D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
April
2009
LIFE IN THE SOUTHWEST
Rollo and the Mountain of Doom
For two high-school boys in 1950s Silver City, one wrong turn could take all the "joy" out of joy riding.
By Phillip Parotti
Editor's note: Fans of Phillip "Pep" Parotti's occasional, er, embellished reminiscences of growing up in Silver City are in luck. The long-awaited tale of Pep, his pal Rollo and their W Mountain adventure has at last been put on paper, debuting to an eager public on this very page. Previous Parotti yarns may be found in our issues of March 2007 ("Diamond in the Rough"), September 2007 ("Some Memories of Mildred's"), May 2008 ("Brick and Mortar Memories") and January 2009 ("Salsa Days"), all of which are available on our Web site at www.desertexposure.com
Western High School's senior play had been announced. A call had gone out, and the Thespians had gathered. Rollo and I were not amongst them. Misty, Muffy, Buffy, Shelley Cream and Ethel Pure affected extreme displeasure and offered immediate threats of turning frigid, so Rollo and I had no choice but to defend ourselves.
 |
"During Dad's sabbatical in Champaign," I said modestly, "I trod the boards at Urbana High, earning a crown of ivy for work as one of the leads in a Cornelia Otis Skinner classic. A scout from Twentieth Century Fox was said to have commended my performance. I should feel badly if, by taking so much as a bit part, I denied one of my classmates an equal opportunity to shine."
"Pep and I," Rollo said augustly, "hope to lend our talents through managerial and administrative endeavor. Our objective will be to create a public relations campaign which will fill Light Hall to 'standing room only' capacity for at least three consecutive nights."
Misty and Buffy threw us skeptical glances.
"Speculation is the enemy of calm," I warned. "You may rest assured that Rollo and I will take council with a professional."
It was amazing to see that one word's effect, for on the instant, it poured no less than a barrel of oil upon the troubled waters of a fish pond. Rollo then hastened to underscore the point.
"For the Class of '59," he said forcefully, "nothing short of a professional campaign will be tolerated."
Of course I can't be sure, but what I think sold the program and got us out of the soup was the fact that a professional bull rider, with the unlikely name of Slim Buckmeister, had been through town to participate in the previous summer's rodeo. Half the girls in town had fallen in love with Slim and the other half had fallen in love with the slim idea of a professional anything. So we sailed right through this little confrontation to emerge smelling like a couple of roses.
Furthermore, in addition to keeping the girls happy by getting involved with the play, we didn't have to attend rehearsals, put up with a nagging director, or memorize parts. In fact, on the spur of the moment and with only the sleightest of hand, we'd cleverly designed semi-autonomous roles for ourselves. No one whom we could think of would be liable to take the slightest interest in us, which meant that we could go about our "work" doing pretty much what we wanted to do when we wanted to do it. We enthusiastically congratulated ourselves by going down to the Ranchburger and tipping a couple of root beers.
About the time we were starting on our second root beer and without even so much as turning his head, Rollo asked, "Who's the professional?"
"Yes," I said, "well . . . , that would be Dad. But just to make sure, right after we finish here, I think we might be wise to stop by the house and touch base with him."
Rollo registered agreement, but he knew as well as I did that we were in like clams.
So, after we'd polished off the remains of our root beers, we drove over to the house and held an executive committee meeting with Dad.
Professionally, my father was the chairman of the Music Department at New Mexico Western College (today's WNMU). In those days, because he headed a large department with a band, orchestra and chorus, it was a big job, and he was a busy man. But what I knew and what Rollo knew was that, while he had started out playing with the Big Bands during the Thirties, Dad had also supported himself all the way through high school and college as a sign painter.
In the late Twenties and on into the Thirties, the movie studios did not always send out preprinted posters to advertise their films. In small towns all across America, movie houses, grocery stores, department stores and just about everyone else needed hand-painted advertising to go up on their windows in order to announce everything from movie offerings to vegetable prices. Having picked up the art from an older brother, my father had become a master sign painter. Without any preliminary design or layout whatsoever, he could free-hand a perfect poster in a matter of seconds, do it in multiple colors, and add a series of highlights that instantly caught the eye. He knew all the tricks, and even then, he still kept his brushes, expensive camel-hair tools, in a locked box that my sister and I were rarely allowed to see, much less touch.
"Dad," I said, after the preliminaries, "Rollo and I have taken on a public relations assignment for the senior play. We were wondering if you could paint some posters for us."
Dad looked amused. "Public relations?" he said. "Would that be a new term for advertising?"
Rollo and I tried to look amused, too. "That's what they're calling it now, Dad," I said finally.
Dad smiled. "Sounds like educationalese to me," he said, "but nevertheless, I think I can help you. If you boys will bring me some poster paint and some poster boards about two weeks before the play is scheduled to open, I think I can whip out about 20 posters for you in less than an hour. Agreed?"
We agreed.
"And you won't mind if I still call it 'advertising'?"
Rollo and I agreed that we wouldn't mind.
Five weeks later, as work on the play was approaching what Shelley Cream, Misty, Buffy, Muffy and Ethel Pure called "sustained perfection," Rollo and I hit the college bookstore, came away with plenty of poster board and poster paint, and got down to my house in time to catch my father during the quiet hour before my mother had started preparing the evening meal. We then followed Dad to the kitchen table and watched stupefied as he whipped out 20 posters in such a variety of colors and lettering styles that we couldn't imagine where he had thought them up. I'd once watched Ethel Pure labor over a cheerleading poster, and, as I recall, it had taken her pretty close to three hours to produce something that my father could put in the shade in three minutes.
"Always glad to help," Dad said. "Just let me know if you need any more."
After putting the posters away in my room for later distribution, Rollo and I went down to the Ranchburger to congratulate ourselves, over a couple of root beers, on the fruits of our labor.
"This campaign is shaping up nicely," Rollo said, musing over the contents of his mug. "I think our next step is to create a Press Release."
"I think you may be right," I said. "From what I'm told, Miss Sulky Tawdry is the new receptionist down at the paper, and a good press release might be just the way to meet her."
On the following afternoon, after having spent one entire study period composing a carefully crafted press release, Rollo and I reported to the offices of the Silver City Daily Press. As it turned out, we'd been misinformed: Miss Sulky Tawdry had not been hired as the receptionist, nor had she been hired by the paper in any other capacity. Instead, she appeared still to be a student at Cobre High School, where she was still trying to pass senior chemistry. It was a grave disappointment to us when we learned this, but the nice lady who sat behind the reception desk was, indeed, most helpful and promised to give our press release her "close personal attention." So when we finally departed, we felt we had accomplished a lot.
Mr. Mullane, at the Silver City Enterprise, proved equally supportive, so when we left his offices on Bullard and drove up to the Ranchburger for a fortifying root beer, we had good reason to congratulate ourselves on our early success, and began to think we might have a future in public relations. Already, you see, New York had begun to beckon. On the following day, our instant good fortune in arranging for radio station KSIL to broadcast our press release suggested that the sky might be the limit.
"Tomorrow," Rollo said with enthusiasm, "beginning at 9 a.m., I think we should go out to distribute the posters."
"Tomorrow, at 9 a.m.," I said, "we are supposed to be going straight through the door into Miss Vaughan's English class."
"That is exactly what I mean," Rollo confirmed.
"If Stella finds out that we have ditched her class in order to distribute posters for the Senior Play," I objected, "she will make the Furies look like models of restraint and skin the both of us right there in front of the class."
"So much the greater will be our sacrifice," Rollo rejoined, "and, therefore, so much the greater will be Buffy and Ethel's appreciation."
I gave the matter one second of clear thought. "I'll risk it," I said, "but I think we'd better try to get Constant Bother's support for this venture. If we don't, Stella will hang us from the end of a hemp rope before either of us will be able to shout for mercy."
"Agreed," said Rollo, once more hoisting his mug.
Mr. Constant Bother was our principal. In this case, we thought it advisable to start with the top because our assistant principal, an ex-Navy chief petty officer and a man who had coached sports teams for decades, was also a man, we well knew, who could see through walls 10 feet thick and see through student ploys before students even had time to think them up. Reasoning correctly, we knew that our little project would never get past him. Discreetly, therefore, we waited in the vicinity of the main office until we saw the assistant principal go down the hall to make use of the facilities. Then, at precisely the right moment, we darted through the door and tried to look as respectable as possible.
"Good morning, Miss Timms," we both said, in what we hoped sounded like conservative bass voices. "If it would be possible, ma'am, we would like to hold a brief conference with Mr. Constant Bother."
Miss Timms was pretty sharp in her own right, but perhaps, for once, we actually managed to project the right note of awe and respect. Within two seconds, we were standing in front of Mr. Constant Bother, unfolding our plan.
"You see, sir," Rollo explained, "in the field of professional public relations, it is a standing rule that the early bird gets the worm. That's why Pep and I need to go to town now so that we can approach the store managers before they bury themselves with the day's business."
"In our view," I spoke profoundly, "the early approach is deemed essential."
Mr. Constant Bother, master of the ever-ready school assembly speech (So, people, if I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times, if the shoe fits, wear it!), looked at us with a Sphinx-like expression, his fuchsia 1935 necktie hanging limply below his chins.
"Have you a large number of posters to distribute?"
"Yes, sir," we both said in unison.
"Return to school the moment you have distributed the last one," he said, "and report your presence to the office as soon as you do."
"Yes, sir," we said euphorically.
For once, whether he knew it or not, Mr. Constant Bother had made a tactical error: He had failed to ask us how many posters we had to distribute and would therefore be unable to estimate how long the job might reasonably take. Suddenly, we were in the pink and made our exit through Western High's rear door at something approaching light speed.
Starting at the foot of Bullard, with Rollo moving north up the west side of the street while I moved north up the east side of the street, and after accounting for conversational exchanges with the various store managers we approached and with whom we left our posters, and after allowing for a detour around some street repair near the intersection of Bullard and Market . . . all told, that is, and considering the steady walking pace we had adopted for the distribution, I would imagine that it took us at least 15 entire minutes before we completed said distribution and returned to Rollo's car with our one "reserve" poster intact. At that point, it became necessary to consider how we were going to spend the remainder of the morning before we dropped off our last poster.
With a fair degree of speed, we reached a consensus that a decision of such magnitude might best be developed after a period of reflection. We therefore drove straight over to the Ranchburger in order to reflect.
"Possibly," Rollo said, draining his root beer, "we ought to take a spin up to Pinos Altos in order to view the prospect and survey developments."
"Indubitably," I said.
Two minutes later, we were passing the dilapidated Texaco station, where gas was still selling for six cents a gallon, and heading up the P.A. highway, songs of the open road blasting from Rollo's radio. Actually, what we were talking about over that particular volume of music was Sterling Moss' performance in the Monaco Grand Prix. Rollo, who was an excellent driver, was accentuating his descriptions by doing his best imitation of Moss' latest moves both through gear shifting and acceleration.
Rollo's car, the newest used car at Western High School, a spotless 1953 Ford painted salmon and cream, was both a thing of beauty and the apple of Rollo's eye. For two summers, he had endlessly flipped hamburgers at the Ranchburger in order to pay for it, and, as a result, he looked after it as a parent would a baby. Nevertheless, in those long-gone days when driving was both an art and an entertainment, Rollo had so perfected his technique that he was right up there with the best of them and working hard to raise his level of accomplishment. And so the road unfolded before us, unimpeded by deer, semi-articulated lorries or worries about Stella Vaughan's senior English class — until, as we approached P.A., Rollo suddenly spotted the old Bell Mine Road on the left.
"Ever been up there?" he said laconically.
"No," I said at once, "because it has always looked to me like something calling for a jeep rather than a car."
Rollo, quick on impulse and swift in decision, immediately downshifted and started up the road. In my own 1942 Ford, even with the power of its rebuilt 1948 engine, and with the Army's old olive-drab paint already peeling swiftly off the fenders, I would never have tried it. To me, that road looked rough, really rough, and fairly eroded, and furthermore, I couldn't spot a single place where a car could have turned around.
No matter, Rollo was committed. By knowing his car as well as he did and by skilled driving, he soon had us up to the saddle where the road to the radio and TV towers branched off to the left. Now, in that spot, there was room to turn around, and that's what I recommended.
"Possibly," I reflected, "this would be a good spot to turn around. You don't want to wipe out an oil pan."
"Piece of cake," Rollo responded. "Let's try the road to the right."
The road to the right looked like nothing more than a rough dirt track to me. Later, much later, we were to learn that it had been a track, literally, that in fact it had once been the roadbed for the old narrow-gauge railroad track, the line that for a very brief time had connected Silver City with Pinos Altos in the forgotten days of the Golden Age when the Pinos Altos gold mines were still highly productive.
What Rollo had done was to get us on that part of the track that ran around the western slope of the W-Mountain ridge. In so far as I could see, the track, while fairly flat, wasn't getting any wider. From time to time, as we crept along, I had to get out and move rocks, pieces of lumber and bits of discarded mining equipment so that we could continue to crawl forward. What I couldn't see — and, believe me, I looked hard — was any space whatsoever that might give us the opportunity to turn around.
"You know, this might be a good place to start backing up," I said, several times.
Rollo was unmoved. A spirit of adventure had seized him, and there was no turning him back.
Immediately, I began to have visions of our having to abandon Rollo's car on the side of the mountain while the two of us walked the five miles back to town. Subsequent nagging visions involved the specter of Mr. Constant Bother inviting us up onto the stage at the next school assembly while Stella Vaughan readied the whips.
Suddenly, we came to a turn — in the track, if not in our lives — and five minutes later, with Rollo's car tilting a few more degrees with the slope of the hill, we found ourselves creeping along the face of the mountain, directly beneath New Mexico Western College's huge, lime-covered "W." We were slowly edging east, running over small clumps of grass as well as the occasional rock, and bouncing across the tiny erosion gullies that streaked the roadbed.
Rollo was a little more nervous about our progress than he had been back on the highway while showing me his Sterling Moss impression, but nevertheless, he remained optimistic.
"I think this thing's going take us right around the mountain," he said quickly. "It will probably bring us right back out where we started."
"Sure," I said convincingly, instantly imagining myself and Rollo, footsore but nevertheless hanging upside-down by our ankles in front of Stella's class while Buffy, Muffy, Misty, Shelley and Ethel Pure gloated with serene pleasure over our prolonged punishment. "This thing will probably widen out as soon as we get around to the eastern side of the mountain."
"Sure it will," Rollo said with enthusiasm.
Ten minutes later, having crept all the way across the south face of W Mountain, we reached the turn and edged carefully around the curve until we were on a northerly heading, moving slowly back toward the Pinos Altos Mountains and the saddle where we had started. Down below, speeding north and south along the Pinos Altos Highway, I could see cars and trucks that looked like miniature Dinky toys, and I was immediately sorry that we were not amongst them. And then, with virtually no warning, the track quit — or rather, with the car tilting a good 15 degrees to the east, the track narrowed to the width of a well-worn footpath, and Rollo hit the brakes.
To borrow a timeless Naval expression, we were suddenly and inextricably in extremis. In short, we were doomed.
"Hmm," I said, trying to register just the right tone of circumspection. "Looks like we may have to back up."
"Ah . . . , I don't think so," Rollo said gravely, after a moment's hesitation that had lasted just long enough. "Can't go forward. Can't go back."
I didn't want to say it, but finally, I did. "Going to leave it right here?" I asked, indicating the car.
"No," Rollo said, and I could see that his decision was made. "I'm going to take it right down the side of the mountain and straight out onto the P.A. Highway."
Mentally, I tried to keep my hair from standing on end. Looking down from the passenger seat, where I was hanging half over the edge of the track with no understanding of how the car was staying in place, I judged the slope's incline to be no less than 45 degrees, with a good possibility that it might run to 50 full degrees across the first 30 yards. Visions of being drawn and quartered in front of Stella Vaughan's English class disappeared at once, only to be replaced by visions of the Ford, its brakes gone, skidding, sliding, and then bouncing end over end all the way to the bottom while the two of us were mercifully crushed to pieces inside during the transit.
"Right," I said decisively, knowing exactly what I had to do, "I'll just hop out, scout the smoothest route, and fill in the holes and depressions with rocks so that you can have clear running as you go."
And, showing less hesitation than I have ever shown in my life, save on those rare occasions when I have nearly trod upon a rattlesnake or an angry copperhead, I was out of the car and down the hill, picking up rocks and building up bridges of sorts across innumerable small gullies. I had ridden any number of places with Rollo, a lot of them dangerous, and I had perfect confidence in his driving skills, but on that clear morning, high up on the east side of W Mountain, I wouldn't have given two cents for the strength of the Ford's brakes, not on that slope, and I wasn't prepared to risk it. Instead, with grit and determination, and with a resolve to leap out of the way at the first sound of squealing metal, I worked as hard as I could in hopes of a miracle.
Rollo waited patiently until I had filled in all of the gullies across the steepest part of the slope. Then, when I gave him the thumbs up to indicate that my engineering feat had been accomplished, he backed up slightly, pulled the car as close to the uphill side of the track as he could get it, and then turned sharply to the right and started over the edge. Immediately, he high-centered, but with the engine already dropping over the side of the track, he had enough momentum to pull him the rest of the way, and within half a second, the Ford was started down.
And then, to his utter amazement and to mine, we found that his brakes were holding. Well out ahead of him and ready to leap, I guided him from gully to gully, from rock bridge to rock bridge, and around the most dangerous boulders and clumps of bear grass. Here and there, the car slid a foot or two, but — wonder of wonder — the brakes held so that within seven or eight minutes, he had actually negotiated the worst of the slope and was easing onto that portion that amounted to only a 35-degree grade. Both of us were beginning to believe that man and machine might survive the descent.
For my own part, I might have been temporarily safe, but I was nevertheless getting the workout of my life, racing from gully to gully well out ahead, hustling rocks, boards and pieces of timber into holes and depressions while keeping one eye peeled and both ears open for anything indicating that I was about to be charged by an enraged Ford run full amok and gone completely out of control. We had hard work of it that morning, the both of us, and as a test of nerves, I don't suppose that we ever went that event one step better.
Then, without quite realizing what was happening, I backed into a fence post, turned, and discovered that we were down. The car had not gone end over end, Rollo had not been smashed to death like a sardine, and I had not been run over and crushed either by the descending vehicle or an attending avalanche. It was the miracle of miracles. Working together, we had actually brought a modern automobile all the way down the steep side of W Mountain and lived to tell the tale.
Wow, what a triumph! Boy, wouldn't Misty, Buffy, Muffy, Shelley and Ethel be impressed! Given the right moment, and after we offered up a suitable narration of the event, impeccably tailored to meet the situation, one or another of those girls might be so impressed as to give herself up to two or three minutes of serious necking. Clearly, our public relations campaign was prospering beyond our wildest dreams.
The immediate problem, of course, was that Rollo's Ford was hemmed in behind sturdy barbed-wire fences. To the east, the fence separated us from the Pinos Altos Highway; to the south, the fence separated us from what is today called Wendy Road.
"I think we've got a problem," Rollo observed, looking at the fences.
"I think it pales by comparison with what you've already overcome," I speculated. "If needs be, I will dig out one of the posts by hand or, perhaps, that gate down there might just be open. If you'll wait a minute, I'll walk down and check."
Rollo waited. I walked down the hill some 30 yards and checked. The gate was unlocked — clear proof, as though we needed it, that we were leading charmed lives.
Throwing the keeper from the top of the fence post, I walked backwards with the wire gate, opening a hole some 30 feet wide through the center of the south fence. Uphill, Rollo revved up the Ford's pipes but refrained from peeling out in the midst of the pasture, and then, motoring slowly down the hill, he slid between the gate posts wearing a Cheshire-cat grin while once more letting the pipes roar. Out on the Pinos Altos Highway, tourists who had stopped to observe our descent as well as the idle occupants of two or three other vehicles gave themselves up to applause. Quick as a whistle, I refastened the gate, leapt for the car, and hopped in. Then, to celebrate our deliverance, Rollo really did peel out, for perhaps 10 feet, before slowing to a mere putt and gliding out onto the highway, his head held high, his left hand raised through the driver's window in a sublime imitation of Noel Coward drawing the applause of an audience.
At approximately 11:45 a.m. that morning, we stopped briefly at the Texaco station on our way back into town, dropped off the last poster (the one we had carefully kept in reserve), "dragged Main" once, and returned to Western High School. There we signed in with Miss Timms just in time to meet Shelley, Ethel, Misty, Muffy and Buffy as they headed for lunch after attending third period Trig.
"And where have you bums been all morning?" Misty and Shelley wanted to know.
"Yeah," said Ethel, throwing me a razor-sharp glance.
"Boy, are you two ever in trouble with Miss Vaughan," Buffy announced.
"That's right," Muffy said, flipping her hair. "Anyone who hasn't any better sense than to cut Miss Vaughan's class probably doesn't have the brains to come in out of the rain. You have heard of 'detention,' haven't you?"
"Don't be ridiculous," Rollo said. "We've spent the entire morning seriously engaged on school business; we've been out promoting your play."
"Professionally speaking," I said, adopting my best boardroom manner, "I think you could say that we have not only gone the extra mile in your support, but in fact, we've gone all the way around the mountain for you. Furthermore — and while this is merely rumor at the moment, but one with which we are nevertheless going to enlighten you — we have it on good authority that when you finally do take to the boards next week, a talent scout from one of the leading theaters in Albuquerque will be down here to catch your performances. Apparently, his company is looking for candidates who might be talented enough to do summer stock."
The girls positively beamed.
"That's all right," Rollo said quietly. "There is no need to thank us."
"None at all," I added, "However, if anyone would like to hear details, matters like these are best discussed less publicly, possibly after a root beer later this evening. . . ."
Ethel, bless her, never one to be slow on the uptake, took my arm.
Phillip "Pep" Parotti grew up in Silver City during the Forties and the Fifties and has recently retired and come home after a long teaching career at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas.