BECOMING
(continued)
Chris Sawyer Lauçanno
Chapter 13: I Become the Colorado Kid
Nothing remains in my memory of the trip from the border to Colorado. I presume we must have taken the train from El Paso because I do remember a small train station in the tiny town of Minturn, and that it was cold, very cold, and that snowy mountains were all around, and that there was snow on the ground, too, and that my grandparents were there to meet us. My grandfather had on denim overalls and a heavy denim jacket. He had a striped cap on his head and a pipe clenched between his teeth. I don't remember what my grandmother was wearing. I do recall everyone talking at once in the same language my mother spoke to me and being hoisted aloft into my grandmother's arms, and being kissed and passed to my grandfather who hugged me, and that my mother had a large smile on her face, and that as we walked from the station it began to snow and I was extremely excited, more by the snow than by being with my grandparents whom, of course, I didn't know. |
The house I recall but undoubtedly from longer familiarity. It was green and white, one story. The living room had brown and green linoleum on the floor and a big pot belly stove in the center. A few worn armchairs semi-circled it. Against the wall was an old upright piano and next to it a polished box that contained a record player. The kitchen was directly behind the living room. It was large and had a gleaming stove and a large white metal table just inside the door. On one side of the living room was my grandparents’ bedroom; on the other was ours. There must have been a bathroom somewhere but I can't place it. Behind the house, on the other side of the yard with its back to the Eagle River, was a cabin where my uncle lived.
My mother went to work as a secretary for a mining company not long after our arrival. Consequently, my grandmother, with some help from my grandfather, took care of me during the work week. It was far from an unhappy arrangement; indeed, I remember it as being quite blissful. To me, my grandparents were the standard bearers of a stable, gentle world in which I was the sun, and they the planets. As the center around which they revolved, I was indulged, I'm sure, but not with a great number of gifts; rather I was the beneficiary of my grandparents’ devoted attention.
Unlike my own parents, my grandparents were truly devoted to one another. I have no memory of them arguing about anything, even politics, which was a nightly topic of conversation around the dinner table. My grandfather, a confirmed Socialist and union man, was a strong critic of Ike. Neither my uncle nor mother could or would say a good word about him as president but my mother did occasionally remind her brother and father that as Supreme Allied Commander Eisenhower had won the war. “And the problem with that,” my grandfather would retort, “is that he’s running the country like a general, not like a president. He’s a union buster and sits on the laps of bankers. Government should serve the people. Period. Ike wants us all saluting him and his government and his cronies and his banker buddies.”
I quickly came to know that the good guys were Eugene Debs, Bill Haywood, Robert La Follette, Norman Thomas, Walter Lipmann, Paul Robeson, Upton Sinclair and, of course, Joe Hill. Ike was the bad guy as was every banker and every corporation.
While no less indignant about the plight of the worker, my grandmother was less assertive. For her, taking care of “the people” meant showing kindness to all, whether to her illegitimate grandson or a railroad bum my grandfather would bring home for dinner.
At home my grandmother ruled. The throne room in her small domain was set up in the kitchen. Each day I was granted as long an audience as I wished. It was there, under her patient tutelage, where my left hand was entrusted with a knife so that I could peel apples and potatoes, where I kneaded dough for bread and noodles, where I sifted flour for cookies, cakes and pies, where I learned some Swedish nursery rhymes and where I gained a sense of family history by listening to her stories of growing up in Kansas and Colorado as the youngest of three brothers and one sister.
My grandfather's kingdom was the railroad yard where he operated the coal chute. He would leave the house each morning well before I was awake, even before the sun had broken over the mountains, and return by early afternoon. I always awaited his arrival with anticipation, for time with him meant excursions: into the woods, to the store, to a neighbor's house; it meant helping him with chores: I would sit on a log while he chopped wood or raked and burned leaves or shoveled snow. And there was always time for making a snowman.
Occasionally my grandmother would take me down to meet him at the end of his workday. Usually we just walked home together, but sometimes I got to linger. And while I did not have as free a rein at the railroad yard as I did in the kitchen, it was a realm where I also felt epistemological wonder, a sense of belonging. The roundhouse was my preferred playground. There I was entertained by a group of railroad men whose names I have now largely forgotten. Invariably I would get to take a ride in a cab which the switching locomotive used to couple and uncouple cars, move them from one siding to another to make up new trains. By then, I had striped denim coveralls and a striped hat just like grandpa, and thought myself a full-fledged engineer.
Curiously I don't remember too much about the rides themselves. My main memories are of the sound the cars would make as they crashed into one another, and the glowing dials on the switcher’s panel. It’s the songs these men would sing while they worked that I most retain. Even today, I can still recall nearly all the words, see the faces of these railroaders as they half-sang, half-shouted verses back and forth to one another, with all joining in on the chorus. By the time I was four I knew a good many songs from The Little Red Songbookas well as the entire railroad repertoire of Jimmie Rodgers and Woody Guthrie and of course “Casey Jones,” “The Wreck of the Old 97,” “Wabash Cannonball” and countless others.
I particularly liked to chime in the choruses of “The International:”
My mother went to work as a secretary for a mining company not long after our arrival. Consequently, my grandmother, with some help from my grandfather, took care of me during the work week. It was far from an unhappy arrangement; indeed, I remember it as being quite blissful. To me, my grandparents were the standard bearers of a stable, gentle world in which I was the sun, and they the planets. As the center around which they revolved, I was indulged, I'm sure, but not with a great number of gifts; rather I was the beneficiary of my grandparents’ devoted attention.
Unlike my own parents, my grandparents were truly devoted to one another. I have no memory of them arguing about anything, even politics, which was a nightly topic of conversation around the dinner table. My grandfather, a confirmed Socialist and union man, was a strong critic of Ike. Neither my uncle nor mother could or would say a good word about him as president but my mother did occasionally remind her brother and father that as Supreme Allied Commander Eisenhower had won the war. “And the problem with that,” my grandfather would retort, “is that he’s running the country like a general, not like a president. He’s a union buster and sits on the laps of bankers. Government should serve the people. Period. Ike wants us all saluting him and his government and his cronies and his banker buddies.”
I quickly came to know that the good guys were Eugene Debs, Bill Haywood, Robert La Follette, Norman Thomas, Walter Lipmann, Paul Robeson, Upton Sinclair and, of course, Joe Hill. Ike was the bad guy as was every banker and every corporation.
While no less indignant about the plight of the worker, my grandmother was less assertive. For her, taking care of “the people” meant showing kindness to all, whether to her illegitimate grandson or a railroad bum my grandfather would bring home for dinner.
At home my grandmother ruled. The throne room in her small domain was set up in the kitchen. Each day I was granted as long an audience as I wished. It was there, under her patient tutelage, where my left hand was entrusted with a knife so that I could peel apples and potatoes, where I kneaded dough for bread and noodles, where I sifted flour for cookies, cakes and pies, where I learned some Swedish nursery rhymes and where I gained a sense of family history by listening to her stories of growing up in Kansas and Colorado as the youngest of three brothers and one sister.
My grandfather's kingdom was the railroad yard where he operated the coal chute. He would leave the house each morning well before I was awake, even before the sun had broken over the mountains, and return by early afternoon. I always awaited his arrival with anticipation, for time with him meant excursions: into the woods, to the store, to a neighbor's house; it meant helping him with chores: I would sit on a log while he chopped wood or raked and burned leaves or shoveled snow. And there was always time for making a snowman.
Occasionally my grandmother would take me down to meet him at the end of his workday. Usually we just walked home together, but sometimes I got to linger. And while I did not have as free a rein at the railroad yard as I did in the kitchen, it was a realm where I also felt epistemological wonder, a sense of belonging. The roundhouse was my preferred playground. There I was entertained by a group of railroad men whose names I have now largely forgotten. Invariably I would get to take a ride in a cab which the switching locomotive used to couple and uncouple cars, move them from one siding to another to make up new trains. By then, I had striped denim coveralls and a striped hat just like grandpa, and thought myself a full-fledged engineer.
Curiously I don't remember too much about the rides themselves. My main memories are of the sound the cars would make as they crashed into one another, and the glowing dials on the switcher’s panel. It’s the songs these men would sing while they worked that I most retain. Even today, I can still recall nearly all the words, see the faces of these railroaders as they half-sang, half-shouted verses back and forth to one another, with all joining in on the chorus. By the time I was four I knew a good many songs from The Little Red Songbookas well as the entire railroad repertoire of Jimmie Rodgers and Woody Guthrie and of course “Casey Jones,” “The Wreck of the Old 97,” “Wabash Cannonball” and countless others.
I particularly liked to chime in the choruses of “The International:”
The banks are made of marble, with a guard at every door And the vaults are full of silver that the farmer sweated for. One day we'll own those banks of marble and we'll open every door. And we'll share those vaults of silver that we all have sweated for. |
While I liked “The International,” “Joe Hill” and the other Wobbly songs, my favorite was “Railroad Bill,” mainly because I think it was a song with no set verses. In fact the challenge of the roundhouse was to invent one's own two line couplet. These didn’t have to make sense or follow on what had come before, but everyone present had to participate. I, to my delight, wasn't exempted.
I have no recollection of any of my own song making, The verses by others are still vivid, particularly those in which I was featured:
I have no recollection of any of my own song making, The verses by others are still vivid, particularly those in which I was featured:
Railroad Bill, he wasn't so bad
Took Chris on a ride with his granddad. Ride, ride, ride. Railroad Bill, Railroad Bill He let little Chris do just as he will. Ride, ride, ride. Railroad Bill, he was a mighty bad man stole some candy right out of Chris's hand. Ride, ride, ride. |
Years later I heard rambling Jack Elliott sing the song and was a bit dismayed to discover that none of the verses matched those I remembered. Not one even mentioned Chris
Chapter 14: I Become an Opera Aficionado
My uncle lived in the cabin behind the house. When it was quiet, I could hear the river coursing over the boulders and sliding and bubbling and tumbling along to some unknown destination. But it was rarely quiet when my uncle was in his abode. Music nearly always emanated from the small wooden house. The sounds of opera, but occasionally jazz or folk or classical music, competed with the river’s roar. Visits to the cabin were probably made sweeter by the fact that my uncle was not always in residence. For reasons unknown to me, he had bailed out of San Francisco the year before we arrived, and in between various road trips was working off and on in a mine. But music was still the center of his life. |
He was unfailingly kind to me. Regardless of when I showed up, I was always invited in. Sometimes we’d just talk or walk over to watch the river run but mostly we listened to music. While probably most kids my age were listening to nursery tunes, I was becoming enthralled with Puccini, Verdi and Bizet. I found the woes besetting Mimi and Rodolfo, Tosca and Cavaradossi, Ciocio-san and Pinkerton, Violetta and Alfredo, Carmen, José and Escamillo highly thrilling. I have no idea what I really made of the stories my uncle would tell me about the operas, or how he even expressed such complex ideas to a five-year-old as love, betrayal, and tragic death, but I somehow took it all in. The soaring music, the astonishing range and modulation of the voices were for me sheer beauty. But I also thought “Railroad Bill” sublime. And still do.
Chapter 15: I Become Temporarily Truculent
Since everyone called me Chris once we moved to Minturn, I knew something was up when one evening just before bedtime my mother said, “Christopher, I have something to tell you.”
She sat down on my narrow bed. “Christopher, sit here on my lap.” I complied but apprehensively.
“Christopher, guess what? We're going to move to a big city”. You and me and Unkie. You're going to go to school during the day like big boys do.”
I wasn't sure what this meant. “Are grandma and grandpa coming too?”
“Not right away,” she said, “but soon.”
“I don't want to go. I want to stay here in the mountains and go down to the yard with grandpa and play outside in the snow and cook with grandma and be in the cabin with Unkie.”
“Well,” she responded, looking at me rather tenderly, “You'll like it in Denver, too. They have snow there and you'll have lots of little boys and girls to play with every day at school.”
“Can Dog go to school with me?” This was a test question. I didn't have a real dog, and unlike grandpa and grandma who never tried to get me to admit that Dog was a pretend dog, my mother always did.
“Sure, Dog can go with you and Horse and all your toys.”
I knew then that I wasn't going to like it. I tested her some more: “Are we going to see Papa?” I knew we weren't but I was interested in how she'd answer.
“No, we're not.”
“I'm only going to go if Papa is going to come,” I said, pouting.
“Unkie’s coming,” she said, avoiding my declaration of war.
“I want to see Papa,” I moaned. This sortie abruptly changed her mood. She obliquely struck back.
“Your father wants to stay in Mexico. And you, Christopher, are going to Denver with Unkie and me and you'll see, you'll like it.”
I was beaten. I wanted to cry, but couldn't. I wanted to needle her some more about my father but couldn't. I knew I'd crossed a line by speaking at all about my father. I was also aware that what she really meant by saying that my father wanted to stay in Mexico, was that he didn't want to see me. “OK,” I said.
“That's my good boy, my darling boy, my beautiful boy. Now get your jammies on.”
After she tucked me in bed and turned out the light I lay awake for a long time staring at the darkened ceiling, thinking about my father, trying to remember him. He was already becoming somewhat blurred, his features less distinct than they had been just a few months before. I fought to reclaim them by reinventing him — his face, his hands, his walk, his voice, his laugh — so that I wouldn't lose them altogether. I tried to recall every word and phrase of his language I knew, but I also realized that his words were fading fast. I then turned to thinking about my grandparents, reliving the past year with them, conjuring up as many scenes as I could in case they should become only memories like my father. Suddenly I started crying very softly, with tiny choking sobs. The tears emerged slowly, trickled, rather than cascaded down my cheeks. I hoped and didn't hope that my mother would hear and come in, but she didn't. Sleep eventually overwhelmed my ferocious bout of self-induced misery, sending it, as was already my habit, to ground deeper inside me where it could linger with impunity, not rise, at least publicly, to interfere with my external self that would, that could, that was expected only and always to don a happy face.
Chapter 16: I Become a Schoolboy
Perhaps I have repressed my memories; perhaps I simply have forgotten the actual move to Denver, though I admit this is fairly unlikely given my near-photographic recall of just about everything of any importance that happened to me from the age of two. At the time, I had no real idea why we suddenly moved. I knew my uncle had gotten a job as a union organizer for the AFL-CIO as well as a gig at the Denver Opera, and that my mother had found work as a secretary for a car company. Only later did I learn, probably from my grandmother, that there were too many in Minturn who thrived on discussing my less-than-immaculate conception for my mother to bear.
To my surprise, it didn’t take me long to adjust to the new life. As both my mother and uncle were working, and my grandparents hadn’t yet sold the house in Minturn and moved in with us, I got sent to Tiny Tots.
It was a small nursery school. Probably there were no more than a dozen children there, ranging in age from two to five. We had two teachers: Miss Ross and Mrs. Brennan. Miss Ross was young, pretty, with long brown hair. Mrs. Brennan was white-haired, kind most of the time, overweight. She was mainly in charge of academics. She, in fact claimed to have taught me to read and write and count but I don't think this was really the case for I actually did read some by the time I was enrolled. She no doubt did expand my abilities, however, and I don't begrudge her assumption of importance in this regard. I don't remember Miss Ross doing much else except passing out crayons and putting us down for naps on Army cots, but she probably did much more.
I liked going to school even after my grandparents moved to Denver and we bought a house in the suburbs, I didn't argue too much for staying home with them. At nursery school I had a whole world, plenty of glue and pencils, toys, games, and even other kids to play with.
My best friends there were Bobby and Rachel. I think I liked Bobby mainly out of envy that his father came every day on a motorcycle to pick him up. He had a little leather jacket that I greatly admired. I was hoping that one day I would get to go home with him and his dad on the motorcycle and wear a leather jacket, but I never did.
Rachel was a day younger than me. She had blonde hair and blue eyes and almost always wore pink flowered dresses. She had pigtails and sometimes wore bows in her hair. We were in the same reading group together and liked the same stories.
I didn't stay too long a Tiny Tots less than a few months. Mrs. Brennan deemed me precocious shortly after my arrival and urged my mother to put me directly in first grade even before I turned six so I would have a more suitable environment for stimulating my intelligence. She knew just the place too: a private school run by her sister-in-law that admitted students into first grade before they were six.
I was enrolled in first grade at Peter Pan Elementary School four months shy of my sixth birthday. My teacher was Mrs. Jones. All I remember about her is that she struggled a great deal with me that year, not over my schoolwork, but about my left-handedness that she set out to cure.
I've heard stories of people being forced into right-handedness through crippling raps with a ruler on their left hand if they ever deigned to hold a pencil with it. Mrs. Jones had a more benign method. I simply had to sit on my left hand while doing my schoolwork. If she caught me using my left hand to write with, she would simply walk over and place it gently under my thigh. Despite frequent recidivism, by the end of the school year I had adapted quite well to using my right hand in class. At home though, I used both. I'd usually start out with the right, but more often than not I'd end up writing with my left. I found this curious, as I was rarely conscious of having switched hands. But even this eventually changed when my mother decided that Mrs. Jones was helping me become “normal” and set about enforcing her program at home. She would constantly look in on me while I was doing my letters, offer praise when she saw the pencil in my right hand, and remind me to use my right when she caught me scribbling away with my left.
Curiously, I almost always got away with drawing pictures with my left hand, mainly because it wasn't thought of as an important activity. Neither Mrs. Jones nor my mother bothered to correct me in this, and even now, though I write with my right hand, I still generally draw or paint with my left. I frequently, however, find myself sitting on my left hand when writing cursive.
Chapter 15: I Become Temporarily Truculent
Since everyone called me Chris once we moved to Minturn, I knew something was up when one evening just before bedtime my mother said, “Christopher, I have something to tell you.”
She sat down on my narrow bed. “Christopher, sit here on my lap.” I complied but apprehensively.
“Christopher, guess what? We're going to move to a big city”. You and me and Unkie. You're going to go to school during the day like big boys do.”
I wasn't sure what this meant. “Are grandma and grandpa coming too?”
“Not right away,” she said, “but soon.”
“I don't want to go. I want to stay here in the mountains and go down to the yard with grandpa and play outside in the snow and cook with grandma and be in the cabin with Unkie.”
“Well,” she responded, looking at me rather tenderly, “You'll like it in Denver, too. They have snow there and you'll have lots of little boys and girls to play with every day at school.”
“Can Dog go to school with me?” This was a test question. I didn't have a real dog, and unlike grandpa and grandma who never tried to get me to admit that Dog was a pretend dog, my mother always did.
“Sure, Dog can go with you and Horse and all your toys.”
I knew then that I wasn't going to like it. I tested her some more: “Are we going to see Papa?” I knew we weren't but I was interested in how she'd answer.
“No, we're not.”
“I'm only going to go if Papa is going to come,” I said, pouting.
“Unkie’s coming,” she said, avoiding my declaration of war.
“I want to see Papa,” I moaned. This sortie abruptly changed her mood. She obliquely struck back.
“Your father wants to stay in Mexico. And you, Christopher, are going to Denver with Unkie and me and you'll see, you'll like it.”
I was beaten. I wanted to cry, but couldn't. I wanted to needle her some more about my father but couldn't. I knew I'd crossed a line by speaking at all about my father. I was also aware that what she really meant by saying that my father wanted to stay in Mexico, was that he didn't want to see me. “OK,” I said.
“That's my good boy, my darling boy, my beautiful boy. Now get your jammies on.”
After she tucked me in bed and turned out the light I lay awake for a long time staring at the darkened ceiling, thinking about my father, trying to remember him. He was already becoming somewhat blurred, his features less distinct than they had been just a few months before. I fought to reclaim them by reinventing him — his face, his hands, his walk, his voice, his laugh — so that I wouldn't lose them altogether. I tried to recall every word and phrase of his language I knew, but I also realized that his words were fading fast. I then turned to thinking about my grandparents, reliving the past year with them, conjuring up as many scenes as I could in case they should become only memories like my father. Suddenly I started crying very softly, with tiny choking sobs. The tears emerged slowly, trickled, rather than cascaded down my cheeks. I hoped and didn't hope that my mother would hear and come in, but she didn't. Sleep eventually overwhelmed my ferocious bout of self-induced misery, sending it, as was already my habit, to ground deeper inside me where it could linger with impunity, not rise, at least publicly, to interfere with my external self that would, that could, that was expected only and always to don a happy face.
Chapter 16: I Become a Schoolboy
Perhaps I have repressed my memories; perhaps I simply have forgotten the actual move to Denver, though I admit this is fairly unlikely given my near-photographic recall of just about everything of any importance that happened to me from the age of two. At the time, I had no real idea why we suddenly moved. I knew my uncle had gotten a job as a union organizer for the AFL-CIO as well as a gig at the Denver Opera, and that my mother had found work as a secretary for a car company. Only later did I learn, probably from my grandmother, that there were too many in Minturn who thrived on discussing my less-than-immaculate conception for my mother to bear.
To my surprise, it didn’t take me long to adjust to the new life. As both my mother and uncle were working, and my grandparents hadn’t yet sold the house in Minturn and moved in with us, I got sent to Tiny Tots.
It was a small nursery school. Probably there were no more than a dozen children there, ranging in age from two to five. We had two teachers: Miss Ross and Mrs. Brennan. Miss Ross was young, pretty, with long brown hair. Mrs. Brennan was white-haired, kind most of the time, overweight. She was mainly in charge of academics. She, in fact claimed to have taught me to read and write and count but I don't think this was really the case for I actually did read some by the time I was enrolled. She no doubt did expand my abilities, however, and I don't begrudge her assumption of importance in this regard. I don't remember Miss Ross doing much else except passing out crayons and putting us down for naps on Army cots, but she probably did much more.
I liked going to school even after my grandparents moved to Denver and we bought a house in the suburbs, I didn't argue too much for staying home with them. At nursery school I had a whole world, plenty of glue and pencils, toys, games, and even other kids to play with.
My best friends there were Bobby and Rachel. I think I liked Bobby mainly out of envy that his father came every day on a motorcycle to pick him up. He had a little leather jacket that I greatly admired. I was hoping that one day I would get to go home with him and his dad on the motorcycle and wear a leather jacket, but I never did.
Rachel was a day younger than me. She had blonde hair and blue eyes and almost always wore pink flowered dresses. She had pigtails and sometimes wore bows in her hair. We were in the same reading group together and liked the same stories.
I didn't stay too long a Tiny Tots less than a few months. Mrs. Brennan deemed me precocious shortly after my arrival and urged my mother to put me directly in first grade even before I turned six so I would have a more suitable environment for stimulating my intelligence. She knew just the place too: a private school run by her sister-in-law that admitted students into first grade before they were six.
I was enrolled in first grade at Peter Pan Elementary School four months shy of my sixth birthday. My teacher was Mrs. Jones. All I remember about her is that she struggled a great deal with me that year, not over my schoolwork, but about my left-handedness that she set out to cure.
I've heard stories of people being forced into right-handedness through crippling raps with a ruler on their left hand if they ever deigned to hold a pencil with it. Mrs. Jones had a more benign method. I simply had to sit on my left hand while doing my schoolwork. If she caught me using my left hand to write with, she would simply walk over and place it gently under my thigh. Despite frequent recidivism, by the end of the school year I had adapted quite well to using my right hand in class. At home though, I used both. I'd usually start out with the right, but more often than not I'd end up writing with my left. I found this curious, as I was rarely conscious of having switched hands. But even this eventually changed when my mother decided that Mrs. Jones was helping me become “normal” and set about enforcing her program at home. She would constantly look in on me while I was doing my letters, offer praise when she saw the pencil in my right hand, and remind me to use my right when she caught me scribbling away with my left.
Curiously, I almost always got away with drawing pictures with my left hand, mainly because it wasn't thought of as an important activity. Neither Mrs. Jones nor my mother bothered to correct me in this, and even now, though I write with my right hand, I still generally draw or paint with my left. I frequently, however, find myself sitting on my left hand when writing cursive.
***
NOTA BENE: Alyscamps Press in Paris, has just put out a chapbook by Chris Sawyer-Lauçanno,
Just Words: Homage to Roman Jakobson. Sawyer-Lauçanno tells us that it was based on notes he kept when he was under Jakobson's tutelage as a graduate student. These were later discovered by the author's granddaughter when sorting through items to go to UC Santa Barbara as part of his archives there. The chapbook is available from:
In the UK: Julian Nangle [[email protected]]
In France: Michael Neal Books, [michaelnealbooks.wordpress.com]
In the U.S.: Karl Orend/Alyscamps Press: [[email protected]]
Just Words: Homage to Roman Jakobson. Sawyer-Lauçanno tells us that it was based on notes he kept when he was under Jakobson's tutelage as a graduate student. These were later discovered by the author's granddaughter when sorting through items to go to UC Santa Barbara as part of his archives there. The chapbook is available from:
In the UK: Julian Nangle [[email protected]]
In France: Michael Neal Books, [michaelnealbooks.wordpress.com]
In the U.S.: Karl Orend/Alyscamps Press: [[email protected]]