Take Nothing For Granted

---

This husband and I…

Always eat at a little cafe in Wimberly…checkered table cloths…vinyl chairs…coffee cups on the wall…

Feels like old times…a throwback to the days of little me…didn’t eat out much but when we did it was at a place called Landmark, your typical 1960’s truck stop right off Interstate 80…

Truckers in the booths near the kitchen…old locals at the counter chatting over coffee…the rest of us sitting at tables in the dining room area…

Family restaurant food…patty melts…reubens…the hot beef sandwich…would go there after special events…school concerts…church programs…celebrate with an ice cream sundae…

Landmark was the place to be…the local hangout…a food legend…but what made it iconic…was the big giant cowboy right there when you drove in…

Was watching a news report recently about a woman who bought a Muffler Man…refurbished it…put it in her yard…and there he was…the Landmark man…not the exact one…but one similar…

Had no idea it was called a Muffler Man…was used as an advertisement or roadside attraction…to little me that giant was Landmark and Landmark was that giant…

Until it wasn’t…

Because one day Giant Phil, as he was apparently called…Cowboy Muffler Man for the Phillips 66…was gone…and that beloved eatery of little me…was never quite the same…

And so it is…in life…sometimes we don’t realize how special something is until it’s gone…a friendship…a relationship…a big old statue in a restaurant parking lot…

Appreciate the big things…appreciate the little things…take nothing for granted…
​
And this husband of mine…agrees…