Little Rock to Memphis. Memphis to Little Rock. I can drive it with my eyes closed.
My dad moved to Memphis in the early ‘80s, away from me and my sister when we were kids in Gravel Ridge. Back then, she and I made the trip back and forth in lots of different ways. Sometimes we’d take the Greyhound. Other times, my mom would meet up with my dad and make the switch at the McDonald’s in Brinkley. But mostly, my dad would drive in from Memphis, pick us up in Gravel Ridge, and turn around to drive us all back.
We made that trip enough times to create our own road trip rituals. Celebrating when we were close enough to hear Rock 103 out of Memphis. Trying to hold our breath for the entire length of the bridge over the Mississippi River. A group sing of Ferlin Husky’s “I Hear Little Rock Calling” on the return trip over the bridge.
I can still taste the thrill of making the trip in my own car as a teenager. The then-girlfriend and I took turns punching in cassette contributions to the soundtrack and singing along. We were electric, loud, wild-eyed and adrenaline-drunk on the feeling of what might lay ahead for the night.
Quicker than you can say Graceland, I became the dad driving kids from Little Rock to Memphis. My sons and I have covered these 130 miles – each way – over and over during their lifetimes. They’ve picked up on the family rituals of the road and made some of their own, adding high-pitched coyote howls to the Ferlin Husky rendition and counting the beams atop the bridge as we cross over. For family reasons too obscure to explain, at one particular point of the trip I am always required to bellow “Where the HELL is Earle, Arkansas?!”
Years later, though, I’m driving solo. Today, I’m on my way to Memphis to see my older son’s band play at the Hi-Tone Café. Somewhere ahead of me on the road, my son and his friends are driving across that bridge, crossing into Memphis. I grin, admittedly a little bit wistfully, knowing that he’s up there creating his own memories of this route and that they have nothing to do with me. But I’ll be there at the show, and so will my dad.
Someone once told me that parenthood is nothing but a series of goodbyes, which may rank as one of the worst gut-punch statements a young father has ever heard. I’d amend that statement a little bit. It’s really more like a mental mini-series, in which the protagonist slowly evolves from a young man believing he is the rightful center of the universe into an older man placing his own sons there, and realizing that this is the natural order of things.
My dad and I have grown a lot closer over the last several years. I think a lot of it took me realizing that we’re always evolving. He is. I am. It took me a long time to realize and appreciate the efforts he made to bridge the geographical distance over the years. It took me logging some fatherhood years to really, truly understand.
Tomorrow, after breakfast with my dad, I’ll cross back over that bridge en route to Little Rock with another memory in the book. Two hours to hold my breath over the Mississippi, count bridge beams, sing, howl, holler about Earle, and wait for Rock 103 to fade out. 130 miles of hoping that my son is safe on the trip back with his band mates. 120 minutes of being grateful for my dad, my sons, and my place in the Hooks Man universe.
I hear Little Rock calling.