Texas Headache Cure

I used to get headaches all the time. It impacted my ability to enjoy most anything. I was either worried I'd get a headache. Or I'd get a headache.

Going to any family thing was a guaranteed headache.

I recollect going to the Western Washington State Fair, knows as "The Puyallup", only once, without getting a headache.

I remember going to the Vancouver World's Fair back in 1986, twice, both times getting memorably horrible headaches. I remember one of them was so bad my eyes felt like they were bleeding and I got lost heading back to the border. If you've ever tried to find the U.S. border after midnight on the Canadian roads you know it's a living hell and could give you a headache if you didn't already have one.

I took my oldest nephews to Vegas the summer before I moved to Texas. The first 2 days I had a splitting headache.

The first 2 days of any road trip I would always get a splitting painful throbbing headache.

Even Chinese food used to give me a headache. But I think that was MSG caused, before that stuff ceased being used.

And then I moved to Texas. I did not get a headache on the first 2 days of the 6 day move to Texas.

I don't recollect having a headache the entire time I've been in Texas. But then my memory can be a bit faulty.

The only time I do remember a Texas-related headache was in early August of 2001 when I drove myself back to Washington. I had a headache by the time I was out of Texas. That first night, in Pueblo, Colorado, I thought my head was going to explode. When I woke up the next morning, the headache had not gone away. It stayed with me all that next day until the part of Wyoming where you enter Utah and you drop elevation thousands of feet into the Salt Lake basin. Suddenly I was headache free.

Was that headache related somehow to knowing I was heading to an event in Washington that involved the relatives and others? I don't know. I suspect not, because I saw the relatives and others up in Washington in the past month or so. And they provided plenty of headache material, but I did not get one, not a single headache. Painful memories. Yes. Headaches. No.

The only thing I can think of that has cured my chronic headaches is Texas. How Texas cured my chronic headaches, I have no idea. Being able to do stuff outside year around? The extended HOT weather? More BBQ? The water? Less exposure to toxic people? I don't know. But if I had to hazard a guess, I go with the last option. It's the only clear variable that I can discern.

All I know for sure is life is an awful lot nicer knowing I can now do just about anything, be stuck on a plane for 6 hours, be stuck with an annoying person for days, be up in Washington for a month and not get a headache.

It's a miracle. Thank you Texas. I'm forever grateful.