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© 1993 Chris L. Hestekin
Editor's note: Chris Hestekin wrote this essay in 1993. Chris was
killed on September 25, 2003, when a boulder crashed into his vehicle
as he was leaving Georgetown on I-70. At the time he was working as an
electrical engineering consultant to the Gateway Visitor Center. At our
request, his widow, Patti, submitted this piece for publication in the
newsletter. We are honoring her wish that no wording be changed. We know
that on Halloween Chris was present in spirit "somewhere near the
ruins of some old mill or mine."
Halloween is all wrong. Well, perhaps not all wrong, but it has become
deeply flawed. I know this now; I've been doing it wrong for 40 years.
But I'm going to change. Right now. This Halloween.
I am the product of a loosely-Norwegian, entirely-Midwestern upbringing.
Under these influences, I was taught to respect my ancestors. Not to revere
them, but to respect them. Here is the difference.
Respect meant that when I did think of my ancestors, I thought of them
with respect. It was almost as though the thought of my great-great-grandfather
would ring his telephone way off where ever it was, and he would pick
it up, and he would know my thoughts. Thinking of an ancestor demanded
that the thoughts be good thoughts. And that was tiring. Too tiring to
do too often.
Reverence is more of a continual state. It is an awareness that permeates
a person's existence and reminds them that all of what they are is in
some way influenced by all that has existed before them. Reverence is
enjoying the warm clear days of fall, always aware that this is possible
because none of your direct ancestors decided against children.
Respect is to reverence what the annual birthday card is to a waning
friendship. It's a way to say I think about you. Sometimes. Lets get together.
But not too often.
Halloween had become my birthday card to the past. My way of saying that
I think of my ancestors. Sometimes.
It isn't surprising that I had gotten to be this way about my ancestors,
or about the past in general. The Midwest is not a place where the unattended
is allowed to linger for long. Old barns, once abandoned, are chewed by
the molds and insects of summer and crushed by the snows of winter. Old
fields left unplowed are soon overgrown and indistinguishable from the
surrounding woods. Relatives who had passed on were soon driven from my
mind by the crush of new faces and the demands of a world that seemed
intent on erasing all signs of yesterday, before the close of business
today.
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Chris
Hestekin and his dog, Oakley, relax in their home
near Bakerville, July, 2001. |
But living for a while in the old mining community
of Georgetown has changed my perspective. When I fill my coffee cup
in front of the kitchen window, I look out to the mountains behind the
town and see mine structures from 130 years ago. I see the homes built
by the fathers of the grandfathers of the grandfathers of today's children.
Joining these mines and homes are the roads and trails first marked
in the 1870's, still visible on the face of the slopes.
In this curious and charming little town, the knowledge of who
it was that laid the stones for the first quartz mill is valued far
more than the ability to predict the future movements of the bond market.
It may be the result of so many visual reminders of the past that a
real reverence for history and ancestry lives here. But it is certainly
the result of this reverence that life here is given an extra measure
of satisfaction and meaning.
So it was that on my first Halloween in the mountains, while looking
up at the old Colorado & Southern railroad bed, it finally started
to dawn to me. It wasn't about the fact that people had died. It was
about the fact that they had lived. And they had done all of this in
their time. These people of generations ago had done what they thought
necessary to make a living in their lifetime - and in so doing, had
shaped a part of my life. Respect for this fact was all well and good;
but only with reverence for the past, with that continual awareness
of its influence on the present which these physical reminders bring,
did I become fully aware of my place in the future. That my choices
and actions today will live on, well into the future, to influence and
shape the lives of generations to come.
This Halloween, I'll carve pumpkins and set them on the front
stoop. I'll watch the children of Georgetown make their rounds for candy
and coins. Looking at them, today, walking the same dirt roads that
were leveled through the willow brush 130 years ago, I'll give some
serious thought to their future.
If it is difficult for you to gain this perspective on Halloween
in the midst of a modern city, then come up to the old mining towns.
Join me in making a new tradition of it. I'll be sitting somewhere near
the ruins of some old mill or mine. Observing a Thanksgiving for what
has been done before, and marking the beginning of my New Year by making
my resolutions for it. To insure as well as I am able that 130 Halloweens
from now, what visible marks and lasting effects I may have left on
this place are judged favorably by your grandchildren's grandchildren.
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