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Ralphie on the Road
Editor’s Note: In 2008, while scrambling between Baltimore and Los Angeles for work with stops in Tennessee for pleasure and the odd sojourn to New York City, writer Rafael Alvarez logged more than...
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Ralphie Regrets the Error, Leaves Los Angeles
Bless me father for I have sinned: I am an unreliable narrator. Last week’s debut column about crisscrossing the United States – a 2008 sojourn with visits to the shack of bluesman John Hurt in...
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Rolling ‘cross the Country
Second week of January, 2008 Sometimes I think I could cross the country on nothing more than coffee, gas, $9 truck stop showers every other day, and Pop Tarts. Ninety-nine cents at any gas station in...
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Ralphie on the Road #4: Silver City, New Mexico
I am a steady rolling man. Today’s adventures of Ralphie on the Road began in the second week of January 2008 with a simple grilled cheese sandwich outside of Willcox, Arizona and –- like a pungent...
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Ralphie on the Road #5: Sleeping in the Truck
My journey east from New Mexico into the Lone Star State began on Sunday, January 13th, the feast day of Hilary of Poitiers, the 4th century “Hammer of the Arians.” I made my way to Mass at St. Vincent...
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Ralphie on the Road #6: Marfa and Mysko
On Monday – the 14th of January, birthday of Benedict Arnold – I pulled off of State Route 90 in Texas and into the fabled town of Marfa. Madeleine Mysko, author of "Bringing Vincent Home." Pushing...
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Ralphie on the Road #7: Baghdad as the Alamo
“They say that if you bury a child’s umbilical cord in Texas, they will always come back home.” – Jane Goforth, January 2008. I’m pretty sure my umbilical cord went out with the rest of the trash the...
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Ralphie on the Road #8: Junction to Fredericksburg, Mid-January 2008
I don’t have Einstein’s brain in the trunk, but I wish I did. Poe’s writing hand or the pinky upon which the guitarist Elmore James wore his metal slide — either or both sloshing around in a Slurpee...
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Ralphie on the Road #9: Not-So-Weird-Anymore-Austin & Cry, Cry Baby
Carrier pigeon dispatches between my daughter Amelia and me on January 15, 2008 as I took my good old time approaching Austin, Texas from the west. Me: “Hello from the hometown of Davy Crockett –...
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Ralphie on the Road #10: Port Arthur to the Pelican State (With a Nod to...
Sunday, January 20, 2008 Attended noon Mass in Beaumont (childhood home of Johnny Winter) with Doreen Badeaux of the Apostleship of the Sea, the Catholic mariners’ group operating out of Port Arthur...
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