TheBanyanTree: An Oregon Love Story

[Mike Pingleton]

I called my mom on Mother's Day as usual, and we have our usual phone
conversation when I call her on birthdays and holidays. She does most of the
talking, and I listen. Nearing the end of our ninety minute call, she throws
me for a loop and turns me on my ear.

"I hear you were in Oregon last week?"
"Yep, Nell and I took a vacation and went to a friend's wedding."
"You know your grandfather was out there, right before he married Grandma."

As it turns out, Grandma didn't think much of Henry, or Buster as everyone
called him. Her aunt and uncle, who raised her, thought even less of him -
he was No Good. A poor boy, during the Great Depression, with little in the
way of prospects.

A pattern emerged in their courtship. Buster would ask Clara to marry him,
and she would decline. He would get mad, and leave town to look for work
elsewhere. He went to Texas, he went to Wisconsin, but each time he came
back to St. Louis, and each time he would ask Clara for her hand.

"No!", said Clara again, and so Buster signed up with the Civilian
Conservation Corps. The CCC shipped him off to Oregon, where there was
plenty of of work to do with building forest roads and bridges and so forth.
Buster worked and learned some carpentry; he also worked as a camp cook, and
his skinny frame filled out on a good diet and lots of whole milk to drink.

Eventually, he came back to St. Louis, but he didn't rush right off to pop
the question again and receive another rejection. Instead, he built Clara a
hope chest with his new carpentry skills, filled it with twenty five pounds
of dark chocolate, and had it sent to her house.

Ann came home to find her sister Clara sitting on the hope chest, crying.
She stood up and opened the chest, showing her the contents. "Now I have to
marry him!" Clara wailed.

And here I am today, telling you all a story I'd never heard, an
unexpected gift from my Mom on Mother's Day.

Mike