Throwback Thursday #65: The Meat Wagon and the Texas Tornadoes

I spent a lot of time in an old probably 1970's model Chevy suburban during my teen years.  Usually with a steno notebook in my hands and manure on my boots.  Our 4-H judging team rolled in style.

The suburban was lovingly referred to as the "meat wagon."  Legend has it that before it was used to haul kids around to judging contests, it was an ambulance.  Whatever the reason, the name stuck.  We traveled lots of miles.  Sometimes, she did good.  Sometimes, she died before we even made it out of Texas and we had to trade her in for a navy blue 18 passenger van that made us look like a swat team every time we stopped and got out (possibly because someone insisted on yelling "go, go, go each time the doors opened).

No matter the vehicle, the same cassette tape was always blaring over the speakers.  The Texas Tornadoes.  I'm willing to bet you to this day any of us could easily tell you every word to songs like "Hey baby, que paso" or "Who were you thinking of."  You know, the classics.

We traveled all over the country from Louisville, Kentucky to Kansas City, Missouri to Madison, Wisconsin.  We won several state championships.  We had a lot of fun together.  In some ways it seems like yesterday.  In others, like a lifetime ago.

I feel like we sort of came of age in that meat wagon singing those songs.  We learned about life and EPDs and love and travel and the difference between a Jersey and a Guernsey and what to do when someone has a mild panic attack while stuck in traffic on a bridge over the Mississippi River, that they don't have Dr. Pepper north of the Mason Dixon Line or green chile east of the Missisippi, how to read reigning patterns, and how to spot a Furr's Cafeteria from miles away.

And I've got to say, I'm not convinced there is a better way to grow up than that right there.  In a world today filled with iPhones and video games and people hardly talking to each other, I sure hope that somewhere, another suburban load of 4-H kids are learning about life one Texas Tornadoes song at a time.