Truman Horton

 

 

Truman Horton

1922 - 2014

My friend Truman Horton liked poems.

 

            "A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute Saloon,
            The kid that handles the music box was hitting a jag-time tune . . . ."

            "When out of the night, which was fifty below, and into the din and the                                       glare,
            There stumbled a miner fresh from the creeks, dog-dirty and loaded for                                               bear."*

Or,

            "There are strange things done 'neath the midnight sun
            By the men who moil for gold.
            The arctic trails have their secret tales
            That would make your blood run cold."**

            I had occasion to re-read these great Robert Service works while preparing for Truman's funeral.  They've stuck in my mind off and on ever since the time I listened to him recite them - the time he asked me to tickle the ivories in the background while he read. 

            "Jag-time"?  Do people "moil" for gold?

 
Indeed they do.  For most of his ninety-one trips around the sun, Truman loved poems -- and reading and good writing -- because he loved words.

            Truman would say, "So and so's as happy as a sand boy."
            Me, after hearing this many times:  "Ok, Tru, so what's a sand boy?"
            Truman, thoughtfully:  "Don't really know.  Somebody that's happy."

I looked it up this week: It means exactly that, and it's been around since the eighteenth century!  Once, he bought me the collected works of Walt Whitman.

            The other day we were talking about dogs.

            Truman:  "We had a dog growing up.  His name was Slick."
             Me: "Slick?"
             Tru: "Yeah. We got him from Slick Willis."
             Me: "Wait a minute.  You named the dog after the guy you got him from?
             Tru: "Yep."

You can't make up dialogue like that! 

            We'd arrive at his and Mary's house and find him up in the woods above the creek weed-whacking and cutting brush.  Later, he'd put the usable branches against a big granite rock black with soot, split some logs, and start a fire where we'd roast hot dogs and make s'mores -- the smoke disappearing up into the trees. 

            Maybe he never outgrew the teenaged boy who hopped freight cars going west during the Depression, slept in hobo camps, and scrounged a piece of fresh pie when he could.  This was before he got himself educated and eventually retired after an engineering career on the Pacific Coast. 

            Truman wanted to build a boat, so he did.  From scratch.  He wanted to sail it to Hawaii,  so he and Mary did.  Twice.  They built their own house.  For twenty-five years he was the go-to guy at his church every time something went "clunk," from the belfry to the basement.  He wrote his memoir.  He was married to the wonderful Mary. 

            I loved him.  Lots of folks did.  Sail on, Truman Horton!  If God wants to hear a good story, Truman's his guy.

* The Shooting of Dan McGrew

** The Cremation of Sam McGee