Letter From America: Farewell To Montana
Ronnie Bray and his wife Gay say the saddest of sad farewells to home and friends in the magnificent state of Montana - then set out on what turns out to be an eventful journey to a new home in Arizona.
The time came, as it always does, to leave Montana before we were quite ready to abandon Paradise.
Our friends extracted hesitant promises grudgingly given in the cause of truthfulness that we would return to visit them, and although we told them that we would probably never again see them in mortality, deep in our souls we longed that we might one more time look upon their faces and into their smiling eyes before we yielded our souls to the Grim Reaper. Thus, we hoped against hope, but in our heart of hearts, we knew that it could not be so.
We picked up a 24 feet-long U-Haul truck and our good friends came and filled it with the treasure and trammel of our life. In less than two hours, everything we had in the world was tucked neatly inside ready for the 1,400 mile journey.
Before we dispersed, Carolyn Anderson drove up, opened a table beneath the green wood trees, and spread it with sumptuous fare and a bucket of ice cream. With little appetite, we tucked in, chattering as if nothing was really happening before we said tearful goodbyes to these folk whose hearts had been our dwellings for over two years. Climbing aboard their rigs, they drove slowly away to disappear down our lane, waving farewells until they were gone from view and we were alone in that silent place with our puzzled dogs.
When the dust had settled, Gay and I stood in our empty home and remembered all the joys we shared. We looked at the little brown cross at the forest’s edge, wrapped with the plaited sisal lead I had worked for our old boy, Shep, and knew that we would miss him no less for being far from his resting place. Holding hands, we bowed our heads and thanked God for blessings past and blessings yet to come.
We closed the door behind us and climbed aboard our vehicles. Gay took Frankie in the Explorer, and I took Belle into the truck. We were on our way to a new life.
I would like to say that our trip was uneventful. However, it was otherwise. After leaving Beaver, Utah, the truck began struggling. Climbing the mountains that separated the Interstate 15 from the Interstate 89, there were moments when it seemed that one more steep rise would see the truck headed for the boneyard. It went down the other side much better, but began to struggle on the flat. Creeping along in the middle of a vast nowhere, and being overtaken by rental trucks from U-Haul and other companies, we figured that all was not well with the ancient clunker.
It struggled up the hill into Page, Arizona, where B&B Motor Engineers sported a U-Haul agency sign, and Darrel, who did everything at the top of his lungs took it for a test run, but could find nothing amiss, which was a disappointment. Having had Darrel’s clean bill of health, we drove less than a mile to MacDonald’s and ate heartily from their Dollar Menu.
When I started the truck to continue our journey, the charging light stayed on, and the air conditioning stayed off, the hot, and I do mean hot, air punctuating this last failure. We headed back up the hill to Darrel’s place again and sat outside in the path of a welcome breeze as he diagnosed a defunct alternator.
Halfway through waiting for a new alternator to be delivered, we passed the deadline for our arrival in Mesa, Arizona, and called Laura to stand the unpacking team down. She had already done so.
When the repair had been effected, we were too tired to continue our journey that night, so we pulled into a magnificent hotel that accepted dogs, ate, and slept the sleep of the just but disgruntled.
Next morning, our hearts full of optimism, we set off back on the Interstate 89 to complete our journey. All optimism faded after two miles when the same problem reared its ugly and uncooperative head. It took us three and a half hours to nurse the reluctant beast to a dot on the map called Cameron. From there, we called the U-Haul Emergency number.
They had not heard of Cameron, although they were in Flagstaff, about fifty-two miles further south. I explained my plight, and while the representative was sympathetic he was unwilling to dash to our rescue.
"Can you bring it in?"
"I can, but it will take me at least two hours to get to Flagstaff!"
"It will take me two hours to reach you!"
"You must be driving the same model truck," I thought, but did not voice.
"I’ll bring it in," I said.
We covered the fifty-two miles in two and a half hours, then munched on more MacDonald’s dollar treats and waited until the mechanics returned from lunch. They were much more helpful in real life than they were on the end of a distress call from Native American lands, and set their computer to decide what was wrong.
"Your petrol pump has had it," said the computer. So, they fitted a new pump and the computer declared it fit for work.
From Flagstaff to Mesa, we drove like the wind: maintaining the speed limit, you understand. We arrived home in advance of the lifting and heaving party. As our family members, Dee and Ryan, and Richard and Carolyn were emptying the truck, from out of nowhere loomed a big man who introduced himself as our near neighbour and a fellow Mormon. Three younger men joined him, one with a sack cart, who made short work of our unloading. We were home!
Home, after leaving our cabin in the woods to live in the desert. Home, after leaving dear friends and neighbours. Home, from a temperate quadri-seasoned climate to a thirsty desert of burning sun and endless summer. Home, from the forest’s treed greenery to desert tan and outlandish cactus conformations. Home, from Montanan ardent and loving hearts to Arizonan hearts that have proved to be neither less large, nor less familiar or accepting.
We are, we recognise with gladness and thanksgiving, home from home, and the tears we shed for friends left behind but not forgotten, are wiped dry by new comrades.
Yet, when the light fades of an evening, and the sunset’s glorious glow fills the low western sky with tongues of orange fire, we miss the loved ones that we abandoned in the Last Best Place on Earth, and drop a tear or two for auld lang syne.
Copyright © Ronnie Bray
August 2004
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
E-mail: RBRAY7.@.COX.NET
