When I was a boy, for some reason Aunt Ruth liked me.

Aunt Ruth was, in reality, my father’s aunt, but to the rest of our family, that was her name, and she fit a bit of the Welton mold: she was a strong-minded and strong-willed woman who was fiercely independent and, common to a number of women from that side of my family, a lifelong single. When I came on the scene, she was already gray-haired and always wore a strand of pearls, but she was a sharp and distinguished woman who had clearly defined interests, opinions, and habits, and though at times she could be as prickly as the saguaro she lived among in Arizona, she was also sentimental and even-minded.

And so, it’s not surprising that a few times our family loaded into the family truckster (mostly, in my memory, that brown Chevy Malibu station wagon that, in its later years my brother and a friend parlayed into an Evel Knievel canyon jumper in a mesa near our house) and headed west and south from Albuquerque to visit her at her casita in Green Valley, Arizona.

Inevitably these trips were in the middle of or near the end of summer when the temperature there was 216 degrees, but it was a trip out of town and an adventure, so we made the best of them.

My memories of these trips, unfortunately, are slim. As with any road trip in the wagon, we kids would alternate sitting or laying in the far back, nestled among luggage and the bag of shoes, playing or staring out the back window or sleeping. It was usually like that: you played, you got loud, got yelled at, you felt bad for two minutes and then secretly giggled, you stared out the rear window of the car, and then you fell asleep. And then, you’d repeat that a few times until it was afternoon and it got boring or claustrophobic being in the car, and then you just fell asleep and hoped to get there.

The Brown Bomber, Canyon Jumper Extraordinare
(Likeness courtesy Wikipedia)
Clark Griswold, eat your heart out.

Once in Arizona, Green Valley had patches of grass in tiny lots here and there, but the green was mostly reserved for cactus, and there was a lot more dirt there than green. Still, for some reason, the dirt there was better manicured or arranged or contained, and so it wasn’t dirt like dirt in Albuquerque. It was a little more refined dirt.

Aunt Ruth was always glad to see us, although greetings ended fairly quickly and the adults assumed adult conversation and soon we kids were outside looking for something to do. Outside was rock lined walkways cut between subtle mounds of dirt that were spotted here and there with barrel, totem, and hedgehog cacti- a veritable minefield for careless, klutzy kids.

Probably my most pronounced memory of Ruth’s place was one time playing over a large mound of fire ants, which we decided to cover with more refined dirt for some reason. That didn’t end well. I think my brother got the worst of it.

Aunt Ruth grew up in Fairview, Kansas, which was named just that back in 1872 because someone thought it offered “a fair view” of the surrounding prairies in the far northeast corner of the state, but as a booming metropolis, it never swelled very much. Still, over the years, families settled in the farming community hub for various reasons. Aunt Ruth found her wings after high school, though, and left the fair view of Fairview for the bright lights of New York City, where she attended Columbia University. Her studies led her to become a dietitian, and in time she exchanged the east coast for the west coast to work a good clip at UCLA. It’s no surprise then, that when we visited her, our meals were visually and nutritionally balanced. Her exacting nature expressed itself well in that media, among others.

I don’t remember when or why it happened, but somewhere in that hazy ribbon of my childhood, I and my Aunt became pen pals for a season, and she would meet my childish jottings with full responses of her own. Undeterred by my age, she would write to me with complete paragraphs that included fleshed out ideas. And usually those notes would have something to do with baseball.

At some time when she was younger, Aunt Ruth began a lifelong love with baseball that eventually revolved solely and fervently around the Brooklyn Dodgers. That fanship faded little in 1957 when the Dodgers moved across the country to Los Angeles, and curiously, in time, so ultimately did she.

As I found myself a little leaguer at Mile High in the mid-70’s, it turned out I was tall and a lefty and despite my gangly appearance, an ideal fit for first base. And with the Albuquerque AAA club affiliate with the L.A. Dodgers, Dodger first baseman Steve Garvey was a visible star in our city, and a natural choice for my sports hero- to my Aunt Ruth’s delight. I was the kid who liked Steve Garvey- first baseman of her team. That connection paid dividends for me as Aunt Ruth voluntarily sent me her copies of Baseball Digest after she had read them for a few years. Not as fanatical as she was about baseball, still, I appreciated the gesture and with my pseudo-jock mind, pored over stats in each issue as much as I could make sense of them.

Well, life happened, as I became a teen, we didn’t visit Ruth much, and our letter exchanges waned after a few years. It was really when I was in high school when I made a last trip to Green Valley. In this one, it was with just my dad. Ruth had passed, ad she needed someone to move her belongings out of her casa. That last trip was made in U-Haul truck, and when we were there, I did a whole lot less playing in the ant hills or throwing rocks. It was a somber trip (though a first out alone with my dad), and clearly, Ruth was not there.

I probably understate the impact she had on my life. Most of my connection with her came as I was a kid, really, and entering my teen years, she faded as a voice in my life.

What I do know, though- what I distinctly remember coming from her, as my aunt speaking into my life, when I was still that goofy kid- was her clearly telling me, “You will be a writer.” Why she said that, I did not know. I was happy playing with Lincoln Logs and my Kenner SS Smashup Derby cars. But she something in me, and her words for some reason stayed with me.

Steve Garvey and that Dodger infield- with Cey, Russell and Lopes- was awesome, Aunty. Thanks much for the magazines.

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Photo Credit: “2010-06-02 Vacation to Green Valley, AZ 12” by JanetandPhil (Flickr). Under Creative Commons license.