The sign reminds me of Twenty Mule Team Borax. Death Valley. Remember the TV show? It was in the 50s. You and I were young with a host of other kids born after the war. Classrooms were teaming. Twenty-five minutes for lunch. There was a microphone at the end of the gym, lunch tables came down out of the wall. Teachers in full skirts yelled at us from that microphone. Some kids hardly made it through the lunch line before we had to line up again. At home, new Tvs in big square boxes. The stations went off the air after midnight and stayed off untill morning. If someone forgot and left the TV on, it droned all night. In the morning the Star Spangled Banner played. Cowboys. We all watched cowboys in black and white. Death Valley was the scariest. Supporting actors were mutilated. Men wept and pleaded before they were buried up to their necks in anthills. Fifty years later, I live with the details. When my parents drove us to the West Coast in the 1958 Pontiac, blue with white top and side fin, we opened every window. We swelted. I watch for the line of mules pulling the wagons. Out of the corners of my eyes I catch movement. It is the mules. They are back there. Pulling, straining, no water, no hay. They are stumbling. We won't make it. Crossing California now on I-15, I stay inside the truck. I wait it out. I wear my darkest sunglasses. I pull my cap down. You sleep in the passenger seat. Your legs are crossed. Your mouth is open. So far, the air conditioner has not broke down ever on this stretch. I drink cup after cup of water.