Out West: Chapter 9

Now and then graphic road-signs would loom out of the snow shower, then flash past in a in a flurry of snowflakes. But not before Mark had taken careful note, and it wasn’t too long before he had filtered us off the freeway and was striking out for the city-centre.

The City of Denver hummed with noise and bustle. Stolid-looking business houses, standing shoulder to shoulder, nudged each other speculatively as they gazed down on the busy criss-cross of city life buzzing to and fro beneath their noble structures.

Denver was a typical big city; it’s throbbing heart being the commercial district, into which we had driven via one of the many roads, which made up its pattern of arteries. Through these arteries surged the life-blood of the city – it’s people, and it’s traffic and it’s business, and it’s clamour, and it’s movement; all of these the vital life-signs of a thriving, pulsating metropolis. Mark and I had just become part of it…

Traffic was brisk, but the roads uncongested as an easy flow of snorting automobiles was conducted with orchestral nicety by high-placed, overhead traffic lights. Pedestrians, in their turn, came under the guardianship of robot crossing controllers, which blinked out their instructions to ‘Walk’ or ‘Don’t Walk’ according to whether traffic was stopped or moving ahead.

Sometimes a tooting horn would warn some happy wanderer that he was about to be annihilated. But, overall, discipline on the roads and pavements was good and Mark was able to drive through this shifting maze with ease and efficiency.

Meanwhile, I was keeping a lookout for something called Motel 6, where Mark had told me we would be staying while we equipped ourselves with appropriate clothing and provisions for the coming adventure.

Presto! It was there, standing just off from a lively, main thoroughfare. Mark made a deft right turn onto its wide, and almost empty forecourt.

Motel 6 was adequate-looking, two stories high, and low-slung compared with some of its taller neighbours. Each of the floors housed three-dozen or so small apartments, which were accessed along balcony walkways stretching the whole length and breadth of the motel’s long, squat containment.

At one end of the lower walkway was a small office where, I presumed, we would be making our request for accommodation.

Mark drew up outside the office and jumped out of the car. Reaching for his wallet, he pushed open the office door and went in.

I took a glance around the car park. Didn’t seem to be many cars about. I thought maybe the place might not be all that popular. I began to consider one or two things that might give these motels a bad reputation…

Then again, the current residents might be out on business. Motels did cater for travelling-salesmen, after all. Other residents could be on holiday, like us, and just having a look around the city. The motel might even prove to be too popular!

God, I hope there are vacancies. I don’t fancy scouring the area looking for somewhere to stay…

The office-door opened and Mark came out. “OK”, he beamed as he climbed back behind the wheel. “We’ve got a room on the ground floor”.

Mark drove the car round to the rear of the building and parked near the door to our apartment. He went to the door and inserted the key. I followed him in.

I was surprised. I had expected to see something of rather an austere nature, considering the fact that Mark had told me that motels made a relatively low charge for their rooms. Instead, I found myself surrounded by comparative luxury.

The walls of our room were decorated in a cool, pastel shade. Against one of the walls was a pair of nicely sprung twin beds, above which were fitted discreet little reading-lamps. Between the beds, standing side-by-side, were two, polished-wood lockers, on one of which lay the inevitable Holy Bible.

Further along the wall, a door opened to reveal a bathroom of glistening chrome rails and tiles of sparkling white. A generous supply of freshly laundered towels was stacked neatly on a shelf, ready for use.

The wall adjacent to the bathroom sported broad, inch-thick shelves for the storage of luggage, whilst opposite the beds was a dressing table, again of polished wood. Above it, the long vanity mirror could be illuminated at the touch of a flick-switch.

A red telephone sat smugly at one end of the dressing table, awaiting the slightest desire for outside contact.

The room was warm. I tested the radiator, which stood beneath the small, curtained window. It was hot to the touch. Mark turned it down a little. “C’mon”, he said. “Let’s get the cases in”.

Out West: Chapter 8

Rose Banner was a cousin, two or three times removed. Her mother, May – my mother’s cousin – married Phil Banner, a British soldier, during the First World War. At the end of hostilities, Phil had taken May to America to join the rest of his family, who had arrived in Laramie while Phil was still serving in the British Army. And there they settled.

The Second World War had only just started when my mother told me that we had relatives in America…

When Mom mentioned that our relations lived in Laramie, Wyoming – cowboy country – that did it! I was eleven years of age and dreamed of the wide-open ranges of the American West. Now I find that I actually have relatives living there!

Out came pen and paper. I dashed off a letter forthwith to ‘Auntie May’.

Maybe it was the generation gap. Or, perhaps, May didn’t care much for the mechanical act of writing. Whatever it was, she soon passed me over to Rose – her daughter.

Rose and I got on pretty well, and wrote to each other for quite a long time before our letters finally petered out, perhaps because of this so-exciting business of growing up. For my part, I seemed to have less and less time for writing letters to distant cousins…

And it has to be said that life had become a little hectic in those days as Hitler’s Luftwaffe nightly rained its fiery deluge of bombs onto our devastated city. A young boy’s notions of, one day, being able to visit his Yankee Doodle cousins, were soon savaged and swallowed up by the rampaging dogs of war.

In any case, I had no doubt at all that Rose, being a few years older than I, now had boy-friends galore. Enough, anyway, to keep her attention focussed, with great diligence, on her side of the Atlantic.

So we never wrote to each other again.

Then Mark rang and told me he was taking me to the U.S.

For the next few days I was overcome by the prospect and the excitement of it all. Then I began to wonder whether Rose was still alive and kicking. And whether she might be contactable…

It would be a brilliant pilgrimage! Here was a chance, maybe, to meet up with an American cousin who, long ago, had disappeared into the mists of family history.

I had my doubts though. Fifty years is a long time. Nevertheless, I asked Mark about it.

He mused a bit. “Why not? “Might be interesting, chasing up a long-lost relative. We could do a big loop. Drive north through the Rockies to Wyoming and stay overnight in Laramie while we made a few enquiries. Then we could head back south to Utah”.

Mark nodded his head in final approval. “Yeah”, he said. “Let’s do it”.

I settled for that. I didn’t suppose we’d find her after all these years, but it was worth a try. In any case, I couldn’t go to America for the first time in my life without making some kind of effort. And think of the talking point it would make when we arrived back home. Especially if we found her…!

So, here I was, six months later, speeding along Highway 70, hell-bent for Denver, Colorado. And perhaps only a few short days away from meeting up with a misty segment of my distant past.

At the same time, I had to consider the distinct possibility that I might have to leave a place called Laramie – somewhat disappointed.

If I didn’t find Rose, Laramie could, quite easily, have to be left to drift off into the Wyoming distance and disappear, along with a few other receding memories of my early life.

But, what the hell! Think positive!

Fifty years is a long time, I know, but there’s always a chance…

I sat back comfortably in my seat and continued to observe the swiftly passing, intensely absorbing, American scene.

Out West: Chapter 7

Ten minutes ago we picked up ‘Jimmy.’

‘Jimmy’ was a white, rather more streamlined version of the British Land Rover. Comfortable and roomy, it was a four-wheel-drive product of the famous General Motors, its model-type being announced, with shining simplicity, by the bold, chromium-plated, capital letters affixed to its front and to its rear. They spelt out ‘JIMMY’

The big vehicle was to be our modern-day covered wagon; a motorised prairie-schooner destined to carry us through rough and primitive territories whose names were music to my ears; names which rang out like bells across the wild lands of the western frontier.

But, for now, Jimmy’s first task was the short haul to Denver so that we could find a bed for the night.

We hoisted our luggage aboard. Then we climbed in ourselves.

Mark took a glance at the car’s automatic gear-change, then, quite satisfied, he started the engine and drove us out of the airport.

I sat quietly beside Mark and stared absently through the blurring arcs of Jimmy’s wipers as they strummed back and forth across the cold, clean glass of the windscreen.

Ahead of us, the freeway’s surface stretched out, wet and gleaming, as dozens of hissing tyres obliterated the lightly falling snowflakes, even as they settled.

I was day dreaming again. I tried to brush away ‘Hollywood’ – that shadowy concept which, now and then, intruded unashamedly into my consciousness and tainted my sense of reality.

I resisted hard. I’m here, I told myself. I’m actually in the United States. I’m part of the current scene. This is the real thing. I’m not some celluloid character being propelled along a route mapped out for me by some studio scriptwriter. This is me, sitting here. In the flesh.

I glanced at Mark. He was as quiet as I was, his observations confined, for the moment, to the more mundane operation of coping with road and traffic conditions.

I left him to his thoughts and turned my attention to the matter of Rose Agnes Banner.

Out West: Chapter 6

Denver’s Stapleton Airport was like all big city airports – bustling, sometimes hectic, with travellers coming and going, to-ing and fro-ing. Within minutes we were part of the hustling throng.

No sooner were we off the plane and into the terminal building, Mark’s organiser mind was targeting the essentials. I found myself (of course!) in his wake, weaving and dodging as, luggage collected, we trundled our be-wheeled suitcases (marvellous invention!) towards the car-hire reception desks.

I stood a few yards away, guarding our cases, as Mark set about the hiring of a car for the next three weeks. A tall, thin young man, wearing glasses, and clutching a sheaf of papers under his arm, passed close by me. He didn’t notice one of the documents escape and flutter to the ground.

I called out to him, picked up his piece of paper, and handed it to him.

“Gee, thanks”, he said, taking the document from me and giving it a quick once-over.

“Mustn’t lose that”, he remarked, as he tucked the paper back amongst the rest of the sheaf. He smiled as he shoved the whole lot into a pocket of his sports-jacket and zipped up his anorak.

“Thanks again”, the young man said, lifting his hand in a casual gesture of acknowledgement. Then he turned and went on his way.

I had made a friendly approach to my first U.S. citizen on his home ground…

Meanwhile, my son had been darting from desk to desk, querying the clerks, and seeking the best deal. Finally, he homed in on the ‘Dollar’ car-hire company and, the best deal having been established, came back to me. “O.K. Let’s go…”

We were away again, my shorter legs moving like pistons as they strove to keep up with Mark’s ground-consuming strides.

Out West: Chapter 5

We were flying lower on this, the second stage of our journey. The cloud below us was much thinner and, now and then, through the wispy layers of white confluence, I would catch a glimpse of the land below.

Snow still abounded everywhere, but it had not so completely erased everything, and I saw the occasional patch of dark-brown and green winking up at me. Mark, as ever, was in his preferred seat by the window, staring out at the passing scene. A thumb and bent forefinger supported his jutting chin in contemplative pose.

“Not so much snow about”, I suggested. “Looks like it might be getting warmer.”

He nodded in agreement. “Still cold down there, though.” Then, with a note of reassurance, “I meant what I said back there. In two or three days, you’ll be buying suntan lotion and a big hat.” And he laughed, probably at the prospect of seeing me in a big hat.

It was quieter, and there was less hassle aboard this plane. Of smaller dimensions, and – loaded with fewer passengers than was the Jumbo we had left behind at St. Paul – catering needs were more easily met on the comparatively short flight. We were served drinks and a packet of peanuts…

I felt more relaxed, although I was still a bit overwhelmed by all that was happening to me. My brain, as yet, wouldn’t work properly, and I knew I was following Mark around like a trained poodle.

“Don’t forget to alter your watch, Dad.”

“I’ve altered it. Ages ago. Over the Atlantic.”

“You have to put it back another hour.” He grinned as I raised my eyebrows. “The American continent is so big it has time zones of its own,” Mark explained. “We are going from Central Time into Mountain Time – which is Colorado’s time zone. So you need to put your watch back another hour.”

I fiddled dutifully with my watch.

I was tired now, and looking forward to completing the second leg of our airborne marathon. I could do with a hot shower, and a hot meal in some nice, broad, spacious restaurant. Where you can spread your knees and your elbows…

“How far are we now, do you think?”

Mark glanced at his wristwatch.

“We’ve been flying for well over an hour. We should be getting there any time, now.”

Another ten minutes went by. Suddenly, it was there, below us.

Denver…

I could see its highways cutting over land still frozen hard by relentless Winter. Microscopic cars were dashing around like disorientated ants seeking shelter from the bitter cold.

Soon, I guessed, we’d be joining them.