the old-timers from our little Colorado town.The news of his passing
cleared some of the dust from the windows of long-dormant memories. It
seems trite to say it, but things really were different back then.
The first images to flicker through the windows of
memory are bathed in the warm glow of a summer Sunday. Some little boys
are sitting in the dirt, playing and shooting the breeze. I am among
them, 10 or 11 years old, and likely holding my own at yarning. The
adults are inside the church across the road. One of the older boys, an
11-year-old, cries, “Look!” He calls to our attention two men who are
arguing.
The scene instantly changes from sunny to ugly. It
has to do with the first man’s horse wandering onto the second man’s
property and the second man filling its hide with buckshot. I later saw
the horse and ran my hand over the rough hide where BB’s lay beneath
the surface. The first man is not one who is ever seen in church. The
second man is always there. The first man has come to the church and
sent someone inside to get the second man. The argument, in the summer
sun in front of the little church, rapidly escalates. No one inside the
church knows what was going on outside. We little boys are the only
witnesses.
Suddenly, the first man opens the trunk of his car
and pulls out a pick handle. In his rage he begins to beat the second
man. He pounds him about the head and shoulders with the club until the
second man collapsed into the gravel, there in the sun in front of the
little church. You may imagine the wide-eyed horror of little boys
unaccustomed to such violence.
The second man, lying bloody and semi-conscious in
the sun in front of the little church, is the father of grown, married
sons. The man whose recent death triggered these memories is one of
those grown sons. Later, the second man’s grown sons solemnly promise
the first man that they will whip him every time they see him. And they
do.
There are at least two more fights that I remember.
It is during these times that I become aware of my low thrill
threshold. My buddies rush to watch the fights. I am sickened by them
and slip away, ashamed of myself for not watching.
We boys, witnesses to the violence, are required to
go to Durango and tell our tale to a judge. The first man, he of the
horse and the rage and the club, wisely moves away from the community,
never to return.
Another, vastly more beautiful image, seen through
the window of memory, is of the recently departed man’s beautiful,
young wife. Although I spent most of my fifth-grade in a small New
Mexico school, I spent some of it in the little Colorado school where
she teaches. Did I mention that she is beautiful?
I notice one day that this beautiful young teacher
is chewing gum. It is, of course, against the rule for any of us to
chew gum. Being something of a smart aleck I decide to write a note
telling her to throw away her gum. I disguise my note by writing it
left-handed. I’m not sure how to spell “throw” so I substitute “toss.”
I write, “Toss away your gum teacher.” I am unaware of the proper use
of the comma in such lofty composition. I slyly drop the note on her
desk.
Barbara and I used to return often to the little
Colorado town. With the passing of her parents, we almost never go
there anymore. My parents and a few of the other old-timers are still
living but none of them are in the little Colorado town. The old church
of our childhood burned long ago and was replaced by an nice new one, a
church with pavement in front instead of gravel.
The old school was razed and no longer exists.
Today’s kids ride the bus to a more modern school. About all that’s
left for us are the memories.