Where Woodie Guthrie Learned to Play the Guitar

Part 9—of Fifty Years in a Thousand Miles--Pampa and More Old Friends

I was reluctant to leave Calvin, Linda and Dalhart, but the sun had set and I had set my sights on making Pampa before bedtime. As I reflected on our story-swapping while driving, I realized that Calvin saw me as the boy he knew, not the boy I thought I was. I saw Sidney as the boy I knew, not the boy he really was.

As I mentally wandered over the various phases and careers of my life, I figured that people who knew me during each of those careers and times saw me in a different way. I know I had trouble convincing folks that their CPA could also be their broker and financial planner. Later, I had the same problem convincing them I could be a novelist. 

I drove through Hartley, another old high school competitor, then Stinnett, where another of the stockbroker-CPAs I once worked with and trained, lived. Then Borger, where old friend and brother-in-law Jack Thornbrough grew up. 

Thunder and lightning roiled all around me as I traveled. I had the top-of-the-earth feeling one gets out there at high altitude. There are no mountains, but plenty of hills and valleys and the lighting displays are magnificent. I met a car about every thirty minutes, so I felt all alone. I seemed to be heading into the heart of the storm, but only got concerned once when heavy rain slowed me to about twenty.

They gave me room 137 (again) at a Best Western in Pampa and thunderstorms raged all night. The thunderclaps were the loudest I have ever heard and the wind blew so hard that water got under my door. 

The next morning, I asked for a telephone directory in the hotel lobby. The thirty-something clerk  asked, “What’s a telephone directory?” Really? I wondered if anybody would know in a few years.

Another clerk finally found one and I called Mike Ruff, another founding member of the 1^st Global Registry (a specialized broker-dealer that I co-founded back in 1991).  Mike was still a practicing CPA, Certified Financial Planner and broker in Pampa. He and his wife Nancy, a Presbyterian minister, had been good friends to Jan and me.

I invited them to the motel, but they insisted I drop by their house. Over coffee, we kicked around old times, but mostly talked about where we were in the present. Nancy had undergone brain surgery to remove a debilitating tumor. She said that doctors gave her little chance of surviving the surgery, and even less of living a normal life if she did survive. Blindness was almost a certainty if she lived.

As he stood beside Nancy’s bed after surgery, Mike received a call from his doctor. He had been diagnosed with prostate cancer. Nancy survived her surgery and so did Mike. She still has her sight and shows little negative side effects from the debilitating illness. They were prayer warriors throughout and turned it over to God. They remain their old cheerful selves.

As we posed for photos, I got a text from a friend asking for financial advice, even though I have not been in the business for almost twenty years. I read the question to Mike and told him that this would be his life after retirement. We got a good laugh out of that. Old friends are good. We should keep in touch more. I left inspired and happy that I stopped for the visit. 

I left Pampa (the place where Woodie Guthrie learned to play the guitar) and headed toward Oklahoma.

I passed through Mobeetie, another famous western town with a jail that has been preserved. I wanted to stop, but had already told Bob and Sharon Messenger I would make Hollis, Oklahoma before noon. I also saw the sign that pointed toward Canadian, home of Mike Gardiner, another  1^st Global rep that was a good friend. He is also in A River of Stories. Wished I had the time to stop and visit.

The Old Hag Shows Up Again

Part 8—Fifty Years in a Thousand Miles--Dalhart.  What are the Odds? 

A short time later, Calvin did lose his job as manager of the Quien Sabe (Who Knows?) ranch. I heard that he had moved to Dalhart. He has little or no presence online since he left the ranch (not much before), but I had found enough information to chance finding him there.

Without benefit of a town map, I followed my instincts and almost immediately located a street named Peters and wondered if he had already had a street named for him. A few houses down, I stopped at the only address I found online, a small but nice brick house with a single garage in a residential neighborhood. A white pickup sat in the driveway. 

I knocked on the door and a man opened it. “Yes sir. What can I do for you?”

He was in the dark and covered his eyes as he looked out into the setting sun. When he did not recognize me, I thought it might not be him. He had put on a few pounds, aged a little. I counted off almost fifteen years since I had last seen him. “Looking for Calvin Peters. I’m Jimmy Ainsworth.”

“You found him. Well, I’ll be, it is you, ain’t it?”

It was about suppertime and I vowed not to interfere with that, so we sat on the porch. I had already dropped in on wife Linda unexpectedly for a meal on that last visit. Calvin, always a great story-teller, told me what had happened since leaving the Quien Sabe. 

He feels God led him north from the ranch rather than south and back to his old home turf around Adrian. He rented a small house and he and Linda began to rebuild their lives. He found a job driving a fuel truck. Kids and grandkids said he was driving a bomb down the highway, so he quit that and found a job at the XIT Feedlot (XIT Feeders). He worked inside for a while until he learned that riding the lots horseback paid better and suited better. 

When his boss learned he was looking for a house, he sold him his on Peters Street. Again, Calvin and Linda felt God’s guidance. They remodeled the place and “cowboyed” it up. Calvin told me they had already paid off the mortgage. This despite the fact that he was injured in a horse wreck that led to both head and back surgeries. Back at the feedlot, he decided to give up the horses and ride in an air-conditioned and heated tractor. Through it all, they maintained a positive attitude.

Calvin insisted on taking me inside and showing me their improvements and his displays of spurs, buckles and other awards he and his son and grandchildren have won in rodeos and roping events. In the kitchen, I took a step back when I saw Jay Dusard’s famous photograph of Julie Hagen entitled “North American Cowboy: a portrait”.  Julie Hagan was the top hand at Wagstaff Land and Cattle Co. in Wyoming when the shot was taken. I met her years later on a Wyoming mountain. 

From A River of Stories . . . Laughter filled the pre-dawn mountain air and lights came on in the cook tent. “The Old Hag” had finally arrived. At breakfast, we all knew Julie Hagen before we took our first bite. She was a ranch manager who had worked for ranches in Arizona, Colorado, Montana, and Wyoming. He was also a painter and poet. Her brother was an Olympic skier, her father a biologist, her mother a professional flutist. 

Calvin’s photo is signed by Jay Dusard. Jay came to the ranch to capture some of its majesty in photographs before the way of life disappeared. My photo was signed by Julie Hagen.

What are the chances that two guys who attended the same tiny school fifty years earlier in the Texas Panhandle would have the same photo of a woman (that I met once and Calvin never met; a woman from a state more than a thousand miles from Texas) hanging in their homes?

I had heard or read something about a civic award Calvin had won for community service, but he pretended not to know what I was talking about. Linda has taken a job with a local restaurant and arrived wearing her welcoming smile. 

Calvin and I swapped old stories for about an hour and a story about Sidney and the unusual lifestyle he chose came up. I said that compared to Sidney, I had been a wild and crazy guy in high school. 

Calvin put a hand on my shoulder and said, “Jimmy, you were a wild and crazy guy compared to me and most of our classmates.” That surprised me, because I had always seen myself as the shy introvert that I was inside—the new kid who tried to stay invisible. 

If you read Circle of Hurt, watch for remnants of this visit. 

A Bent Door and a Ranch

Fifty Years in a Thousand Miles—Part 7—The Bent Door and the Quien Sabe 

I headed toward Adrian, where I found the landscape around the tiny town littered by wind turbines. Sad to see. The town continues to shrink after I-40 replaced Route 66 and bypassed Adrian. Many of my old haunts were gone or empty, including the Bent Door. 

From Rivers Ebb. . . The Mother Road ran along the south side of the town. A hodgepodge of trading posts, service stations, garages, and restaurants gave Route 66 travelers a chance to fill up their cars and stomachs. Some had signs that said “Last Chance”. At the Bent Door, an arrow drawn on the window had two heads. One read Chicago, the other Los Angeles. 1,139 miles was printed in the center. 

And later, this . . .

His first plate of fried biscuits had been made better because he was sitting with Gabe and Nocona in a booth at the Bent Door. Three black Resistol hats, three pairs of black Justins. 

The Bent Door really does have a bent door and bent windows and it is still intact, though the business was long ago abandoned. I looked through the dusty windows and saw a few tables and chairs in various states of dilapidation, wondered if they were the same ones I sat in a half-century before.

And from A River of Stories . . . Looking at the booth where I sat so many times inspired me somehow. I wanted to take a few notes. I had left this country unwillingly, my cowboy dreams abandoned. Now, I had returned with dreams of becoming a writer. 

I stopped in front of the old Adrian Mercantile building, still standing but bearing little resemblance to the thriving general store I encountered as a boy. 

From Rivers Ebb—Mattie walked toward the general store. “JD or Bess told me it started as a hotel—rooms upstairs and a saloon downstairs.”

She turned up her nose at a dozen or more fresh hides, hair and blood showing, stacked on a wooden slab on the side porch. The place smelled of leather and oil-soaked wood mixed with horse and mule feed, wet tow-sacks, and salt blocks. Shelves were filled with a haphazard assortment of groceries and supplies. Horse liniment mingled with vanilla extract, potato chips and aspirin. Naked bulbs revealed harness and saddles stacked on stands. 

The Mid-Point Café was already closed for the day, so I walked into the gift and knickknack shop next door, asked the girl if she knew Sam Brown. She did, said he still lived here, but did not know where. Sam, another schoolmate at Adrian, is the author of a few Westerns that drew praise from the likes of Elmer Kelton (again, what are the odds?) I have read all his books and he’s been featured in at least one major magazine. An authentic cowboy who does daywork as well as writing. I drove by the house he had lived in on my last trip here, but it was abandoned, knocked on the door of the house where his parents lived. Nobody home. 

Adrian High School was just across the street. I walked over and looked in the windows. Little has changed about the building in fifty-plus years. I tried to be sixteen again as I sat in the place where my picture had been taken for the school annual, but could not. Awhile back, my son Damon sat on that same spot and had his picture taken when he went out of his way to pass through my old hometown. He knew a lot about it from reading my books.

I looked up at the sinking sun and decided I could make Dalhart before dark. I had heard that Calvin Peters, a classmate I wrote about twice in A River of Stories lived there now. I had seen Calvin twice in the years since high school. The first was at the Abilene Western Heritage Classic. 

From A River of Stories . . . I followed behind, taking my time to observe the boots with tall tops and slanted riding heels, the large spur rowels, and the huge palm-leaf hat, looking for the seventy-pounds-lighter boy I once knew. . . . I watched him and his Quien Sabe Ranch team compete that night. The younger cowboys obviously looked up to him. I left the next day, expecting I would never see him again. 

But I did see him again when I attended a writing conference in Amarillo a few years later. I dropped in unannounced at the Quien Sabe, where he had been ranch manager for at least twenty years. He invited me for supper and I spent the night. The next day, he loaned me a horse so that I could participate in a roundup. Memorable.

From A River of Stories: There was a screened-in overhang porch to my right where I saw a sea of black hats, all brim-up, crown-down on the floor beside four freezers that Calvin said were full of beef..

. . . Calvin stopped the pickup and rolled down a window. “This has been a good life, but the problem is I don’t own a single thing you see. Not that house, this pickup. I lose this job, I’ll be leaving here empty-handed after giving this ranch the better part of my life.”

My time on the Quien Sabe and Moorhouse Ranches inspired some of the locales in Rails to a River. He drove six miles on ranch property and stopped at a cattle guard that marked the entrance to Blind River Ranch headquarters. The road on the other side looked like it led nowhere, so seldom traveled it resembled a river wash rather than a road. 

And this . . .he feels like an interloper on ground that has given him birth and nourished his life for almost two decades, but the cold, dry, thin Texas Panhandle air recognizes him with a whistled greeting.

I am at a loss to explain why the ranch so inspired me. The railroad crossing one has to cross to reach the ranch is historical in its own way, and became the locale for a pivotal scene in Rails to a River which I won’t spoil here.

Documentary or a Novel?

I took a trip awhile back to retrace some of the places and people that inspired my writing in previous books and in my new offerings, Circle of Hurt and Believing in a Grand Thing.

Part 6—

What are the chances of tiny Adrian producing a Rhodes Scholar? And the class below us produced two published authors. And how did Morris built a charter plane service in the middle of nowhere that flew governors, senators, and other celebrities.

I understand Sidney Blankenship speaks several languages and is an expert not only on Christianity but some Eastern religions including Hinduism.

He has 27 dogs (down from over fifty), all descended from two he acquired in 1980. When I tried to visit him fifteen or so years ago, he had a large menagerie of exotic animals. Now, he is down to two African Lions, one bear, ten Javelinas, a bison herd of 120, and a few assorted other exotics. 

He has continued his studies in theology and is in the process of writing a book. He still travels to England occasionally to present papers at Oxford, but can’t be away for long because of his animals. I ask you, who would not want to sit down and discuss life with a man who has led such an unusual one? 

Morris, on the other hand, has run a successful farming operation (he and his son farm over 8,000 acres). He also runs a successful aviation service. He showed me photos of his flights for Oliver North, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson, George W. Bush and other famous folks. He was also a member of the National School Board Association. He has had quite an impressive career. He showed me his pristine plane (I think it was a Cessna) in very nice hangar next to his house. He was considering flying it to the next NSBA meeting.  

Morris remembered my cousin Arlen driving the school bus and his younger sister Sha and brother Larry. Too bad we didn’t know that back in high school. I reluctantly drove away without seeing Sidney but feeling very positive about the visit with his brother. I figure Morris and I will meet again. Certainly hope so. 

I pulled out on the highway to head to Adrian and recalled the time Cousin Arliss had landed a plane on that road. It created quite a stir. I wished I had asked Morris if he remembered that. 

As I looked back at the small farmhouse where Sidney had lived for more than six decades, I remembered the time when we got a new English teacher in the middle of the school year. It took a hardy breed to come to this isolated area and teach, so the local Baptist minister was drafted for the job when an elderly lady gave up on us rowdy boys and left. 

From Rivers Ebb . . . Jake had never seen Loretta’s father up close. The preacher had played three sports at Baylor and looked ready to deliver a crushing tackle today. He sat in Mrs. Boucher’s chair and folded both arms across her desk. The arms were bigger than Jake’s legs. 

For a preacher, Reverend Jim Sessions (the inspiration for the new teacher) showed little reluctance in enforcing discipline in his classes, including liberal use of the paddle. He did not appreciate our history with the elderly lady we had forced back into retirement. He gave us an assignment to write a story, a mystery or thriller, preferably. We all, especially the boys, snickered. When we saw that he was serious, we grumbled, but most of us took out tablets and began scribbling.

Jerry Fortenberry, my former nemesis turned friend, looked over my shoulder as I began to write my first fictional short story with great trepidation. When I finished the first page, I turned to Jerry. “You better get to writing.”

“Not me. No way I can write a story. Let me see yours.”

I didn’t want to, but Jerry was still not a boy to trifle with. He read the page I handed him, poked me again and whispered. “Let me see what happens in the end.”

Somehow, that gave me confidence as I put the finishing touches on my story. As I recall, it involved somebody dead on a ship. Since I had no experience with ships, I have no idea why I chose that topic or locale.

From Rivers Ebb: Jake looked over his shoulder at Burt’s paper. The title was “What I did this weekend.” Burt wrote: Ate supper. Fed hogs. Went to dance. Fixed flat on tar. Had chicken-fried stake for supper.”

Jake felt better after reading it. He titled his “Lost in the Fog”. When time was up, Jake bounced his two pages on the desk as if they were a book manuscript. Floyd Knight stood by his desk with his hand out. Jake handed him the papers, and Loretta’s father smiled. 

The next day, Reverend Sessions praised two papers that he had graded “A”. He mentioned mine first, but he saved the absolute best to read to the class. It was called “Thoughts of Nothingness”, by Sidney Blankenship. Sidney artfully described the terror he felt as he listened to classmates’ shuffle of paper and the skin-crawling sensation from hearing them scribbling on pads while his mind remained a blank and his fingers numb. Sidney had turned a mundane situation into a comedy/thriller. 

When I returned home from my trip, I called the landline number (Sidney has no cell phone) Morris had provided and got Sidney on the second try. He told me he has been working on a book about theology for over a decade. Ironic that I am now a writer after trying my hand at several professions.  Maybe Jim Sessions started something that day. Or maybe not. 

Maybe this is meat for a documentary instead of a novel.

Two Brothers From the Past

Part 5 

I smiled at the memories as I reluctantly drove away and took my old high school route toward Adrian. I detoured left at the first county road I passed and drove down to where my high school buddy Calvin had lived. His house was also gone. Twenty more miles on a paved road that was dirt when I lived here, I came to the FM road that led north to Adrian. Something told me to turn south instead. 

As I traveled toward the old Simms Community, I knew I would pass the home place of another high school classmate. I slowed as I passed, reluctant to pull in. I had heard he was a recluse who might not appreciate my visit. 

But I wanted to reconnect with Sidney, one of about a dozen or so kids in my class at tiny Adrian. He had led a very unusual life, especially for a boy who had grown up on a Panhandle farm. Sidney got his degree in Bible studies at Abilene Christian and his academic credentials at University of Edinburgh in Scotland, then attended Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. What are the odds of a boy from a very small class in the remote Panhandle of Texas following in the footsteps of greats like Robert Louis Stephenson, Sir Walter Scott, Oswald Chambers, and many, many more. 

I stopped at the Simms Community Center and remembered another scene from Rivers Ebb.

 

He eased into a parking spot behind the Simms Community Center and killed the engine, hoping that nobody would notice the ’55 Ford had no hood. Jake and Loretta decided to go in to the dance separately because she was not supposed to be there. A creak from a rocking chair on the front porch startled him as he watched Loretta climb the porch steps from the shadows. He thought the big man would never stop unfolding to his full height as he rose from the chair. Loretta stopped when she saw her father.

The Community Center is abandoned and falling down now, though the Lions Club sign still hangs. A business sign across the street has Morris Blankenship’s name and number on it. Sidney’s brother was a couple of years ahead of me in school. I remember there were seven in his class and he was one of two boys. He and Sidney played mean guitars back then. 

I knew Sidney used to live just behind his brother’s house. I dialed the number on the sign. How does one begin a conversation with someone you haven’t seen in more than half a century? 

“Hello.”

“Is this Morris Blankenship?

“Sure is.”

“This is Jimmy Ainsworth. Does your memory go back that far?”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Morris remembered me instantly and we discussed old times for a few minutes. I told him I wanted to visit with Sidney. He said Sidney was not home, but invited me to his house for a visit. There, I met his charming wife Sondra, who had grown up in Oregon and had been a classmate of Sam Elliott’s. Said she helped him pass math. I told her that Sam and I were identical cousins.  She got a strange look on her face. 

I laughed. “Okay, not identical and not cousins. He got the height, the looks, the deep baritone voice and all those movies, but we were born on the same day in the same year.”

She also went to school with members of the The Kingsmen group (remember Louie, Louie, a classic from the sixties?).

I told her I had been the guy to catch her husband’s blazing fastballs when he pitched and I caught for the Adrian Matadors. I wondered aloud how a girl from Oregon (Portland I believe) felt about living on the isolated prairie without neighbors and thirty miles from the nearest small town. She and Morris met at Abilene Christian College. She had an interesting career with Lemax in Hong Kong that sells a lot of products to Michael’s stores. That allowed lots of travel to exotic locales. 

She asked if I would like a Diet Pepsi or Diet Dr. Pepper. I said, “I’m fine.” 

She replied, “Didn’t ask how you were, I asked if you want a diet drink.” Morris made a good catch with Sondra. 

Morris and I discussed old times and old friends, especially his brother Sidney. Said he could not explain the strange life his brother had chosen. Sidney came home from England with a woman to the sparsely populated area and farm where he grew up, then traveled to California for a brief period. Back in the remote Texas Panhandle, he enjoyed a short career as a musician (is still often referred to as Willie because of his long locks), and has been living on the family farm ever since, free of cell phone or internet distractions.  When I left Adrian with my family, (under protest), the High School Annual had not been published. I asked friends to circulate my copy for signatures before mailing to me. Sidney’s note to me stood out because of his beautiful handwriting, not just his words.