Excerpt from the manuscript REDROAD

 Excerpt from the manuscript REDROAD

Chapter 9

By Michael Mick Webster

Cover Design: WHITE BUFFALO AND PEACE PIPE: Original Painting by Michael J. Lavery. Original Peace Pipe by Akkeeia.

Interior Designer: Author Michael Mick Webster

“I was born upon the prairie, where the wind blew free, and there was nothing to break the light of the sun. I was born where there were no enclosures, and where everything drew a free breath.... I know every steam and every wood between the Rio Grande and the Arkansas. I have hunted and lived over that country. I lived like my father before me, and like them, I lived happily”.

Ten Bears [Parra-wa-samem] (late 19th century)

Yamparethka Comanche Chief

My first real memory of my involvement with entrepreneurialism was at the ripe old age of Six (6) while living where we El Pasoans referred to as “Down the Valley” it was a much more rural setting then town.  My parents even though very poor and my Father’s health was often failing, they were able to buy one acre of land down the valley with good rich soil, some say the Rio Grande passed though there in prehistoric times and that was the reason. On this land was a pretty sound 3 bedroom, adobe house located at 7211 Dale Road. The house was without air-conditioning of course and just a fireplace to keep us four kids, Mom and Dad warm. That adobe house, with its thick walls was amassing and still stands today. It seemed during the winter it stayed pretty warm inside with just small fires in the fireplace and cool in the El Paso hot summers and we would sometimes help it by opening some doors and letting a breeze blow though.

 

 

 

 

The American Indian is of the soil, whether it be the region of forests, plains, pueblos, or mesas. He fits into the landscape, for the hand that fashioned the continent also fashioned the man for his surroundings. He once grew as naturally as the wild sunflowers; he belongs just as the buffalo belonged....

Luther Standing Bear (1868-1939)

Oglala Sioux Chief

 

 

The Great Spirit is in all things; he is in the air we breathe.  The Great Spirit is our Father, but the earth is our Mother.  She nourishes us; that which we put into the ground she returns to us.... Big Thunder [Bedagi] (late 19th century) Wabanaki Algonquin

 

 

 

It wasn’t very long before my Dad and I put in a garden that grew beautiful white corn, which was not only great eating raw but unbelievably good after roasting (with the ears still in there husks) covered generously with real churned butter from our own cows and freshly ground Chile powder from our garden chilies. Sweet white corn also made the best corn tortillas.  Which became a staple in our home and we used them like bread. Now that is not to say we didn’t have bread, because we did. My Mother made, from Scratch, some of the best home baked breads, muffins and biscuits you could ever hope to taste. She learned, much of that from my grandma... who was the champ. My Dad did make the best biscuits and pancakes, with home made maple syrup, the best that you could put in your mouth.

 

My Dad and I also raised sugar cane, pinto beans, butter beans, sweet onions, green onions, tomatoes, peppers, squash, potatoes, lettuces, radishes, and many other veggies.  Which all helped to sustain the family between jobs, which were scarce in those days? El Paso had always been economically distressed particularly for minorities.

 

One of the best things we did was grow “Whole Green Chiles” there is no better smell in the air then whole green chilies roasting over an open pit or BBQ of hot colds.  We raised what my Dad named “jumbo’s” they were big chilies, some a foot long! Jumbo’s were the best tasting I had ever had.

Peeled & Roasted  Chiles.

 

That is until years later my wife Peggy would roast chilies out doors when we lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico, very near the town squire, when in the fall you can smell chilies roasting all over town.

 

Peggy stuffs the chilies before roasting with goat cheese and kibasa sausage.  That is the best taste treat on the planet, and as a bonus chilies are high in vitamin C... and non-fattening (without the sausage and cheese).

 

One of the many things my Dad Lou (the neck name my Mother gave my step father) was to go frog gigging together.  His real name was Merle Vincent Lutes one of 9 children with 4 brothers and four sisters all born in Grand Junction Colorado, and at home.  It is high mesa country he would tell me. They grew up on an alfalfa and horse farm. Lou was the only father I ever knew and I am sure today I could not have loved a real Father more than my love for him. In many ways we were very different and yet in many other ways we were very much a like. He was half Early People and half German and sported a handsome dark complexion. He only stood about 5’9 and weight soaking wet never more than 145 lbs. But he was the biggest little man I have ever known. When he was well he could work circles around me, at hard labor, he was stronger then I and I was no slouch, he was the best truck driver, mechanic, carpenter, irrigator, gardener, painter, hunter, fisherman conservationist, explorer, adventurer, lover of animals (and they him), and loved the wild outdoors and of course the Colorado Rocky Mountains. He and three others rode the mountain ridges all the way to Alaska from Grand Junction on horseback. One of his favorite cow ponies broke its back when my Dad was just a boy, back when most people shoot horses when they broke a leg. Not my Dad, he built block and tackle and hoisted the pony off the ground in his barn, which kept the weight off the back so it could heal, and it did and my Dad said that horse was stronger and better than before and lived to be 18 and seemed to love every minute of it and I sure know my Dad did. His favorite singer was not John Denver although he liked him; his numero uno was Eddy Arnold.

Some of the biggest bull Frogs you can find anywhere are located down the valley in El Paso.  They can be found along the Rio Grande River, in almost any connecting irrigation or over flow ditch. They are seen in the backwashes of draining ditches, ponds or lakes and in almost any water moving or standing. But the best place of all was behind the Texaco refinery and Philips Dodge plant near the crossroads of North loop and Dale road.  There were settling ponds of warm water discharged from the processing of both plants.   No one was aloud in there of course.  But often at night we would sneak in anyway (night is the best time to go Frog gigging anyway) you only had to look out for the night watchman in his red and white ford pick-up and he rarely showed up. So that would leave the cattails and warm ponds to the Frogs and us.... We used flat bottom roe boats, flesh lights, long bamboo poles with a sharp 3 prone gigs at the tip. We had gunnysacks for our catch to be carried home, often just before daylight. Later we would get them ready for a frog leg dinner. The price was right and once you’re past the idea, frog legs taste pretty good...some say kind of like a combination of chicken and tuna. Fried in bacon grease, Texas sweet onions, corn meal, black pepper, sea salt with lots of garlic, tastes more to me, and my Dad like haven than anything else.

 

 

Children were encouraged to develop strict discipline and a high regard for sharing. When a girl picked her first berries and dug her first roots, they were given away to an elder so she would share her future success.  When a child carried water for the home, an elder would give compliments, pretending to taste meat in water carried by a boy or berries in that of a girl.  The child was encouraged not to be lazy and to grow straight like a sapling. mourning Dove [Christine Quintasket] (1888-1936) Salish

 

One early morning returning from Frog gigging with a sack full of frogs I had got at the smelter ponds behind the tall red brick smoke stack, I noticed a house set back in from the road with lights on and I could see a lady moving about looking very busy, she looked to be about 35, maybe, seemed pretty old to me at the time.  It appeared she was hard at work making what at first I thought were Do-Nuts.  The smell was wonderful and I was hungry from gigging most of the previous night. So I was drawn to the big class picture window and it wasn’t long before I was offered one to eat, as I pressed my nose against her kitchen’s warm window. She was hard at work making not Do-Nuts but what I was to find out where actually SPUD-NUTS made from potatoes and I also found out they are delicious. Well this lead to my first real entrepreneurial experience.  It accrued to me if I liked them so much probably others would too.  So I said to this SPUD-NUT lady “ I bet I could sale some of these” she said “I bet you could too”. I commence to tell her I didn’t have any money but I told her if she would trust me with a few bags of those Spud-Nuts, I’ll go sell them right now! She said without hesitation “lets do it”. She gave me 6 bags of 6 Spud-Nuts in each bag.  I promptly said thanks and told her I would be back. I took my spuds and my gunnysack with the nights haul and headed down the road home.

Tray of Spudnuts

 

Mom was already up having her morning coffee when I burst into the kitchen through the back door. Hey Mom guess what? I got a job, well not really a job, more like a small business I said.  Have you ever heard of Spud-Nuts? Yes I have she replied but I don’t think I have ever eaten any. So I opened my first bag of still warm soft spud-nuts and Mom and I pigged out. I picked up the remaining 5 bags and was off to my neighbors house and door- to -door down my street. Within 45 minutes I Had sold them all.  I run back home got in my old shoebox...got out 35 cents to pay for Mom’s and my earlier feast. Then jumped on my sister’s bike (a girls bike no less) it had a front wire basket and a finger ringer bell prefect for my needs.  So back to the spud-nut shop and I handed the spud-nut lady $2.10 in cash. She then gave me my first taste of the fruits of my efforts and my first profit of 21 cents. She then told me that was almost enough to reinvest and buy a new 6 pack of spud-nut bags. I said, what, do you mean? You save up your spud-nut profits and I’ll wholesale you 6 packs for 25 cents each and you can then sell them for 35 cents or more, hence your profit. Hey I liked that idea. Within days I was in business for myself. Talk about Micronomic’s my first transaction involved a retail sale of $2.10 a wholesale buy cost of $1.50. The difference being 60 cents, my second profit. For months after that I as an independent businessperson, was up very early in the morning before school. I would ride my sister’s bike (subsidized) up to the spud-nut shop load the wire basket and would be off down Dale road ringing the handle barbell. Ladies in varies stages of dress would meet me in the middle of the street and buy my Spud-Nuts. This sure beat my last job picking cotton at 50 cents a 100 lb. bag.  It would take me the better part of (my Saturday and Sundays off from school) a day to fill it. Can you believe that, and it was back breaking work. I now could make that much in an hour and with a whole lot less hard work in my new business selling Spud-Nuts.