Canadian, Texas turned out to be as lovely as I first thought.  Now don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t have the turquoise waters of Cancun, the mountains of Aspen, or the historical monuments of Washington DC, but it has what the sparsely-habitated places always have – lovely people.

Canadian River Covered Bridge

There is an old metal span bridge there called the “Canadian River  Wagon Bridge”, which was erected in 1915, and became a walking bridge in 2000 thanks to the hard work of a lot of townspeople.  Just a couple of miles out of town, it crosses the quiet and lovely Canadian River.  There was no one walking on it this morning, but Jay Godwin, the bridge’s official caretaker, was lovingly inspecting every inch of its 2,635 feet.  He gave me an unofficial tour, and I even got to ride in his little red “mule”.  While we were talking he found out that I was performing that afternoon at the library, and called his wife to make sure she would bring their granddaughter.  I did indeed get to meet Treva and Abby later in the day.

The river itself is lazy – slow and low-slung and full of minnows in their upstream-facing schools.

The drought, which has been mitigated some in my part of Texas, still reigns in the Panhandle and parts of West Texas, and the river shows it.  The little Lake Marvin north of town on 83 was a sad little pond as well.  It’s quite a difference from the museum’s postcard which shows a raging Canadian in 1909.

I had lunch at the City Drug.  The tuna salad was great; homemade and mixed before my eyes at the old-fashioned counter.  But it was the pie that will forever haunt my dreams.  Loretta Lynn used to do a series of commercials for Crisco in which she talked about “flaky crust ever’ time”.   This is the crust she was talking about.  The one your grandmother used to make.  And the cherries were tart and sweet at the same time.  I’ll go back to Canadian just for the Pie.

Great fun at the library.  Tomorrow – Friona and Canyon.