Saturday October 9, 2004 Discharging The Final Duty

Saturday October 9, 2004 Discharging The Final Duty

The sojourn from El Paso, Texas to Syracuse, New York had been made; the second to last duty my father owed to Mr. Charles Upton had been dispatched, though not in the manner Mr. Upton had specified: to be buried in the Upton family plot. In some ways the ending was appropriate for the circumstances of Mr. Upton’s life. He had left Watertown with his mother 50 years before, left behind the Family plot and all the things that tied him to the town and its surroundings. Upon her death 40 of so years ago, his mother had returned to take her place in the family plot. Mr. Upton, however, had chosen to remain in El Paso where he had set down roots and established a life for himself, at the foot of the Franklin Mountains, in a desert land that clings to and is nourished by the Rio Grande River.

No two places could be so completely different: Watertown with its clearly defined four seasons, a lush green land in Spring and Summer; a snow encased land in Winter and a land of natural, changing colors in the Autumn. El Paso with its beautiful desert, insufficient rainfall to support even a small fraction of its million-plus population, its dust storms, and extreme dry heat. It was the latter where Charles Upton chose to live out his life, but it was the former where he chose to be buried. After 50 years, people get to thinking maybe you’re not coming back. But Charles Upton did come back for one very important reason, his plot was paid for and he would be buried with his family. A Robert Frost poem says it best about homecomings: when you’re family, they have to let you in. I have to say, though, my dad and mom had been more family to him than anyone else on earth.

The return trip from New York on Amtrak 48 The Lakeshore Limited was eventful. There was a long delay between Syracuse and Chicago with the train stoped for a couple of hours and everyone on board watching workers scurrying along either side of the train. The train had struck a pedestrian and the delay was to determine how he had come to be on the tracks at the time Amtrak 48 came charging down the tracks. The daylong layover in Chicago was shortened considerably by the delay en route and my dad and mom made their connection and were bound from Chicago through Dallas and onto El Paso.

When my dad and mom returned home, they found something had changed and they realized it was they who were different. They had left the safe confines of their home, journeyed to a place half-way cross the country, paid a debt and returned. Along the way, they had had an adventure. I could hear the change in my father’s voice. For once in some time he had something to tell me about what he and my mother had done that had made them happy. Now, there was the matter of Mr. Upton’s house and belongings and this was a problem 10 times greater than fixing a cemetery mix up.

Mr. Upton was a pack rat who horded nearly everything he ever possessed. He had a 30-year collection of newspapers and magazines that the city inspector had told my father he had to get out of his home because it was a fire hazard. Within the house nearly every inch of open space was cluttered with “things”. And to accommodate the overflow, Mr. Upton had filled the garage in the back of the house to the ceiling with stuff: the things you would find at any weekend garage sale books on every topic imaginable stored in boxes and paper bags; musical instruments, accordions, guitars, keyboards, etc. and more than one of each. To go through the clutter in this collection is to understand the mind of Charles Upton. And there were pictures, prints of great masters, dime store decorative wall hangings, paint-by-number pictures, and some original work by unknown artist who had put their heart into creating the image now stored among Charles Upton’s possessions. These are the physical represents of thoughts, ideas, ambitions that lived within his brain.

Friends and acquaintances of my dad knew that the Upton house was available and one had made an offer to buy the place—my father and mother were the heirs to Mr. Upton estate, consisting of the house and all its belongings. Now, my father had a real problem. Keeping the house, which was free and clear and only required yearly property tax payments to maintain would mean a permanent place to contain Mr. Upton collection—at least as long as my dad was alive. Selling the house meant unloading the collection at a garage sale, probably giving the buyer or buyers an opportunity to find and profit from that one or more valuable pieces of whatever was lost among all the stuff that held only sentimental value to an old man.

Or as my father had gleefully explained to me one day over the phone, he could build a huge storage shed on a piece of property my dad had purchased from Mr. Upton years ago. The property, when it was purchased was on a piece of unincorporated land northeast of the city of El Paso. However, as the city limits had expanded the property was brought within the limits. The land was behind a commercial strip mall on the edge of a residential area. It holds a 1951 Oldsmobile—it had carried my family easily a 100,000 miles, two 1955 Buick, one 1960s Ford Mustang, one 1957 Cadillac, and one 1970s Lincoln Continental. They were all parked in a 2 by 3 array at the back of the property nearest the strip mall. Viewing a picture of the collection, I was reminded of a ghost freeway with two lanes of cars stuck permanently in gridlock traffic. In the middle of the lot was a 9 by 12 cinderblock building with no windows and a single door—it held my dad’s and my half-brother’s stuff.

The lot still had plenty of room and my dad explained he had come across a metal building that would sell for $9,000 for the discounted price of $2,500 plus shipping to El Paso. It was 20 by 30 feet so plenty of room to store all of Mr. Upton’s stuff with room to spare. He had ordered the building and it was on its way to arrive within a week. Everyone close to my dad had lobbied for the garage sale and a proper burial of Mr. Upton and his legacy on earth. His collection would go on absorbed by others with the same acquisitive inclination they shared with him.

As you might have guessed by the car collection on the lot to house the shed, my father is afflicted with the same acquisitive inclination as Mr. Upton. And in his heart, the possessions—all of them—are the only tangible proof—at least to my dad—that Charles Upton walked the earth and shared his life with my dad and mom. My father counted Charles Upton as the older brother he never had. By God, he was going to hold onto what he had left of him. The project, not yet complete, will involve a cement foundation of the dimensions of the metal building, with anchoring hardware precisely set into the cement. Once dry, the building’s walls and floor will be bolted onto the concrete foundation. And all the worldly possession of Charles Upton will be stored for at least the foreseeable future.

Once the building is complete and filled, my father’s last duty to Charles Upton will be discharged and my father will be free to live his life without concerning himself about the welfare of his departed friend.