Texas.
It was there,
not to be ignored,-
like the things on the other side
of the other side of the tracks.
It was always there,
and you knew it,
and it was so tempting-
It still is,
and now you, my friend,
are feeling it:
Temptation,-
just an hour or so away.
Route 28 to route 8,
cross over to 63,
then when you hit Jasper,-
well, then you can decide
which way you're gonna go.
Meanwhile, there's a nice old diner,
or there used to be, anyway,
where you can have a decent cup
and a fair slab of pie
while you think it over.
Truckers stop in there,
and you might ask one or two of them,
about where you might want to go.
Likely they won't know,
because while they've probably been there,
and back again,
they won't know where to tell you to go,
just to go somewhere.-
Oh, they'll understand you, all right,
and a few will envy you
and your ability to just go,-
but because they will understand you,
they will know the importance
of not trying to influence you in this.
Nope,-
you'll probably have to make that decision
all by yourself.
Me? Hell, don't ask me;
I don't know any more.
Been too long for me to give much
in the way of advice.
I've hit too many back roads,
dirt roads, lost roads.
and they all turned out the same -
a dead-end that went to Nowhere.
But I will admit that there just seemed to be
something sort of special
about drivin' an old back road
in the rain,
late at night,
with no place that you really had to get to
in any certain amount of time.
It was a good feeling,
then.
Sometimes I miss that feeling.
Sometimes I wonder what would have happened,
had I gone North, instead of West,
and had Shreveport as my jumping-off place,
instead of Jasper.
Now that idea would have opened up
a whole 'nuther bunch of possibles.
IF I had gone that way.
Which I hadn't.
But I guess that I just went the same way
that everyone else had gone,
before me.
And I guess that I finally ended up the same way
That everyone else had ended up,
before me.
and that was how it was to be.
I still don't really know where I've been;
don't know if I ever really got there or not -
and while I'm now at the age that I would like to know,
it really ain't gonna make much never-mind if I don't find out.
I tried.
That's good enough for me.

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