Certain
of one thing, in the town of Uncertain, Texas!
By
Merita B. McCormack
Leesburg,
VA
Adding more passengers to our road trip to Texas
, changed it all. We had previously settled for the generous offer to stay at
someone’s house, but then figuring out three people were too many, we decided
to look for accommodations the night before we set for the trip.
Having a daughter who is a “Martha Stewart”
like organizer and who has a wide range of knowledge of beautiful places in the
US and also having a husband who loves nature, fishing, ducks and all that wildfowl
stuff, we agreed that a place with a lake, between West Monroe, LA and Tyler, TX was ideal
for our two days stay in the area.
West Monroe is where “Duck Dynasty” people are, a favourite family show
which we have seen some times on TV, and Tyler was a place where a family member
had to be for those days.
Thus rushing to book a place was not a problem,
getting to book a place was a problem. The facility we choose “Caddo Lake Retreat
House “ did not have an online booking, as we are so used to on the East Coast. We also called but got no one answer, as
it was after hours, so we sent an email, hoping some one would answer. We were
to leave the next day in the afternoon.
So it happened, a very happy voice called me the next day and assured me
we had the “Retreat house” as that weekend (Aug 20th) everybody was going to
travel opposite to us, to see the solar eclipse and the place would not be full
of tourists and also people, were going home from their holidays, starting school. It sounded like the place was quite busy! That gave me a lot of assurance. I was happy to hear that we had a place and gave her my
credentials to charge my credit card. All was set; we got on the road and
enjoyed the ride. We spent a night in Knoxville TN, a night in Little Rock, AR
and then finally arrived in the friendly state of Texas. I would add here that Tennessee was beautiful
and we enjoyed the view through the Smokies. Before leaving TN, we stopped by a
restaurant by the “Mud Island” on Mississippi river and then headed out to Arkansas,
which was very different from TN. Open land, narrower roads, and not many trees, also very hot. We saw many fields
of rice, soya, and cotton plants. Wonderful, smiling friendly people at every
stop we made. As we crossed the state border and unto Texas, we noticed the lone star state "show off" itself at the border, like bridge colouring of red, white and blue, clean and very visible state map carvings on the bridge walls, signs
which were inviting visitors etc.
Then we hit the real rural Texas, land, land, ranches, land and ranches
again; here and there a cabin, a house, a farm, and open land again. We missed the big cities and is not an
intention to write about the big cities of Texas here. As soon as we dropped the family member
in Tyler we headed out to Caddo Lake. Our intention was to spend the night
there and visit Duck Dynasty crowd the next day. As soon as we started driving we realized we better get gas,
as it seemed very rural and very open.
In about ninety minutes we arrived in the area of Caddo lake and first thing we saw,
was this big sign which read:
“The Church of Uncertain welcomes you” . We
had to smile at that. Latter on we saw a sign saying “Uncertain Inn”. Well we
realized this was a town with a funny name and of many uncertain things. As
we were wondering how that name
had come about it was time for us
to really look for the final destination for the night . We pulled in the last road, which to me
was the “real” end of the world, as it had all dead ends on most turns and it looked pretty empty,
and to tell the truth, not very impressive from the structures of the
dwellings, which looked like old RV-s transformed into homes to the unpaved roads, with trees that gave me the impression of wilderness and lots of dog barking around. A little shop , the only shop had a sign on the window, idicatiing that was the shop of everything from sadnwiches and pizzas to hardware. But that closed at everyday at 7pm. I was starving in fact and was terrified of lack of proper restaurants around. I was hoping that our place would at
least have some sort of cooling, as it was really hot and humid. The trees were
tall and covered in Spanish moss, indicative of high humidity. We drove further down the road and to
the address of the email but could not see the name of the house we were
supposed to be in. I was kind of
panicking a bit as we felt lost, was hungry and may be we thought we were scammed. Finally
we see the number of the house but did not match the name on the email address.
Here on the not so flat drive way, stood a pick up truck and its driver just
getting ready to go in the house. He looked at us and clearly was puzzled. We
were more so. I even said: “Oh Gosh, where did we come”. The guy had the
longest beard I had seen, an old hat, the most worn jeans on him, a cigarette in his mouth
and the pick up truck had plenty of black bags on it. With a heavy southern accent he greeted us
and said “Can I help you?" which to me sounded like he said who are you and what
do you want here? At least that’s what I thought it felt like. I immediately showed to my husband the email text I had photographed earier fearing of loss of service and told him we were supposed to be spending
two nights in the "retreat house". The long bearded guy said: “This ain’t it sir”
and seeing us getting even more confused, he swiftly introduced himself saying:
“By the way I am Red and I am the caretaker here but I don’t expect no one Sir.
Let me call them” he added, refering to the owners.
I tried to make a call on my one to the person
I had spoken few days before, but no luck, no service there. Red joked at me he
said “You must have ATT ma’m, and though you have a fancy phone (referring to
my outdated Iphone), mine works better here, madam”,- pointing to his old flip phone smiling. I had no time to laugh as I was anxious
to hear from the booking person who was unreachable at the moment. Finally he got a hold of Shelley, the
person I had spoken to. The more Red talked with her, mentioning additional
money, the more I felt we had made the biggest mistake booking just like that.
I heard Red saying the retreat house was not ready, and the Lodge (where we had
parked) was supposed to host another group, which had not showed up yet. John and I
looked at each other, and while I worried, John who has never judged anyone,
was happy to admire the natural place. Our son was also happy to have finally arrived
and assured me that the guy was normal and very friendly. I was on the other
side, terrified. Finally, after some back and forth convo, we were offered “the
lodge” for the same price. The
friendly woman on the phone had forgotten to tell Red about us and she
apologized. Then we walked it and it was a beautiful surprise to see the house.
Red continued to talk and joke at us, telling scary stories of alligators and I apologized to him for my stiffness. He said Ma’am
you have every right to be afraid, we are a swampy place with swamp monsters
and I represent the Swamp Monster Show. I joked back and said you should be on
the Duck Dynasty show. He was not much aware of it as he said every one is like
those people here and that was the way of life there.
I began to relax and told Red : "God
put you here, as we were lost". He pulled the cigarette off his mouth, looked at
me with his smiling eyes and said: “Ma’am, I think you are right. God is good”. I added that guardian angels must have
been looking after us. He said “ Ma'am; say it again?” He had hard time understanding my
accent. As soon as he got what I said, he again said: “Ma'am. Sure God put us
together here, as I don’t know what would had become of ya’ll". My husband and son took care of bags
and I wanted to just rest. But as
soon as we went in and looked on the back porch, there was a beauty indescribable.
Cypress River was out here below and cypress trees dressed with Spanish moss,
Oak trees standing tall like they had stories to share, butterflies greeting
us, birds chirping, fir, pine trees, ivy and all, saying welcome to the virgin
nature. It was beyond beautiful it looked like God had put a slice of Heaven in
front of me. I turned to Red and as I thanked him I asked where is the guest
manual so I can know where to go to find food and Red told us it was all there,
on top of dining table, two pieces of papers where it was handwritten all you
need. And he then was our companion fro two days. I will not go into many
details, as there is a lot, but will tell the ending of our 48 hours there. We were seating out, once more, in the
back porch talking about Caddo lake and its story and discussing the book we
read those two days titled “Caddo was” so impressed with his chatty nature and his brown eyes and red bird I asked him:
"Red, what is your background, where is your family from?".
,“I was born and baptized in Louisiana ma’am, but my father was
Italian and my mom was German Irish.”- he answered. I immediately thought Louisiana Catholic, but held my tongue.
He then told us stories of his
Italian grandma pinching his and his sister’s cheeks when she wanted to praise
and them and he had teary-eyed moments sharing those stories and saying he has
no more family around. And he
sipped his drink and smoked his cigarette. He was peaceful and nostalgic. It was a very touching
moment. I thought to ask him one more detail, I said which part of Italy and
what was his last name. For some
reason I always ask Italians if they are from Southern Italy, looking for the Arbresh connection. So I was digging for that. He said well, I don’t know if you know
the last name, but it is Forgionne and he said it exactly like Italians say it,
and he continued: "I can’t tell you for sure where we are from, but do you know
of a man, of a Papa, Papa, Pio my dad called him". I froze and looked at John
who was also curious. Then Red pulling his cigarette from the mouth, pointed towards his palms and his feet, signalling for the wounds of Christ crucified. I could not believe what he was saying.
John said : "Padre Pio?" He said: "No,no, papa, papa, Pio, the old Catholic
man". John was continuing to say
Padre Pio, and I said Francisco Forgionne? He said, yes, that one, the one who...." and he was continuing to point on his palms and feet.
"The priest with the
stigmata?”- I asked
“Yes, Ma’am, yes, the one who had bleeding
hands” - he continued – “that one”. His name was in the paper here many years
ago and my dad told me he is my cousin.
We had same last name and are cousins Ma'am".
I could no longer wait and pulled out of my
purse a Padre Pio Booklet of prayers and showed it to him. He, seeing the photo
of Padre Pio, exclaimed: "Yes
Ma’am, it’s him, he looks just like my dad, it was this photo on the paper
here, Ma’am, many years ago" (he was referring to Padre Pio’s Canonization story
probably), and his eyes got teary again, saying over and over again: "Yes, it’s
him, we have same last name, ma'am".
After that moment , I had to then share with him our Padre Pio many stories and devotions and we sat
down for long time as Padre Pio is a spiritual grandfather to many, so he is very
special to us, too. But meeting his relative there, in rural Texas, a man, who was not raised catholic, for whom, at first I did not have the most charitable thoughts, and who was
so genuine and real, so open and friendly, so modest and leading a simple life,
was a different story. We talked for a long time and Red was happy to hear more
about Padre Pio, and I saw the spark in his eyes becoming more visible and the
joy in him very obvious. He was happy to accept the booklet which he promised to
read it through and through, was happy to look a the photos, very happy to hear
that there are many relatives of Padre Pio in USA, and that one is a friend of
mine. He felt reconnected to the family and we all felt and expressed that God
was alive and present there and then. For some reason, though he was a Baptist,
he brought up the sacraments of the Catholic Church and we spoke mostly on
Confession. The conversation went in to so much details and went fast and there was so much talk about holy subjects that we ourselves could not understand how. It was a beautiful conversation. Afterwards
we all were wondering about this all and we agreed that God’s CERTAIN LOVE had put
us all together for that time in Uncertain Texas
Since then Red has asked us almost daily to pray to Padre Pio for him. I told him, we will but it is us who need him to pray to Padre Pio, especially for me ,who judged his cousin so harsh! Afterall, Padre Pio will know who to hear first, his cousin of course! <3 Padre Pio, pray for us all!
