Roots Run Deep

To a seven year old kid, it was something that made an impression that has escaped the fading effects that the years of time usually bring. I can still see it in my mind. It was something this young fertile mind spent considerable time and thought contemplating. It was long and yellow, it was the only one he had, it looked to me like a single kernel of field corn that somehow survived the shelling, when the ear was sent thru the sheller.

The absence of any other teeth caused my curious mind to wonder how this yellow old monolith, emerging from a puckered mouth surrounded by a few scraggly, yellowed with tobacco stain gray whiskers, had managed to survive.

At the time, I wasn't sure of his national decent, but thought he was Mexican because of his limited English. He would occasionally help on my grandfathers ranch. My grandfather (Gramp) would get him to fix fence or if a new fence needed to be built it was usually Juan that was hired to build it.

Juan lived in an old adobe shack in a run down portion of the town that was first settled in the 1880s. This shack was on Water Street close to the river in St.Johns. This was the oldest part of town and many of the adobe houses were melting back into the red earth from which they had been formed.

Juan always smelled strongly of a variety of smells, tobacco was the strongest to my young tender nostrils. Body order mixed right in there for first place in the most overpowering smell. Wood smoke, garlic, onion, and as I learned later, cheap wine rounded off the odors that emitted from Juan's lone toothed mouth and body.

To a young, protected country boy, these strong odors on a cold morning, on the way to the ranch, branded into my mind a memory that has stayed with me over 50 years.

Juan was good at fence building and often filled in as a babysitter, if Gramp had his trusty, old gray horse "Roller", and needed to check the cows. Juan must have seen how these short babysitting stints scared me, because he did things that in these later years I realize were just a silly old man having a little fun with this white, pale, scared little Mormito gringo kid. He would give me a crazy stare, or holler something in Spanish, or make funny twisted faces. I'm sure it was the most entertainment he had seen since the last payday, when he got Rosie drunk on cheap wine and they showed everybody how to dance the real Mexican two-step.

In the retrospect that comes with age and experience, I realize the noble qualities of my grandfather, Byron Heap. He knew Juan's faults, he smelled the same smells I did, and contrary to many in the world then and today, he looked past these unpleasantries, and recognized Juan's strengths.

Gramp had grown up a poor farm boy and always had a soft spot for those less fortunate than himself. He had quit school at 14 and gone to work. This was common when you were part of a large family. When you were old enough to work, you paid your own way and usually helped mom and dad if you had a good job.

All of my life I have had people tell me how they loved working for Gramps, their comments are usually along the same theme, "He treated me good, he fed me good, and he always paid me well...". This is a lesson to all of us, our kind, unselfish deeds to those less fortunate live on long after we have passed on. Unfortunately the reverse of this is also true, if we take advantage of others, they and everyone else in a small community, will remember well after we are dead and gone, how we mistreated people.

I have on more than one occasion heard people ask old Juan why he didn't get the sole yellow tooth pulled. His answer was always the same, "Too tight, it's too tight", this meaning the roots were too deep.

My ancestors roots run deep, my roots run deep, my posterity's roots run deep.
These strong roots that we sink into our family's and our community's, will live as will the memories we all leave. These memories will either bless our name in the eyes of our family, and community, or they may stir up thoughts of our faults, if we have treated others poorly.

When the forces of the world attempt to rip us away from the strong anchor of our integrity and the principles that make up our very soul, may we be like Old Juan's tooth, steadfast and stubborn in resisting the pliers of the Adversary.

The ole Tracker still Cut-N-Wind