Serving in ordinariness is something most of us do. Often it’s a simple act, opening a door, donating a dented can of Spam to a food drive, even offering a smile and nod to a stranger. It all makes the world go ’round.
I’m haunted by a man who seemingly didn’t own a last name. Or, first. Christmas visits, Hanukkah, too. For some, December is just a cozy time off with football, twinkling lights and sugary treats. My Christmas arrives a few days late. That’s when my daughter’s home over college winter break. The day of? I’m physically alone, but spend it on the phone, long distance, with loved ones. I’m exhausted by day’s end, laughing so much. But, come December? I always think of Red.
I’ve lived in Newhall most my life, back when it was a fly speck on a map. For years, my rural little cowboy valley earned the reputation as being —ahem — “quirky.”
How. Dare. They.
Just because we’ve been home to Bigfoot sightings, UFOs, ghosts, range wars, nude women riding horses, bootlegging operations and gee-whiz phantasmagoria better suited for “Twilight Zone” reruns.
Depending with whom you’re chatting, Ronald Reagan was one of our greatest presidents. No. 40 owned a humble ranch in Santa Barbara where he’d escape the multi-tonned weights of his office to ride horses, clear brush and watch clouds pass, the sun rise and fall. For years, Red was his ranch manager, a former stuntman who eventually lived out his days in Santa Clarita. To my knowledge, he never shared his last name. I’d bet also that “Red” wasn’t on his birth certificate. He confessed he took the name because it was the color of his fading old pickup truck.
Red was a minor actor/stunt double in his youth. Scuba diver, laborer, cowboy, he had a role in the Oscar-winning 1965 film, King Rat. Red was friends with John Wayne and other stars. In 1957, he contracted lymph cancer. A lung was removed. Life? After that, it went downhill.
Red was tough as hardtack. He managed Reagan’s Santa Barbara ranch. As his body began deteriorating, he held on, doing manual labor, then smaller and smaller chores for the future president of the United States. To the chagrin of the Reagans, then, later, several Newhall charities, Red adamantly refused sanctuary or handouts. At first, he ended up renting a dilapidated trailer next to the fire station on Railroad, his only income an unstretchable disability check. Soon, Red couldn’t even afford the trailer and listed his address as, “the front seat of my truck.”
Illiterate, at 59, Red took evening classes at the local Golden Oak Adult School. There, on death’s door, he learned to read and write.
Sometimes, Life has a way of opening the closet door on you and a few dozen tons of bowling balls come avalanching off the top shelf. He found a coyote pup and raised it as his only companion. A pet coyote. Can you imagine? Downright mythic. Red confessed, that wild dog dying on him was the hardest thing he ever experienced.
He said once, “Humans start wars. All animals want is your love and affection.” Red was just 60 at the time. Time is erosionary and he confessed to feeling 109. Like most of us, Red was hard on himself. In a long-ago interview with The Mighty Signal, he confessed that his story was “… running away.”
I beg to disagree. Not hardly. Not even close.
Do you know how that man spent his holidays, from Thanksgiving to New Year’s?
A run-down Pecos Bill, Red would climb into his beat-up old pickup with his coyote he named “Puppy.” Those last few years, he made the drive sans coyote. While we sat around Thanksgiving tables with family and loved ones, Red drove canyon backroads from here to Palmdale with a 10-gallon can of gasoline in the bed, looking for broken-down motorists. He spent Christmases and New Years driving to Frazier Park and even Bakersfield, sometimes in the snow, looking for stranded travelers. He had a lunch pail filled with non-gourmet, minimalist sandwiches to share, an extra thermos of hot coffee and milk for any kids. He shared a few small candies, given to him by locals, with those less fortunate.
Some say there are no such things as angels. But, in living proof — here was Red. And, let’s never forget — here are we, able to do the same.
Here’s the damn thing.
In his last years, Red could hardly feed himself.
Families slept. Above, in the cold sky, Santa made his rounds. A never-made-it actor patrolled the dark roads, searching for stranded souls, sometimes hitchhikers, those in need of help on Christmas Day. Red collected blankets from local charities, which he used to wrap a lost and shivering soul. Sometimes, he’d drive them where they needed to go. If they were somehow poorer than he, Red gave them money. Sometimes? That was the last buck or palmful of change he had to his name.
One of the laments of local priests, pastors or those with kind hearts was that except for a small tab a church kept for him at a local café, Red never accepted help or charity. Well. The stinker would, but he’d end up giving the food and clothing to others.
One day, and I’ve found no official record of when, Red went on to a place without pain, where breathing wasn’t so labored. There was no organ music, no flowers, no street named after him, no long line of mourners or heartfelt eulogies. I’m confident that, with a grin, running start and open arms, the Mystic welcomed him.
Interesting, isn’t it, how lives cross? There was Ronald Reagan, famous forever, who lit the nation’s Christmas tree. There was a man named Red, who wandered lonely roads with a mangy coyote, giving blankets and gas to lost souls.
My prayer? It’s this: If even a little, may I be of service. May I be given the miracle to serve in ordinariness.
John Boston is a local writer. His website is johnlovesamerica.com.
