More Connections

Victor 'Cuba' Hernandez

I first met Victor Hernandez on December 26, 2011. I was driving north on US 285 toward the Colorado border. I turned east onto the Taos Plateau toward a cleft between two rocky hills. A figure came walking toward me. He greeted me in Spanish, his only language it turns out. I responded in kind, and we shook hands.

Victor told me he fled Cuba in 1965 and had been herding sheep for Alfonzo Abeyta since 1975. He said he had commandeered a boat with a big pistola after escaping prison. He and his compañeros fled to Florida where they picked oranges. Then three of them got jobs tending sheep in the San Luis Valley of Colorado. He told me was born in Santa Clara just outside Havana though the map shows Santa Clara in the center of Cuba nearly 300 miles east of Havana.

I asked Victor how many sheep he was herding on that December day. He told me, “600.” Later I learned that it was 375 and that Victor couldn’t read, write or count. Moreover, he didn’t let facts get in the way of a good story.

As I spoke with Victor the skittish sheep spread out up the cerro, chomping on sage and eating snow to quench their thirst. First I photographed Victor on the flats near his metal campo or then walked up to the herd on the hill. When I walked back down to Victor’s campo a pick-up truck arrived with firewood and stores for the week. A stocky gentleman in his seventies named Alfonzo Abeyta asked, “What are you doing here?” There was distrust in his eyes. I told him I had seen the sheep from the road and came to take a look, that I was a photographer from Taos and was fascinated by the scene of Victor and the sheep on the plateau and by Victor’s movie worthy backstory. Alfonzo referred to Victor as the Cubano or Cuba.

I went on to post several blog entries and two magazine articles about the Abeyta’s timeless story of family, faith and life from the land. I hoped to understand the magnetic pull of that hard life and followed Cuba and the sheep for the next six years. I wanted to understand their timeless story of family, faith and the land.  Thirteen years later I appreciate even more their unbreakable connection to Mother Earth but am no closer to understanding it.

James Iso

In August 2014 I attended the pilgrimage at the Heart Mountain Internment Camp near Cody, Wyoming. I wasn’t sure how appropriate it would be for a non-Japanese to attend an event. But the historic site’s executive director told me, ”It’s absolutely appropriate.”

And it was and much more.

The participants in the pilgrimage were as impressive a group as I’ve ever encountered. From elderly former internees to their great grandchildren, they were energetic, warm, accomplished people to a person. Somehow those qualities underscore how tragic and indefensible the imprisonment of 110,000 Japanese Americans was.

At the opening dinner I was seated with Ron Akin, the Veterans Affairs Commissioner in Wyoming along with two former internees including James Iso of Roseville, California. During the evening’s presentation I overheard Commissioner Akin tell someone at the table that Mr. Iso had served in all three wars. That would mean WWll, Korea and Viet Nam.

The next morning I met James Iso. Our conversation went something like this.

I told him, “I overheard at dinner last night that you served in World War Two, Korea and Viet Nam. Is that even possible?”

He replied, “Absolutely, not always in uniform but always in the military.” 

Mr. Iso went on to say, “We shortened the war by two years. Everybody knows about the 442^nd Regimental Combat Team but some of us served in other ways. We translated Japanese communications, broke their codes and planted misleading information. In one case our forces won a major battle when the Japanese commander acted on the false intelligence we created.”

I asked him how old he was. He answered, “I’m eighty.” I was incredulous because James Iso was not eighty years old by any subjective measure. He was bright-eyed, engaged, smart and incredibly charming. The term “role model” is bandied around indiscriminately but James Iso was one. I was in awe of the man.

 

Continuing Connections

Continuing the snapshots from my Connections article for the November-December issue of Shadow and Light are three more Cliff Notes versions of same. The original text for each is several times longer but you’ll get the drift.

The Deaf Drummer

Fifteen miles north of Williams, Arizona on Highway 62 sat a guy dozing behind his drum kit. In front of him was a sign saying Deaf Drummer on Facebook, Donations OK. I’m still leery about approaching subjects but the Donations OK sign signaled the drummer’s willingness to photographed. I folded a ten spot and put in my shirt pocket. Peggy and I approached the musician who looked up and greeted us.

I asked, “How’re you doing? Do you mind if I take your picture?” and handed him the ten. He said, “Not at all. Go for it.”

He picked up his sticks and began to play the baseline in his head, so I’d get some action. After five minutes or so we began talking about the unlikely concept of a drummer that can’t hear.

I asked, “How do you do it? Do you hear something?”

He answered “No. I’m completely deaf. I feel the vibration and the rhythm.”

“How did this all happen?” I asked.

He said that his mother was deeply religious and that they went to church every day. On one of those regular visits he saw a set of drums and began to play them.

His mother asked. “How did you learn to do that?”

He told her he didn’t know. He just could.

She replied angrily, “Don’t lie to me in the house of God.”

Peter Larlham

My first conversation with Peter Larlham at the Grand Canyon began with a shudder. In his first breath he asked my age. I said, “I’m 81.”

He told me, “That’s really old. I’m 76.” as if that were prepubescent.

Our conversation turned to aging and the malicious manifestations of that malady. Bad back. Worse balance. Shrinkage. A flabby belly and no ass. Every man of a certain age has lost muscle mass and most of it vacated his nether regions. Peter, an actor and theatre professor, quoted a line from Shakespeare in which an elderly gentleman laments that he no longer fills his “pantaloons.”

And speaking of age, during our last evening of mediocre pizza, tepid pilsner, and heady repartee he probed a second time, “Aren’t people shocked when you tell them how old you are?”

Victor "Cuba" Hernandez

I first met Victor Hernandez on December 26, 2011. I was driving north on US 285 toward the Colorado border. I turned east onto the Taos Plateau toward a cleft between two rocky hills. A figure came walking toward me. He greeted me in Spanish, his only language it turns out. I responded in rudimentary Español and we shook hands. “Me llamo Victor.” he told me. “Me llamo Esteban.” I replied.

I learned that he had fled Cuba in 1965. He told me he had commandeered a boat with a big pistola after escaping prison. He and his compañeros fled to Florida where they picked oranges. Then three of them got jobs tending sheep in the San Luis Valley of Colorado. He had been herding sheep for Alfonzo Abeyta since 1975 though the year is in doubt. He told me he was from Santa Clara, Cuba just outside Havana. However, the map shows Santa Clara in the center of Cuba nearly 300 miles east of the city.

I asked Victor how many sheep he was herding. He told me, “600.” Later I learned from Señor Abeyta that there were 375 borregos and that Victor nicknamed Cuba couldn’t read, write or count. Moreover, the facts didn’t get in the way of a good story.

Connections

Connections is the November-December article in Shadow and Light Magazine.  It’s about encounters that occur quite by chance with strangers who tell me the arc of their lives or the most important events in them. Here I offer snippets that are part of longer stories. These highlights offer a glimpse of what I heard, felt and remember. All three approached me and my welcoming countenance. Each was a gift.

Rudy Mauldin

When I told Rudy Mauldin that I live in Taos, he said, “It’s a neat town.”

I replied that, “It certainly is but there’s a palpable separation of the cultures and simmering resentment beneath the surface.”

 “Tell me about it. I went to high school in Pojoaque and got my ass kicked more times than I can remember. It was so bad I was hospitalized with ulcers.” 

Ken Tingsley

I was photographing the Rio Hondo when Ken Tingsley yelled, “Take my picture. I’m getting married today.

I was taken startled but intrigued so I said, “Sure.”

I took a handful of photographs at the overlook and we walked back to Tingsley’s Trailer. He stepped into the trailer, poured himself two inches of whiskey and pointed at a makeshift altar. “See that photograph? That’s my late son. I’m wearing his tee shirt right now.”

Cristiana

I sensed someone behind me as I photographed the alley behind Main Street in Santa Paula, California.

I turned around and a woman asked, “Mind if I photograph the artist at work?”

I told her to “ Go for it.  I’m Steve.”

She responded, “I’m Cristiana."

I told her, “I love connecting with a stranger like we’re doing right now.”

She responded, “That happens when you feel safe with a person. Like I feel with you.”

Each of these meetings was the subject of a blog post which was more fulsome than these snapshots.

Each connection was life affirming and joyous. They filled my chest and pointed me down the highway of discovery. Meeting Rudy Mauldin propelled me south on US 285 toward Marfa, Texas, elated and excited about my newest friend.

I have thirty such experiences that may grow till they fill an album of portraits and stories about strangers who became a friends on my long highway of life.

The creative life and other fables

San Antonio Chapel #1

I’ve been giving a lot of thought to creativity and the Creative Life. I'm contemplating my own, that of my wife and people whose very existence is creativity. It permeates those lives completely. At least two couples are creative in the art they produce and the way they live. Their lives are imbued with creativity in all things: the way they set a table, pour wine, bake fresh bread, and make their home and land oases of earthly pleasures.

San Antonio Chapel #2

I’m seeing this through the prism of couplehood, of course.

Yet, I wonder if my life is truly creative even if I do produce something artful most days. Am I driven to do creative things because my soul requires it, or do I post a blog weekly and write a magazine article bimonthly because it’s an obligation and there’s a deadline? I fear that I know the answer and it gives me pause. The fact that I’ve photographed with artistic intent exactly once since I returned from the California Coast may offer a clue. That's more than a month. The proceeds of that meager effort live herein. 

San Antonio Chapel # 4

This is the San Antonio Chapel in Angel Fire, New Mexico. The picture book house of worship resides in a lush valley at 8,500 feet five miles east of the ski resort which might as well be Texas.