Halfway Or Bust

There's a big pow-wow comin' up in Wallowa, Oregon next weekend. It's a Nez Perce get together called Tamkaliks. I'm hoping to find some contemporary Native artwork, a rarity in these parts.

In the meantime I thought I'd visit Halfway, a little town I bucked hay in in my late teens. I took the scenic route, an undesignated road (hwy 39?) that leaves highway 350 about 7 miles East of Joseph.

You just never know who you're going to meet.

Unsure of which road I wanted, I pulled off onto one that looked likely and flagged down an oncoming truck. The man who leaned out wanted to know why I was going to Halfway. I explained about my youthful employment history. He said he was 40 years old in those days and now 83. He asked my age. He then went on to say he'd just come from a day of ranch work. He added that he'd rolled an ATV a few weeks ago and fractured 4 ribs. I asked what he attributed his stamina to. He said, "I'm afraid to quit." He then said to follow him as he was going to the road to Halfway.

A few miles down he pulled over and signaled me to pull in next to him. We got out and commenced. He'd been a designer of the first jetliner, the Boeing 707. He'd also hand-made parts for the next version, the Boeing 737. He said he'd grown tired of city life and moved out here some years back.  His daughter had gotten her Bachelors & Masters degrees in history and after several years recently gotten her Ph.D. at the age of 48. She now teaches at two Universities and at an online high school.

A deer stepped out onto the highway and that led us to the the wolf problem. They'd lost eight cows, including a bull, to the wolves this year. I asked how the wolf issue got going and he said it was the bureaucrats back east.

We were about to part ways when he asked if I played baseball. I mentioned my head-on collision when each of us yelled "Mine!!" but neither stopped. He then said he had alot of things in his truck and reaching in, pulled out an old catchers mitt. "My Dad bought this in 1923," he said. I admired it and told about my first-baseman's mitt.

He said he'd shown it to a friend the other day and the fellow accused him of having stolen his. It turned out the man's grandfather had given him an identical mitt and he thought this fellow had somehow gotten a hold of it. As seems normal in this part of the world, misunderstandings and disputes are quickly cleared up without the gunplay that so often accompanies similar incidents in New Mexico.

About Halfway: There was a bookstore, a drugstore and a gift shop or two. At some point the town had been "discovered" and was populated by a plethora, similar to Portal, AZ, with retired Ph.Ds. An interesting place...if you know someone.