[title subtitle=”words: Stoney Stamper
image: April Stamper”][/title]
“I’ve been to Reno, Chicago, Fargo, Minnesota, Buffalo, Toronto, Winslow, Sarasota”…you know the words. Go ahead and sing along. But I’m not just quoting the famous song by Johnny Cash, by the way. I’ve been to all those places. Heck, I’ve been to a lot more. For fifteen years, I traveled the United States and Canada, almost nonstop. My job took me all over the country. As a young man, I loved it. It was a great adventure and every day was exciting. I saw parts of the country that a small-town Oklahoma boy thought he’d never see. I’ve had lobster rolls in Maine. I’ve had gumbo in New Orleans. I’ve had chili in Cincinnati, soft shell crabs on the Chesapeake Bay, and cheesesteak in Philadelphia. I’ve gone trout fishing in Montana, ice fishing in North Dakota, snow skiing in Colorado, New Mexico, Maine, and even Ohio (yes, they have snow skiing in Ohio), and surfing in Florida. I’ve watched herds of antelope graze in Arizona and traversed the deserts of Utah and Nevada.
I once got stuck in a blizzard in Buffalo, NY, for five days, I was trapped in the hotel. There was a bar downstairs that opened at 11:00 am. Every day, for five straight days, I went down to the bar at 11:00, and stayed pretty much until bedtime listening to these awesome blues musicians, drinking too much whiskey, and eating potato soup, which was the only food they offered. It was bitterly cold, and the snow was so deep I couldn’t even see my rental car. It was just a giant mound of snow in the parking lot. Being from Oklahoma, I’d experienced the cold and I’d experienced some snow. But I’d never experienced thiskind of snow. It seemed to be coming down in pre-made snowballs. Like God Himself was throwing them down at us. I remember calling my dad in amazement, telling him about it. I’m sure all the people that saw and heard me speak in my deep southern drawl during those five days must have wondered how this farm boy from Oklahoma came about being stuck in a hotel in upstate New York. I am certain I looked out of place.
As time went by, I became a seasoned veteran of the road. TSA agents knew me by my first name at the airport. I knew without looking it up which trains took me to the right locations in New York City, Philadelphia, and Boston. I knew all the best places to eat. I knew which border crossings were easiest to get into Canada, and back into the United States. I even got detained once in a border crossing in Point Edward, Ontario for about six hours, because of an unfortunate little scrape I’d gotten into with the law. Thankfully, after several hours of deliberation, they decided I wasn’t a threat to national security and let me go. But I’ll be honest, even though I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong, being detained on international soil was still pretty darn nerve wracking.
In all those years of travel, of the lower forty-eight states of the United States, I’ve been in forty-seven of them. I’m going to assume that’s quite a bit above average. Of course, I’ve never considered myself to be an average bear. Don’t ask me how it happened, but somehow, after all that traveling, I never made it into the state of Washington. I’ve been under it, beside it, and above it. But that’s one border that I never crossed. I guess one of these days, I am going to have to jump on a plane and fly to Seattle and spend a day or two, just so I can finally mark that one off my list.
But here’s the deal. I burned myself out. I traveled so much, for so long, that eventually, it lost its appeal. All of the fun had been sucked out of me. There’s only so many times a guy can see the same things and go to the same places. Eventually it becomes mundane. I got tired of hearing, “Hey cowboy, where are you from?” I got tired of hotels and airports. But more than anything else, I got tired of being alone.
Almost my whole entire adult life at this point, had been spent on the road, alone. There was one day in particular that everything felt like it came crashing down, and I remember it vividly. I was driving down the road in Coxsackie, New York. Yes, that’s a real place. Between New York City and Albany on the Hudson River. It’s a quaint little town and has this little place I loved to stop and grab a sandwich called The Yellow Deli. The ladies in there always remembered me and the food was delicious. I had stopped in for a chicken salad sandwich, and then got back in my truck and headed north. I was bound for Montreal. As I drove through the cute little town, it reminded me of home. And then, as if on cue, the song Home, by Michael Bublécame on the radio. I’d heard it many times before, but that day, the words hit me like a train. “Maybe surrounded by, a million people I, still feel all alone, I just want to go home.”Yes, that’s my second song reference in this story, but it’s relevant. That was me. That’s exactly how I felt. I was so lonely. I wanted to go home. I missed my family. I missed sitting and having coffee with my dad and grandad, and golfing with my brother. But I didn’t know how to do it. I had carved out a pretty nice career, but it relied on me being able to travel. And I didn’t want to do it anymore.
While others told me how lucky I was to get to travel and see so much, I dreamt of laying on my couch in my living room, watching golf and having not a care in the world. That probably seems like a pretty lame dream, but it sounded like heaven to me. I fretted over it, prayed about it, and it was constantly in the back of my mind. Having been born and raised in a family of preachers, I certainly believed in the power of prayer. But I didn’t really believe in the power of myprayer. When I listened to my grandfather pray from the pulpit, it seemed as if it went directly from his lips to God’s ears. It felt so powerful. But when I prayed, I felt kind of like that best friend that always needed to borrow money, even though he hadn’t paid you back from when you loaned it to him the last time. Like I was asking God for a favor, even though I knew that I had done nothing to deserve it. But still, I prayed. Even though I didn’t know one hundred percent what I was praying for. But as He often does, God taught me a very important lesson. He listens to all prayers. From sinners and saints, alike. Because one day, as if written in a script, my wife April sprang into my life, and she brought two little girls with her. It was like He had reached down and handed me a perfect little gift-wrapped family. Apparently, that was what I had been praying for all along.
Then, when I went home, I had something worthwhile waiting for me there. And I can’t
remember the last time I felt alone. And all those years of traveling and hard work finally paid off, and I was given a job where travel is now rare. Every once in a while, I’ll get a weird itch to go somewhere. To jump in the truck or get on a plane and head somewhere far away. And on those rare occasions that work does take me out of town, it’s fun for a bit, but it sure is a good feeling to know that it’s short-lived, and I’ll have my family waiting on me when I get back. I guess it’s like the song says,“Just let me go home.”
Stoney Stamper is the best-selling author of My First Rodeo: How Three Daughters, One Wife, and a Heard of Others Are Making Me a Better Dad (WaterBrook) and author of the popular parenting blog The Daddy Diaries. He and his wife, April, have three daughters and live in Oklahoma, where they are heavily involved in agriculture and raise and show a variety of animals.
