Legendary, A tribute to the man I knew as Grandpa Sonnie

With my back leaned against the front of my car, I am fixated on the five words before me. To my left and right there are fences running in straight lines as far as the eye can see, far beyond the rolling hills each direction. Behind me, nothing more than my rental and a two-lane highway. Before me, only highway.

The first four words read: “Welcome to North Dakota”. They represent a number and a dream. A number, once most unachievable. A dream fought for two.

As I embrace the moment, breathing in the cool moist air as the wind passes through the hairs on my crossed arms, I am taken back to the beginning to where and with whom it all began.

For the most part, I credit the dream to a day in third grade when my teacher rolled down a map of the United States for the first time. Becoming cognizant of the world around then played a significant role in the formulation of the dream but the real credit belongs to another. The originator of my inspiration: my grandpa.

Grandpa Sonnie was a truck driver. Long before he met my grandma, he was delivering loads of material from one company to another on the back of an 18-wheeler from state to state. In the nineteen fifties and sixties he struggled to find the balance between his love for the road and his love for his family. Eventually, the road won.

After he divorced my grandma, he tried to maintain old relationships and build new ones, though his first love always remained the road. By the time I came into the picture, he had been driving a truck for more than four decades so I had a chance to grow up seeing this man pursuing the thing he loved most. 

He always carried a road atlas with him, though he rarely needed it. A bit nostalgic, this was pre-GPS, pre-Google Maps, pre-Internet. When opened, the book would be approximately two feet tall and three feet wide, GIANT to the younger me. Truckers needed to be able to see them from across their truck cab. In most cases, though, he would treat his like many of us treat our smartphones: he held it in front of the steering wheel whilst driving.

His process was simple. He would get the address to the place where he was going, open his atlas, highlight the trail (highway), then close it and take off driving. Comparably, when he was off the road so was his map. It was home with him, tucked in the fold of his couch or recliner waiting for the next trip. Being the child, I was, I would come to visit and open it up to see where the new highlights were. He would tell me about the places he had been and the things he had seen on the road. I was captivated.

I was always fascinated by the size of the map itself, much less the highlighted highways. One day during class, my third-grade teacher rolled down a map from the blackboard. It was the first time I had seen a “life-size” map of the world. I had no idea what scale meant but I was still impressed by the fact that my grandpa had been to most of the places on that wall. I remember this one time where my teacher had us working on an assignment and I mentioned to her that it looked like the entire continent of Africa could tuck right into the Gulf of Mexico. She, knowing it would not, still agreed with my creativity and supported the bigger picture thinking I was attempting.

One night, shortly after my parents had built their new home, Grandpa Sonnie came by for a visit. We sat around and shot the breeze for a while until the time came for him to leave. He passively mentioned he was traveling to Maine over the weekend. As he approaches the door, he asks me, “Do you want to go?” “Where’s Maine?” I asked. He walks out to his truck and brings back a map, unfolds the giant pages, and points me to it. I was captivated. Thousands of miles from where we were in Arkansas, “Will I be back in time for school on Monday?” I asked. The only thing I cared about more, at that time, was school. My parents also supported that view and ended up agreeing I should not go. While I don’t have many regrets in life, I often wonder how far a “YES” would have taken me at that moment instead of a “NO”. Perhaps a subconscious factor in why I strive to lead with a YES nowadays.

As time passed on, he continued driving until his seventies when his health started to take a toll on him. One of our last conversations about his travel was discussing where all he had been. Alaska and Hawaii were never on his radar since they were not part of the continental 48, and because they were added as states after he began his journey. However, other than those non-possibility states, he had been to every state except for North and South Dakota.

By the time we had this conversation, I had already decided I would visit all of them myself. I expected it to take a lifetime, just as it did for him. But as time moved along, the desire to travel and explore the country I call home grew exponentially. When the opportunity came to travel to a new state my “YES” was at the forefront of every thought and action.

When Grandpa Sonnie passed away in 2015, I still had about 20 states to mark off my list. As I stood over his lifeless body, seeing him for the last time, I knew I had to finish the race…for both of us. And so, it was.

Over the next few months, I started making necessary changes that helped support a life I could lead fulfilling that dream as I went on my way. Whether by God, nature or simply a lack of looking, I never found a reason to travel to North and South Dakota. Over the last few years, as the story unfolded, I somehow knew those had to be number 49 and 50. I couldn’t complete them early, they had to be last.

This weekend, as crossed the state line of South Dakota I remembered him. I carried him with me, in spirit, as we journeyed north. Oh how he would have loved it. I could see him in his big-rig just taking in the miles upon miles of nothing, connecting with God through the vastness of space and timelessness of being present – because there was nothing to pull us from that moment.

As I pulled up to the final line I started crying. Everything has been building for this moment. All the long hours at work, crushing it to create freedom in my schedule to allow for this opportunity. Saying no to hanging out with friends because I was taking a random weekend trip to a place I’d never been. Opening my bank statement and seeing a bottom line that was never increasing because I had booked a flight to who knows where that month. All of it. Every struggle, every rise, every fall. Everything had been experienced in the hope that I would one day stand here, facing the final line.

“North Dakota” the final frontier in our quest. The journey is moments away from being fulfilled. Finally, I can lay this one to rest, for both of us.

As I prepare to take the required selfie, I embrace the last word on the sign. I take a breath. I breathe in all the smells, all the memories of crossing a state line in the middle of the night just because I was close and that was all the time I had. I feel the wind on my face again and remember what it was like to walk out of the airport in state after state from the highs of 114 Fahrenheit in Phoenix to the lows of -35 in Minneapolis. I feel it all and embrace it once more connecting with God and his presence as if he was saying, “We are with you.”

If I could put a word on it, the experience in its entirety, I can think of none better than “Legendary,” the last word on the sign.

As I celebrate the journey, taking the selfie, I spiritually tip my hat to the one who helped usher me here. What a journey it has been.

Here’s to you, Grandpa Sonnie. We did it.