Tumbleweed
The conclusion
Somewhere just west of Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Madelyn and Douglas had been seeing tumbleweeds on old Route 66 since entering the panhandle of Texas.
Neither of the two had ever been accused of being overly imaginative.
The common denominator of their private discussions was trends. Those of the financial markets or the life-styles of the affluent.
Intellectually, they only swam in the shallow end of the pool.
However, the couple had begun comparing themselves to the tumbleweeds they had observed rolling across the open rangeland that bordered the highway.
In short, Madelyn and Douglas had concocted a crude analogy about the sense of freedom they were experiencing on their road trip. And, they equated this with the windborne tumbleweed.
Madelyn and Douglas both bought into this narrative to the point where they thought they should “adopt” a tumbleweed.
This contrasts with those people who collect seashells along a beach and carry them back to their homes. It is unlikely that a vacationing beachcomber actually identifies with a bivalve.
At least not in a personal way.
A few miles west of Albuquerque, New Mexico, our yuppies pulled off onto the shoulder of the road. Madelyn had spotted a group of tumbleweeds stacked up against a fence.
She stepped out of the Mustang and headed straight out to the tangle of tumbleweeds to select the best one.
Madelyn rummaged through the stack like going through the bargain bin at K-Mart. Not that Madelyn would ever stoop to doing such a thing. For that matter, she would never be seen in a K-Mart.
She finally settled on a tumbleweed that was more spherical than the rest.
This uniform roundness appealed to her sense of aesthetic. Yet, it would never occur to her that this shape also gave this particular tumbleweed an advantage over the others when it came to mobility.
The professors at Wellesley didn’t spend much time on evolutionary adaptation in their business classes.
Holding the prickly tumbleweed at arm’s length, Madelyn returned to the car and wedged her find on the rear floorboard behind her seat.
In the minds of Douglas and Madelyn, they had graciously invited the tumbleweed into their lives. In the botanical mind of the tumbleweed, two spoiled brats had kidnapped him before he could sow his wild seeds.
Literally!
‘Standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona.’
On the main street of Winslow, the duo discovered an establishment called The Eagles Java Shoppe. Upon spotting the coffee shop, Douglas’ actual words were, “Such a fine sight to see.”
After they each gulped down a latte chased with two shots of espresso, they got back in the car and drove away. The tumbleweed chose this very moment to jump ship and start rolling down Main Street in the opposite direction.
Standing on a corner was a handsome young man with long hair wearing a tie-dye t-shirt sporting a giant peace symbol. He saw the tumbleweed escape over the trunk of the car.
Capturing the weed before it got too far, he caught up to the red Mustang at the next light.
After returning the prickly plant to Madelyn and Douglas, they offered the young man a tip. Such as they would the doorman at their Manhattan apartment building.
The good Samaritan refused the money, and the couple thanked him for his act of kindness. As they drove off, the young man shouted melodically, “Take it easy, Take it easy. Don’t let the sound of your own wheels drive you…” Then the yuppies were out of hearing range.
Something about this whole encounter in Winslow, Arizona, had an eerie Déjà vu feel about it to our travelers. Madelyn and Douglas quickly shook off the strange feeling as they drove the final leg of their journey to Los Angeles.
The end of the road, Los Angeles.
Douglas and Madelyn arrived at 7th Avenue and Broadway in downtown L.A. a bit after three p.m. on a Sunday.
With help from a tourist, they had several Polaroid photos taken signifying the end of their journey. One of which was of Madelyn and Douglas holding the tumbleweed between them.
Just a typical family on vacation; mom, dad and little tumbleweed. They even discussed naming their little girl, should they ever have one, Kali.
Kali, as you already know if you read part one of this tale, is the genus of tumbleweed.
Promptly the following day, they stuffed their unneeded luggage and the tumbleweed into the trunk of the Mustang. Madelyn made arrangements to have the car shipped back to Chicago, while Douglas obtained two first-class tickets to O’Hare.
The tumbleweed in the windy city.
At first, the tumbleweed was placed in a prominent location in their formal living room. The plant served as a conversation starter when the couple entertained guests.
Douglas and Madelyn made a point of sharing the “freedom of the open highway and the tumbleweed” story with all of their guests. Their captive audience rarely had any comment to offer; usually just saying “That’s interesting” with just a hint of facetiousness.
As with all of Douglas and Madelyn’s passions, they soon lost interest in the tumbleweed.
Tennis and inline skating were their new passions. And anyway, their Ashera cat started peeing on the tumbleweed giving it an unpleasant odor.
So, it was relegated to the baby’s room, should they decide to have one. A baby, that is.
The long and winding road.
Madelyn’s housekeeper opened the window to air out the room one fateful day. It was a windy day in the Windy City, and the tumbleweed immediately recognized its long-awaited opportunity.
Utilizing the room’s air currents, it caught an updraft that lifted it up just high enough to clear the windowsill and out onto Lakeshore Drive.
And with the wind at its back, the tumbleweed set out for home.
The tumbleweed first crossed Grant Park, releasing several hundred of its seeds.
Then, following a roughly southwest course, the tumbleweed tumbled through fields, forests and hills. It slid along over snow and ice and floated across the Mississippi River.
In a wheat field in Oklahoma, the tumbleweed narrowly avoided a thrashing from a threshing machine.
It suffered the indignity of picking up all manner of trash along the way. The sticky Stuckey’s Pecan Log wrappers were the hardest to get rid of. Thanks to the copious amount of grease, Big Mac wrappers were much easier to shrug off.
Once, our tumbleweed got entangled in a bra thrown out of a passing car. It was finally released from its confinement when a goat took a culinary interest in the Victoria’s Secret 36D lace push-up.
(Reader, you are invited to imagine why an expensive bra was unceremoniously ejected from a car window. Please keep your musings to yourself as The Pocahontas Times is a family newspaper.)
Some 200,000 copies of the tumbleweed’s genetic code were released in five states.
The tumbleweed finally found its own kind just east of Amarillo, Texas. For all intents and purposes, our tumbleweed then died, but not before having accomplished its mission.
Thirty years later.
Madelyn and Douglas, now rapidly approaching 60 years of age, had adopted an infant girl some 25 years earlier. Her name is Kali; her namesake is the botanical name for tumbleweed, Kali tragus.
Kali was appropriately named. She studied journalism at DePaul University in Chicago. After writing for the Chicago Tribune for a couple of years, she went to work for Public Radio International.
She now travels the world, sending back news stories from Europe, Asia and Africa. When asked when she’s going to settle down, she just looks the inquisitor in the eye and replies, “Never, I am the proverbial rolling stone or, rather, tumbleweed.”
Douglas and Madelyn were arrested in 1992 for removing a saguaro cactus from the Saguaro National Park in Arizona.
Although the cactus was protected by the Native Plant Protection Act, Douglas told the judge that they just had to have it for the ambiance it gave to their luxury adobe vacation home in Santa Fe.
The judge was not sympathetic to the couple’s sense of décor and sentenced each to six months of home confinement.
The tumbleweed that escaped from Douglas and Madelyn is long gone. Still, 30 generations of its progeny can now be found in states where it never existed before.
On Sunday afternoons, children and dogs now chase tumbleweeds across Chicago’s Grant Park.
Despite the tumbleweed being an invasive species, people everywhere delight in seeing a tumbleweed rolling unrestrained across the landscape.
Perhaps, deep down inside we all long for the freedom of the open road. Still, severing the umbilical cord of security is much harder than it sounds.
But there are those like Kali, who forego the single-minded pursuit of money. For them, life is all about creating experiences. Then, and only then, you really have something to tell your grandchildren.
Please note that this is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental.
Or, is it?
Ken Springer
Ken1949bongo@gmail.com