Geese wheeled and circled and ducks rose off the pond near our house in Santa Fe on the morning that the snow lay thick in the early sun this past week. We were the first people to walk out that day, alongside the fairways. The only life that preceded us had left tracks across the path: coyotes, bunnies, hares and others we didn’t recognize.
A day later we left in early afternoon and drove across Northeastern New Mexico and across the pass into Trinidad. We slept that night in Colorado Springs and the next morning awoke to news of a blizzard screaming across the northern plains, cutting our normal route back to Kansas City.
We considered and chose a southern route, roughly tracking the original Santa Fe Trail for part of the way. We passed near Bent’s Fort, historic trading post. Along the way there were high winds and swirling, light snows. Garden City was bleak and cold. Dodge City seemed lonely and barren. The small towns between there and Wichita were all unremarkable.
We drank hot chocolate and ate baked apple pies at McDonald’s. I would have preferred an espresso and a panini but there was no choice.
The wind continued to blow. The southern route we took was longer and slower than the northern freeway we normally drove but it was drier – a relative term – and open. It was almost 12 hours from Colorado Springs to Kansas City and the whole trip, over the two days, covered a thousand miles.
30 November 2005
24 November 2005
Thanksgiving -- Making Yourself
How does someone become what they are? How do you measure if a person has made the most of the combination of circumstance and natural gifts that they have been given?
Blue eyed, angular and taciturn, my father’s first cousin was a life-long farmer. He only left the little town in northwest Missouri where he was born, grew up and made his life when he went off to World War II. He put on the uniform, played his role dutifully – he was a battlefield MP – he fell in love, with a French girl who wouldn’t come home to a farm in the rural Midwest. When he got home, he put his uniform in the attic and took up farming.
He never married. It wasn’t that there weren’t other women; there were; there were stories told. I never figured out why he didn’t just settle with one but he didn’t.
Once a family Bible salesman came up to the door and wanted to sell him one of those huge, illustrated Bibles with room in the front to track the family through the generations. The farmer, dry and sinewy, looked at the salesman and asked why he would need a Bible like that. The answer was in the form of a question, ‘Don’t you have any children?’ Clearly the assumption was that he did and surely he’d want to leave it to them.
The farmer looked directly into the eyes of the salesman, ‘I'm not sure!', he answered.
The salesman quietly picked up his wares and made his way out to his car and drove off.
That farmer's name was John D. I don’t think the ‘D’ stood for anything, at least no one ever told me if it did. He had beautiful, clear, intelligent eyes. Maybe he could have been a lawyer or a statesman or a professor of philosophy. Circumstance made him into a farmer. I think he wasn’t much more than mediocre at that but he did take care of his Dad and people thought well of him. He died without enemies. I was with him only a little while, perhaps three or four visits, during my youth. I liked him, he seemed good and gentle and decent, wholly admirable. I admire him still, now many years dead.
Blue eyed, angular and taciturn, my father’s first cousin was a life-long farmer. He only left the little town in northwest Missouri where he was born, grew up and made his life when he went off to World War II. He put on the uniform, played his role dutifully – he was a battlefield MP – he fell in love, with a French girl who wouldn’t come home to a farm in the rural Midwest. When he got home, he put his uniform in the attic and took up farming.
He never married. It wasn’t that there weren’t other women; there were; there were stories told. I never figured out why he didn’t just settle with one but he didn’t.
Once a family Bible salesman came up to the door and wanted to sell him one of those huge, illustrated Bibles with room in the front to track the family through the generations. The farmer, dry and sinewy, looked at the salesman and asked why he would need a Bible like that. The answer was in the form of a question, ‘Don’t you have any children?’ Clearly the assumption was that he did and surely he’d want to leave it to them.
The farmer looked directly into the eyes of the salesman, ‘I'm not sure!', he answered.
The salesman quietly picked up his wares and made his way out to his car and drove off.
That farmer's name was John D. I don’t think the ‘D’ stood for anything, at least no one ever told me if it did. He had beautiful, clear, intelligent eyes. Maybe he could have been a lawyer or a statesman or a professor of philosophy. Circumstance made him into a farmer. I think he wasn’t much more than mediocre at that but he did take care of his Dad and people thought well of him. He died without enemies. I was with him only a little while, perhaps three or four visits, during my youth. I liked him, he seemed good and gentle and decent, wholly admirable. I admire him still, now many years dead.
15 November 2005
Full Circle -- completing the circuit
I tracked down one of my cousins yesterday. We’re not what you’d call a close family. The last time I saw him was about 20 years ago. Apart from being related, we still don’t have much in common. For a brief time I lived in the town he’s called home for about 30 or 40 years.
I didn’t have his telephone number but I googled him and up popped his name, and those of his two boys, as owners of a race track! This was remarkable. Even in college my cousin loved fast cars. I remember that he owned a Jaguar XKE in the 1960s, probably one of the first in that part of the Midwest. He was a handsome, curly headed college guy with a fast car; very cool, especially to a kid of about 12 or 13.
When for that brief space of a few months we lived in the same town, he spent his weekends driving a race car, it was a Corvette I think with a huge engine, maybe 500 horsepower. I remember that he let me steer it into the pit after a race I attended (confusing affair, the cars sped around the track without any apparent objective except to finish without mishap and ahead of the others, only thing being they didn’t really go anywhere). You had to climb in through the window (which had no glass) and the seat was pretty much bolted to the floor and there was no radio. Anyway, I think it was very kind of him to let me steer it into the pit (did I mention the engine was not running?).
In those days he worked for an agricultural chemicals company. I am so pleased that he figured out how to make a living begin around what he loves: race tracks, fast cars and so on. And, he’s doing it with both of his sons. That’s pretty cool, that’s success. I’m happy for him.
I didn’t have his telephone number but I googled him and up popped his name, and those of his two boys, as owners of a race track! This was remarkable. Even in college my cousin loved fast cars. I remember that he owned a Jaguar XKE in the 1960s, probably one of the first in that part of the Midwest. He was a handsome, curly headed college guy with a fast car; very cool, especially to a kid of about 12 or 13.
When for that brief space of a few months we lived in the same town, he spent his weekends driving a race car, it was a Corvette I think with a huge engine, maybe 500 horsepower. I remember that he let me steer it into the pit after a race I attended (confusing affair, the cars sped around the track without any apparent objective except to finish without mishap and ahead of the others, only thing being they didn’t really go anywhere). You had to climb in through the window (which had no glass) and the seat was pretty much bolted to the floor and there was no radio. Anyway, I think it was very kind of him to let me steer it into the pit (did I mention the engine was not running?).
In those days he worked for an agricultural chemicals company. I am so pleased that he figured out how to make a living begin around what he loves: race tracks, fast cars and so on. And, he’s doing it with both of his sons. That’s pretty cool, that’s success. I’m happy for him.
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