Day Tripping
Met with Bobby Presley, yesterday morning in Bossier
City for breakfast, during which time our discussion
turned to my recent fondness for karaoke, and my
total disregard for the pain and anquish suffered by
my audience. Bobby confessed that his only singing
attempt occurred in church once, when a lady he was
standing beside handed him a hymnal. Briefly into
the song, she reached over and took it away from
him. After we were able to figure out why his riding
vest would not button properly (that sometimes
happens when you wear it inside out), we rode down
to Stonewall, where we met Debbie and John Brown,
then headed south on US 171 to Zwolle (Zuh-wall-ee)
where they were having their annual Tamale Festival.
The heritage of the people in this area is a mixture of
Indian and Spanish, primarily, but the town is named
after a city in Holland. When the KCS railroad was
being built from Kansas City to Port Arthur, Tx.,
they ran out of funds when they reached Van Buren,
Ark. A rich coffee merchant in the Netherlands was
contacted and the necessary funds were acquired. As
a reward, he was allowed to name the town, and since
all the really cool names, like New Orleans and Boston
and Tallassee, were already taken, he said "Crap, let's
with
Mike Phillips
just find a name that rhymes with tamale, so that 100
years from now these people will have a reason to have
a parade and sell T-shirts." And that's how Zwolle got
its name. Furreal! After viewing the parade, which
consisted of floats celebrating local culture, custom
cars, local businesses, and every political candidate in
a 5 state region, we went over to the festival area and
ate some tamales, bought some T-shirts, and watched
the tamale eating contests. Also met with Barb and
Troy, who rode down to enjoy the festivities. Inside
one of the buildings, I ran into one of the country's top
wildlife artists, Don Edwards, and his wife. He had a
display of his work there, but was also the designer for
this years festival poster. Don was teaching oil painting
at Lytle's in Shreveport in the 1980's, at the same time
I was teaching Calligraphy there. Leaving Zwolle, we
took LA 191 up the east side of Toledo Bend Lake to
Logansport, where Debbie and John decided that they
would rather go play with their grandchild, than ride
with us anymore, so they left. Yeah, I know, hard to
believe. The rest of us continued on to Marshall, Texas,
to the annual Fire Ant Festival. I think, sometimes,
these small town festival committees really go for
shock value when searching for a name for their
particular festival, and of course, how it would look
on a T-shirt. Custom cars lined the tree shaded main
street. There was a band on the courthouse square, and
folks dancing in the street. Met a young lady dressed in
an Elvis costume. Met an old biker named "Cracker",
proudly sporting his Confederate flag shirt. Bobby,
Troy & Barb decided to ride on to Jefferson, Tx.,
but I chose to return home and watch the Alabama/
Arkansas game on tv. We could not have bought a
prettier day for riding, sunny & cool. Once again, a
great ride with some great people.
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