Trails through time bind us together

My name is Molly, and I’m a cultural anthropologist from California. Last month I inadvertently followed the Pony Express trail from my home in Placerville (about 40 miles east of Sacramento) to your fair city of Independence.

One morning during my stay at the Great Western Motel, I was sitting under the great tree sipping a cup of Haas’ wonderful coffee and daydreaming. Suddenly, out of the blue, a soldier appeared.

His name is Carl and his favorite movie is “National Treasure.” Carl’s brother Jerry died in Iraq in 2003. When Jerry died, Carl did the only thing a true soldier does: He signed on for the Army specifically to take Jerry’s fallen place in the same Cavalry Scout unit.

There was something familiar about him – I felt as if I were talking to a long-lost Stevenson from my dad’s side. The Stevenson men are my heroes, especially my Uncle Tooky, a soldier who died long before I was born. I dream often of Tooky and of another young man I’ve never met, perhaps a Stevenson from long ago.   

Carl speaks with the same quiet intelligence of the poetry Tooky left behind. He also has Tooky’s wild-eyed gleam – the kind of gleam that can get you in trouble, say, for picking a fist fight with the British Empire because you and your buddies went out dreaming last night and got all riled up on truth, liberty and justice for all.

I sat around the Smith dinner table later that week as Carl and his brother Jason spoke of Jerry in strong voices hushed by unutterable loss. It was the first time in years I felt like family. When someone silently pushed a picture of Jerry toward me, I understood why: I was looking into the face of the Stevenson man of my dreams.

So how exactly does a California dream girl manage to unwittingly come to Independence and right up to the doorstep of her long-lost family?

If you think about it, it’s not so strange. We’re all connected to our history by the roads we travel. Route 66, which runs from your state to mine, is legendary for a reason: Our history takes flight from our dreams, which become the movies, songs and family stories we pass down through the generations. It’s entirely possible that your great-aunt once shared a phosphor at Clinton’s Soda Shop with someone else’s great-uncle who later returned the favor at the Placerville Soda Works. And perhaps this great-aunt of yours was the daughter of a Gold Rush girl who put her heart and a kiss on the cheek in the mochila of a handsome Missouri boy riding straight on through the sleet into Sacramento.

The next day I wept at the Veterans Memorial. I carved tiny rivers into Jeremiah’s name and thought of my grandfather. Papa worked the Argonaut mine in Jackson, Calif., and taught us that gold itself is fool’s gold. We, his Stevenson family, were the real gold. Papa was a practical man, and what he meant is that if we all pooled our resources, cooperated, and figured out a workable schedule for the one family car, we’d come out all right financially – and with good, solid stories to pass down the line.   

The Pony Express united our country during a crucial economic moment via nothing more hi-tech than an unbroken line of human hands stretching from St. Joseph to the Golden State and back again.

And for the very romantic reason of its history, the Pony Express once again has the practical potential to connect California and Missouri to our family stories, our history and each other at a time when we must not be divided by economic despair.    

Call me a dreamgirl, but I’ll take young men on fast horses over roaming charges any day.

In memoriam:Pfc. Jeremiah Smith – Sunshine Rider