Pain and love linger on the road to the reservation
Tuesday, February 21, 2012 at 10:58AM
;)
As I was driving from Phoenix to the White Mountain Apache Reservation, I was dictating an email to my niece, Sujitha, of Bangalore, currently in London, soon to head back to her native land to wed her husband in a formal Hindu ceremony that I will photograph. I told her that the country that I was driving through was most beautiful and that I would stop and take an iPhone picture for her at the first good place I saw to stop. I soon spotted a pullover, and I stopped - Asi it happened, right be this little roadside memorial.
So it looks like Deano, born in 1962, died in a motor vehicle accident on August 21, 2004, at this place. Given the decor, I suspect he might have been driving a motorcycle. After nine years, someone still comes by occasionally, to maintain it, to make certain his shoes are still there.
Pain lingers. Love persists.
Reader Comments (2)
The country that you were driving through was most beautiful, absolutely. Years ago, I was one of the last uniformed brakemen on the El Capitan and the Super Chief (Santa Fe Railroad), working out of Winslow from Needles, CA to Albuquerque, NM. Often I'd overhear people from the coasts, looking out the windows at the desert, saying, "Man, there's just NOTHING out there!" Little did they know that the desert is a very subtle landscape and very beautiful. Later, I drove a laundry truck onto the reservation, taking clean clothes to the Indian schools and picking up the dirty wash. I had to be on the reservation early, early, long before dawn in order to make all my stops. Ever seen the sun come up between the buttes and mesas? Ab. So. Lute. Ly. Gorgeous!
Bill - Enjoy both your trips to Arizona and to the wedding in India. The joy of being enveloped by friends and relatives of 2 unique cultures should warm the soul.
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Albert - Ahhh, fond memories of a childhood train trip from California to NY on the El Capitan back in the 1960s.
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There was a big weather problem in Arizona the day that Deano died.
August 21, 2004
"Dust accompanying Arizona storm produces deadly crash"
Monsoon season is in full swing out West, a period in which gusty winds surging from powerful thunderstorms can generate dust storms. Such a storm near Tonopah, Ariz., proved deadly around 6 a.m. Friday, blinding motorists driving on Interstate 10 west of Phoenix and resulting in a mammoth accident involving 12 semis, a passenger bus and two cars. Four perished and 31 others were injured..
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2004-08-21/news/0408210160_1_storms-wgn-record-chill.