Memoir Monday, July 15, 1966

For Monday, July 15, 1966--Interim Events

This didn't happen on the actual date but is relevant and kind of a fill-in on the time when no journal was kept. I know I had mentioned Dusty being ill before so I will pick up some more on that situation. I was expecting a letter after his surprise visit in June but one never came. I did not believe he had abandoned me but I did get worried. I was stumbling along after I made it through the betrayals and staggered on through the rest of that summer. It was awhile l before I found out what the cause of the silence was.  This is mostly extracted from my book-length memoir.

I had expected a letter not too long after the mid-June surprise visit, but one never came. I worried and fretted but could not believe he had abandoned me. It was awhile before I learned why. On July 20, Charlie Mike and I talked to Earl Ragsdale and learned that B&B 6 had a temporary foreman because Mr Watt was in the Coast Lines Hospital in Los Angeles. He had apparently collapsed on the job and been rushed out there, a very sick man. I do not think the borderline pneumonia had ever gone away and the combined stresses of some problems on the job, the situation with Johnny and worry about me triggered a very severe asthma attack. He was in the hospital for the better part of a month.

The same day, I had lost my gold chain bracelet. I am not sure if it broke or somehow came off but it was lost and I never found it again. This was traumatic to me because I had known I should take it off and put it away but I could not bear to. It had been on my right wrist constantly since Dusty put it there the morning of December 1. I finally said it was not truly gone because I could still ‘feel’ it there but it was now invisible.

Charlie Mike and I really appreciated Earl Ragsdale. He was the local track inspector who took a motor car over the whole route before the Local came in each time to ensure the track was safe. He was an older fellow and we'd made friends with him earlier that summer. He was a good source of the latest news and often gossip for that part of the Winslow division of ATSF be it the train crews, maintenance of way or others associated with the railroad in whatever way. He knew "Mr Watt", as he spoke of Dusty, clearly with respect and regard, was a friend of ours though perhaps not why, how or to what degree. Still I blessed him for giving us this information. I realized there was probably no way I could safely communicate with Dusty under the circumstances so all I could do was hope and pray and wait. Those several weeks were interminable and there were few bright spots to see me through although some progress toward my getting to go to college that fall was starting to take shape. I dared not really hope and certainly not to count on it but positive little hints and glimpses sustained me. 

Few relevant photos but here is what I can offer.: First is the bracelet--it is the one on the right.  In making jewelry while in Alamogordo I got some chains mostly for pendants and one day thought of that long lost bracelet.  I had a brief flash of a delicate gold chain that somehow reminded me of a watch chain but much more fine and fragile. Voila--there was a chain somewhat similar so I made it. I do wear it off and on but not all the time.  Next is the Santa Fe Coast Lines Hospital in Los Angeles. The Railroad sold it in the 90s when more employees then used the mandated insurance instead,  but this is how it looked. I can visualize Dusty in one of those rooms while he was dosed with antibiotics and asthma meds until he recovered. The last is a summer scene taken by my friend July Carter with one of her windmills but those dark clouds seemed to represent the dark days I was living through that summer. But was there a bit of light reflected from a tenuous hope?