My mother was a cocktail waitress who died in a car crash back in December of 1963. I doubt she ever rode a horse in her life though I didn't know her long enough to find out. I have one picture of her: she is sitting with me on her lap when I was maybe a year old and laughing at something someone must have said or maybe she was laughing at me. I was a goofy looking baby but hell, I'm still goofy looking nearly 60 years later.
The summer before she died she took my brother and me on a vacation. My father wouldn't go. He pretended that she hadn't asked him and at the last minute he insisted that he had to work. I remember he kept saying, oh gosh, Lorraine (that was her name) I wish you'd of told me sooner. I sure would like to go along with you and the boys. I had heard my mother ask him to come with us a month earlier but I didn't say anything. My father finally managed to work himself into his grave some thirty years later but that's neither here nor there. She took us out west to pan for gold. I was all of eight years old and my brother was ten. I remember sitting in the back seat of her '56 Chevy fighting with him about any meaningless thing we could think of and getting motion sick when we went over the mountains and her stopping the car a number of times to allow me gain my sense of horizon again. We finally ended up in northern California at a campground that featured a creek running through it renowned for its gold. I had no idea a person could take a shovel full of black sand, swish it around in a little metal pan, and find little sparkles of gold at the bottom. It was one of the great revelations of my life, well, that and getting laid, but that second revelation would have to wait until I met Debbie some eight years later. Yes, I know... I'm getting sidetracked. But then again you didn't know Debbie. Anyway, I remember wading into that cool creek water just as the sun was coming up over the pine trees and the mountains and using my toy shovel to dig into the black sand bar running down the middle of the creek bringing it dripping back to shore where my mother in her long blue and white poke a dot dress wet up to her knees would gently twirl the water and sand admixture around until a look of sheer delight blossomed in her eyes every time we would find a few morsels of gold at the bottom of her pan. It would be the only vacation we took together, or at least the only one I remember. Someone once told me--it might have been my grandmother but I don't recall that either--that my mother took us boys to Florida to play on the beach some years before but if she did my memory of that event has long faded. At her funeral I thought I could see that same sparkle of gold dust on the too-white skin around her eyes closed tight and unseeing but in hindsight I'm sure I didn't. We never did strike it rich but perhaps I'm wrong about that too. On Thu, Feb 27, 2014 at 1:48 PM, John Carl <[email protected]> wrote: > Diane Claggett met my mom in 1971 and it was sister-hood at first sight. > Both blonde, slim horse-girls, both had Adventist ancestors they had > escaped and both full of fun and open to foolin' around. They drank and > flirted and smoked pot and went every other week to an endurance race, a > long distance horse race, through the season - which in California is all > year - switching to the southern deserts in the winter. Diane was a little > wilder than my mom, Diane defied conventions when it a was popular time to > do so. She had an Indian side that she cultivated - more than half her > friends were old Indians and in her later years she went by the apt name, > Running Deer. > > In 1976 she entered a horse race across the country, following the old > pony express route (a telling detail as I will explain in a bit) my Jr. > year in high school. Diane came in 2nd, beaten by a days by old Verle > Norton and his pair of mules. Verle was an old friend from the same > endurance-race, social circles that Diane moved in but she always muttered > under her breath at the loss, "this was supposed to be a *horse* race." > Mules are much tougher in the long run, especially on pavement which was > much of the course. > > My ma had always been horse-mad and endurance racing is the epitome of the > sport, if you ask me. First of all, any sort of mere horse show is not for > a true horse-lover. Horses aren't good for how they look, horses are good > for how they go. And a horse race around an enclosed track isn't really > pragmatic. How many people need to get around an enclosed track quickly? > It's just another show, in the end. The only true test is time over > distance - real distance, up and down, across rivers and through the heat > of the day and the chill of the night. At least 50 miles and preferably a > 100. Preferably by far, the Western States 100 - The Tevis Cup, The grand > daddy of them all, the race over the Sierras that followed the old Pony > Express Rt, before there was an I-80. Squaw Valley to Auburn. When Diane > introduced my mom to that race, my ma took to it like Ronnie Reagen took > to politics. She won in 81 and again in 82, the first person to win it > twice in a row, on Fritz the one-eyed Wonder. But this story isn't about > that, or my mom, it's about Diane, and one of her many Beau's - The Doc. > > She hung around with the Doc quite a bit, She and Smokey. Sheesh, there's > another character- Smokey Killen. Around 85 years old, tall and lean with > a ropy neck and adam's apple, my dad always shook his head whenever he > thought about it, this hot little morsel and she takes this scrawny old man > as a lover but Smokey had a couple of things going for him, one he was > rich, retired Insurance Exec with homes in Vail and Puerto Vallarda and > second he loved Diane like the dickens, followed her everywhere and always > had a camper for her to crash in. And lotsa good booze. I guess if a > woman's got a soft spot in her heart for cowboys, it don't diminish with > age. Doc hung around a lot, as I mentioned, he also was in love with > Diane. He was just as old, but he was better-looking and kept hopes up. > He always claimed to be be a millionaire but he sure didn't live like a > millionaire. Doc's claim was he'd cashed out his assets from his medical > practice and turned them into gold. then one drunken night, stashed it all, > buried it somewhere which he couldn't recall the next morning. What a > funny thing, to have hidden great wealth from yourself. > > My brother and his son, my nephew Luke, went searching for it recently - > late last summer. I didn't know about it then because they didn't tell > me. Luke just grinned, "We're going to look for gold" , at my wondering > look as they got in brother Ron's Acura, loaded with Luke's new > top-of-the-line metal detector. I found out this morning what they were > doing that time because the news > report<http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-0227-gold-coins-20140227,0,843659.story#axzz2uYBeGtkt>came > out that the gold had been found. Nobody knows about old Doc > anymore. The couple who found it are newly moved up from the Bay Area and > it don't matter anyway. Doc is long dead, a definite case of losers, > weepers. Diane drops by most every other week. She likes to go to church > with my mom now, both are back to the Adventism of their youth. I'm not > sure you could call that a case of finders, keepers but I am glad that > couple found that gold. I don't think Doc cared about it that much or he'd > have tried harder to find it instead of wasting time trailing around Diane > and Smokey. Or maybe he discover with Smokey, that when you retire, you > don't have to be rich anymore and being poor is more fun - fewer > responsibilities. > > I"m convinced of it. > Moq_Discuss mailing list > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > Archives: > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > http://moq.org/md/archives.html -- http://www.danglover.com Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
