Los Indios who live high in the Sierras of Mexico tell a story about a contest between deer and frog. When deer insisted his eyesight was the sharpest, frog suggested a test. The first to see the sun’s rays in the morning would be the winner. “And the wager?” asked the deer. “Twenty heel flies,” said the frog. The proud deer snorted agreement. In the...
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Author’s note: “From a live performance, best if read aloud.” Better than 100 years ago Flagstaff, my rough and tumble frontier town, had more saloons than churches. There was a young woman named Maria. Maria was probably the best looking girl in northern Arizona and she knew it. She would talk to her abuelita, her little grandmother:...
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Almost 20 years ago Dr. Henry Poore sat across from me in the studio of KAFF Country 93.5 FM and allowed me to interview him about his early days in Flagstaff for the show Under Western Skies. He talked of waiting for a pack train of burros to cross Highway 89 on its way to restock a sheep camp on the peaks. He spoke of the Navajo families with horse-drawn wagons coming in from the reservation and camping in the town park for the big Pow Wows. Then he told a story about an old man living out his last days just a mile from where my home stood, who looked to the compassion of a dying country doctor to feed him through an old fashioned Flagstaff winter. Time stood still as a master storyteller held forth. Dr. Poore finished talking and I looked at the tape recorder to make sure it was rolling. It was not the first or the last time I had heard him relate an engaging tale, but I sensed there was something about this experience that was a landmark for him. I was hardly the first person to encourage him to write down his experiences to share with a wider audience and in 2006 Goose River Publishing released Lessons Remembered: Memoirs of an Audacious Country Doctor. Dr. Poore was generous enough to share this telling of “Two Men Named Charlie” from his book.
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Stark white cumulonimbus clouds collide over the San Francisco Peaks and pile up like pins in the bowling alley. The crack of the lightning strike turns my head. For a moment the silver wire burns against the sky and then it dances behind my closed eyelids. The thunder rolls from beneath my feet and the black cinder hills toss it back to the towering...
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I sat in the dim room with a group of early risers and watched my son’s performance. He had the first slot in the folk festival. On his knee rested a 1976 Gibson Heritage guitar. It had seen better days. Although it wasn’t visible to the audience, I knew there was the scar of a repaired crack where the peg head meets the neck. As my son worked his way...
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