RAY ELLIS

The place where Ray Ellis was born, grew up, spent his adult life and died has been obliterated. Make way for a pivot sprinkler. He was a bachelor, lived with his mother, no offspring (and I will bet the farm on that one). The 1950's equivalent of a Millenial.

Except Ray worked, and he worked hard. Not effectively or efficiently, but hard. Ray gave me my first "real" job, I was 12 and he was a neighbor. About $1 per hour, and it was hauling alfalfa bales and stacking them on a pile in the yard. I earned enough over three days to buy a baseball glove that cost $30 in Columbus at the sporting goods store. If I were flipping burgers in today's world, that glove would be worth about $300...but since it now comes from Haiti or someplace, it doesn't cost that much.

My brother and I would laugh at Ray for keeping the hog feed in the cattle pen and the cattle feed in the hog pen. Then transported back and forth with 5-gallon buckets until his arthritis made him so stooped that he resorted to 2.5-gallon buckets.

The hogs that should have been castrated young were left to grow and my brother and I didn't laugh so hard when we had to hold them when they were as big or bigger than we were. Their breath is not heavenly, either.

A woman who works at the local post office where I live could be his mother's, Nettie Ellis's, sister. Except Nettie was probably born in the 1880's. I hesitate to broach that subject with this lady...the story would get too complicated, and for what?

Why does Ray come up in my mind so many times? Maybe due to the work, the pay, the peculiar smell that his 1951 Chevy car had--he had been to town, bought five gallons of 2-4-D concentrate to spray for weeds, and it spilled all over in the trunk. The car was new for about 5 minutes, I guess. It was awful.

Maybe all those things, but maybe because all remnants of his life have been wiped clean. No physical evidence, no offspring. And damned few people who remember him. Well, Ray, I do. Vividly. But it is unintentionally nihilistic--because that just doesn't mean a blasted thing.

Make your own vows and conclusions from that.

Carry on.