Vagneur: What was learned from those before
Tony Vagneur/Courtesy photo
My grandfather was a major influence on my life and was the older man with whom I spent most of my summers, until he died in my 11th year. But there were other, older men who also had an influence on my journey.
“Slow down,” he said, “the road we want is just ahead.”
Sure enough, just before Shale Bluffs, a speck of a road could be seen on the right, and “Turn in here, but don’t stop. It looks a little rough, but we’ll go down there a ways.”
Driving my great-aunt Julia Stapleton’s 1953 Chevrolet, I felt like the Great American Guide, dropping off fishermen. (Just as an aside, the road was part of the original Stapleton ranch and was no doubt used for hauling salt and other feed down to the creek, where the cattle would water. It is now reduced to a footpath with a tall game fence in front of it, keeping seekers out.)
Roy Paige. He’d grown up in Aspen, had married Peg, one of Julia’s sisters, and eventually they’d moved to Denver. A highlight of his summer was a visit or two in Aspen, visiting his wife’s family on Bleeker Street, and going fishing every day.
At the age of 12 or 13, I was his assigned weekend chauffeur if I was around, driving him to his chosen spots along the Roaring Fork River for his fishing expedition that day. He might have known the Roaring Fork between Woody Creek and Aspen better than anyone around.
“Pick me up around 3:00 at the Hog Pasture,” he’d say.
“Yessir!”
Or, “No need to pick me up today – I’ll fish up the river until it’s just a short walk to the house.”
No one thought much about me driving up and down Hwy. 82 – there was very little traffic in those days.
Paige was a master at tying his own flies and let me watch the process numerous times. He tried to teach me the rudiments of such art, but it was not in my artistic wheelhouse, although he’d sometimes let me design one, usually overly flamboyant, which he’d then tie himself.
One afternoon, he brought a rainbow trout into the house, at least three feet long, it seemed, a monster. We all thought it must be a record, at least for the Roaring Fork, but all he said was, “Yeah, it might be the biggest one I’ve ever caught in that section.”
To switch gears, allow me to say there are still some men, in this digital age, who find much joy and pleasure in reading a good book. Even reading a bad book can be better than no reading at all. Sometimes.
One of my regular companions in the mountains, usually horseback behind a bunch of dust-raising, recalcitrant cows, was a Vermont emigrant, Al Senna, who came to Colorado wanting to be a cowboy. He’d picked that cowboy idea up from some books he’d read.
He went to work for my grandfather and dad first, then for my great-uncle, Sullivan, just down the road and bounced between the two places for over 50 years. He was what you might call a dedicated employee, and hell yes, he was a cowboy, although he preferred to be called a range rider.
Every spring, the cattle pool would send Al to our mountain cow camp with a string of 13 or 14 horses – some of them manageable, others not so much. Yes, he had to be a tough cowboy to survive up there all alone. Although, the highlight of any summer for me was being allowed to spend a week at cow camp with Al, keeping the cattle on the move and packing salt around. Sometimes, my high school buddy, Max Vaughn, would spend the week there, as well.
If you think about those lonely nights at the cabin – no electricity with just a kerosene lamp for illumination – there isn’t much to do but read. And Al read a lot, even in the dimness.
On those seemingly endless rides we took, trailing a bunch of bovines here or there, he could talk about almost any subject under the sun. Thought you were pretty smart from something you’d learned in school? Mention that, trying to stump Al, and he’d go on about it, usually with more gusto and knowledge than the teacher had exhibited. The guy was a marvel.
Both those old boys hung it up a long time ago, and the history of their lives may not flow freely off the tongues of modern-day inhabitants, but each left his indelible mark – not only with me, but with others who knew them. It’s all in our history.
Tony Vagneur writes here on Saturdays and welcomes your comments at ajv@sopris.net.
Tony Vagneur writes here on Saturdays and welcomes your comments at ajv@sopris.net.
