First-Hand, one way or Another

As I attempt to develop believable fictional characters with whom I have nothing in common, I’m reminded of how important first-hand experiences are to a writer. For example, how do I create a believable character who endured crossing the Rockies and the threat of scalping?

The closest I’ve come first-hand to scalping was when as a girl my mother used a comb to detangle my fine, rat’s-nest hair the morning after I’d fallen asleep with gum in my mouth. Or just after a home perm. Ouch.

The roughest travel I’ve experienced first-hand was a vacation from the Rio Grande Valley of Texas through the western U.S. as a child of the 1950s. Our Chevy had no air conditioning, so around the Panhandle of Texas, we had to roll down the windows. Sweat had pasted our shirts and shorts to the vinyl seats, and gale-force winds whipped through the open windows. My two brothers weren’t bothered in the least. I, on the other hand, endured the horror with clenched teeth. My neatly brushed and pony-tailed hair-do (I was OCD-ish about my hair, actually) swept into my eyes and around my head, stinging my face like a wild Texas sand storm. 

I don’t know what winning the West by foot, on horseback, or in wagons did to bodies, young or old. Covered wagons weren’t known for their comfy spring systems or plush upholstered seats. But something tells me I wouldn’t have made a hearty Westward Ho traveler.

Another flood twelve years after “the flood” of ’55

The closest I’ve come was an event we locals called “the flood” of 1955. Raymondville, Texas had had a lot of rain, to be sure. But the reason our town flooded had more to do with the railroad tracks built down the center of town without proper drainage than what the rain gauge read. The results were the same, either way. From the railroad tracks all the way past our farm four miles outside the city limits, everything was flooded.

We lived on a dirt, unpaved road, so when it rained, we groaned. We knew what getting into town and back home would mean. Our car slipped and slid (sometimes into the ditch) when the road was muddy. (Daddy was called out of a deep sleep more times than once by an embarrassed teenaged boy who had “gotten lost” out in the country with his date beside him. Funny how it always seemed to happen on Saturday nights.)

Compared to our tractor and trailer of the ’50s, this get-up is fancy.

Needless to say, the road was a tad muddier than usual during the flood of ’55. We couldn’t see the road. So Daddy hooked up a cotton trailer to a tractor and we piled inside. It would have been a bit of an adventure, had we not had the unpleasant experience of typhoid shots administered in the high school auditorium, leaving our arms red, swollen, and h-u-r-t-i-n-g. The ride into town for school or church was ex-cru-ci-at-ing! (Yep, we donned go-to-meetin’ clothes every time the doors opened–rain or pain or nay.) Mother and I held onto our arms and bawled both ways.

I don’t know what the 1800s settlers experienced sleeping outside under the stars after grueling 16+-hour days on foot or in wagons without benefit of springs. The closest I’ve come is my grandmother’s screened porch without benefit of air conditioning or fans–in as hot and humid a climate as exists on planet Earth–the Rio Grande Valley. I have no experience with critters crawling over me as I sleep, curling up with me, or taking my life. For that I must rely on the fear-inducing Valley mosquito and the giant, flying roaches. But then I can pull out my Off and be done with ’em. 

The closest my life experiences take me to cooking meals over an open fire and consuming them under the blazing sun is sitting on a blanket for a picnic set on a sandy slope. Or a backyard barbecue using plastic utensils that we threw away. 

All of which is to say “Thank the good Lord for the Internet.” There’s the Online Handbook of Texas and the Oklahoma Historical Society and university archives and historical newspapers and a slew of other resources at my fingertips. I reckon He figured I’d be challenged enough as a virtual traveler without setting me down in the Rockies in the 1800s.

So there you have it. First-hand, one way or another.

 Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands … Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years.

Deuteronomy 8:2,4

The post First-Hand, one way or Another appeared first on Linda Brooks Davis.