Ken Beaton: Each day is a gift

The most gut-wrenching phone call you’ll ever receive informs you that a person you love is now past tense, loved. On a day in August 1998, I received a phone call from close friends, Cheryl and Fred.

Their 22-year-old daughter, Sarah, had died on Route 93 in Elko County, from a single car accident. The recent R.N. college graduate was returning home to Boise from visiting a friend in Las Vegas. Since the accident happened at 1:30 a.m., the Elko County deputy theorized that she had fallen asleep and drifted off the road. Losing a son/daughter is a parent’s worst nightmare.

In recent years, Fred has had several trips to St. Luke’s Hospital in Boise. He had blood clots in his legs. Fortunately for Fred, the medical team was able to dissolve the cloths before they reached his heart. Perhaps his deceased daughter, Sarah, pleaded to God for her dad to survive. Her request was granted.

Turning back the hands of time, Fred has worn many hats. First there was the son/sibling hat, born in 1944 at a small Washington community. From 1950 to 1962 he wore the student hat. After graduating from high school, Fred was sworn into the U.S. Marine Corps, wearing a camouflaged helmet and jungle camo clothing in Vietnam for 13 months.

He was issued his husband hat in April 1967. Using his VA benefits, Fred wore his college student hat at Portland State University, Oregon State University, Cascades in Bend, and his graduation mortar board at Utah State University in June 1972.

For several fire seasons he wore his Bureau of Land Management firefighter helmet. During his 30-year career with the U.S. government, he wore several government hats. Fred’s most important hats were Cheryl’s husband, Eric and Sarah’s father, and Thomas, Isabelle, and Becket’s grandfather. His remaining hats are friend, neighbor, retiree and master puttzer (with his habitually methodical single-mindedness, Fred takes his time to carefully complete a task).

I have so many crazy memories with the Mincklers. We played Frisbee in the front yard of their Boise rental at 10 p.m. Boise was on MDST. We had a fun time enjoying ourselves swinging on the swing inside Goofy’s Bar in downtown Boise.

There was the time we walked into the only bar in Silver City, Idaho. Jack, the bartender, told us we should have been there a week earlier for “Silver City Days!” I asked Jack, “Why?” He said, “Nobody passed out from drinking too much.” I asked him, “Why?”

He said, “Everyone was so tightly packed into the bar, there was no room to fall on the floor!” I want you to visualize a tightly packed male or female, with his or her eyes closed. There was some drool running down from the right side of their mouth, past their chin, with a yellow Rorschach test stain on their white T-shirt.

Now that’s drunk! In January 1972 we went snow tubing in Utah at Bear Lake Summit. We remembered to dress in layers and stayed warm. There was a beautiful Boise warm 1973 summer morning. The forecast was clouds forming with the temp in the low 90s.

The water master decided to release the ice-cold waters from Lucky Peak Dam to flow into the Boise River. The temperature of the river was “keep your beer ice cold.” We didn’t notice the temperature of the water until clouds blocked the warm sun rays.

Every second was painfully frigid for me. I couldn’t wait to return to the Mincklers home to change from my cold, wet bathing suit into dry, summer clothes. Once a month we drove to Reno from Battle Mountain. I would buy a case of four one-gallon bottles of Red Mountain red wine for $12 plus tax.

Fred and Cheryl visited us in Battle Mountain. “We paid the piper” from drinking too much Red Mountain wine! The four of us passed out with the television blaring. When we regained consciousness, there was a weird Woody Allen movie on the television about the good guys trying to recover the recipe for an egg salad sandwich. Monday morning, Cheryl and Fred each called their employer, “I’m taking a sick day today.”

There was the weekend we drove 188 miles to a motel in Jackpot. Jackpot was much smaller than it is today. The highlight of the weekend was Sunday morning when we had a snowball fight inside our motel room. There was a close-up and personal snowball fight in the bathroom. Use your imagination. We were labeled, “persona non grata.”

We’ve visited the Mincklers in Boise, Lewiston, Novato, Petaluma, and Portland. They visited us in Battle Mountain and Carson City during the past 53 years. We always visited each other at least once a year. If my memory serves me correctly, we haven’t visited for seven years.

Between my wife’s health issues in 2018 and Fred having the problem of COVID-19 attacking his heart, we didn’t know if the “Fab Four would become the Terrific Three.” I never know when’s the last time, I’ll see my friends.

So, I called the Mincklers to make arrangements to drive 440 miles to Boise on Tuesday, July 2 returning to Carson City on July 5. Not only was it good for Fred and Cheryl to have us visit, it was good for us. We recalled and laughed about our history together. I know that I felt better.

Cheryl remarked several times, “Your visit has been so good for Fred!” Fred has been a positive difference in my life for over five decades. Selfishly, I want to be friends for many more years creating more memories.

This is the time for Fred to make the decisions to continue wearing the hats of husband, father, grandfather, neighbor, retiree, master puttzer and friend for at least a couple of more decades. I love you, man. Each day is a gift, that’s why we call it the present.