Come listen to the story of a city named Dallas

My friend C came to visit me the last weekend of January. I met C at the music conservatory and we became immediate friends when we were brushing our teeth in the dorm bathroom as freshmen and discovered that she grew up in the same upstate New York town where my cousins lived.

Now, she lives in upper Manhattan where she’s been attending medical school and playing the violin. And when she asked if she could come visit during a rare break from her rotations, I was thrilled. I’d finally get to show her around the city I love. The city about which she’s heard me rhapsodize since the days we wrote papers about string quartet scores and bundled up in four layers plus a down coat and ran all four blocks to a coffee shop. Because even though it was midnight and 8 degrees outside, we really needed a slice of flourless chocolate cake.

The first day of her visit was a perfect 78 degrees. She whipped out her summer shoes as soon as she got off the plane and my heart swelled up with pride as she gushed about the blue skies and snowless roads during the drive back to my place. As we were driving, we came up to a great big sign on the freeway that I pass almost every day and don’t even blink an eye. As we drove closer, C couldn’t help but notice it and read it slowly out loud: THE PRESIDENT GEORGE BUSH TURNPIKE. Each word slowly sucking all that pride out of my heart. As she sat there, not really knowing how to react, I cleared my throat and tried to keep the sheepishness out of my voice as I said, “Right. So, um. Welcome to Texas.”

And about 48 hours later, the blue skies turned gray. There was the threat of snow, there was the threat of ice. There was a New Yorker in my living room, trying desperately to get an earlier flight out of this weather-schizo town. And I said in a slightly more sheepish voice, “What? You mean you want to leave so early?”

The next morning, after I drove her back to the airport on those same roads, now covered in white, she called me from the airport. “My flight’s delayed,” she said. “The runway is covered in snow and ice. And it’s the craziest thing. They don’t have tow plow trucks here. But you won’t believe what they DO have. You know those little tow attachments that your brother’s best friend in high school would attach to a pickup truck to plow backyards for cash? They have one of THOSE on a red pickup truck, trying to clear all that snow so we can fly back to New York. Can you BELIEVE that?” After which, she dissolved into a fit of giggles.

And even though I kinda had absolutely no idea what the hell she was talking about, I knew enough to immediately hear banjo music in my head. The perfect soundtrack to a little red pickup truck at the DFW airport with a home plow attached, trying to do something about that there darn snow. This being C’s last impression of my beloved city. I think I might’ve managed to squeak out, “Well, I hope you enjoyed it. You come back now.”