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Grandpa Joe Teaches Me How to Poach

Jun 25, 2024 | Best Articles

GRANDPA JOE TEACHES ME HOW TO POACH A DEER

I was a young boy, about nine years old when my dad and my Uncle Cosme Chacon took me hunting up the mountain.  The only problem was it was not hunting season.  Some people would probably call that poaching, but in my dad’s way of thinking, he wasn’t poaching unless it was nighttime, and you used a spotlight.  We drove up the mountain and I remember my dad taking our small caliber rifle a 0.22 Remington with open “buck horn sights”.  My dad loved a gun with “buck horn sites.”  Many of the best hunting stories included his trusty old 0.33 Winchester with “buck horn sites”.

So today was different we were hunting but we weren’t in hunter orange, and it seemed like we were not trying to draw attention to ourselves as we drove out of town.  Now that I am little older, I suspect that the small caliber gun was more about stealth and not about the “buck horn sites”.  But I was new to this, so I will let it stand.  We used the 0.22 rifle for rabbits all the time, so I was familiar with the gun.  I coveted the times when my dad let me shoot the rabbit.  Grandpa Joe had assured me a well-placed bullet to the head of small deer with our gun would have plenty of knockdown power.  He seemed to be talking with the confidence of experience. 

Up to this point I had no idea what we were doing, but I was never one to pass up a chance to go up the mountains even if I was often suffocated with secondhand smoke from my dad.  He would always roll the window down just enough to give me hope that I could live for another five minutes.  He would always cuss the cigarettes as if they were an entity that possessed a stand-alone identity.  “These damn things are gonna kill me some day.  I don’t even like them and I don’t smoke nearly as many as Shorty-Vigil.”  By saying this and cursing the cigarettes I think it made him feel like he was doing everything possible to take care of his health.  His prophecy of dying from those “damn things” came true eventually

We drove further up the mountain and had seen a few does on our way up, which at this time of year and on this mission seemed to get a free pass from my dad and Uncle Cosme.  Near North Creek we saw a nice little buck.  Since it wasn’t technically hunting season, we stopped and looked both ways along the road.  I was pretty sure they wanted to shoot a buck, but if we hadn’t found a buck, well then, venison is venison.  It was only a spike, but as every hunter that shoots a small deer claims, “you can’t eat the horns.”  Of course, every hunter that shoots a big buck with monstrous antlers will always arrange the animal in the truck so that everyone will be able to see the rack spilling out of the back of the truck and claim, “Well, I always try to pass up the small bucks and give them time to grow up some.”

We saw the deer and my dad pulled the truck to the side of the road and slowly came to a stop.  Cosme looked at my dad flicked his eyes in the direction of the deer, and without saying a word permission had been granted the slightest nod of my dad’s head and up an down of his chin.  Uncle Cosme rolled the passenger window down, aimed the gun and shot.  The deer dropped where it stood.  I was a little surprised because up to that point no one had mentioned that we were poaching.  Suddenly I feared for my life.  I had heard my mom and dad arguing and besides his drinking, poaching was right up there on the top of the list that made my mother furious.  Many heated arguments about poaching ended with a “well I guess will we will just have to agree to disagree”, only not that civil.  Of course, we needed the meat, but my mother was a rule follower and she worried about everything and of course it was one more thing she would have to pray to God for.  It was full time work for her to confess her families’ sins, plead that we would not get caught, and that we would not all go to hell or jail.  I didn’t think going to jail at age nine would do anything to help me with my future plans; which was at the time to play professional football.

The deer dropped like a rock and Grandpa Joe and Uncle Cosme told me to stay in the truck.  They told me to tell anyone that stopped and started asking questions that my dad had just went up into the trees to go to the bathroom and that I was just fine, and he would be back shortly.  I am not sure what lesson was the most valuable that day; teaching me how to poach or teaching me to tell a little white lie without flinching.  I eventually mastered the second part and became an award-winning newspaper writer.  As Mark Twain said, “Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.”

Before long, my dad and Cosme were back, and we were driving down the road with a deer covered by a tarp, covered with junk made to look natural.  We road down the road as happily as two poachers and an apprentice could be.  We pulled all the way into the garage and closed the garage door so we could hang the deer up and skin it.  I wasn’t sure how this was going to end, but I didn’t see any way that it would be good for me.  Sometimes, as my dear mother would lecture me, and make the sign of the cross, I believe my mother thought I was the designated adult of the poaching trio.

These seemingly innocent father son bonding moments seemed like a tenuous start that might send a person down the road of crime.  I guess it won’t surprise the reader that I poached my first deer when I was twelve and it was a deer that I would have gladly hauled down main street so everyone could see.  But as it were, I was twelve and Byron and I had poached a deer out of season on private land and had no clue what to do with it now that it lay dead in front of us.  It was the biggest deer I ever killed in my entire life of hunting.  We both had 0.22 guns and we hit the deer about 15 times, or at least that is how many holes we counted when we finally skinned the animal.

We went to my house to confess our sins and decided that Grandpa Joe would be much more understanding than my mother or the priest.  We explained that we had shot a deer behind the elementary school which was adjacent to our backyard.  We asked his advice.  Afterall, he was an experienced poacher.  Without a flinch of concern, for our freedom or my soul, he told us to bring it home and hang it up in the garage.  We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening quartering up the deer and hauling it to our house.  We left the antlers to be picked up later and it truly was the largest five-point mule deer I have ever killed.  I guess I was so scared that I would be going to hell or to jail that I let Byron take the antlers home.  We mounted them on a nice board and to this day, he still has them.

There was one other time that I should probably disclose at this time since we are on the topic of poaching deer.  My dad was a contractor at times building fences for the USFS and the BLM.  Most of this work was hard labor, but there were six brothers and all of them needed direction in their life and hard labor to keep them out of trouble.  It didn’t work all that well, they would only work hard some of the time and we all seemed to find trouble around every corner.  One summer we were building a long section of fence for the USFS up on the Blue Mountains. 

Our practice was to camp up the mountain and only come to town when necessary.  Sometimes, we would make a run to town to get more fencing materials from the USFS ware yard.  It isn’t done anymore, but back then the FS would load up a truck with fencing materials and then my dad would drive it up the mountain and bring it back later.  This would never be allowed in today’s world of red tape and overzealous attorneys.  My dad loved having a Forest Service truck to drive, he figured with an official government truck nobody would ever stop us or question us and the truck was new, full of gas, and had good tires on.  We never owned a new vehicle that I know of, we were always running on a fume and a prayer, and the best tires we ever had were retreads.  He would drive with his arm resting on the door window because he had to keep the window rolled down when he smoked.  That that was a small price to pay to enjoy his working for the “guvment”.

Feeding a family of nine kids and half a dozen strays was full time work so Grandpa Joe, by necessity had to be opportunistic. As fate would have it, a small two-point deer was near our camp and so my dad decided that the “Lord provides so who am I to question His ways?”  My dad poached the deer while we were fencing for the FS and he loaded the deer into the back of the FS truck and then covered the deer with a load of wood and started down the mountain confident that no one would stop or question an official USFS truck.

On our way down the mountain, we ran into the State Game Warden so of course we stopped to visit with him since he was always checking in on us up at our camp.  I don’t know if his frequent visits were because he enjoyed our company and eating a few tortillas and beans whenever he stopped, or if he was just checking on us, since I am sure my father’s poaching reputation was well known.

We talked.  “Joe, it looks like you are starting to haul wood for the winter?”  It was a question more than a statement.   My dad responded without making eye contact, “You know the winters are long and the wood is right near our camp seemed like a good time to start.”  The Game Warden walked around the truck and back to the driver’s window, where my dad was sitting looking as innocent as a dog with chicken feathers in his mouth.  The Warden looked at my dad and said, “Joe it looks like your load of wood is going to bleed to death.  I suggest you hurry and get it home.”  He walked away and my dad didn’t need to be told twice.  He high tailed it down the mountain with his bleeding load of wood and pulled into the garage and closed the door.  We washed out the truck and returned it to the FS later that day.

GRANDPA JOE IS BURIED

GRANDPA JOE IS BURIED

Jun 15, 2024 | Best Articles, Most Visited Articles

Jose Odeceo Torres was buried March 24, 2001.  I talked at his funeral.  But there is more to the story than his last days.  There is more to his life than fighting cancer and suffering and dying a long slow death.  Once he was a small boy, he grew to be a wild strong young man with hopes and dreams, he battled the world and himself, and finally he grew calmer and wiser with age.  Life weathered him as sure as water and wind erode the granite mountains.  Life’s lessons smoothed out rough edges, etched wrinkles in his face, and calloused his hands.

He was a man, he had a name, many called him Uncle Joe, and he had a few nicknames and titles that described some of his other duties.  Husband, Father, Brother, Grand-Father and Friend. None of these captured all of him, but each provided insight to some part of him.

To his wife of 65 years, he was Choongee.  It was an endearing name, but when I quizzed her down, she agreed that she wasn’t sure how to spell it, but ensured me it was a tender term; but in the same way that a grandparent might call a dear child, “You are such a cute little shit.”  Even writing it makes it sound less endearing, but clearly the inflection and love in the eyes of the beholder has to be taken into account, we will leave that to the reader’s imagination.

My Aunt Maggie, my mother’s older sister gave him a birthday card that probably best described him.  “Jack of all trades.  Master of none!”  She and my mom cackled and laughed for hours about that card.  Aunt Maggie was his friendly nemesis because she always sided with my mother.  Sometimes, sisters have that bond, “sisters forever”.  My mother was blessed to have Aunt Fora and Aunt Maggie living in the same town, working in the same hospital, and helping raise each other’s kids and grandkids.  Back then, family was broader and deeper and included some kids that were not even blood related.  The term extended family hadn’t been invented yet.  Then it was just family.

My dad was a mechanic, a carpenter, electrician, fence builder, a welder, an inventor, a master tinkerer.  He was like MacGyver; however, his ingenuity was born of necessity and poverty.  It wasn’t until much later in life after I had become an engineer and had built a few houses and restored an old classic car, worked on tractors and assorted appliances or things that had engines did I really come to appreciate what a brilliant inventor he was.  He could make broken things work; cobbling bits and pieces together until it sprang to life.  Cough, sputter, smoke but sure enough it started.  He could fix anything, except his own life.

All these titles he carried with him to the next world…grateful, to have something so valuable to show for his time here on earth.  He sure wasn’t trying to haul a box full of gold with him.  His treasure box would be of memories and stories about great hunts and narrow escapes from death.  

Grandpa Joe taught me many things in life, some were hard lessons, taught to me by the harsh teacher of bad example, uncontrolled passions, and demons of a confused heart and mind.  The demons he faced were as dark, dangerous, and as deadly as the places he worked and the jobs he held as Uranium Miner, Coal Miner, and Fence Builder. 

He tried his best to teach me practical stuff, like how to maintain a car, or use a cheater bar with a pipe wrench, how to adjust the gaps on sparkplugs, and how to dig a hole in hard dirt with water, patience, and a shovel.  He worked hard but he liked working smarter.  And, when it came to pounding t-posts for a fence he preferred a 15-pound t-post pounder; nobody could keep up with him, although many grandsons tried.  And he had the muscles to prove it.  He was always boasting about his slim thirty-inch waist and his biceps that he could flex like a bodybuilder.  Every grandson made a pilgrimage to his kitchen table to try and arm-wrestle him; none succeeded in pinning his hand to the table.

Some lessons were delivered with compassion, kindness, and patience.  Each lesson was valued. People were drawn to him as was evident from the number of people that gathered when we laid him to rest.  He taught us to celebrate living and hard work.  His garage was his therapy office and work his remedy for most any ailment.  Don’t let the demons sit around too long, they start talking and pretty soon the screaming in your head synchronizes with your beating heart and the madness dims the light and your sense of direction is lost.

He passed on to us an errant gene that makes individuals in our family stronger than we sometimes should be…it makes us stubborn and inflexible. The two-edge sword of independence slices all relationships in life. Now, I believe he would counsel us to be wary the man or woman that cannot ask for help, show love, or say I’m sorry or thank you. Lately, much of his energy was used to show us how to defy death, how to fight the Government, how to endure to the end.

The chronicle of his death, his fight with cancer, his sad but true story was picked up by the Denver Rocky Mountain News, the Albuquerque Paper, the Chicago Paper, the New York Times, and of course…The San Juan Record.  Pretty good press coverage for a small Mexican man with an 8th grade education and not a nickel to his name.

I cannot explain his incredible will to live…but he seemed to want to test the resolve of the cancer that ravaged his body. He wanted to make sure…that in fact it was indeed his time to go. He died on a Wednesday afternoon, at 2:31 p.m.  As he breathed his last breathe we all felt the weight lifted off our chest and we could breathe again.  It was hard to watch him suffer, we knew he didn’t want to be a burden to his family, he didn’t want to be tethered to a bed or to an oxygen bottle. 

The last days were painful for him and us.  It is hard to watch someone you love hurt so much.  Eventually, he was numbed by morphine, which too was sad.  But, when he passed on, peace was restored and although we were sad, and it broke our hearts to lose him…we were grateful that the suffering had ended. Just before he died, we gathered around him in prayer.  We wanted him to know that he was surrounded by love…his dear sweet wife was holding his hand. We laid our hands upon his head and gave him a final blessing.

We plead with our Father in Heaven, if it was His will, that our dad be allowed to pass on to our Lord’s eternal care and keeping. Within minutes, he took his last breath, and a calmness settled upon the room…and we all knew…that indeed closing the door on this world…had opened the door on a new world, where his son Nick, his granddaughter Taunalee and many others were there to welcome him. 

The Book of Life is written in the hearts of men with gentle strokes of love and sometimes deep cuts of pain.  The heart is the only tablet that can be written on for eternity.  His Father-in-Heaven came to welcome him home and embrace him with the light and love only God can give to the imperfect and unfinished souls that struggle with addictions. Grandpa Joe’s body could rest…and his spirit was set free.  We hoped that his mind could find rest and peace. 

Now he is in our thoughts and in our hearts. I am writing this now many years later because you can’t write about things honestly when you are in the middle of them.  I would like to share what I remember about my dad, Grandpa Joe. He loved a good story and he and Uncle Cosme would tell us stories, myths, tall tales, adventures and sometimes outright lies in the early mornings drinking coffee at the kitchen table.  The stories and tall tales were Torres family lore. 

He didn’t want to die.  He loved life, always was cooking up some kind of adventure or contraption to build.  He would rather be out cutting a load of wood in the mountains, tinkering in his garage, or hunting.  Doing more of the same is sometimes all there is to life.  There is comfort in familiar territory.  Monks chant their mantra, my grandma Garcia would pray and finger each bead of the rosary asking God to save us from ourselves.  My dad would work, that was his mantra, that was his way of finding peace.

It has been my observation that people spend a great deal of time doing the same thing every day.  My mother found a great deal of solace in making tortillas.  She would knead the masa and sprinkle a little more flour and roll it into a ball and let it set for a few minutes before she would use the rodillo to roll them out into round thin tortillas to be cooked on a cast iron grill.  When she was mad, she made tortillas, when she was happy and surrounded by her family she made tortillas.  Nothing could be better than a hot tortilla with butter lathered over it and the smell of chili cooking. 

Grandpa Joe, did not step inside a church very often but it wasn’t because he wasn’t spiritual.  After he left home as a young teenager his formal religious training was over, but life’s battles were just starting.  He had real life experiences, with pain and sorrow and laughter and love.  He talked about Mi Tata Dios, which loosely translated is his Heavenly Father. And I know in my heart that he had a personal relationship with God.  Based on his spicy vocabulary, he apparently had spent some time with the devil too, although, he swore mostly to describe things as easily as you and I might call something blue or red.  If he was real angry, mad, or hurt he didn’t say much of anything until the bottle of whiskey unleashed the torment on a mad man like dogs chasing a bear. 

He had an uncanny ability to see into a man’s heart and judge his character by how well he maintained his tools. This sixth sense was similar to those of our faithful dogs Sniffy and Shorty who deserve acknowledgement as part of our family saga.  Dogs can immediately spot a fake or a danger to the family…so could dad.

My dad had a deep conviction of God…but still kept his lessons grounded in things that his hands could work on. To see him sharpen, fix, and use a chain saw…was to see a craftsman at work and was a thing of beauty.  It was religious rhythm…his mantra that he could repeat to help make sense of a world that moved too fast for him and left him floating out of control in a seemingly incongruous universe where the earth was flat, or the sun rotated around the world.  He would slide the file through the chain in rhythm, his time in the garage gave him time to think over problems he couldn’t understand…to help him prepare for battle against the dragons in his head.  

He was a modern-day Don Quixote de La Mancha, his tilting windmills were real imaginary enemies.  These demons were like a genie coming out of a bottle or the goblins of Dante’s hell, but the life blood of my dad’s enemies came from a cheap Thunderbird bottle with 17.5% alcohol that he could afford.  That is what let the genie escape from the bottle was red cheap wine.  It was always difficult to get the genie back in the bottle.  The genie was wily and never went in without a fight, wailing and gnashing of teeth, and screams and howls of the tortured.

From all these hours taking care of his tools he developed his own set of 10 Commandments: The first and greatest commandment is “Thou shalt not leave the truck empty of gas”…and the second great commandment is liken-unto-it….”thou shalt not ever let the oil get low on any piece of machinery.” There was hardly a time when I would return from college that he wouldn’t go out and check the oil in my car. As he grew older, time…the ever-patient teacher, softened his views, gave him insight, and healed many wounds…so he modified his commandments as he grew older and wiser. “Thou shalt bring grandpa a treat…frequently…and come by to visit daily.”  He had a sweet tooth and loved company.  Both, at the same time was a temporary elixir that quieted the baying hounds.  

If for some reason you didn’t stop by and visit…you were certain to hear about it when you finally showed up. It was his way of letting you know that he loved and missed you. He frequently called to invite us to breakfast, although, it was grandma that did all the cooking. 

Another commandment, “Thou shalt never waste meat of any kind. You shoot it. You better eat it.” Along this line is where perhaps he showed his greatest dexterity of logic. Somehow, he believed that it was reasonable to bring home as many deer as possible on one deer tag. Mom would get after him when he would bring home extra deer, but he would always slyly say that his tag was still good. Which of course it was, because he was using mom’s deer tag to haul the deer to town with. 

 As a kid I don’t recall being as fond of this next commandment as much as I am now as a parent “Thou shalt work from sun up to sun set and never want to take breaks or vacation and receiving minimum pay should be adequate for anyone less than eighteen and you should just be grateful that you can work.” Now that I am old enough to have raised teenagers this all sounds like sage advice straight out of Psalms or Isaiah.  Back then, I called it slave labor, or indentured servitude.

Of course, this was modified as he got older. Soon it became a requirement that any job he bid on would not interfere with his afternoon nap. There were other commandments…too many to discuss now…but there was a charm about him that let him get away with things that perhaps he shouldn’t have: For example, making coffee in your underwear is acceptable at 4:30 a.m. with the blinds wide open. Each morning my uncle Cosme would walk over to our house and over the years it almost seemed like a contest between him and Cosme; who could get up earlier. 

Cosme would start on his walk before it was light, him and his little dog. Dad would wake up and put the coffee on and wait for him to get there so they could discuss the weather and the aches and pains of growing older…and other things they could do nothing about. I learned that visitors were always to be put to work to help feel at home. 

Luck, some people have it some don’t! Grandpa Joe always had it. Hunting and fishing always seemed to go his way. And on top of that, he would always quit once he had the biggest deer, fattest rabbit, or prettiest or biggest fish. However, his rules changed; they were as hard as steel and as flexible as noodles. If he didn’t catch the biggest fish, he was sure to have caught the prettiest or tastiest.

Chili, tortillas, beans, potatoes, and fresh venison are all anyone needs to live. Everything else is extra. Perhaps one of the most endearing things was his sense of humor. With his family and friends, he would lend his insight with acidic one-liners, or he would mimic peoples’ voices and mannerisms that would frequently get the entire family chuckling and laughing.

His garage was like a therapy office for him and the continual stream of friends and visitors coming to visit; some to complain, some for help, some to borrow tools or some just to hide from their wife. I finally figured out we were part of an underground railroad where Mexicans from Mexico would stop by and ask for five dollars or have him work on their truck.  They were always welcome, and they were almost certain to be put to work and get on their way or go home dirtier and happier. He believed that no problems were so big that hard work would not fix them. I truly believe with enough time; he would have found a way to beat his cancer. 

His ability to make things work or will them into working was astounding. He loved to fix things. If things were not broken, he would enhance them. Once an educated engineer upon looking at one of his contraptions that he had created from excess hardware out of his garage told him, “Joe…that is not the way it goes, it almost defies the laws of physics…but it works!” His great and final validation that what he created had value and worth was when he would sell his invention to someone. That was proof in his world that in fact he was the genius that he thought he was. 

I cannot begin to explain in words…all that I felt in my heart when he was dying.  I was conflicted for sure. I gave him a picture of Christ as a reminder of the comfort that God gives to each of us and the suffering that He went through for each of us. I tried to explain to him my view that God knows us personally, He knows that we get scared, He knows that you don’t want to leave your family, He knows that it hurts, He knows and cares and loves each of us. He knows and perfectly understands our pain. 

Indeed, to know that Jesus Christ trembled and was scared as he took upon him the sins of the world and said, “Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me, nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done” brings some comfort to a dying man. To know that comfort can be offered to even the strongest helps those that are too strong.  “And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him. And being in agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.”  

A few months before he died, I wrote a letter to him it said, “I cannot give you your life to live over, I cannot take away the pain, I cannot give you a new liver…if I could, I would give you my own to see you walk tall and proud and do those things that you have cherished in this life. But this is not mine to give. I cannot give anything really, but I can share, I can share my life with you.  I have brought my kids to your house, to your table to be with you. To learn from you, to know you. 

I thanked him for being here for them, sharing with them a part of his life. He was older and could feel the nagging pain inside knowing that something wasn’t right. As he neared death, staring at the heavens wondering what was next. I told him what I believed to be next.

I told him that he was going to heaven where a kind and loving God would welcome him into his arms and hold him and comfort him and wash all his pain away. I told him that he would see his parents and brothers, that he would see Nick and Taunalee, that they would be there too, and they would welcome him and be glad to see him.  I told him we would be sad to see him leave this earth. 

But, that someday, we will all be there…I don’t know if we will gather around a kitchen table like we do now, but as surely as there is a God, we will have a chance to be together. This I do know. I know dad, that you are a good man that can look back at this life and be proud of yourself. You had hard teachers in this life, but you are ready now.  You have been through the refiner’s fire. You have seen miracle after miracle all bearing testimony that God loves you, has always loved you, and will love your family when you are gone. He will be there for you and for them. 

I do not understand everything dad, but I know that if I could give you any gift it would be to tell you that soon you will find that God is as real as all that your eyes once perceived here on this earth. You brightened our lives. Your death is our chance to learn one more valuable lesson. 

We learned by his example, that when you are in the service of your fellow man, you are only in the service of your God.   What he has done was marked under in the Book of Life under faith…hope… and charity that never faileth.

Cookies for Gino

Aug 6, 2023 | Best Articles, Health

I have lived long enough that I have experienced the death of loved ones and strangers; some expected, almost welcomed, the end of a long painful journey.  Other times; tragically, unexpected their death felt like a blow to the side of my head with a sledgehammer.  I know that birth and death are part of the life cycle, what we do with the time we have between these two points is our story, our life song, the thread we add to the collective tapestry of life we share as a family, a community, a country. 

I grieve today, inconsolable because I can’t figure out how to help those that lose their life and those that are left here to try and find peace and happiness and a reason to hold it together and live their life, to finish adding their thread into the tapestry of life. 

I had a neighbor, his name was Gino, you couldn’t find two people more different, we weren’t the same age, he had served his country, sometimes he had long hair and sometimes he played loud music at what seemed like inappropriate times.  I mowed my grass too often and edged it trying to bring order to my life. 

It was one of those nights, Gino played loud music all night long, it blared from his small house, the bass shook my windows and pulsated in my head; I got to hear the music of his generation, it was unfamiliar and unappreciated.  Whenever this would occur, I would go over to Gino’s house the next morning with a plate of cookies, knock on his door, and give him a plate of cookies.  The first time I did this I wanted to wake him up, but with a gift so he couldn’t be mad at me.  And never too early, my too kind and loving wife had to bake the cookies which she willingly did every time and without questioning her husband’s deranged approach to making friends and influencing people; cookies.  Who doesn’t like warm cookies? 

I knock and I can hear a crashing of furniture and Gino comes to the door, eyes bloodshot and tired, he looked weary, not just a sleepless night, but the cumulative fatigue of someone that is carrying a burden for too many and too long. 

“Good morning Mr. Torres.”  He always called me Mr. Torres; I assume because I looked so much older and I mowed and edged my grass every week.  He was always polite to me.  I hand him the plate of cookies and tell him the same thing I have every time, “I just want to tell you that I appreciate your service to our country.”  I am usually pretty good with words and long winded to a fault.  But, with Gino I just gave him cookies.  I didn’t know what to do, how to help, or what to say.  I turn to go. 

He says, “Thanks man!  Tell Mrs. Torres her cookies are the best.”  I again start to leave and he says, “Mr. Torres, sorry about the loud music last night.  I lost a friend…a fellow veteran…he committed suicide yesterday.  And I had to honor him.  I needed to let him know that I won’t forget him.  We were probably a little too loud.  Sorry man!” 

For the first time, we talked for a bit more and he told me things about his life, his friend’s life; things that explained the pain I could see in his eyes.  It is the pain of too many experiences in life that can’t be explained or processed and stored neatly into a box; it can’t be fixed by cutting and edging your lawn.  Like rats in a box trying to claw their way out, some experiences and the resulting memories and pain can’t be soothed and calmed with time or pills or bottles of elixir, not even cookies. 

As I said, I have lived long enough that there have been others I could not help, people I could not reach, words I could not say, people with a life story that reached out; and I am left frustrated and angry at myself and the world that we stigmatize mental health.  Whether it is Simone Biles that has an Olympic come apart, or the lonely elderly locked away, the homeless, veterans suffering PTSD, or the depressed feeling alone with an ocean of people surrounding them.  We need to look around and offer kindness, smile, say hello, bake some damn cookies and shove them in their face.  I don’t know.  I wish I knew what to say to those that are carrying a burden for too long. 

And so today I am going to play loud music and honor a man, a veteran that I could not help, and to honor those around me that suffer.  I remember words about “comfort those in need of comfort” and I so wish I knew how to do that better. 

But for now, if I show up at your house and shove cookies in your face, thank my too kind and loving wife, and just know that it is my way of telling you how much I appreciate you.  And if you come by my house and you can hear my music up way too loud; just know that I am trying to honor a veteran, or a father that passed in an untimely manner, or a brother that left this world way too young. 

Three Green Berets and a Bottle of Bourbon

Aug 6, 2023 | Best Articles

Occasionally people have enough self-awareness that they understand that something they are witnessing is bigger than themselves.  Moments such as when man stepped on the moon for the first time and September 11, 2001.

Abe Lincoln had clarity of purpose and place when he used a mere 272 words in the Gettysburg Address to remind us that the “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”  His task was to dedicate a great bloody battlefield as a resting place for the valiant soldiers who had fought there; he knew his words could not capture or match the valor or their deeds.

Abe said it this way, “in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate—we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.”

Recently, at a funeral for a friend I had the privilege to meet three men that had traveled to bury one of their brothers in arms.  These men were Special Forces Green Berets: Caleb Brewer-Sergeant First Class, Spenser Lake-Staff Sergeant, Ed Cook-Warrant Officer.  They had trained alongside my friend at Fort Bragg.  These men had reached out to me because they wanted to meet the man that had written the article “Cookies for Gino”.

I met them after the funeral in the church parking lot; these three men walked up to me and wanted to shake my hand and had brought me a gift (bottle of Bourbon) to let me know how much they appreciated what I had written; grateful that I captured the struggle of one of their brothers in arms; whose experience is common to so many others.

I was shaken to the core.  These three soldiers were true American heroes.  One had fought alongside Aaron Butler, one had lost both legs in the war, one was a commander in the Green Berets.  And they were here to meet and honor me.  I have never felt so humble and inadequate.  How could I explain that it was I that needed to express my appreciation and gratitude for their service and sacrifice.  We here in San Juan County know something about the price of freedom; some of our very finest have given all.  There are parents, wives, grandparents, siblings, and friends that still experience a grief that can’t be spoken, but we are proud to salute and honor our service men and women.

My voice cracked with emotion as I tried to explain that the service and sacrifice that Aaron Butler, Jason Workman, and Nathan Winder had given for their country was so much more than my words could describe or pay tribute to. My words could not capture or match the valor or their deeds.  Like President Lincoln, I could not dedicate, I could not consecrate or hallow the ground they had just placed their fellow brother in.  It was clearly above my power to add or detract from the testimony of their lives of valor and honor, their dedication, and actions.

I have stood at The National Mall in DC and read the names of the 56 people that signed the Declaration of Independence; they were signing their death warrant and they knew it.  What kind of courage and commitment does it take to stand up to evil and to a world superpower and tell them, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of happiness”?  Who even talks like that anymore?  Who so loved freedom that they were willing to give all they had.  I was shaking the hand of three Green Berets that were, and I have known good men from San Juan County that did.  When Edmund Burke said, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”  Our finest stood ready to do whatever was necessary.

Recently the withdraw of troops from Afghanistan has me wondering how much money, how many lives were given, how many sacrifices were given over twenty years; and then to walk away, seemingly to end up right back where we started.

Did we learn that freedom and self-governance is not a gift we can give to a country, rather it is something that must be earned, won when necessary, and passionately protected?  When Thomas Jefferson said, “”the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”  He and our soldiers were willing to die for the principles of living life on their terms, having liberty to do as their conscious dictated, and to pursue happiness.

Margaret Mead wrote, “Never Doubt That A Small Group Of Thoughtful Committed Citizens Can Change The World: Indeed It’s The Only Thing That Ever Has.”  Our boys from San Juan County didn’t want to die for us, but if that is what was asked, they bore that cross with honor and valor.  Because they knew that freedom is never free.  They were trying to change the world, by their commitment to words like “freedom” but most importantly by their selfless deeds to serve our country.

I salute these fine young men; these Special Forces Green Berets that taught me a lesson in tradition, honor, valor, and service.  And I salute and honor the fine men and women from San Juan County.  Like our local veterans these Green Berets are the best America has to offer.

I have written enough to know that this week’s award-winning article is next weeks kitty litter liner.  I know the “world will little note, nor long remember” what I say in my newspaper column.  But I believe our work is to continue living, to be inspired by their service is how we honor those that have served this country.  “It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.”