Stop – Chat

Out 'N The Woods Again

Many moons ago while cutt'n timber on a big burn between Lowman and Garden Valley, Idaho for Columbia Helicopter, I drove by a somewhat ramshackle place. One of the last buildings head'n up the river.

At any rate, what got my attention wasn't the sign "honey for sale" instead it was the sign which read "mountain man, stop – chat."

Well sir, I must stop and chat then.

The old man was surely lonely and welcomed me right in for coffee. At a glance there was no doubt he'd spent his life in hard labor. All stooped over like some of the rest of us. He hobbled along with the aid of a cane. A little dog his only companion.

Yes, he had honey for sale. He had it delivered by the gallon and just resold it. Said sometimes folks stopped to buy some then they could chat.

As our visit progressed, he tells me about his mine up near a place known as Grandjean. He tells of the many happy summers spent there mining for gold. Then all of a sudden his eyes got all misty and got choked up. After a bit he sezs, "I had a good wife, back there in my youth, but the mine came between us. She wouldn't spend the summers there so we divorced. She remarried long ago but some time back started to call and check on me once and a while. She knows I don't have any liv'n relatives."

Then I thought surely the ol' boy is hallucinating. What ex-wife would care after decades to remember and forgive? Strange I thought in a world so full of bitterness and hate.

He opened up to me about all his stuff there in his buildings, a pickup, camper, mining stuff. He needed someone to help him sell it. It was then I thought about the Salvation Army. Surely they'd come and help.

Yes, he would call them in Boise. As if on cue, about then the phone rang. Lo and behold it was his ex-wife checking up on him. Too late to go back. How many of us would like to go back and undo dumb decisions of our youth? Maybe not as serious as his but dumb no less.

I could see the happiness on his face as he chatted away so I slipped out to leave them alone.

A couple of years passed and I drove by the place on my way to another cutt'n job. As I turned the corner, down deep I hoped to see the old sign "mountain man, stop--chat". But it was gone.

 

Reader Comments(0)