This guy was interesting – and his home brew wasn’t half bad. He was a refugee from California, the one place in the US of A where people have been rude to me; so we were able to trade stories about how obnoxious they can be down there, and I was able to expound my theory that it has to do with the weather: namely, that there isn’t any. Anyway, this guy had moved to Colorado , gone through college in Fort Collins , graduated with a degree in... well, I forget, but it had nothing at all to do with banking. So off course that’s where he ended up – in a bank in Gordon, working for his uncle, I believe, who just happens to own the place. Clearly he got lucky. Not once, but twice, because along the way he found himself a charming young gal – wife, girlfriend, he never said – who hails from the Ukraine . And as soon as I started talking about what I’m doing here, which of course didn’t take long, she told me that she works in a nursing home in Gordon and guess who one of her charges is? The lady whose words I was quoting the other day, Caroline Sandoz. She insisted that I ought to call in and see her, and I think I will. I can’t say that I will do so without a degree of trepidation, because I know that these conversations can be pretty one-sided; but I think this in an opportunity not to be missed. At least I can take with me the book she gave me back in `96, with her inscription in it. It may jog her memory.
I need to re-wind briefly. Yesterday was an outstandingly lovely day: refreshingly cool, with a sky as clear as you could wish for. On the way into Ken’s place I stopped to admire the collection of skulls – mostly cattle, I think – which he has piled on an old wagon, not far from the house, and the archway built of antlers which you pass under on the way into the yard
I got to talk to a lot of people, and was surprised at how many I already knew. There was the guy from the body shop down town, and his brother, fresh back from Scotland with a flat cap stuck on his head; one of the ranchers I’d been talking to at the State Fair a couple of weeks back, in company with the lady who sells me mouse bait; one of the gals from the gas station with her husband and baby daughter; the crop farmer from south of Gordon whose place I visited recently, and a number of other people I’ve been introduced to over the past few months. We talked about their lives and travels, about mine, and we strayed into the two areas I was always told to avoid: politics and religion. Now that I’m barely four weeks away from leaving here, I may as well say how relieved I am – hugely relieved – by the religious scepticism of most of the folk I’ve met. And that’s all I’ll say.
As the sun went down the temperature plummeted. One or two people started drifting home, and it was soon time to light up the big old stove in the barn where people were starting to gather.
Good food, good drink, great company – and, as I say, no headache this morning. That’s what I call a party.
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