They Came to Move a Mountain

Of all my aunts and uncles my Aunt Dorothy is the relative that I am least familiar with. To some extent Aunt Dorothy reminds me of your own mom, Ka’mya. Once they both graduated from our local high schools they left “the home place” for bigger towns affording more excitement for themselves…

I hold memories of Aunt Dorothy when she used to work at Safeway as a cashier. I of course remember the Christmas we spent with her and Uncle Ed before his untimely death. I recall when I was older traveling to Prineville to visit and meet her new husband Russ. I wish I could have lived closer to him because Russ was a talented carpenter. He had built them a beautiful log home over in eastern Oregon. I think I could have learned many things from Russ, like I did while working with my Uncle Jack from time to time. The single story that I remember most about my Aunt Dorothy began a short time after Uncle Ed passed away…

…Uncle Ed and Aunt Dorothy had just built a huge home in the lush rural community of Ruch, just outside the old historic gold mining town of Jacksonville. The rain had been falling for many days when the small terminal building Uncle Ed and his fellow phone company workers were working in was swept down the mountainside by a huge mudslide. As a small child I never have forgotten the dark rainy night my brothers and I were bundled up in blankets and put in the back seat of the old Willies Jeep. As we neared the location of the accident I can still see the amber flashing lights on what seemed like hundreds of lowboys parked along the freeway edge carrying every kind of earth moving equipment imaginable. After hearing of the mudslide, loggers responded spontaneously with their heavy equipment from far and near, from all across Oregon.

The woodsmen’s plan was quite simple. They were going to move the mountain that fell on their friends and hopefully find them cocooned but still alive in the building that was crushed deep in the mud. It was soon determined to be too dangerous even for these mountain men and all their equipment to start digging for their hunting buddies because the mountain was still slowly moving. Not wanting any more deaths that evening the heavy equipment was left on the running lowboys as the warm air swirled around the bright flashing lights guarding the semis. All the phone company men working there that winter afternoon were killed in the disaster.

Soon afterwards Aunt Dorothy invited me to come help her finish the landscaping project around her new home in Ruch, during my Spring Break from school. The landscaping had not been completed before the tragedy had struck. I felt a bit uncomfortable going to her new home. I did not know what I could say or do to help during her time of sadness but I decided that I would go help at least move that mountain of bark she had delivered. When I first saw the enormous amount of bark mulch I needed to move I flashed back to some of that heavy equipment I saw wanting to desperately go to work a few months ago, but with only a shovel, wheel barrow and rake I began. When I was with Aunt Dorothy that week I felt like I was almost famous. She drove a brand new Cadillac and we ate dinner out at some place new every night. Never before in my life had I been treated to such overwhelming luxury. To top it off, at the end of the week, after I finished moving the bark mulch mountain, she awarded me with $500 for my efforts. Back then $500 was like a million dollars to me. I could have worked for one of my old lady friends pulling weeds in their gardens and never made $500 in a summer. Aunt Dorothy made it possible for me to buy a new ten speed bike so I could ride to Effie Smith’s more easily.