Tales From the Edge of the Earth: That Time I Got Fired

In the radio business if you say you're "on the beach" 

it means you've been fired and you have no job.

  The Lady of the House and I sat on the beach at Perdido Key looking out over the Gulf of Mexico as the October sun was getting ready to set.

  We were having a picnic, we were diggin’ our box of fried chicken.

  A couple about our age came strolling along hand-in-hand in the Florida sand.

  “Good day,” I said, giving them a slight wave with one hand while my other hand held a chicken breast.

  “Hello,” said the man.  The woman smiled and nodded.

  “Where y’all from?” I asked.

  “Atlanta,” said the man.

  “Big city,” I said.

  “Having a picnic,” said the man.

  “Yup,” I said.  “We’re celebrating.  I just got fired.”

  The man and woman stopped in their tracks.

  “You just got fired and you’re celebrating?” he asked.

  “Sure,” I said.  “It didn’t work out.  Good Lord don’t close one door what that he opens another, all that.  It’s on to my next adventure.  I just have to find that door.”

  “Well you certainly have a good attitude about it.”

  “It didn’t kill me, I’m sure I learned some lessons and maybe I got to teach some lessons to some fellow travelers too,” I said and had another bite of fried chicken.

  The Lady of the House and I came to Pensacola, Florida with open hearts and open minds.

  Days after our arrival it was obvious that we had moved into something that was different than our life in Clovis, New Mexico.  We had gone from living in a small town to existing in a place teeming with people:  Ma and Pa Kettle come to the big city.

  I got a job as a car salesman at the local Toyunda dealership.

  Obviously that’s a made-up car name I use to cover my ass because if it’s one thing I learned about Pensacola people like to sue each other there…you should see all the billboards, TV ads, signs on the sides of buses advertising lawyers.

  Folks who know me know me as a storyteller.  I had been paid for years to be a storyteller on the radio I thought I’d just up the ante in Pensacola by storytelling and selling cars at the same time.

  I had tried selling cars 22 years earlier in Phoenix and failed miserably selling a half-car one month and another half-car the next.  What that means is I couldn’t close the deal, the sales manager had to come in and close it for me.

  Why I thought things would be any different in 2015 Pensacola, I don’t know.  But like I said I came to Pensacola with an open mind and an open heart and the dude who interviewed me at the Toyunda place said I had what it took to  make $100,000 a year.

  Once again in life I fell for the sales pitch of a recruiter who was just looking for warm bodies to fill the floor of the dealership.

  But hey, a hundred-grand a year?  That sounded like good money to me!

  So after watching all the training films about the Toyunda and what a damn fine line of vehicles they were and on and on, after learning the rules of the lot, they threw me out on the car lot to go sell.

  And there I was.

  At any given time there were 20 of us on the lot.  Sometimes 3 of us at a time would head out toward a car that just pulled in.  In a few short seconds we worked out who’s “up” it was.  “Up” was the snazzy term for the customer.

  The managers made it very clear to each of us new salespeople that the owner of the dealership had basically invested $600 for every customer who drove on his lot…$600 in advertising, research and stuff.  And no customer could leave the lot without talking to a manager.

“So are we supposed to take their keys?” I asked.

  This was greeted with a furrowed-brow stare from the manager.

  “No,” said the manager.  “We don’t keep their keys from them.  It’s up to you to control the up.  If they buy, the last person they see on the deal is a manager.  If they don’t buy, the last person they see before they leave is a manager.  If you can’t control the customer you have no business being here.”

So lo and behold, the first two weeks on the lot I sold 5 cars…one brand spanking new Toyunda and four used cars.

  The next month began with a sales meeting with new goals.

  “You all know the rules,” said the sales manager, “You have to sell 10 cars minimum every month just to keep your job.  This month, you have to sell 5 cars by the 15^th to keep your job.

  I sold one car the first week of the month.

  And then the well ran dry.

  On the 14^th the sales manager’s second-in-command came walking briskly toward me as I stood on the sales floor.

  “Walk with me, Grant,” he said.

  We went into an office and he shut the door.  We sat.

  “We’re letting you go,” he said.  “You just don’t seem to connect with customers.”

  For just a few seconds I stared at him eye-to-eye.  Thoughts ran through my head.  No point in saying lame stuff like “give me a couple of more days,” or “what the hell do you mean ‘I don’t connect with customers’” or “Talk straight, dorkbutt, you’re firing my ass because I haven’t made goal and ‘last hired is first fired’?”

  I reached across the table and shook the man’s hand.

  “Well, tell the boss I give sincere thanks for the opportunity,” I said.

  I went home.

  It's not like I didn't see it coming. It's like the one sales manager who didn't mind throwing me "under the bus" a couple of times so succinctly said, "In this business you can go from hero to zero."

  So as I sat on the beach with my sweetheart eating fried chicken I pondered:  I had no complaint.

  The dude who was making $100,000 a year was not married and was at the dealership from open to close six days a week.  He lived and breathed Toyundas.  Sure, he ate at Pensacola’s finest restaurants, drove a top of the line Toyunda and oozed success, but that wasn’t my trip.  I value time with The Lady of the House, I value leisure time and The Lady of the House has a list of home chores she wants me to do.

  I was at that dealership to learn something or to share something enlightening with someone.  Only The Universe knows.

  Was it to finally learn that car sales wasn’t for me?  Was it to learn what I really wanted out of this life wasn’t to be like my brother who’s made a tidy living for himself in the financial world?

  Was it to rub elbows with the co-worker who was friends with the guy at the radio station in town that eventually lead to me getting a job back on the air?

  Was I there to say the words to that young man?  He was the young fellow who was trying to emulate the most successful salesman on the lot, spending time away from his new baby and wife.  That on the grand scale of life time with them was more important than chasing after a buck.

  It was the first time in my life I’d ever been fired.  A friend on the social media said that if that was the first time in my life I’d been canned he didn’t know if he could trust me.  I didn’t understand.

  So if you ever get canned, fired, let go…don’t cry, moan, tear at your clothes and skin and gnash your teeth…breathe deep, allow yourself ONE DAY to mourn the loss of your gig…take some time, have a beer…or two…or three or so.  Or have a party, or go on a picnic.  But the next day get up, update your resume’, get out there and like the old song says, “pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start all over again.”

Tales of the Southwest: The Wind, The Heat, The Weather

            “So I bet you didn’t have wind like this when you were in Florida,” said a message from a Facebook friend the other day.

            A front was coming in from the north, winds were up around 35 miles per hour.

            I reckon my pal kinda-sorta forgot I’ve only been gone from the High Plains for two years.

            “I actually missed winds like this,” I wrote back.  “Love the dynamic, love it even better when it’s at my back when I’m riding a bicycle.”

            In eastern New Mexico and west Texas in the spring and fall the winds come.  I like to call them “light, refreshing breezes”….35 to 40 miles per hour carrying dust, debris, toupees, small animals and itty bitty young’uns off to parts unknown.  

            That’s the way it is here on the High Plains, a place of weather extremes:  windy periods or periods of hot air with no movement; drought or day after day of afternoon thunderstorms; the dry line to our west, the dry line to our east.

            You probably ought to admit, though, the weather extremes aren’t as bad as they are in some other places.

            Take the wind, for instance.

            I’ve heard folks who’ve come here from other parts of the country (usually in relation to the air base) speak of how the winds of eastern New Mexico drive them crazy.

            Friend, have you ever lived in Amarillo?

            When I first arrived in Amarillo in the fall of 1992 I noticed all the trees were bent to the northeast.  I supposed the winds blew from the southwest during the spring while the trees were growing.

            I was wrong.

            The wind blew all the damn time in Amarillo, mostly from the southwest.  My commuter vehicle was a Honda 150 scooter.  When I rode around on it in Roswell I got about 70 miles to the gallon.  In Amarillo, because I was riding into strong winds, I got only 50 miles to the gallon.  When I left the panhandle in the summer of ’93, I’m telling you, I had this weird buzzing in my head from the constant wind.

            After I left Amarillo and its wind behind, I saw an article in “USA Today” about the windiest places in America.  First place went to Dodge City, Kansas.  Second went to a weather station atop the Berkshires in western Massachusetts.

            Amarillo was rated as the third windiest place in the U. S.

            Does the High Plains summer heat bother you?

            Have you ever been to Phoenix?  

            Summer in Phoenix, Arizona is like living in a convection oven.  

            The great writer, Hunter S. Thompson, once said his idea of hell is "A viciously overcrowded version of Phoenix in the summer."

            Phoenix owes its size as a metropolitan area to air conditioning.  Without it, the area might’ve been as big as Las Cruces.  If you’re not acclimated to the summer heat of southern Arizona, when you leave a Southwest Airlines flight then head out the doors of Sky Harbor International Airport, it will take your breath away, suck it and all moisture right out of your lungs, you curl up and lay on the ground like a human raisin.  Okay, maybe it’s an exaggeration, but it will still stun you.

            I lived in Mesa, a suburb, and made a daily commute on my mighty scooter to downtown Phoenix.  Late fall, winter and early spring aren’t too bad in The Valley of the Sun.  By early May the daytime highs hit 100 and by August it could be 110, 114, 118 even 120.  Another astounding thing about Phoenix is to walk out of your place on a summer night at midnight and find the temperature is 100 degrees.  100 degrees at midnight, no sun!

            Forget this “but it’s a dry heat” stuff.

            It’s hot.

            I would take a spray bottle to work.  In the afternoon, before I went home, I’d spray myself down and get all wet.  The wet clothes helped keep me cool as I flew along on my scooter.  I was completely dry within 10 minutes.

            The heat was so maddening I got off work one afternoon and drove to the mountain town of Jerome, near Flagstaff.  I had to have a decent summer breeze, not one that peeled the skin off my arms and forehead.

            Some folks complain about the dust of Curry and Roosevelt counties.  Our dust pales in comparison to the dust blows of Roswell, Chaves county and the Pecos Valley.

            There’s humidity in the American South, snows that don’t melt until spring is well underway in the north central states, hurricanes on the east and Gulf coasts and the twisters of America’s “Tornado Alley.”

            Now think about it, is the weather really all that bad around here?

                                                             -30-

Appalachian Tales: The Murder Trial

  I was watching a movie the other night about a notorious murder trial in Louisiana in which the family of the victim paid to have a prominent big-city attorney assist the prosecutor in the proceedings.

  “I’ve actually seen that done,” I said to The Lady of the House.

  “Shhhh,” she said, “Tell me when the movie’s over.”

  It was almost forty years ago back in the hills and hollows of Appalachian coal country.  I was the full-time newsman and morning announcer at a radio station in a little town I won’t name.  I’ll also change the names in the story…to protect me.

  The Thompson family had the new car dealership in town and they did quite well at it.  You rarely saw Tommy Sr. at the lot, his son Tommy Jr. ran things even though he had gone off to Vanderbilt and studied to be a lawyer.

  And then there was Teddy Thompson.

  No one seemed to know if Teddy had a job or not.  Teddy spent his time “bon-vivanting” around town, raising hell, driving any one of the sportier new cars off the lot from the family dealership.

  And Teddy was a bully.

  The community grapevine was always alive with tales of Teddy kicking somebody’s butt at a bar in Bristol or Teddy sweet-talking his way out of a speeding ticket or Teddy beating up anyone who dared to look at his girlfriend-of-the-week.

  So while tragic, it was no surprise when the grapevine crackled alive one morning with the news that Teddy had been airlifted to a big city almost 200 miles away…two bullets in him, one in his head.

  Teddy lay in a coma for two weeks with a shattered skull…the bullet had entered right between his eyes.

  Then he died.

  Details began to emerge.

  Teddy had been harassing a guy who was dating Bessie, his sister.  While Bessie enjoyed the company of her new gentleman caller the Thompson family thought the boy wasn’t good enough for their Bessie.

  Word was that every time Teddy saw Bessie’s beau around town he’d turn his car around and follow the guy, tailgating him, blowing the horn and yelling crap at him.

  On that fateful day Teddy spied Bessie’s beau in traffic.  Teddy spun around in his car and started the usual hassling of the guy.  Teddy followed him to the guy’s apartment where the boy got out of his car and started walking to his place, all the while ignoring what Teddy was saying about him, about his mother, about his ancestry, etcetera.

  Then Teddy went and picked up a big rock, one he needed to carry with two hands.  Teddy hefted the big stone over his head.

  In court, Bessie’s beau testified that Teddy yelled, “YOU SEE THIS ROCK, MOTHER#$%KER?  I’M A-GONNA TAKE THIS AND BASH YOUR #$%KING HEAD IN YOU DUMBASS!”

  Bessie’s beau went into his apartment, got out his .38 caliber H & R revolver, walked out the door of his apartment and stood at the top of the stairs.

  There was Teddy walking up, the big rock still hefted over his head.

  “WHAT ARE YOU GONNA DO, P#@SY?  SHOOT ME?” Teddy yelled.

  Bessie’s beau pulled the trigger.

  The bullet hit Teddy in the shoulder.  The stone fell.

  “YOU SHOT ME, YOU SHOT ME!” Teddy yelled, according to testimony.

  Teddy turned and ran out to the parking lot.

  Bessie’s beau followed, pistol in hand.

  Bessie’s beau told the court how Teddy hit the ground and went crawling under this car and that.

“I looked for Teddy,” Bessie’s beau told the court, “And when I finally saw him under a pickup truck I shot him again.”

  The bullet hit Teddy right between the eyes.

  "I shot him again because I knew if he had the chance he'd kill me," Bessie's beau told the court.

  Who knows why the Thompson family paid to have a prominent attorney from the county seat assist the prosecution of Bessie’s beau…was it because they had no faith in the Commonwealth’s Attorney?  Was it because they wanted to assure a conviction?

  I don’t know how courts work but the court would only allow the jury to consider one charge:  First degree murder.  It would be first degree murder, nothing else.  Not second degree murder, not manslaughter.  If the jury didn’t find the guy guilty of first degree murder he would walk free.

  The jury was out for two days…

  …and returned with a verdict of “not guilty.”

  The jury knew wrong had been done, but not enough wrong for a first degree murder conviction.

  Tommy Jr., who had been there day after day, who would occasionally turn to me or the reporters from the area papers and say, “Be sure you report that,” when something he thought was important was brought up in court, Tommy Jr. stood up and hollered at Bessie’s beau, “YOU BETTER RUN, BOY.”  To which the judge pounded his gavel and threatened Tommy Jr. with contempt of court.

  And Bessie’s beau left the area.

  I’ve forgotten his name.

  I often wonder what happened to him.

Tales of the Southwest: J'arrivee a Albuquerque...Chapter 1: Destination New Mexico

  Portrait of the author not long after his arrival in New Mexico

  Long ago and far away I trainwrecked my life.

  Is 28 years a long time?

  Is the East Coast far away from The Great American Southwest?

  I’m telling you I trainwrecked my life because that’s how I ended up in Albuquerque 28 years ago this weekend…at the height of the 18^th Annual Balloon Fiesta.

  You know what a train wreck is…rail car after rail car piled on top of each other in a twisted mass of metal…a mess that takes a long time to clean up.

  As I sat in Florida in 1989 I sat in the figurative wreckage  like ol’ Job in The Good Book.

  I decided it was time to find a new place to start life all over again.

  I believed that if I could just have a new beginning that I could take what I learned from the trainwreck and come back stronger, shinier, newer.

  I researched, looked for great places to live.  There was this thing called “Places Rated Almanac,” a book that took things like cost of living, crime statistics and stuff to come up with rankings of great cities to live in America.  I thumbed through its pages looking for the perfect place to restart my life.

  I considered Ithaca, New York…what seemed to be an open minded town but too cold in the winter.  I pondered Oxford, Mississippi…an academic utopia, it seemed, but I imagined the sweltering summers.

  I thought about Los Angeles, but I had read too many Charles Bukowski books about the seedy side of L.A.  And there was the potential for earthquakes.  Denver crossed my mind but I thought if I lived in the Mile High City I might as well live in Aspen or Telluride but the cost of living in those places was stupid.

  As I perused the pages of the “Places Rated Almanac” some real candidates for new home towns emerged:  San Francisco, New Orleans and Albuquerque.

  All three had good job market stats there in 1989 America.  All three had significant crime problems but I reasoned if you kept your eyes open and watched who you hung out with you’d probably be okay. 

  San Francisco had a lively art and literary scene...it was the epicenter of the hippie movement once upon a time.  New Orleans seemed like a party town, and it was home to some of my favorite music.  And Albuquerque?  Albuquerque was in The West, the southern Rockies…and I’d always wanted to see the Rocky Mountains.  Albuquerque was south of Santa Fe and Taos, places I’d also wanted to see.  I also had a thing for Mexican food and Linda Ronstadt.

  But just like L.A., the chance of an earthquake also loomed over San Francisco.  And I had already spent a big chunk of time living on the Gulf Coast with it’s heat, humidity and flat land…I figured New Orleans wouldn’t be much different.

  So Albuquerque became my destination.

  I sent away for chamber of commerce stuff from The Duke City.  Imagine my hippie soul excitement to read the line:  “Albuquerque, where three ethnic groups live and work together in harmony.”

  If THAT wasn’t Utopia I didn’t know what was.  Of course it would be years before I would understand there is a difference between reality and sunny, peppy, feel-good chamber of commerce BS.

  The day came I bade farewell to the Florida Gulf Coast and headed west in my 1975 station wagon, all my worldly possessions crammed inside.

  I headed west for Albuquerque and a new life.

                                                                                                -30-

Tales of the Southwest: Yes, Arizona, You Were Once Part of New Mexico

            Historical fact:  New Mexico was once a huge hunk of real estate.  Portions of the original New Mexico Territory went to Nevada and Colorado.

            And…

The whole state of Arizona was once part of the New Mexico Territory.

            I have recently discovered in this age of talk radio, hyper-partisanship, situational reality and just plain ignorance that this fact has been apparently lost on some people.  I discovered this on a visit to Tombstone in the Grand Canyon State.

            The Lady of the House and I pulled into our motel.   It was evening and the proprietor of the place was hanging out with a few guests.

            The proprietor and I went inside so I could get registered and get a room key.

            As I came out a fellow struck up a conversation.

            “I heard you say you’re from the east side of New Mexico,” he said.  He had obviously overheard my transaction.

            “Yup, right up against Texas,” I said.  “You from Texas?”

            “Yes sir!” He said, “Born and raised in Dublin.”

“Dr. Pepper,” I said, referring to the town being the home of the Dr. Pepper made with pure cane sugar.  They’re not there anymore.

“New Mexico used to belong to Texas,” he said.

            “Yep, yep,” I said.  Did I sense this fellow was spoilin’ for some kind of fight?

            “Texas claimed everything to the Rio Grande.  Hell, there’s Texans still in Ruidoso who haven’t heard that yet, didn’t get the news, place is full of ‘em” I said with a smile.  “And the whole state of Arizona was part of the New Mexico Territory.”

            When I said this, conversations going on on the side stopped and all eyes were on me.

            “Naww,” said The Texan, “New Mexico was part of the Arizona Territory, Arizona didn’t want it.”

            I stood there and thought about the situation. 

Years ago when I had more vinegar and testosterone running through my veins I might’ve stood there and argued with this slightly inebriated fellow from The Lone Star State who didn’t know what the hell he was talking about.  The Lady of the House has said she’s glad she didn’t know me back then.

            “We’ll just have to agree to disagree, brother,” I smiled.

            “Well you’re wrong,” The Texan said, raising his voice a bit.

            “Y’all have a nice night,” I said smiling, touching my hand to my forehead in a slight salute.

            The next day on the way back from the motel office I encountered a fellow sitting in the sun and enjoying a refreshing brewski at about 9:30 in the morning.

            “You’re that guy who thinks Arizona was once part of New Mexico,” he said.  “It warn’t.  New Mexico was carved out of the Arizona Territory.”

            I stood there and thought about the situation.

            “Well, brother, The Lady of the House is waiting on me back in our room to make her a nice hot cup of tea, so I don’t have time to quibble.  But there are maps, there are history books full of facts.”

“Revisionist liberal horse sh*t, I’d bet,” he said.

“I’ll bet you like talk radio,” I said with a smile.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Just a passing thought,” I said. “Who’re your favorite talkers?”

“Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh,” he said.  “I kinda like that Alex Jones too.”

“Simple fact…when the U.S. clobbered Mexico in the Mexican-American War in the 1840’s we grabbed about 3/5ths of Mexico…what would be California, Nevada, Utah, Texas, Colorado and the New Mexico Territory.  The New Mexico Territory was so huge that chunks of it went to Nevada and Colorado.  Then they carved out the Arizona Territory from it.”

  “Here’s something else,” I said, “In 1853 Santa Anna sold off a chunk of Mexico we called the Gadsden Purchase ‘cos he needed cash.  If that hadn’t happened we’d be standing in Mexico now.”

            “Sheesh,” he said.  “That’s bullsh*t.  Santa Anna was kilt at The Alamo.”

            “How do you know this?”

            “Saw it in the Alamo movie with John Wayne,” he said.

            “Are you sure?” I asked.

            “That’s what I remember,” said the fellow.

            “Santa Anna lived long after The Alamo,” I said.  “He didn’t die until 1876.  As a matter of fact he lived in New York City in exile from Mexico from 1869 to 1874.”

            “Well,” said the guy as he had another swig of his cerveza.  “Now that's a load of sh*t.”

            I smiled and walked back to my room.

            Sometimes there’s just no point in arguing.

                                                -30-

Appalachian Tales: The Radio Wedding

  Word came from back in the hills the other day, Bobby “Big Deal” Thompson passed away three weeks ago.  He was 74.  Man, had it been that long since I’d last seen him?  Almost 40 years ago when he was in his 30’s?

  Actually word didn’t come from the hills, I just like saying that because it reminds me of the old days when you’d get a letter with a line in it like “Son, did you hear?  ’Big Deal’ passed away on December 1st.”  No, I was mindlessly surfing the Internet and typed his name in to see what he was up to.

  Well, he was dead.

  Bobby was the cousin of Tommy Thompson who had the big new car dealership in the little town tucked back in the hills and hollows of southwest Virginia’s coal country.

  Bobby was what some might call a “character.”  He was loud, he was boisterous, he was funny.  Bobby made money in the mobile home business.  His ship came in with the big flood of 1976 when a bunch of folks lost their little ol’ shacks by the rivers and needed homes.  He wasn’t profiteering, he was just in the right business at the right time.

  So after many years of being a “sportin’ man” (that means having many a girlfriend) he settled down with his beloved Barbie.  Yes, her name was Barbie.

  I was a morning disc jockey and newsman at the li’l ol’ AM station back there in coal country.  My boss was Grumpy Dave.  That wasn’t his name, but I called him that.  He was a grumpy man.

  Grumpy Dave came in the studio one day.

  “’Big Deal’ wants to have a radio wedding,” said Grumpy Dave.

  “So we’re doing a remote from a church?” I asked.  I envisioned having to work on a Saturday and broadcasting from some church.

  “No,” said Grumpy Dave, “It’s here tomorrow afternoon right after the news at 1.  Bobby bought a half-hour of radio time and he wants the whole town to know he’s getting married.”

  I leaned back in my chair and laughed.

  “Well that sure is different,” I said. “What am I supposed to do boss?”

  “Just go with it,” said Grumpy Dave.

  The next morning I talked up Big Deal’s wedding on the morning radio show.

  “Heeeey, join us at 105 this afternoon for quite possibly southwest Virginia’s very first radio wedding,” I’d say.  “If anything, Bossman Dave says there’s gonna be a lot of Elvis music.”

  The appointed time approached.  People began to trickle in to the radio station lobby around 1230.

  Then just before 1 Big Deal burst through the studio door with a stack of Elvis records.  Big Deal was a big strappin’ fellow well over 6 feet tall.  He had coal black hair combed back like Elvis or Conway Twitty, whoever you thought had hair like that.  Big Deal was just one of those fellows who’s presence in a room got your attention.

  “Hey,” he said, “It’s my radio pal.”  Big Deal had a big smile.  He stuck out his hand.  We shook.

  “After the vows are said I want you to play ‘The Wonder of You’ by Elvis, that’s me and Barbie’s song.  Then just play Elvis for the rest of the time I bought.  You know I’m Elvis’ long lost brother,” he smiled and winked.

You know, Big Deal DID kinda look like Elvis with his jet black hair combed back, his white tuxedo and white shoes.

  So Big Deal and Barbie went into studio B with the big old fashioned boom microphone along with the preacher and a few friends and family.

  The preacher conducted the ceremony, Big Deal and Barbie kissed at the end.  When they finished kissing Big Deal flung out his arms, reared his head back and yelled, “WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO BABY!”

  That was when I played Elvis’ “The Wonder of You.”

  You know, that was the first time I’d ever heard that song.

  And now when I hear it I always remember Big Deal’s Radio Wedding.

  Rest in peace, my friend.

                                                -30-

Tales of the Southwest: An American Refugee on the Road to Patagonia

A view near Patagonia, Arizona...Santa Cruz County...right on the border with Mexico

 By Grant McGee
  It was about a week ago, the 16 year anniversary of the attack on our homeland that we call "Nine-Eleven."
  I don't like to call it that.
  It deserves pause, more than a snappy moniker the popular media slapped on it like "Nine-Eleven."     I call it "The September 11th Attacks."
  I was editor at the weekly paper in Tombstone, Arizona at the time.
  That morning before work I had been out walking the dogs when I came back in to the house to the news that a plane had slammed into the World Trade Center.  Then minutes later the second plane hit.
  I can remember walking through the day at the office like I was plodding through waist deep molasses:  Someone had attacked our homeland, like the country singer Toby Keith described it, "A sucker punch."  No one expected anyone to use loaded American passenger jets as missiles.
  No, the world did not stop, the world kept going and the days passed.
  That night I went home and found some black fabric.  I made it into an armband and wore it to work.  I wore that for a couple of weeks.
  No one told me to.
  In my book of life it was to be done:  Our homeland had been attacked and I was expressing my feelings in reaction to that.
  I went over to one of the many souvenir shops that are in Tombstone and bought an American flag.     I pulled it off its little stick and hung it from the visor on the passenger side of my car.  Our homeland had been attacked and I was expressing my feelings.
  It would be days later that the media mavens and pundits of morning network television would say that such displays of the flag were improper.
  "I don't give a shit," I said to the teevee screen.  I talk to the teevee, a habit I come by honestly... picked it up from The Old Man.  Anyway, I went on talking to the teevee about the flag, "It's my flag, I'll display it the way I want to.  I'm an Eagle Scout, I know the rules."
  The OK Corral/Wyatt Earp/Doc Holliday aficionados started putting up artwork, that classic scene from the movie "Tombstone" where The Earps and Doc Holliday were walking down the street headed for the OK Corral...behind them an American flag, a bald eagle and the smoldering twin towers with the caption "Tell them we're comin', and tell them we're bringing hell with us."  The prints sold like hotcakes, I was told.
  And the world went on.
  Weeks passed.  Months.
  One January day I was taking stacks of papers to all the stores around Tombstone where they were sold.
  On the west side of Tombstone I dropped a bundle off at a convenience store then stepped outside and paused to take in a deep breath of the cool air and feel the sunshine.
  "So you live around here?" It was a woman's voice coming from the side.
  I turned and there was a young woman, maybe 30 years old, sitting on a bench in front of the store having a soda.
  "I work here in Tombstone but I live in Bisbee," I said.  I sat down on the bench across from her on the other side of the door.
  "Yeah, I saw Bisbee, it has possibilities," she said.
  "Possibilities?  You going to start a business?"
  "I'm thinking about moving out here," she said.
  "'Out here'?" I asked.  "Where you from, Tucson?"
  "No," she said.  "New York City."
  "Wow, that would be a radical change."
  "Yeah," she said, taking a sip from her bottle and looking out over the Cochise County desertscape.
  "Whaddya want to move way out here for?"
  She turned and looked me in the eye, she furrowed her brow and scrunched her face like she didn't understand.
  "September 11th," she said.
  It took a few moments for what she was saying to sink in.
  "Ohhh," I said.
  She had another sip from her bottle and looked back out over the land.
  "I breathed that dust from the collapse of the towers," she said.  "I was that close."
  I wasn't going to touch her nerves by prodding her about her running from New York.
  "That's still a big move," I said.
  "I don't want to hang around and see if they do it again," she said.
  "So what do you do?"
  "I'm a teacher.  I can find a job just about anywhere."
  I stood up.
  "Well," I said, "If I had my druthers I'd live in Patagonia."
  "I've heard of that," she said.
  "It's about 30 or 40 miles off that way," I said, pointing southwestward.  "Small town, remote."
  I stuck my hand out, she reached and we shook hands.
  "Good fortune to you in your search," I said.
  She smiled.
  I pondered that American refugee sitting on the front porch of a store in Tombstone.
  I thought about her getting the hell out of New York after our homeland was attacked there.
  I wondered if I would do the same thing.
  Who was I to judge?
  I wasn't walking in her shoes.

                                                           -30-