Old Friend Does it matter how long it's been or when we last embraced, re-walked those dirt roads, pointing out our rocky remains, the agreed upon history in our heads? Your rescue pup, Chelsea, is full-grown and tuned to your every move. We climb into the '40 Chrysler Windsor, suicide doors and three on the tree, the one you restored and drove north as far as the road goes, Charlie Russell's cow-skull pin on the visor, your St. Christopher guardian/guide. We drive down Warm Springs Creek through Washoe Park to the Old Works trail head. You walk us over the ground, atop what's left: foundations, massive stone- masoned water flues, red brick dust piles, rusty pipes and broken timbers. Copper green rock is strewn along the path overlooking Anaconda's slag heaps, the golf course Jack Nicklaus designed, and that iconic symbol of industrial greatness (and Superfund legacy)— The Stack—a giant jutting column some seven hundred feet high (a middle finger tribute of poison and money) framed below the snowy, pristine Pintler Range. You've chosen this spot as your last stand, a quiet, cozy, comfortable lot to walk with Chelsea each day. Notes help you negotiate the loss of yesterdays, but they can't help recall what fades from hour to hour. You do better tracking our old friends, the Milwaukee Road, your time on the coast and up in Alaska, those youthful summers spent with Uncle Paul painting landscapes in Yellowstone. I wonder if our childhood memories are the last to go. One of the downsides of living long is the risk of forgetting it all. We are storytellers at heart and makers of things. It was good to see you still working, having glued a Hyda etching to a routed piece of maple you planned to add to the gallery sprawled on the walls of your century- old house—the tale of who you are, were. How can it take forever to happen in a flash? Soon we'll all be cruising the back roads of this western landscape we've known and grown old in. Maybe we'll drive beyond the Yukon, circle the pole, head into that eternal country, kick back and roll across the top of the world to that promised land— somewhere under the midnight sun to dance among the stars. for Drake Mark Gibbons
Thank you for your support!
"I wonder if our childhood
memories are the last to go."
love this.
"and that iconic symbol of industrial
greatness (and Superfund legacy)—
The Stack—a giant jutting column
some seven hundred feet high (a middle
finger tribute of poison and money)"
I have always enjoyed the images you evoke of Montana and your experience of living there (and whatever else, of course). But I never thought about them as Poetry as Memoir -- until the presentation from James on Sunday afternoon. For years I have been reading your memoir. Just thinking of it that way makes it more enjoyable. Thank you for keeping us all focused on what's important. Sláinte!