Yesterday, I parked in downtown San Angelo in the exact space I used in the 1950s to go inside to borrow money from the San Angelo National Bank. Down the street heading north were two more banks financing herders as dry and broke as I was in those days. Fifteen or so blocks away across town, a big wool house and loan company carried more ranch customers through the horrible drouth. From there the PCA., the Land Bank and jugs in the outlying areas held the line. Fit in the insurance companies and federal disaster relief, and you have the full picture.

Yesterday, it wasn't possible to renew chattels inside. Insurance brokers occupy the main floor. Little goes on in the upper stories. There is a San Angelo National Bank in town, but not the old one that sold twice and eventually became a Chase holding bank.

I lowered the windows on the pickup. The sidewalks were empty except for a skateboarding kids or two. Across the street, the old jewelry store window flashed a huge yellow liquidation sign. Warehouse doors blocked the wall of a long-ago bootmaker's shop, later a loading dock for a busy variety store, McClellan's.

On past the warehouse doors, now out of date renewal by the telephone company property erased every trace of the once boisterous bar, "The We Know How Cafe" — a very popular watering spot for dime a glass beer and nickel apiece boiled egg patrons of the mid-century. On the 180-day cycle of financial life, "The We Know How" reduced the trauma of heading back to the ranch before lunch. Toward the end of the Big Drouth, ranchers and jugkeepers alike sought solace in the malt-soaked aura of scratched captain's chairs and beat up oak tables. Fifty cents went a long ways in "The We Know How." I never knew the origin of the name.

All I lacked to finish my town errands was a battery for my travel watch from the jewelry store before the big bank closed around the corner. The big bank concerned money controlled in a trust and the battery concerned catching airplanes on time.

Startled from the reverie of the past, I rushed across the street and forked over five dollars for the battery and tore back to the pickup like I really meant to attend to banking at hand. Instead of backing out, I remained in the cool shade of the old building.

Then the truth hit: "I don't know how to deal with those people. Trust or no trust instrument, I am going close those accounts. And to speed the process, I am going to the southside branch on the way home."

I plopped in the empty chair at the first manned desk and stated my intention to close the accounts by passing over the file containing the trust history and deposit slips. The lady responded by ignoring the file and asking for my social security number to open her computer. Next contact in this chill of a depot agent's air, she wanted to see my driver's license. I handed the license over. She faced the monitor screen; I faced the near-empty lobby.

Her computer went down at mid-point. I was requested to sign a affidavit of receipt of funds on a piece of lined notebook paper. After that, she arose to have the cashier checks signed by a vice president. I squirmed a bit as I had sat longer without removing my hat or exchanging a pleasantry at a lady's desk than I had in my entire life. I expected any moment for my late mother to storm up from behind and cut off the crown of my straw hat in the slash of a butcher knife.

In a short time she returned, followed by a bank officer who knew how to shake hands and identify himself by name. He opened by asking, "Are you moving this money, Mr. Noelke, because of rates?"

Pause for a bit of sidelight, please: Etymologists prove under high powered magnification that spiders do actually give a big smile upon catching a fat fly in their web. Psychologists know a lifetime of subservience holds back the same smile in reserve in humans.

Looking Mr. So and So full face, I replied, "No, it is not the rates, it is the service. I shouldn't have ever walked inside this huge bank in the first place. I don't like tellers who never say good morning. I don't like doing business in an atmosphere as cold as Wal-Mart or K-Mart. And I don't like a giant moving into town and going counter to every facet of what the culture of the Southwest means to me."

I strode out the door exhilarated to be free. Good judgment says for a herder to never burn a bridge leading to a source of credit, but sometimes judgment has to be pushed aside to allow for a passion of the past to rule your being.

July 8, 1999