point of no return.
February 25
My dear friend, there was a sense of finality about today. I wish I could say goodbye in person, though it looks now as if it won’t be possible. And my grandmother finally passed on this morning, which means there’s both relief and sorrow around here, and a chapter of my life, has been closed for me.
I’ve thought a great deal about my future as you can imagine, and the most important thing (and the only thing I think that matters) is for me to remember that I have to be true to myself, and one thing is for certain: I don’t want to return to Baylor. I can live on nothing and give everything I have away. I can do it.
So please clean out my dorm and keep what you want and give the rest away. I’ll write the university, giving the permission you’ll need. I’ll also write John Hu, my roommate, giving him a heads up. That is the one thoroughly distasteful thing I face, but I’ll face it! It has always been hard for me to buck the current. I usually prefer to wait until I’m knocked down but not this time.
The funeral arrangements for my grandmother haven’t been made yet, so I have a few days before I have to tell anyone here.
You know that I’d like to hear from you now and then, to hear how you’re progressing, but don’t neglect your work. Be very careful not to rob yourself of what is uniquely you. O God, now I’m beginning to hate how I sound. I hope that I haven’t scared you off, or made you think that I’m a quitter. Turn to Whitman’s INSCRIPTIONS ONE’S-SELF I SING. He sings from ‘top to toe’ and ‘utters the word Democratic,’ and let that rejuvenate your day. Remember I come from an uptight family, members who always are critical of someone who doesn’t act or think in a certain way. So I’m looking to you for a little encouragement.
My friend, goodbye. Take care, and don’t necessarily follow my example. I don’t know when we’ll see each other again, if ever. Yours always, Shake Spear
Randy Ford
