A decade ago--a sailor's final port of call

Ten years ago on this day before Veterans' Day, I officiated at the funeral of my uncle, Michael Henry Clark in the Santa Fe national Cemetery. A U.S. Navy color guard provided the ceremony for this combat veteran of WWII and Korea.

Mike and my Dad, the war years

 He was the last of the five living "Clark boys" from Comanche, OK, (Terrence, Louis, Rex, Mike and Champ)   my favorite uncle, and perhaps the closest brother to my father Terrence, the oldest. I took me a while to figure that out, since my middle name comes from him. "Llamarse como," he would say.

Mike and I, Bandelier, years ago

I've written about him many times, and will not repeat, except to note this day and how many memories I have of him from when I was a kid, a teenager, and then in later years as adults, especially in the last 30 years. He died Oct. 24 in the Veterans' Home in Walsenburg, Colorado, and it took a few weeks to get things organized. 

Mike, Susan and I in the bar at La Fonda, a few years ago

And the last photo is my sketch of the Manzano Mountains, southeast of Albuquerque, the day after the funeral on a somber Veterans' Day, as I looked out the window from the airport, waiting on a flight home.

Rest in Peace, Sailor.

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A year of journeys

I'm trying to plan a trip to Alaska for us in May, and it's not easy, unless you go to a travel agent and get stuck on one of those gargantuan cattle trucks called cruise ships, and I don't want that.

So planning the trip will be an adventure too, and as I pour over brochures, scan books, contact friends and scour the Internet, I'm aware of the journeys, planned and unplanned, to places know and unknown, that have made this year memorable.

First was a trip to Chennai, India, in February to SRM University for a conference. It was a trip of utterly new sensations, experiences and people.

Then in March, I spent a week aboard the nuclear carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, in the Pacific, thanks to a former student, the Public Affairs officer aboard one of the largest ships in the world, Lt. Cdr. Steve Curry. Much more first time living.

In April I drove to the third Culp cousin reunion at my cousin Sarah Beth Foote's house in East Texas. Ten of us were there--only one barely known was missing--the children of my Mom and her three sisters and two brothers. A journey of mixed emotions of laughter and stories and good times, mixed with the awareness of passing time, and wondering if we'd ever do it again.

May was packed. On Mother's Day, I met my brother Jerry of Lubbock, to spend a boring evening in Wichita Falls before visiting our Mom's grave in Waurika, for an emotional trip into memories. In mid-May, Susan and I went to Florida and Savannah and soaked up southern food and comfort and history.

On Memorial Day, I visited grandkids Erin, Abby and Max and daughter Dallas and son-in-law Todd  in Amarillo and then on to Walsenburg to  my last uncle, Mike, in the veterans home. A happy,  and sobering trip, where the adventures are mental and emotional.

On the Fourth of July, I flew to California to spend time with my son Vance, his wife Kerin, and granddaughters Katherine, Sarah, and to see the new baby, Neysa, for the first time. Emotional for sure, but also the adventures of touring Vandenburg AFB where they launch satellites.

There were summer  trips on Oklahoma's back roads, including US 66, taking photos, exploring, and visiting friends at newspapers, and to Guthrie to show artwork there. There was a whirlwind trip to Vales Grande in New Mexico on roads I hadn't driven  before in early August--not much, but it helped satisfy a New Mexico attack.

In October, we celebrated anniversary in Kansas City, and spent full days in Columbia, Mo., with son Derrick, daughter-in-law Naomi, and granddaughter Liberty Faye.

Then in late October, a different journey began, when I received a phone call at night about the death of my uncle Mike. That journey isn't over yet for me, even though a resulting journey was burying him in the National Cemetery at Santa Fe, across from where he lived for-30 plus years. It was only my second trip to beloved New Mexico since a year ago when I had to move him out of that apartment that had become a second home to me in the last 10 years. I've traveled many places and miles in my mind as a result.

Those are the out-of-town trips, not counting getting artwork in Adelante Gallery in Paseo and multiple trips to the frame shop and studio. Nor around town to visit in-laws, go out to eat, visit many museums, attend the press convention, go "boothing" with friends and colleagues,  attend parties, travel over chess boards,  move brushes over blank paper and words on blank computer screens, and at Thanksgiving, tour the city with myAmarillo grandkids.

Then two days ago, my oldest cousin, Charles Rogers Lutrick, died in Beaumont, beginning a new journey for him and for those who love him. His funeral is tomorrow, and while Jerry and I are too far away to make it, his passing sets us off on another mental and somber journey contemplating passing life, a passing year and passing time.

It's been a good year--I've seen all my children and grandchildren, spent time with cousins and friends and colleagues, and faced mortality.

Although I'm trying to plan the Alaska trip, and also renewed my passport last month, I'm very aware that I really have no idea what the journeys will be this coming year, nor what kind of journeys they might be. I do know that Charles and Mike make me focus on my own journey, every day.

Charles Rogers Lutrick

Aug. 29, 1930

Dec. 10, 2011

Terry M. Clark

Jan. 5, 1944

Happy Birthday, Sailor

He's been in my life a long time.

Today. 89 years ago in Comanche, Oklahoma, Michael Henry Clark was born, the fourth of eventual five Clark boys to Erle Thweatt and Cuba Jon Miller Clark. Michael, after whom I have my middle name, is the only survivor of those five boys.

Terrence, Lewis, Rex, Mike and Champ Clark, in the home of their mother Cuba Reasor inWhitesboro, Tex., in 1973.  photo by me. Dad died later that year.

Mike ran away from home in the 30s, hitching a free ride to the east coast, and eventually enlisted in the Navy. In WWII he was a signalman on board PC1212 a sub hunter in the Caribbean.

After the war he went on to earn his bachelors and masters degrees at the University of Colorado, and was called back up to serve in the Koren War, on  LST 975, that landed in the first invasion wave at Inchon. He was on the bridge, under fire, using semaphore flags when it hit the beach. A mortar shell went through the deck a few feet from him, and didn't explode.

He went on to teach English and other subjects in Espanola and other places when I was growing up in Albuquerque. In fact, he was the one who helped move us from Fort Worth to New Mexico, and we often went places with him in New Mexico when I was a kid. 

Mike and I at Bandalier, years ago.

Then he taught English in Ecuador, Iran, Libya, and Mali as a Fulbright before returning to New Mexico and teaching subjects at the Indian Arts Institute in Santa Fe, where he retired.

Terry and Mike on the bridge of his Santa Fe apartment.

Last November, after living in the same apartment for 32 years overlooking the federal cemetery and the Sangre de Cristos, we had to move him to a Veterans home in Colorado, where he is today, in dry dock as it were, but doing well for an old sailor.

Mike and Dad...the war years.

I've learned much about my Dad I didn't know over the past few years, and understand that Mike and Dad must have had a special bond as brothers. especially to give me his name. 

Mike was best man at our wedding at the Nedra Mattucci Gallery in Santa Fe a few years ago.

Happy birthday, sailor. Carpe Diem. Thanks.

Memorial Day--Uncle Mike and the U.S. Navy

My last surviving uncle, Michael Henry Clark--after whom I have my middle name, lives in Santa Fe, as I've told you.

Mike is 87 now, and while his sea legs are failing, he's in good health. Here's something I wrote just a couple of  years ago...


He stood at the iron railing on the balcony of his apartment, the morning sun in his eyes, facing the dark blue-green Sangre de Cristo mountains.

He looked like a sailor on the bridge of a ship, watching the rolling blue green ocean in front of him.

“I think I’ve got my sea legs back,” he called, as I waved goodbye to my favorite uncle.

Between him and the mountains sprawled the US National Cemetery and then the city of Santa Fe. In a few years he’ll be buried in that cemetery for American veterans.

For now, he can see it every day, and hear taps playing at 5 p.m. as it caresses the white gravestones marking in perfect rank order over the green hills.

Petty Officer Second Class Michael Henry Clark  served on a sub chaser in World War II and on a LST in Korea, including the Inchon Landing.

Fourth son of dirt poor parents in the Oklahoma Depression, Mike fled the state, lied about his age to get a job in Virginia, joined the Navy, and saw the world.

After the World War he earned two degrees and then survived combat in Korea. He came to New Mexico to visit us when I was still a kid and I gave him the mumps. He taught high school English, spent the summers in Mexico teaching himself Spanish.

Then he landed jobs with the US Information Service teaching English in Peru, Iran, Libya, Tunisia, Timbuktu.

He came back to New Mexico and taught in the Indian Arts Institute for 20 years, teaching real Americans from tribes all over the country. Today, he is welcome in many pueblo homes on feast days.

In his apartment, a short-wave radio links him with the rest of the world, its antenna stretch across the ceiling and out the door and balcony. He spends the winter months listening to broadcasts from Britain, from Spain, from the Middle East.

Still traveling the world, he stands at the bridge of his ship in Santa Fe, looking over the cemetery to Santa Fe and the mountains beyond.

He never lost his sea legs…never will.

An American veteran.

Many like him are buried in that National cemetery, and in others around the country.

On Memorial Day, I’ll think about my Uncle Mike. Who will you remember when you see the flags at half mast?

 The white headstones of the National Cemetery in Santa Fe, with the Sangre de Cristos in the background and the Taos highway in front.

My uncle Mike and my grandmother Cuba John Miller Clark Reasor many years ago.