Ah, memories… the one that comes to mind right now is the time my father was drunk and crying in his underwear—I forget the instigation—while my mother stood there in her nightgown, bare feet planted firmly on the floor, wielding a kitchen knife. That was before YouTube, or else I might have shown it to the world. Just imagine all the missed opportunities!
Yes, it’s that time again (it’s been two months). In a week or so we’ll be heading back to the mobile home retirement community under the shadow of bare rock mountains on the edge of what used to be the desert just outside of Tucson. I say that with some regret, because the Sonoran desert is a beautiful place. Not so much so when they bulldozed the land outside the trailer park and covered it up with houses on streets with plaintive nautical names like “Treasure Cove.” I wonder if the builders have ever seen one—a cove, that is.
The neighborhood where my mother lived is a warren of speed-bumped lanes with names designed to evoke the wholesome, good-times Americana of the wild West of its inhabitants’ childhoods, mythical ranches Roy Rogers might have visited in the movies, like “Lazy J” or “Flying M,” names of brands burned into the living hides of bawling steers. That well is long since dry, of course. I wonder what the children think, when they come to visit white-haired grandparents in their aluminum boxes baking in the sun. It would have made sense to me at one time, raised as I was on Saturday afternoon matinées where Hopalong Cassidy (my favorite), the Lone Ranger, and many more galloped around identical scenery saving the oppressed and riding off with a song. I know I’ve mentioned this before, but those popcorn-infused morality tales did more to shape my sense of right and wrong than anything I learned in Sunday school. I can’t imagine what the substitute is these days, in lieu of either one.
Meanwhile, I still have to take care of my mother’s empty trailers. Yes, plural. She was always looking for another one to buy, probably in hopes of luring me or one of my siblings to live nearby. Only one of them ever took the bait and has probably lived to regret it. Now that she’s safely behind locked doors and fading fast, he probably wonders what he’s doing there, become old like all the rest. If only he hadn’t stolen that refrigerator, there’d be more money to look forward to for tying up loose ends. Maybe he didn’t see enough of those Saturday afternoon serials?
No, I know why. And that bespeaks a greater loss.
The reason I’ve had so much trouble dealing with the mess in Tucson is because it represents the only family “home” I have, even with the knives pulled in the kitchen, drunken fights, and emotional abuse. Even as I yearned to take a flame thrower to the scene, I clung to this or that stupid piece of furniture, thinking we could “use” it, when in reality I just wanted to fill a hole inside my heart. Things are better with me now, so maybe I can face it. I think with wonder of my brother-in-law swiftly dealing with parental possessions when my wife’s mother and father left the home that he knew. Those people poured out so much love and care, the detritus of their lives meant little. It was enough to hold the memory with a smile.
At least the weather will be cooler now. And each time I go back, the spell is weaker. When we bring out the big contractor garbage bags and pull things from the closets, I won’t slow down so much. The junk is more anonymous, just pieces of America.
The bitterness is mostly gone, too. I feel compassion for my mother in the nursing home, though I will never visit, and I want her last days to be as comfortable and serene as possible. I love my brother, although I changed the locks. I even almost like the desert in small doses. And going to Tucson is something of a getaway for my wife and me now, another place to be for just a while. Not quite yet, but soon.
Doves calling in the morning, javelinas in the arroyo…
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{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
This has a very relaxing feel to it. I like it. It makes me want to go to Tucson…..
I’m struck that you would say it has a “relaxing feel,” even with the knives and all. I’ll take that as a compliment, since it must mean I’m more rooted in my self these days. Glory halleluja and all that.
instead of westerns, for me going through my significant formative years in the 70s it was Star Trek & Star Wars (if i encountered the kind of neighborhood you describe it would have streets called “Delta Vega Drive” & “Tatooine Way”), plus a lot of odd imported British scifi, including some particularly dark & cynical stuff – considering i was born into the Age Of Nixon, with the imprinting of distrust and fatalism that engenders i’m surprised i turned out as ok as i did. in spite of my deep sense of cynical futility (from the dystopian scifi & real life) i have a fundamental core of optimism and hope (the Trek & Jedi influence), though that core seems to be getting smaller every year.
i do wonder about more recent generations and how they turn out with things the way they are – but somehow there always seems to be something that they can turn to for the same kind of influence you got from westerns & i got from scifi (i’ve seen some Japanese anime that has a very positive spin to it…. plus a lot of dark dystopian cynical stuff too!).
who knows… life goes on….
You must’ve liked Hoppy because he seemed like your dad as you would have wanted him to be – a silver-haired senior citizen committed to doing justice among the ruffians of the West. He didn’t fight much, he wasn’t very good looking (reminded me of my uncle Bob, a lawyer in Brownwood, Texas), he didn’t have a lariat and wasn’t a very fast draw. He didn’t even sing and didn’t have an American Indian acolyte (like Little Beaver for Red Rider, or Tonto for the Lone Ranger). He was kind of a stockbroker of the open range.
More seriously, do you think that this infatuation we had about these cowboy heroes warped us? Did all those comic books and trips to the Metro make it harder for us to grow up and come to terms with the compromised ambiguous adult world?
No, that’s not why I liked Hoppy. Maybe it was because of Gabby Hayes.
In any case, my father was a pilot and I worshipped the whole Air Force thing. I was proud he could fly airplanes. All I ever wanted him to do was pay attention to me, which he hardly ever did.
And no, we weren’t “warped.” That was the real deal. That’s why it resonated.
Yes, there was some reality behind all the old west mythologizing. And what’s wrong with mythologizing anyhow? The Greeks did it before us.
I know what you mean about the resonating part. Debunking has its uses, but it can turn petty and mean-spirited, and a steady diet of it is likely more “warping” to the spirit than an excess of childish hero worship. For all my cracks about him, Hoppy was a distinguished looking fellow, with his white hair and black suit, more a gentleman than most of the cowboys of his time.
Damn, a father who was a genuine fighter pilot! That’s something a feller can be rightly proud of.
Fighter pilot? Dad wasn’t the fighter pilot type. More of a flight instructor type. He wasn’t inclined to tolerate loose cannons and chest thumping top gun wannabes. Dad was all about slide-rules, (even knowing what a slide-rule is dates me, I guess) procedure and checklists. Pops spent WWII in Texas as a flight instructor.
Oh, good! You answered Ken before I had a chance to.
JHF was once the fastest slide-rule draw in the West. We kept our implements holstered in those days, as we walked from class to class, oblivious of the sneers of football players, cheer-leaders and shot-putters. We were ready to slap leather at the drop of a logorythm. Our gang was the Slide Rule Club, and no one messed with us (or wanted to). Some of us actually entered an annual competition pitting our school’s top guns against those of the other big powers in our district – Abilene High, Midland, Odessa, San Angelo.
The world is a poorer place for loss of the slide rule. It was the equalizer.