If you don't like the road you're walking down, starting paving a new one

So people have been asking me why I chose the title ‘Fading the White Line’ for this blog of mine and what in heavens name dose it mean? Is my eye sight getting worse perhaps, or have I suddenly acquired a debilitating cocaine addiction and these musings are just the result of a chemically enduesed three month binge, where in fact I’m not in America but in the toilet of some grubby club somewhere off the Kensington High Road.

It is neither of these things, so don’t panic mum.

The term as I have seen it refers back to the 50s and 60s where aspiring poker players in Texas, such as Saylor Roberts, Amarillo Slim, and ‘Texas Dolly’ Doyle Brunson would drive themselves all across the state going from one game to another, winning their pay, beating the local players, and quickly getting out of town if the losers took exception to their ‘good fortune’. These guys would crisscross the highways of the south driving for days to get to a game they had heard about full of rich guys with very little skill. These long road trips across the vast, desolate tracks of Texas country with little in the way of entertainment other than going over your hands form the night before, and with next to no sleep would be referred to between them as Fading the White Line, regarding the line down the centre of the road.

Well having been driving around Texas myself now for the past few weeks I am confident that my choice of title was extremely fitting. It is quite something to sit behind the wheel and just pound the miles away, watching the scenery streak past, going from town to town, passing farms and ranches, huge malls and little village stores (that still seem to stock everything you might need from a quart of milk to a new Corvette), vast skyscrapers and simple country churches.

The road just stretches on in front of you, like a never ending wave, inviting you to see what is over the next ridge or around the next curve, with the promise of discovery and adventure ever hanging in the air. That and exhaust fumes and dust.

I paint a very idyllic picture I know, however it is not quite so.

The sign posting over here is idiotically poor, with very little, or no notice given of junctions or directions. How people got around before the invention of sat nav I just don’t know. There are probably still people that left their home during the Great Depression that are still looking for the correct turn off for the I35 heading West.

The other hazard is the quality of the road surfaces. There is certainly no chance of falling asleep behind the wheel with a plethora of cracks, potholes, changes in surface, studs, and all other manner of objects that makes sure the White Line doesn’t fade for too long.

Until next time…

This week I’ve been listening to…