On several occasions over the past two months I was asked, “Are
you moving to Chama.?” For as much as we
love the place, the answer is no; home is where our family is and that is
Calhoun County. We have been in this place since 2006 but my
memories of it go far back to my youth as do those of the Cumbres and Toltec
Railroad. How is that possible?
In my early youth, before the age of ten, I spent summers at
the home of my Mother’s family in Pennsylvania.
The five girls and their only brother lived with their Mother, my Grandmother
Mamie Connor, in a tiny house a scant forty feet from the mainline of the
Pennsylvania Railroad along the Allegheny River Valley. They may have lived in Appalachia, and were
certainly dirt poor, but they were proud.
I remember summers there as in a dream, a place of warm
summer days and endless fun in the hills and forests along the River. Everyone would run down the steep hillside to
the river and jump in to cool off on a summer’s day. The oldest would swim across to the big rocks
down from a stately old Queen Anne house where the grown-ups and older children
would frolic.
As in a dream in the evening we would drift in a row boat
down the languid river. We would holler
to hear the echo when our every whisper could be heard along the river in the
heavy cool air.
Holidays were special home-made iced cream with blackberry
cobbler seemingly every weekend. We
would pick the wild berries in the afternoon and come back to the house covered
with scratches from the thick tangle of the blackberry briar; then came the
baking and churning of iced cream for the evening treat.
Uncle Paul always did the fireworks and always seemed to
mess them up.
“Break off that stick on the bottom of that rocket” he would
state with authority. Sure enough when
ignited they would fall on the ground and wind-up in the River below. But sometime fireworks did explode over the
river on the fourth of July and it was glorious.
As the evening darkened we children were sent to bed as the
chatter and laughter of the grown-ups on the front porch extended well into the
night. Finally in silence I could listen
to the gentle rustle of the leaves in the forest and hear the faint and steady “chuff-chuff”
of a heavy freight laboring up the river valley.
The whistle would sound for the village of Sarah Furnace far
below our village of West Monterey.
Echoing off the hills we would count the number of times the whistle sound
came back - one… two… three, but never more.
The sound would grow in intensity and then the brilliant headlight
and roaring sound of the locomotive would pass the house. The whole place shook and then it settled into
the steady slow rhythm of steel wheels crossing the joints of steel rails. And, then to sleep and to dream of places far away carried
along by a swift passenger express.
The railroad in Pennsylvania is now gone and our little home
is rickety, decaying and will soon be lost.
That place is now only a fragile reminiscence in the mind of an aging
man.
Calhoun is like that place in Pennsylvania and it keeps the
fragile memories of my youth alive. We
sit on the porch and watch as the river mist slowly fills Kintown Hollow. In Chama we hear the heavy beat of a steam
locomotive and steam whistles echoing through Wolf Creek or Los Pinos Valley –
one… two… three… and four, but never more.
Old Blue made it in good stead and Curt has the cabin
repairs in hand. G’s excellent
organization made the trip home and eventual unpacking a breeze. The winter will be productive as I work and
plan for next year’s trip and the two of us plan next year’s adventure in New
Mexico and Colorado.
Curt was waiting as we backed the cabin into its parking
place on the south end. Trips away
remind us that our real blessing is our family and where they are is home.
It is good to be home.
