Sauza Conmemorativo Tequila

While I was asleep last night, I awoke for a moment and thought of a good joke to post, I then fell back to sleep for a short spell and now the joke is gone forever. I tried and I tried to remember but it was no use. As I laid there thinking, something made me remember an experience I had several years ago. I had met this lady through work, she was more of an acquaintance than a friend but every so often we would bump into each other and we always got along real well, it was like we had known each other for a long time. As time went on and our job responsibilities would change, we saw a lot more of each other and eventually became pretty good friends. We would have lunch together from time to time and my office was downtown so sometimes when she was close by, she and some of the other ladies from her office would stop by and use our facilities, easy access I guess. She lived about forty five minutes south of here at the lake in Eufaula. One year she invited me to a party at her home, I had never been there but as a kid I had spent a lot of summer weekends on lake Eufaula with my family. It was in October and it was cooling down a bit and that’s a great time to be outside in Oklahoma. She said there would be about sixty people there, friends family, and some people from work. There would be drinking, barbeque, games, and a hay ride. Sounded like fun, besides there would be single women there and she was obsessed with fixing me up with someone (I was recently divorced). She said she had a place for me to stay so if I wanted to come down the night before. I could meet some of her family that would be coming down early, I could even make a whole weekend out of it. So on that Friday after work I drove down there. Like I said it was on the lake and I knew I could find it but I had no idea. It was on top of a hill in the middle of nowhere and surrounded by trees, you could not see another house or anything man made in any direction. It was a beautiful place and the home was something from my dreams. It was a two story cabin with a wrap around porch on three sides and the second story balcony wrapped around to match. It had seven bedrooms and four bathrooms along with four fire places. A reading room, a den, formal dinning room, a huge kitchen and I don’t remember what all. They were remolding after a fire and were only using half of the house, it was still bigger than three of mine. There were scattered pecan and oak trees though out the yard and several out buildings. The back patio was breath taking, it was native rock and done in a way that looked like an old fallen down adobe ruin, it was very South West looking and very comfortable. There was a volley ball court around to the side and a cooking area just off of the steps. As she was showing me around it was already starting to get dark, so she showed me where I would be sleeping. One of the out buildings that was a ways off from the house looked like a four car side by side garage, had an enclosed room on either end. I would be staying in one of those rooms, it was good sized, had heat, it’s own washroom, a full size bed, a table with a lamp, and a TV. It was just fine and I would enjoy the privacy. While we were talking about the place she asked me if I liked John Wayne? She had no clue who she was talking to. I love John Wayne, in almost a weird way. I told her that I did so big time and she said asked me to hold on a moment while she went to the house. She came back with some old black and white photos of John Wayne and he was standing in the same room we were sitting in, I about fell out and I seriously had a little trouble remembering to breathe. She told me quite a long story about the house and it’s history, I’ll try and break it down some. It was built in the thirties and had burned down (the first time). In the fifties, the home was bought by a Judge that was originally from California, and he fixed the place back up. He was known to entertain from time to time and have guests from out of town. John Wayne just happened to be one of his friends and he would visit sometimes and they would drink, fish, and just relax or whatever. The home was in the middle of no where so Mr. Wayne could have his privacy while he was down and he would stay in that very room. The room on the other end was occupied in those days by an old black man who was supposedly a prisoner at the McAlister State Prison that was some thirty miles away. The man was released in the Judge’s care as a favor to the Judge and the man did maintenance work around the place and drove the Judge around for years before he died. If it weren’t for the photos I’m not sure that I would have believed the story or not, but it was definitely that place and it was indeed John Wayne. We went up to the house and I met some of her family that had arrived and we ate and had a few drinks. Later that night she walked me back out to the room and said goodnight. I had brought a bottle of Wild Turkey with me so I got it out of my things and poured myself a nightcap turned out the light, opened the door and in the dim light, I had a smoke and a drink with John Wayne, at least in my mind I did. I went to bed that night with a tear in my eye. I’ve never told anyone this before. I wish I had one of those pictures today. It’s a pleasant memory of mine.

By the way, for many years, Sauza Conmemorativo Tequila was John Wayne’s favorite drink. After a lung surgery for cancer he couldn’t stand the smell of it anymore and stopped drinking.