Today my old friend Clark Hunt will be laid to rest at the Southern Arizona Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Sierra Vista, Arizona. Because of COVID I can’t be there in person, so I’m using this forum to say goodbye to someone I’ve known since we were kids growing up in Price, Utah. Clark was always up for an adventure, however Quixotic, and could be counted upon to show up wearing shorts, sneakers and white socks. On those rare occasions when he wore pants, he wore high water pants so as not to cover up the white socks.
Put us in dark suits from Mr. Mac and we’d look like a pair of Mormon missionaries, which in fact was the fervent hope of our respective bishops. However, both of us were destined to stray from the paths that had been so carefully laid out for us. Come the fateful summer of 1966, the two of us had left home and were holed up in a room in the basement of the Cadillac Motel on the corner of Main and 21st South Street in Salt Lake City. Said motel has since been replaced by a car wash, which, as far as I know has no basement.
The war in Vietnam was ramping up and the likelihood of being drafted hung over our heads like the Sword of Damocles. We were both working crap jobs, hoping to save up enough scratch to enter graduate school and thus hold onto our college deferments. However, by summer’s end, it had become clear that neither of us had the financial resources or social capital necessary to stay in school.
Another way to avoid conscription would be to give in to the demands of our church elders and become missionaries, which would result in an ecclesial deferment. Or get married and sire six kids, which would satisfy the same churchy demands. However, neither of us was ready to matrimony, let alone parenthood. After giving it much thought, Clark decided to enlist, even though it meant he’d no longer be wearing shorts and white socks on a daily basis. Me? I volunteered for the Peace Corps. Clark ended up making the military a career and rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel. I was booted from the Peace Corps after just two months, due to “excessive idealism.” Upside was that I met the woman I’d later marry at a Peace Corps training camp in Puerto Rico, while Clark would find his soul mate Caroline while stationed at Fort Huachuca.
In the fall of 1968 I rode my motorcycle south to Fort Huachuca, in order to reconnect with the friend who had introduced me to my first beer four years earlier. At the officer’s club, he introduced me to stronger drink, and I vaguely remember throwing up in a head (bathroom) with walls that wouldn’t stop spinning. Semi-sober, the two of us set out for Mexico the following morning, traveling light and seeking out low-budget lodgings reminiscent of the Cadillac Motel. Sure, there might be bedbugs, but nothing as scary as the bear that invaded our tent that night in Yellowstone. Or was it Coulter Bay? I don’t exactly remember. The only photo I have from that trip shows Clark, sporting the usual white socks and sneakers, losing his balance on a log that may or may not have been spinning.
Fifty years later I climbed aboard my BMW motorbike and retraced my 1968 route to Southern Arizona. I remember having a hard time finding my way through Tempe, Mesa and Tucson, which have grown greatly over the course of half a century. I even got lost in Sierra Vista, where Clark and Caroline had opted to spend their golden years. After multiple wrong turns and dead ends, finally I spotted an old man, bearded and pear shaped but vaguely familiar. I looked him up and down, and then down again. Yep, it was unmistakably Clark Hunt. Those white socks and sneakers were a dead giveaway.
Day is done, gone the sun. Rest in Peace, old chum.