The Borderline

About my song -"The Border Line" This song is set on one of the most remote crossings of the US–Mexico frontier: Presidio, Texas, and its twin town of Ojinaga, Chihuahua — known to drivers and locals simply as "Oji." The two towns, joined by the international bridge over the Rio Grande, share a history older than the border itself: Ojinaga was originally Presidio del Norte, later renamed for Manuel Ojinaga, the Chihuahuan governor and soldier who died in 1865 resisting the French Intervention. It remains a working trucking corridor, where long-haul drivers cross between the Chihuahuan Desert and the northbound highways to the Rockies. The song follows one such driver on the real route from Presidio to Denver — up US-67 past the Chinati and Davis Mountains, north on US-285, and into the Colorado cold. The geography carries the emotional truth: he leaves a woman who belongs to the desert heat and delivers his load into mountain snow, paid by the mile but never asked the price. The border line of the title is at once the frontier, the white line of the highway, and the line drawn through a divided heart.