The song El Paso, by Marty Robbins, came out in 1959 and it has always had special meaning for me. My dad bought our first console record player, stereo system in 1960 and a few record albums too. I remember The Soundtrack of Tales of the South Pacific, Son's of the Pioneers, and Gunfighter Ballads by Marty Robbins.
That year, 1960, Dad was working at Ford Motor Company's Stamping Plant in Chicago Heights, Illinois, about 45 miles north of our rental duplex in Bourbonnais. I was thirteen years old, my siblings eleven, nine, and five. On his days off from the Ford plant Dad would play his records in the living room and soon we all knew those songs by heart. It was a happy time for us all when the music was playing and Dad was singing along, sometimes dancing around in that self-conscious way of is. I especially loved "Tumbling Tumble Weeds".
Dad worked the 3 to 11, or afternoon shift at Ford, leaving the factory a little before midnight each night, driving south along Illinois State Highway 45 toward home. Friday nights were paydays when he liked to stop at his favorite Bar just south of Chicago Heights, a place named Purgy's. He'd cash his check and have a few drinks before coming home.
Sometimes Dad would have more than a few drinks and those were the nights I remember most (worst). They weren't often, but they were frightful. The window in the bedroom I shared with my two sisters was high off the floor and I would stand on my tip toes watching the car lights come up over the bridge on North Street, willing it to be Dad as each set of headlights appeared, knowing the sooner he got home the less drunk he would be.
Dad had a jealousy problem, and after a few too many drinks he'd accuse my mother of infidelity, of flirting with tall, dark, handsome men. Lots of yelling and ugly accusations. Sometimes shattered dishes and broken flowerpots. I use to blame alcohol but now I believe the real problem was Dad's low self esteem caused by a traumatic childhood. The alcohol was his relief valve. Dad needed mental health counseling and medication but men of his generation, tough men, Bosun's Mates in the U.S. Navy during WWII, preferred punching a guy in the nose to seeing a psychiatrist. Eventually, after twenty-three years of marriage, dad lost his wife, the love of his life, to another man. We, their four kids, watched it happen and there were no winners. Mom was not the flirt Dad accused her of being. She was a woman who had reached the end of her rope. And Dad was a good man, always a “good provider”, his generation’s measure of a husband and father.
Dad knew we all dreaded those nights. So what did he do? He changed "Rosa's" to "Purgy's" in Marty's El Paso and would sing El Paso, parts of it anyway, like this..."Out through the back door of Purgy's I ran, out where the horses were ti-i-i-ed.." . and then he'd laugh, Dad's distinctive chuckle. Oh, did he sing that over and over and laugh and enjoy it. It is forever etched in my mind, a happy memory of my dad singing and laughing at his own frailty.
This past week my cousin Patty Devine French and her husband Joe French came to visit me for the first time ever. We all told family stories which opened windows in my mind that had been shuttered for years. After their visit I was sitting in the recliner in my and Bob's bedroom and glanced up at a framed print on the wall, one that has hung there for years. Bob loves the artwork, by Stephen Morath, titled "Evening would Find Me" and then it clicked, “Evening would find me at Rosa’s Cantina, music would plan and Felina would whirl…” There it was again, Marty Robbins’ famous song, and it took me back.And the day after that, over dinner with our family, my husband asked our daughter-in-law, Alejandra, “What is your favorite Mexican food?” As she started to answer she turned to her husband, our son, and asked, “What is the name of our favorite Mexican Restaurant in Longmont?” and Patrick answered, “Rosa’s Cantina.” Ha! I had to laugh and then I heard my dad laugh in my memory. And my heart clutched and I felt the loss of my dad in my life again, thankful for all he means to me, for all our shared life together, the good, the bad, and the musical. I asked my cousin, in front of her husband, did you marry a man like your dad? And she said no, and I said, neither did I, but I know there are similarities in my dad and my husband, one of them being "never a dull moment."
Patty’s and Joe’s visit has rekindled my appreciation and love
for Illinois, for coal miners,
for Route 45, my Devine family, and for my dad, Joe Uknavage. Thank you, cousins, I needed that. See you next Spring!