Well, I’m on the road again. Cue Willie Nelson’s song.

What, wait-a-minute?

I’m just told that Willie’s music publishers want some green-dough, some cabbage, some buckaroos, to play his song in public. That’s okay, I’ll just mumble the words and hum it in my mind. Trouble is, that song is hard to get out of your head once you start it playing inside there. Know what I mean?

I’m driving north on Highway 83 in ARGO. Wearing an un-tucked light blue Columbia fly-fishing shirt, khaki cargo shorts, and loafers without socks, I am easily identified by locals along the way as a “yur-not-fum-round-here” guy.

If you want to quickly find the road, I’m traveling. Pick up a paper map of the U.S.A. (remember those?). If you can’t find one, do this mentally: hold the map out in front of you with the west side of it in your left hand and east side in your right.

Yes, of course, with north at the top.

Now, fold it in half from left to right (ah, note for dyslexics: a right to left folding of the map also works, with, of course, north still at the top), then crease it in the middle. Now open it back up.

Look at the crease in the middle. Highway 83 should be right there in the crease, or, at least, close to it, just to the left side, from top to bottom.

Some writers have called Highway 83, “The Last American Highway.” One guidebook dubbed this highway, “The Road To Nowhere,” which, in all due respect to the travel guide, seems disparaging, belittling, and frankly, stupid. I wasn’t the best student in my high school geography class, but I can see the road does go somewhere, and on both ends of it: old Mexico to Canada. Two exciting, diverse places, albeit, one very violent, the other passive and peaceful. So in my humble opinion, this demeaned Highway 83 needs a more notable name.

I’m naming it: HEARTLAND HIGHWAY.

It’s a more fitting moniker don’t you think?  Much more appropriate, especially when you come to know it for what it really is and what it represents for America and the world.

Highway 83, Heartland Highway, is 1,885 miles long, traversing south from old Mexico, through the length of Texas, the panhandle of Oklahoma, the western side of Kansas, Nebraska, and straight across South Dakota and North Dakota, and on north into Manitoba, Canada.

This mostly two-lane road unfolds, with narrow shoulders most of the way, and occasional trucks hauling everything from mammoth round-bails of hay, to cattle, to large farm equipment; all whizzing by, way to close in the opposing lane.

Heartland Highway is dotted, sparsely, with small classic American towns. The kind of towns that reflect the soul of a great country.

Sturdy people who live in those towns and on farms scattered around. They are all in the middle of the nation’s bread-basket-fields of corn, wheat, and grain. And if providing food for the country and the world is not enough along Heartland Highway, oil is brought up from below the surface to produce energy, and brought from above via huge wind-turbines.

Over those 1,885 miles, there are a million stories; many lost in the wind and dust; others told and retold. Historians begin with stories of roaming dinosaurs embedded in rock thousands of years ago, to stories of Indian tribes fighting each other; then Indian and European settlers fighting each other. There are stories of railroaders, smugglers, drug runners, bank robbers, and on and on.

Ranchers and farmers began scratching out an existence in the 1800’s along the route, back when it was just wagon ruts with a strip of grass growing in-between, much of the way. Modern day “Snow-birds,” use 83 to flee winter heading south for warmer climes.

As I drive north through the panhandle of Texas, nearing the panhandle of Oklahoma, I stop at a little rest area on the west side of 83, Heartland Highway. I’m about seven miles north of Wellington, Texas (birthplace of composer and songwriter Jimmy Webb).

I’m standing near the spot that almost ended the criminal career of the notorious Bonnie and Clyde on June 10, 1933. The final ending for the pair would come later, but this specific spot at the top of Texas, next to the Salt Fork Red River, changed Bonnie’s life in a significant way and added a story to the area’s history that is still compelling to this day.

Bonnie and Clyde were a couple of outlaws, famous depression-era desperados in the early thirties: Bonnie Elizabeth Parker and Clyde Chestnut Barrows.

Maybe Clyde’s parents bestowing a middle name on him, like “Chestnut,” had something to do with the anger he carried inside. Okay, I’m playing armchair analyst here, but it’s a thought worth pondering.

Bonnie and Clyde centered on robbing banks, along with Clyde’s brother and their various gang members who joined up with them from time to time. Their crime spree wrecked havoc that included murder, from  Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, to Illinois.

On a side note, as a teenager, I had the intriguing experience of interviewing one of their colleagues, Frank Hardy. He had retired to Waco, Texas after his life in crime, which included an extended stay behind bars. He died of a heart attack shortly after our interview. This is while I was in high school writing for the student newspaper. I’ll tell you about that another time.

So, back in 1933, Bonnie and Clyde were driving the same route I’m on today, but with a little more motivation. They were desperately trying to reach the Oklahoma state line to meet up with Clyde’s brother, and fleeing the Texas law. Fortunately, I am able to take my time, meandering, with no one chasing after me (as far as I know).

Bonnie and Clyde, along with a gang member, William Jones, raced to the state border on that hot June 10th day. Getting to the state line was a key strategy because law enforcement officers lost the authority to enforce their state laws if they crossed their state boundaries. Before cell phones, the internet, and sparsity of land-line telephones, communicating was not as easy as it is today, all to the benefit of the bad guys.

Reaching the Oklahoma/Texas state line for Bonnie and Clyde meant a reprieve from the immediate pursuit of the Texas police. An escape from justice, for the moment.

In the hasty flee for the border they apparently didn’t see the detour sign warning the bridge had been washed away. Bonnie and Clyde’s Ford coup plunged into a dry creek bed off the Salt Fork of the Red River.

The whole incidence, starting with the car speeding past the barriers, then plunging into the creek bed, was witnessed by a farmer, John Pritchard, and his family, from their farmhouse nearby.

John Pritchard, his dad, and brother-in-law, being good citizens rushed to the scene, helping to save Bonnie, Clyde and his brother from the burning car rolled over on its side. Not knowing the victims were criminals, the Pritchard family cared for them in their home.

Bonnie’s leg was burnt from the car fire and splashing battery acid, resulting in her being afflicted with a limp, needing assistance to walk, the rest of her life. The Clyde Barrow was nicked-up and bruised. They required medical attention, so Pritchard’s son-in-law, Alonzo Cartwright, drove into town to get a doctor.

Before the doctor arrived, the Sheriff and his deputy showed up at the farmhouse. Clyde reacted, and Bonnie suddenly came to life. They took their guns, handcuffed them, and proceeded to kidnap them in their own car. A scuffle resulted in the farmer’s daughter being shot in one hand, while in her other hand she held her baby.

To ensure the farmer couldn’t follow them, the gangsters shot out the tires of the Pritchard family automobile. Before leaving, Clyde offered money to Pritchard saying, “… for all the trouble we’ve been to you.”

“No,” said Pritchard, “if a man can’t help another man, things are in pretty bad shape.”

After crossing into Oklahoma, the gang tied the Sheriff and deputy to a tree with barbed wire near the town of Sayre.

Bonnie and Clyde would live nearly another year before being gunned down by Texas Rangers.

In the wrecked Ford coupe abandoned in the riverbed, Bonnie left one of her leather gloves. Clyde got his guns but overlooked an ammo clip, still loaded with twenty rounds of bullets.

Those two items are kept to this day at the Collingsworth County Museum in Wellington. A reminder of the day Bonnie and Clyde made a mark on the otherwise quiet little community.

Just one of the stories along the Heartland Highway. And it’s back on in ARGO for me, headed north on 83, discovering America, one story at a time.

See you down the road #JohnButlersBuzz

 

 

(Special thanks to the Collingsworth County Museum and the Texas Historical Commission.)