Marking Two Important Dates

I could not let two days this week pass unnoticed. They are both important, one to me personally and the other to many folks.

It was on November 10, 2003 that both my little Brittany Spaniel Butch and my life partner left me within a very few minutes of each other. I have had other well loved dogs since then and at least one serious relationship that ultimately did not work out but I will miss my mate and partner for the rest of my days in this world. We had thirty two good years and just over two months together in which I helped him raise two children and worked on one novel together as well as sharing many other adventures. 

I do not feel like we were working out any karmic issues although I think we may have shared a life in the distant past as partners. I've been working along on a fictitious version of what I have sensed. For now it is called The Way to Iona and takes place at the time St. Columba had his Christian colony on the isle between Ireland and Scotland. However, I suspect Jim will be reunited with his first wife in the next life since they had a lot of issues unresolved when she died suddenly a few months before he and I met and joined forces. 

As for little Butch, he waits with a whole pack of other canine friends and a herd of horses and mules there at the Rainbow Bridge and I will see him again too. It's a comforting belief, at least for me. 

Then of course Wednesday, November 11 is Veteran's Day or as a few old folks still call it, Armistice Day. At first it marked the end of World War I but has since come to be the day we honor all our fallen military folk and remember that we owe a great debt to them and to those who continue to serve to this day. I am no longer involved in activities as I was when I was an active VFW Auxiliary member back in Huachuca City but that does not mean the date has no meaning for me now. That will never be!

Below I repost a verse I wrote and recited at a ceremony held at VFW Post 10,342 some years ago, and a photo of Butch and one of my husband and me on our wedding day. It is hard to believe I was once so young! I adopted a very "hippie" style in those days and wed in a green dress I had made myself.

Gaye and Jim, 3 Sep 1971

Butch, sweet little friend

Veteran's Day

I hear the drum roll in my mind

and then I see, before, behind,

the Silent Legions marching past

to join the Great Parade, at last...

From Flanders Fields and Iwo's sands,

from nameless near and distant lands

where they have fought and bled and died

for to uphold the Nation's Pride

and secure the Peace and Liberty

today enjoyed by you and me...

Each heart with praise should overflow

and gladly search for ways to show

that we remember and we care

and at least in spirit share

their sacrifice, their gift, their pain.

We know they did not die in vain.

   

The torch still burns: we carry on

 the flame kept bright by those now gone.

 They're marching still, they're fighting yet;

 and so must we...lest we forget.               (c)  GMW, Nov 1986

Arizona Trip Part 2--Chasing Trains

Before I cover the Grand Canyon section, I will digress a bit to my drive back east from Kingman on the 27th. Old 66 takes off north and east from Kingman so I headed that way, determined to enjoy the scenery and look for trains! I managed both. This region rises in elevation from the desert around Kingman in about three steps to the alpine zone of Williams and Flagstaff. Most of it has been ranching country for many years, well over 100 to near 150 I would say.

I suppose many would find it stark, barren and downright ugly, but I do not. Those open spaces edged by the first plateau level's cliffs speak to me in a special way. Maybe in a past life I roamed there as a Native American centuries ago. At any rate, it feels very familiar and comforting to me. I was playing some of my favorite road trip music--a CD by Cusco, and two more called Cries from the Earth and Ancient Voices. The music seems made for this scenery. Still with a touch of melancholy from my morning's errand I drove along a near deserted old two lane road and finally stopped to get a few shots of lovely lonesome.

While I was doing that I heard a train approaching at my back, the tracks running perhaps a quarter of a mile off the road. I snapped a shot of the container unit freight and then chased it along the road, finally getting ahead enough to catch it coming in to Seligman. That's an old rail town cut off when they made I-40 to replace Old 66 and not too much there now. I then went on a little farther toward Ashfork where the old highway finally merges back to I-40 and got a couple more photos of the same train. One I especially liked, just past the Crookton Overpass, where the old highway crosses the double tracks, a site well known to rail fans for photo ops. Ashfork, BTW, is known as the home of the beautiful Coconino red and pink flagstone used in much Arizona building and even exported to other places. It is quite unique.

Here are a few of the shots I took. You may not see in them what I do but they are special and powerful to me! They represent part of my spirit's home.

BNSF container unit train
just east of Crookton Overpass

A lovely lonesome Arizona ladscape 

School house in Valentine, AZ
A semi ghost town on Old 66 

Arizona Trip--Part 1, Driving West

I left Sunday Oct 25 about 9:30. It was a lovely day and I sailed along first to Carizozo and then across a couple of low mountain ranges and a wide plain to I-25 just south of Socorro. Took off from the freeway (anymore I do not even want to go through Albuquerque as it must be about the 2nd crime capital of the world with daily murders and such--yikes!!) at Los Lunas for a shortcut up to link to I-40. My eyes were kind of fussy but not too bad.

Charlie and I had heard about a train derailment Friday night near Gallup so I was on the lookout. It turned out to be on the east side and as I saw machinery etc along the tracks, I pulled off to the frontage road and found a safe spot to stop, walk up onto a road bridge that was closed to vehicle traffic and took a bunch of pictures. It looked like about 30 cars and left the rails and torn up a lot of track. This is mainline BNSF and they had worked 24/7 to get it running but I expect they had a low speed through the area. It was interesting to see the mess anyway, at least to a long tern rail fan. 

On into town I took a shot of the old depot and looked around a little and then went to find my motel; It was on the far west side of town and whereas most of the lodging was on the left or east side of "Old 66" which is motel row, this newer one was on the west so I missed it and did a few extra miles before I finally got the right spot. By then I was frazzled so just got into the room, heated a microwave dish and kicked back to listen to the trains going by. The tracks were probably not 100 yards away but I *love* the sound and it did not bother me a bit. I lived even closer for two years while in college at Flagstaff.

Next morning I gulped a protein drink, checked out, gassed RHM --in case you have forgotten Red Hot Mama is my little red Mazda pickup--and headed west. Another gorgeous day and my eyes were clear. Stopped in Flagstaff for  brunch and gas and then drove on west to Kingman. I followed Charlie's advice and took the Old 66 route from Seligman on to Kingman--great scenery and along the mainline track, No traffic and a great way to drive. I got into Kingman where the old highway becomes "Andy Devine Drive" I needed a pit stop so went into a Jack in the Box and got a shake--they make great thick ones!--and hit the ladies room. Then time to look for my motel and there it was, not a block away. Awesome--no hunting required. 

Another microwave meal and watched the History Channel all evening. Still could hear trains but not so close. It was warm and I had a window cracked all night. Kingman is real desert. I was then ready for my personal pilgrimage errand fhe next morning. I drove around a bit and stopped at a Smith's grocery where I found a pretty dark red and white mum plant that seemed to be just right. Then I drove down to the Mountain View Cemetery on Stockton Hill Road. I missed the main gate and wound up at the back where a guy drove up in a pickup and asked me what I needed. I explained my intent. He said he'd meet me at the office and there looked up the exact location of the grave I sought. When I got off track he came down and walked me to the exact spot. He was very nice and I was a bit too unsettled to get his name but will try to write a letter of thanks.

Anyway I put the plant down and talked a moment to someone who was only there in the form of the shell he left behind and took a couple of photos. I did not weep but it was both a closure and a powerful moment I had waited a long time to experience. This was my "first love" and one that I wronged unintentionally back in 1971. I did speak to him in a dream a few years back and felt he understood but this sealed that and was something I really had to do. For his and his kids' privacy I need to blur the name on the stone but I will post the photo here a bit later.

From there I drove back on Old 66 to Williams and then waited for Mary Frances to meet me so we could get ready for the special adventure of the train trip to the Grand Canyon.

...to be continued!

Here are a couple of train wreck shots and one of the Kingman Depot for now

North and east from accident site

West from site--gray ballast
is repair track area

Kingman Depot--now a historical building
traditional ATSF "Spanish" style

Back on the job!

As you may notice, I have been away for a few days. I took an extended trip to my old home state of Arizona and had some fun and adventures. I will be posting reports on some of it as well as photos the next few days before I slide back to the memoir-type essays.

Meanwhile, you know I am a big dog lover and that care for our working dogs who've served in the military and law enforcement after their retirement is one of my passions. I came across this today and will definitely be pursuing it further. Anyway. here is the very long link to the article in Dog Time that caught my eye at once. Please check it out and do your bit if you are so inclined! These wonderful canines are vets too and deserve our thanks and honor along with the human vets that we recognize on November 11, coming very soon!

Link!!!  http://dogtime.com/advocacy/30697-celebrating-veterans-day-finding-homes-k-9-veterans?utm_source=DogTime%20Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=151105_dt

I can't seem to get it to be live but you can copy and paste. (Reminder to self--you need to get that tiny URL utility up and going!!)

Memoir Essay--Playing With Rocks

For the bulk of my life, I've been fascinated with stones. Due to an early aversion to "science" and "math" (which I sincerely wish I had avoided so as to study many more very interesting and pertinent subjects!) I never got very scientific about my "rock hound" hobby but that didn't make it any less intense. I still have probably close to half a ton of rocks in my back yard, neatly semi-sorted and stacked. I may get rid of a bunch more soon since I am beginning to see I will never get them all processed into pretties and many are not too spectacular when given a more jaundiced look.

Here is a bit of history about this avocation of mine! And here is a picture of a batch I brought over from my old home in Arizona a bit over a year ago and my little "rock hound" Rojito who was fascinated by what Mama was doing, washing them.

Playing With Rocks

Maybe my fascination with stones was due to growing up in a mining camp on the side of a rugged Arizona mountain. I used to joke that there was nothing for kids to play with in Jerome except rocks. While most of the kids learned to throw them, I brought the pretty ones home and started a collection. That isn’t quite the whole story but there is a grain of truth in it.

Like a lot of kids before the days of video games and electronic devices, I enjoyed playing with junk as much or more than with my nice toys. I used cans, bottles and boards, cardboard boxes and yes, rocks to build and imagine in many ways.

In most mining towns there were always people who scrounged on the dumps. In mining terminology, a dump is not a garbage heap but the place where “overburden” or rock without high grade minerals was placed while the mine was dug to get to the good stuff. If there was a tunnel or drift going into the side of the hill, such debris was just thrown down the slope. When there was a vertical shaft and later an open pit, it usually had to be hauled away and piled somewhere.

There was always some good stuff that got overlooked, mostly small amounts that were not worth the effort of the mining company to retrieve. People went after them, though, whether legally or not. Often the dumps were off limits, allegedly for safety reasons. Still, rare was the household in a mining camp where there were not some crystals, a bit of turquoise, or some heavy “peacock copper” or “peacock iron” maybe serving as a door stop. The latter were medium ore-grade dark rocks, almost black but with iridescent rainbow colors that were usually most visible at a specific angle.

By the time I was eight or ten, I had some of all that and more. Then, since my folks went out on many photography and exploring trips, I got into the habit of picking up odd rocks that I found wherever we went. Most of my early collections fell by the wayside as I left home and went off to higher schooling and a life of my own, but a few treasured pieces went along. By the time I finished college and got my first job in southern Arizona, shortly settling in another old mining camp, Bisbee, the collection began to grow again.

Like my parents, my fiancé and soon husband was one for trips out into the hills and remote places, too. He used to joke that I had married him just to have a pack mule to help me carry home my finds. He knew the locations of a lot of abandoned mines and we explored many, driving up roads that would make 4-wheelers cringe in a regular old GMC pickup.

Up to that point, I didn’t do anything with my rocks except keep them. Then we moved to Colorado and by chance, a co-worker my husband shared an office with at Peterson AFB was into lapidary. A whole new world soon opened up to me.

I first got a couple of tumblers. There are simple little machines where you put rocks into a rubber barrel about the size of a small Dinty Moore Beef Stew can along with some water and a tablespoon or two of carbide grit, starting out with coarse and in stages moving to extra fine. The barrel was then placed on a rack with two shafts, one of which was powered to turn and make the barrel roll around. It took about a month to develop a rough stone into a smooth one. The final stage was a week with a powder, usually titanium or another mineral oxide, as fine as talc. This put the real polish on the rocks.

It became quite an adventure to throw twenty or thirty small rough stones into the machine and see what emerged at the end. Some stayed very ordinary but others eventually revealed amazing beauty. At that time, the middle 1970s, rock hounding was a popular hobby, especially in the southwest. There were many places to find rocks and many to buy the supplies and equipment the hobby utilized.

Once I got the tumbling process down, I wanted some new worlds to conquer. Ultimately I got a trim saw which used a diamond sintered blade to cut rocks, keeping the stone and the blade from overheating with a stream of cutting oil or other coolant. Water will do but not as effectively. The blade has tiny diamond chips embedded or sintered in the cutting edge, It turns very slowly and will not cut you although it would abrade some or friction-burn if you touched it very long. Next came an expanding drum machine that used belts with carbide grit on them where I could hand-shape thin stones into cabochons, the form of gem stone that is just polished and rounded, not faceted like most translucent or transparent jewel quality stones are cut for jewelry.

For several years in Colorado and later in north central California up the valley from Sacramento, I made a lot of small rocks out of middle sized ones and many shiny or shaped stones as well. And of course I kept collecting. When we moved back to Arizona, my daughter hauled about fifteen five gallon buckets of mom’s rocks in her new Toyota pickup since I was not allowed to ship them in the moving van at government expense. Well, they were pretty heavy! There is a family story about this, how she took a wrong turn in San Diego, where she had dropped off her brother at MCRD, and wound up in Mexico, having a heck of a time to get her truck and the rocks back into the USA.

While in California, I also took a couple of courses in silver smithing and learned how to fabricate, the craft of piecing and soldering various shapes of silver together around a gemstone to make a ring, pendant, belt buckle or other jewelry item. I also did some lost wax casting which did not work for me as well. I still have some of the things I made, first in class and later on my own.

Back in Arizona, I still collected rocks and did some lapidary work but never got new tanks of oxygen and acetylene to do the soldering with. I finally got rid of some of the machines and the tumblers simply wore out. These days it is much harder to acquire stones unless you buy them at shows or know someone who has a mine or a source on their property.

You dare not pick them up out on government land lest the agency in charge of that area come down on your case severely. That’s not to say I may not slip a small one into the pocket of my jeans on occasion but no back packs full come home any more.

To this day, though, there is probably close to a ton of varied rock neatly stowed in buckets and crates and more or less sorted into kinds in my back yard. I also have a number of cans and bottles of smaller stones in various stages of lapidary improvement in my corner of the garage/workshop.

Several crystals repose on the stand of my computer monitor along with an early product of my tumbler which has bands of amethyst atop a base of dark red jasper. It’s just a special sentimental piece. I still have the small saw, stored for now, and the remains of several defunct tumblers that I may resurrect if the opportunity arises.

The past year or so I have given away perhaps a third or more of what I brought to my home here in New Mexico. I “freecycled” them to some other rock hounds or rock hound wannabes. They were all excited and happy to have a new batch of treasure to search through, new favorites to claim and add to their special collection. I may soon do this again, further weeding out the “overburden” from my years of collecting

I know now that my fascination is not unique. Many cultures regard certain types and colors of stones as magical or powerful. Crystals especially are thought to enhance or strengthen one in many ways and certain stones are said to offer protection, healing, and other benefits to the person who carries or wears them.

I’m not sure I believe that but I will always enjoy the beauty and variety of rocks, keep certain ones around me, and probably pick up even more unique ones that I find for the rest of my days. So, for many decades, I have played with rocks. Why stop now? It’s an amusement that’s almost free, involves healthy outdoor exercise  and harms no one—well, I did break my ankle once trying to get to an area where there were crystals on an old mine dump but that’s another story for another day.

Memoir Tale--The Table

This little essay tells the story of a piece of furniture from its creation long ago to this very day when it sits in the dining area of my brother's and my current home! It now fits the Japanese word sabi. The word is a bit hard to translate but describes an object of value, one venerated because of its antiquity, tradition or connections and bearing honorable scars and blemishes that in some ways add to rather than detract from its beauty and quality. It is a very Japanese concept!
All too often in our culture the old is not respected or valued at all. Everyone wants the new, modern, current and latest things. They are not always the best, though! The table is a perfect example.

The Table

Back in the war years, and the latter half of the nineteen forties, young couples did not start out expecting a spiffy new house full of new furniture and the latest gadgets. There were not a lot of gadgets then anyway, but you could not afford them on starting salaries and credit was not too widely available. Most first or second homes were furnished with extras and hand-me-downs from parents or older siblings who might have gotten to the point of acquiring some new or better stuff.

My parents were no exception. They furnished the first house I recall with a motley assortment of odds and ends from Dad’s family home and perhaps some they’d picked up in the first four years of their marriage. We never did have a couch or sofa and only one stuffed chair in the living room that normally served other purposes as well.

One piece I do remember was the table we used for a dining table for several of my early years. It was not large, maybe about two feet by three or so, wooden legs and a white enameled metal top. The top would bounce sometimes if you set a heavy dish on it or removed one but I do not recall anything falling off, at least. Dad had a sturdy wooden chair on one side and mom had a wooden chair opposite him, but of a different design. I was stuck in a high chair for longer than I felt appropriate but finally got a regular seat of my own, actually more of a bench or stool. It had a low back like it might belong in front of a vanity but it worked. In time that scene changed,

There is a Christmas pictures from about 1950, before my first brother was born, where a fancy machine appears beside the Christmas tree along side my collection of goodies. It was called a “Shop Smith” and was a combination tool that could be a saw, lathe, planer and drill. I am not sure if it was Dad’s Christmas present but I guess it was although I think he had bought it himself. That elaborate machine was the source of many future projects, stocks for guns, outdoor effects and furniture.

One that sticks in my mind was The Table. Yes, I capitalize the name because it was special and became the center of our eat-in kitchen when it was completed. Dad built stout--always. I used to joke that you could operate on an injured horse on that table without a quiver. The trestle style table had 2 x 12 planks for its top and legs of 2 x 6 boards, more nearly timbers! Dad planed and sanded them silky-smooth and applied many coats of varnish so it would be water proof. The bolts that held the top to the legs were countersunk and each hole carefully filled with a round dowel which was also sanded smooth so the top was flat and nearly perfect. It was a massive thing of beauty.

By then my first brother had been born and was about to graduate from that hated old high chair also. We needed more space around the table with four people to sit there. The new one was just short of three feet wide and about five feet long. By this time, we had moved from Jerome down to Clarkdale. The kitchen in that house was roughly square as were all the four main rooms. In one corner there was a bit of cupboard and a sink.  The opposite wall held the 220 outlet where the electric range was plugged in. In the northwest corner by the door to my room, we put the freezer and as I recall, the fridge sat not far from the stove.

Once the new table was placed in service, August 4, 1955, the old one was retired, perhaps used as work space since counter space was limited. There was a pantry near the back door and all non-perishable food was stored there. It also had a small counter area that served to prepare things. I made a lot of cookies and biscuits there in my teen years, but I digress. This is the story of The Table.

Over the years that table become a love/hate object to me. While it was the site of many pleasant and happy family dinners, birthday cakes, and good conversations, the place where any guests gathered to drink coffee and talk, and one of the nicest pieces of furniture in our house, some bad memories also rapidly accrued.

My seat, still that low backed bench, was in the right rear corner, since the table was placed with one end against the south wall and the window onto the back porch.  That put my back almost against the sink and the one cupboard beside it which made it difficult to get in and out.  I could not just jump up and leave but had to edge my way clear. Thus I ended up being a captive while I was subjected to many seemingly endless lectures and tirades as the years went by and more things went wrong, finances became worrisome and dad’s health, both physical and mental, declined.

I cannot count how many hours I sat there, knowing there were necessary chores to be done to take care of the livestock we had then acquired that would now be late. Knowing, too, that I would rather be any place in the world rather than there, a virtual prisoner. For a long time those painful memories all but obscured the good ones.

It was a huge relief when I finally left home, going off to college and thence to a life of my own. I came home some during the first year but the lectures were then mostly a thing of the past.  I had made my break and established my independence, making my own way with scholarship and grant funds and no longer obliged to pay for my room and board in whatever manner was demanded—to include listening, willingly or not.

Finally the time came when the family left that home. For a time my parents and brothers were scattered about, before they managed to reunite. I was by then no longer an actual  part of that circle. Much of the household goods ended up in storage where it stayed for a long time. For years I helped pay the fees for that so a few precious souvenirs and mementos would not be lost. Not until my dad passed away did Mom,  the boys and I reclaim it all. Among the nearly-forgotten furnishings was The Table, a bit scarred now from being stowed in a warehouse and moved from one such location to another at least once, but still sturdy and whole.

It took its place in the mobile home where Mom lived until shortly before she passed away. Then it became the property of my youngest brother who had been at home until after Dad’s death and still came and went as he pursued his education. A bit later, it had a place of honor in the dining area in the home he proudly bought and moved in to after he got established in his legal career, just a matter of weeks before his untimely death from an aneurysm.

At that point, most of the old family things that remained came into my possession since I lived closer to him, both of us in southeastern Arizona, while the other brother was in Colorado. The Table sat in my garage for awhile and then traveled with me to Hurley, NM, near Silver City,  when I moved there for a few months in the summer of 2008.  It became my sewing and project table there. Then it was back into storage with a lot of my other things when I moved to Colorado to become the pet and house sitter for my surviving brother in the spring of 2009.

Finally in October 2011, brother Charlie and I moved from Colorado Springs to Alamogordo, NM. Once we got everything from Colorado unpacked—that move is a story in itself!-- we made the trip to Silver City and got the things I had stored there. Yes, The Table was among them and it soon became the center of our kitchen-dining room area. It is as sturdy as ever, still proud despite some dings and dents. Still heavy too, I can vouch. We struggled to get it inside! I wipe it down often to remove the dust from the still shiny varnished top and we use placemats to protect it, also. I don’t recall that happening long ago.

The painful memories are all but gone. I sit at nearly the same place I always did in reference to the table itself  but I have a nice wooden chair now myself with my back to our second refrigerator which I consider more or less “mine.” I can come and go as I wish. Not only am I the “big sister,” I am also matriarch of the family and no one lectures me. Charlie sits at the end where Mom used to sit while in the place once occupied by Dad, there is usually no one unless we have a visitor.

I do not know where The Table will end up once the two of us are gone since our step kids have no interest in or memories of it. It was not a part of either of our homes when they were there. Still, I hope someone will appreciate the stoutness and craftsmanship of this unique piece of furniture and enjoy it in years to come. It is already nearly an antique, dating back into the 1950s. May there be no bad memories made around it in those coming days. I may do an exorcism someday soon to be sure all traces of bad emotions are gone. That old table deserves the best fate possible.

I thought I had some photos of it but they seem to have been lost when I downloaded all files a few weeks back to recover from a computer crash. I will get some new ones. Anyway here is one peek.

Little Rojo was new to us in this shot--
but it does show one end of The Table.

Sunset Season

One fantastic thing about New Mexico is the incredible sunsets that are especially common in the fall. There have been quite a few clouds in the evening lately and of course I am out with my camera.  I am a total freak about sunsets and have to admit that I've never seen so many and so gorgeous anywhere else. Arizona and Colorado have good ones but New Mexico is absolutely the max, the best. Thre is something about high desert that seems to be sunset freindly; probably the dust in the air and who knows what else? Here are a few that I have collected just in the last two months!

I am happy to share these with you! If you left click on the first one they will come up as a slide show so you can look at a larger version of each shot.