(* When read out loud this quote is sung.)

For three years, I was a student at Southwestern Oklahoma State University. SWOSU was a small college of 5000 students, located in a quiet town of about 10,000. Weatherford was a nice town. There was the University "standing firmly on the hilltop"* as the Alma Mater says, and a quaint but alive downtown.

Weatherford had a certain uneasiness though. You see, this picture of small town Americana was planted on the "Mother Road," old Route 66, and its replacement, Interstate Highway 40 ran adjacent to it. On one hand, Weatherford was a town of Baptist church suppers and wheat farmers catching an early breakfast at the cafe, but it is also the city on the highway. It's a place where people stop for gas, before driving west to follow their dreams.

I always wanted to go west, never east. I yearned for the thrill of the open highway, for the joy of not knowing a destination, only a direction . . . West.

Finally, one night during finals week, the yearning in my soul was too much. I had to go. I didn't have much money, and my car was, . . . well a piece of junk, but who cared! I was going!

As I started my journey, I didn't know how far I was going to go. As I passed the first roadside town of Clinton, a voice started to say, "Come on! Stop this foolishness and get back to Weatherford." I delighted in ignoring the voice of reason and pressing on!

As my car sailed on the midnight highway, my mind began to unwind. School, money, girlfriend, all of the complications of my life were behind me. In front of me, only the highway and the promise of the unknown.

My beat up Pontiac sailed past Elk City. In my past midnight wanderings, when I was lonely, bored, or just kinda melancholy, I had driven this far. But, tonight was different. I had to press on, at least to the Texas panhandle.

As I saw the lights of Elk City in my rear view window, adrenaline coursed through my veins and the excitement of the open road grabbed me. I was now in uncharted territory. As I cruised along, I thought about my fellow travelers on I-40: the big rigs carrying blue jeans to Arizona, or the young couple starting a new life in California. At this late hour, the middle-class families on vacation were sleeping at the Motel 6. Only the truckers, or the desperate, or the bored were up with me on the road.

My gas gauge was running low, so I stopped at a lonely truck stop between Elk City and Sayre. It's bright lights cast against the rural moonless night made it seem like a shining beacon on the dark prairie.

As I pumped my gas, I felt the cool night breeze blow in my face, and I was reminded of those family vacations of long ago when we would stop at a filling station at night in another state.

As I was pumping my gas, I realized that I was at the point of decision. I could pump enough gas to drive back home, or even maybe drive to the state line and back, or . . .I could fill it up.

The decision loomed for about half a second before I decided . . .