Ours is a town with streets named for tobacco farmers and presidents but the past pokes through like naked bones. The mystery of 1950-something sawed-off shotguns and moonshine hangs in the air in every honky tonk where heat lightening flashes now and then. You just had to be here in the 50's.
The Florida Panhandle was blistered and peeling and the temperature stuck in the throat at 100 when I first met him. I was 20 years old, fresh out of college and a newlywed. He was said to be a wild one; the spitting image of Rowdy Yates ("Rawhide") and he always tried to get along with everyone. He came through one of the two backdoors to the main office carefully stomping wet, grey clay from his boots on a ragged mat. Tracks of dust lined his face squint lines; calcined clay emissions clung to curly dark hair peeking from under his white hard hat. His jeans were banged-up and worn and his mud-caked cowboy boots looked mean. An open pack of Camel cigarettes strained the pocket of his cowboy shirt and a yellow pencil rested back of his right ear. I remember what he was wearing very well because he wore only a slight variation every day.
"Come on over here, friend and meet Queen", the aging Shipping Clerk, Carl hollered. Acknowleging the introduction with "hey" and a friendly smile he lapsed into silence as he pencilled railcar numbers on the Daily Schedule and two finger-typed SAL's Switch List. Satisfied with final squiggles on the charts he walked past our crowded metal desks and opened the back door to sunlight falling on the sidewalk. Rumbling mills and heat clashed with our humid indoor air as he slammed the door behind him.
And he was gone. Gone back to his dark, dusty little office deep in the heart of the Plant. Back to his radio tuned to a country station and Connie Smith. Back to his ringing telephone and black coffee. Back to a nagging management group and sour workforce.
If I had been smarter or more attentive I'd have recognized he alone had the formula for a profitable processing and mining operation.
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