November 20, 2003

On the last morning of the September trip on the Sea Bird, the ship docked in Seattle. Cabins had to be vacated by 8 a.m., all our gear removed to rest on the sidewalk above the dock 30 minutes later. Goodbyes were hurried, as shipboard friendships have short shore lives.

Walking down the gangplank for the last time, the urge hits to look back up on the deck to your cabin door, closed and locked to become a memory instead of your floating residence. In minutes, young stewards bearing a tray of disinfectants swipe away your fingerprints and spray away your image from the mirrors. Shake your dreams from the pillows. Dump the check lists for the final packing; toss the shopping bags in the big black plastic bin without appreciating treasures once in those white and green sacks. And return the space to an impersonal piece of rent property.

Our hotel was 10 blocks from the harbor. Might be four floors in the small hotel. The clerks and bell men are trained to be polite and give full service. The restaurant and the bar are lined with books from the floor to the ceilings. The only door guests open is the room or bathroom door. Receptionists take pride in remembering guests' names.

Big test came when my granddaughter drove from school down the coast to visit us. She roared into the hotel's garage, took a ticket, and instructed the attendant to charge one night's parking to her grandfather. On the way to dinner, a starter out front asked her if her grandfather had a name. After giving my room number, she said, "His real name is Granddad."

Parking granddaughters was just one of the services. Every evening in the lobby on the coffee tables, the hotel stacked blank postcards and water colors for guests to draw or color and mail home. Took more than one allotment to cover my postcard business. I post two or three dozen cards a month. I wasn't able to illustrate my cards, but I was able to fill in the front side, spreading the word of seeing killer whales so big the calves weighed half a ton at weaning.

One morning, the book next to my side of the breakfast table was titled The Last Days of Buffalo Hunting. Couldn't have been a more timely topic as I had just written about telling the people on the ship I was a buffalo hunter. Per chance, the book opened to a chapter on a buffalo hunter in Oklahoma winning the state of Texas in a poker game. Seemed a Tennessee farmer named Hiram Johnson, turned buffalo hunter, fell in with a poker table full of sharpies and lost all his dough from selling hides.

After the game, one of the sharks said, "Mr. Johnson, I feel bad about you losing all your money. Got more land than I need, so I am going to write you a deed to the whole state of Texas."

After regaining his stake and growing tired of hunting, Mr. Johnson decided to visit his lands in Texas. Traveled across the state visiting his tenants without disclosing they were beholden to him for using the land. Would play with the kids and brag on the women's cooking. (I have to make up a little of this story. The book didn't say he played with the kids or bragged on the women's cooking, but didn't say he didn't, either.) Died and was buried in an unmarked grave in San Angelo, Texas, in 1891. (According to a friend in San Angelo, identification on many of the graves was lost when the cemetery was moved to its present location.)

I was ashamed to steal the book with my friend sitting across the table. Also, she had had a full course of buffalo hunting before leaving the ship. Part of the book, however, was appropriate to buffalo fatigue. Said a common lament of buffalo hunters exhausted by the trade was to say: "I'm going to start walking with a buffalo tail over my shoulder. First place I hit they ask 'where'd you get that rope,' I'm going to settle down."

The Big Boss gamed all his adult life. Never told a story of a man winning Texas in a poker game. Knew lots of tales about chicken fights, foot races, horse races, dice games, and big stake games that ended in matching chicken fights, foot races, horse races and dice games. Shame Mr. Johnson didn't file his deed. Part of the state is pretty good ranch country when it rains.

November 20, 2003