https://caspercollege.cvlcollections.org/files/original/587bb2e4c3159ba9f62cface8fb186af.pdf 7447c8223b01805901d02128ace5536f PDF Text Text Pin hncamphete Enesnary Joseph Meeks It was old-man Harver who said it first. He had come to the ranch to visit my grandmother; she wasn't home, and he spied me sitting on the porch of our house and limped over. He asked if my mother was home, but I think he knew she wasn't because she always worked weekdays. Then, he asked about my dad. Was my dad home. His face was expressionless, but there was an inflection in his voice that hinted that he knew the answer to this, too. Harver wasn’t what I would call a family friend, more of a fellow farmer that occasionally borrowed equipment from our family. My grandmother had known him for decades prior to my birth, so he was simply "Old Man Harver" to me. "I heard there was some trouble last night at the bar, that your dad was involved. Saw the ambulance running hot towards Evanston with lights and sirens blaring. Someone said a man died. Did your mom talk to you about anything like that?" "No sir. Didn’t hear anything." Truthfully, my dad was rarely home in the summertime when I woke up, so not seeing him today sparked no suspicion. "Do you know who died?" "I don't know for sure, but it didn’t sound like it was your dad. In fact, that maybe your dad did something to the man. But I’ve probably said too much already. Did you see your mom last night or this morning?" "She put us to bed last night, but I was asleep when she left today." Some trouble at the bar. That explains the late-night phone call. When mom had answered the phone, her face had frozen in curiosity, her head nodding in understanding. Then she was crying softly, but still nodding her head. And then she hung up, wiped the tears away, and didn't seem sad anymore. She read her book for a while, said goodnight, and went to bed. In the moment, it wasn't out of the ordinary. My dad was known in the small town of Carter as a free-thinking man that enjoyed a good time, so long 166 Expression Magazine �/In Incomplete Memory as you didn't mockingly disagree with him. A lot of his beliefs were cringing, so it could be difficult not to. Vietnam had been kinder to him than most. He suffered no obvious physical damage and only slightly noticeable mental damage. It was the emotional effects that stood out. Anger, impatience, and sadness flowed regularly from his self and those that knew him before he volunteered claim they were new. Though he rarely obeyed the law, he had never been to jail, nor seriously injured anyone to my knowledge. But we all knew he was capable. "Okay son. I'll let you alone then. Tell your grammy I was here." I was 12 years old when this happened. Our ranch was fairly large. We had several hundred acres of farmland, a decent number of cows, and several barns and corrals. Looking back, it's easy to see that we were not a rich family, but not poor either. But, at the time, I felt rich. I felt important. And I felt that an old burned out farmer with a shitty truck and no functioning farm equipment had no place telling me what he had told me. "You want to know something that I heard?" I said before he got in his truck. "I heard that you were at the cafe the other day and exposed yourself to the waitress. Just whipped it out and stared at her, like it was a cool rock you'd found and needed to show someone. I heard it wasn’t the first time you did that, too." “That’s an inappropriate thing to say to me, Nathan." He got in his truck and drove away. They found my dad a few days later, hiding in the hills. He had dug a large trench in a valley using a shovel, off the main road a few hundred yards. The trench was just big enough for his small black Tacoma to roll into and not be seen without the right angle. He didn't resist and didn’t apologize. The story I heard was that he was in a good mood when the cops found him. He even joked about how convenient it was that he 65th Edition 167 �An Incomplete Memory drove the Tacoma to the bar and not the dually. I don't think my mother was too upset about it. I guess she wanted him gone for a while and now he was gone. Freedom after so many years of uncertainty, She rarely dated afterwards and never remarried. It was definitely a hard time for the family, and we al! made adjustments over time. But it wasn’t so devastating that it ruined our lives. I visited my dad several times in prison during my youth and into young adulthood. He was released shortly after my twenty-second birthday. The most feeling I get about what happened is when I think about what I'd said to Harver. Did he expose himself to the waitress at our local cafe? I doubt it. But somebody said he did. Somebody said it first and it leaked to the rest of us. The rumor hangs around town like a bad smelt that never goes away. 168 Expression Magazine � Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Print Magazine Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource An Incomplete Memory Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <div class="element-text five columns omega"> <p><a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/</a></p> </div> <em>Expression</em> claims first North American rights to submissions selected for publication. All rights revert back to the author/artist after publication. Date Created Date of creation of the resource. 2025 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Joseph Meeks Language A language of the resource ENG Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Expression Literary and Arts Magazine, CCA 04.ii.c.2022.01 WyCaC US. Casper College Archives and Special Collections. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CCA_04.ii.c.2022.01_Exp_2025_Prose_03 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Searchable PDF Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Casper College