"SHOULD AULD ACQUAINTANCE BE FORGOT
AND NEVER BROUGHT TO MIND....
SHOULD AULD ACQUAINTANCE BE FORGOT
AND DAYS OF AULD LANG SYNE.."
******************************************************
On New Year's Day, just three days ago, I was
sitting up there, in my cozy attic---a fire was
burning merrily in the little barrel wood stove,
threatening to drive me out. Two small logs
work wonders in that stove!
I had just finished the final touches on my first
story of the new year--- "Our Stuff," and had
the old B@W TV tuned to the Rose Bowl
Parade. The parade, with all those
beautiful-colored roses was not much good in
B@W, so my mind had strayed.
I was thinking, after my "stuff" story that
maybe I, myself, should do a little New
Year's clean-up, and was digging around in
some old apple boxes, containing various
kinds of junk. This one was full of high school
stuff.
Alas, there was no blizzard, rain, snow, fog
or mist to really "cozy up" my stay in the
attic that day---but good news: a cold thirty-
five mph wind was blowing---as usual in our
city.
I always open the window a half inch at the
bottom and the wind was gusting around the
corner of the house, and making those
marvelous wind sounds...which only the wind
can make...
The old beat up apple box had held my CHS
annuals, photos, clippings, and BDC paddle
longer than it had ever held apples. The old
BDC paddle which I made for initiation, still
held its varnish job after 65 years. It was not
a happy paddle, like most of my stuff being
"happy." It had beaten me black and blue!
I went through stacks of old high school
pictures. many made with my Clix-O-Flex
$5.95 camera, purchased at Thrifty Drug,
next-door to the Sunshine Theater. (Oh,
those were two great businesses and will
ever be a part of old Clovis in our memories!)
The wind was getting up more--moaning,
whispering, and telling me, in my mind, of
old days, old times. old friends...from long
ago...it was an "Auld Lang Syne" wind...
bringing to mind good times. Simpler times--
of our home town, and the good old
USA! You know the feeling those memories
bring, and I had it in the pit of my gut.
I got my last NEHI grape out of the little
fridge--one I'd been saving for a special
occasion--pried the lid off with a rusty
old "church key" hanging there on a nail,
and went and sat by the window...musing,
and sipping on my big grape drink...the
wind moaning through the window...into
my face...and I mused...
The next thing I knew, I was walking down
the sidewalk on Clovis Main Street, marveling
at those red bricks paving the street...I was
in front of Penney's and headed south by
the Lyceum, a 5@10 store, Barry Hardware.
Woolworth's, Clovis Printing Co., and good
old Montgomery Ward.
I had passed up, in my reverie-walk, going
into Woolworth's for a 20 cent ham salad
sandwich; now I crossed Main street at Grand
and going south, passed Janeway Drug and
stifled my urge for a Coney Island hot dog,
a door or two south.
Passing Mesa Theater (a pretty nice theater
once, with a fine concession room), I looked
up at Hotel Clovis--the defining building of
Clovis' skyline.
Seeing good old Busy Bee Cafe, there on the
corner of Second and Main, was the last
straw---how many times did a bunch of us kids
go in there after a cold football game and get
hamburgers and coffee! Once after a Rattler
game--- so Busy Bee must have stayed open
on Armistice Days.
I went in there and got a booth toward
the back, where we kids always sat, and in my
mind, spent a nice time...eating a burger
and drinking my coffee...
Now my mind was quickly brought back to
the present, as I had uncovered in my
memory box some recent photos. I was
holding one of Levi Brake, Art Snipes, and
me, made in August of 2011, when Levi
came to Albuquerque for a visit.
Here were two of my closest friends in life.
I met Art (and his little brother Bob) when
we were in La Casita. We soon moved a
block from them. We played all kinds of ball;
played army, built mud forts, played marbles,
fished for "translers," made model airplanes,
traded comic books, and eventually were
Boy Scouts together. We moved up on Axtell
about high school time, close to Levi's house.
Levi and I became fast friends. We went to the
same church, sang bass in the choir, worked
in the summers at church camp; in CHS we
were in BDC, boys' chorus, boys' quartet and
octet. We both drove tractors and wheat trucks
in the summers. He began driving a bit before any
of us and we drove all over town, dragging Main
and jumping the Santa Fe Dip west of town.
We often took in movies in Portales and Melrose
and played pool in Texico. We frequented that
little greasy spoon cafe a half block south of
Gateway Auto, drinking coffee, playing the
pinball machine, and listening to the jukebox.
These two friends and I graduated from old CHS
in the late spring of 1951. It seemed that, as soon
as school was out, we each went our own ways.
I was off at church camp several weeks and
driving a tractor and wheat truck ...and it seemed
like the next thing I knew, both of my friends had
married!
I saw both of them in later years from time to time at
class reunions or I'd drop by OK Rubber WELDERS
for a visit with Art. Levi became a world citizen,
working at various locales around the globe--China,
India, and Brazil. He'd write once in awhile, in
Spanish; it reminded me of our days in Dora Russell's
Spanish Three class.
Of all the unexpected things, Art who lived one block
from me in the forties in Clovis, in 2000 moved into
a house three blocks away from us in Albuquerque.
It was in this house that the photo above was taken
when Levi visited us in 2011. I'm glad I found this
picture! Brought back old times!
As I sat there three days ago, on New Year's ,
looking out my attic window, and thinking about
"auld acquaintances," I remembered a lot of other
fine friends from CHS---some no longer with us.
There were a lot of them---Noel, Engle, Whatley,
and so many more---I can't even begin to name.
them all...
Oops. my NEHI grape is empty...and my, I'm not
through remembering. This search through the old
apple box has been fun!
But it's getting colder and I'm kinda hungry. I think
I'll open a can of tomato soup, put it in my heavy
mug, heat it in my little microwave oven over there,
and sit and think some more---maybe about some
of the great girls we had in our class of 1951,
of the great girls we had in our class of 1951,
and then---who knows---maybe our fine teachers,
if my hot soup holds out!
Yes, that's what I'll do. Sip my hot tomato soup...
and then maybe watch some football. My, what a
great New Year's!
Levi, Art and Mil
*******30******
BY MIL
01/04/14
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