Little Sid & Buck
The road goes on forever but the party … eventually ends.
I am a second-generation child, one who was born in my parents’ older age, 16 years after sister Nancy Jo and 18 after brother Jim. The baby of the family, raised like an only child as the siblings had left the building before even Elvis arrived.
There was a whole Depression and World War the family survived before I showed up as a product of the Baby Boom. I not only had old parents, but old aunts and uncles, and only one living grandparent. This also meant my cousins were mostly older, in the age range of Jim and Nancy.
Except for Little Sid and Buck. My best bad influences.
Sidney and Travis (Buck) Witten were my closest cousins. Sidney was two years older, though nicknamed “Little Sid” because “Red Headed Sidney” Simpson was an older cousin who had flaming hair. Both had been named after our grandfather, Albert Sidney Johnston Witten, who himself carried all the names of the Civil War General my great-grandfather had admired and served under. We got two Sids, and an Albert in the family much later on. We never got a Johnston to my knowledge.
Travis was three weeks older than me. He was named after the commander of the Alamo, but called “Buck” by Uncle Buddy. Buck awed me when we were toddlers as he could lower his head and charge into anything, including the nearest wall, and come out seemingly unharmed. There were no concussion protocols in those days. I figured “Buck” fit him as a nickname as he was plenty tough growing up when compared to a city cousin like me.
They were the first products of my Uncle Buddy’s second family. Uncle Buddy had married Aunt Prebble with neither being in their 20s. I recall some scandal frowns among my mother and maternal aunts. Aunt Prebble was young and pretty, something none of the 40 something Witten matrons could claim any longer. She had grown up a little wild in hard circumstances, another bone that got picked pretty clean in kitchen conversations.
I remember Aunt Prebble telling the three of us if we wanted to go to the Colorado City rodeo, we could sneak in like she did growing up. My mother was appalled enough to grab her purse and make sure we had proper admission money.
Uncle Travis Aubra (Buddy) Witten was mother’s youngest brother and my favorite uncle. He was calm, gentle and patient, in contrast to my volatile banty rooster father. I have always described Buddy as a “Miscellaneous Man”. He trapped and traded for a living. Trapping varmints for the US Government was a profession all three Witten uncles and my father had followed to stay afloat during the depression and World War II. My dad had used the GI Bill to learn meat inspection, sold off his hound dogs and moved his family to the city. Uncle Buddy still trapped but had pivoted to trading to supplement income.
I always looked forward to visiting wherever Uncle Buddy might be living. There was always interesting stuff everywhere for Sid, Buck and I to explore. You could ride a horse one day and the next day the horse morphed into a pickup that sometimes ran. A couple weeks later, the pickup might be traded for a cow or goat or refrigerator. Uncle Buddy’s was a place of possibilities!
One of my favorite memories of vising Sid and Travis was swimming in Colorado City Lake. Buddy got us an empty 55-gallon drum and we took turns “bronc riding” to see who could stay upright longest. I don’t think anyone made seven seconds as that old drum was pretty rank, bucking sideways and dumping you in the water.
A marriage with such an age gap probably starts with long odds against longevity. Sid was about 12 and Travis 10 when Buddy and Prebble divorced. She moved to California and took Travis with her. Sid stayed in Texas with Buddy. I didn’t see Travis for a half dozen years until Uncle Buddy’s funeral.
This arrangement of Buddy and Sid “batchin’ it” didn’t do anything to relieve my mother’s worries about influences when I was around Sid. I was being raised in cities like Austin, San Antonio,Mobile and New Orleans under strict supervision. Sid was being raised in the country by Uncle Buddy, who was more laissez-faire in child discipline than his baby sister.
Sid not only spawned my mother’s fears, but triggered my father’s anger and forever distrust. When Sid was about 13, he was allowed to go on a dove hunt with the men and take along a .410 shotgun. I was allowed to come, but my dad didn’t trust me with a gun at 11. Sid and I were sitting in the back seat of my dad’s new 1964 Chevy Impala. Daddy went over a bump, and this revealed Sidney hadn’t been paying attention when the safety mechanism explanation had been given. The .410 rested between his legs and thankfully his feet were splayed wide when the gun discharged and blew a hole in the floorboard of the new automobile.
I’m not sure how my dad explained the patched floorboard when trading the Impala the next year.
Sid reached driving age before I did. On a visit to Uncle Buddy, who was then living at our place in Beattie, Tx, I remember there would be four or five less-than-new cars and trucks parked in front of the house. Sid would come out with several keys, and we would go off in whatever vehicle chose to start. We didn’t have destinations in mind as much as recreation.
We would drive around at night on the dirt roads that ran through the central Texas peanut fields, smoking cigarettes while we highlighted and shot at jackrabbits out the windows of the pickup. Sid determined my parents were tardy in teaching a 13-year-old to drive, so set me up behind the wheel of the ’55 Ford pickup. The pickup was a standard transmission, something I had seen but never touched. I recall working the clutch, accelerator and steering wheel simultaneously was overwhelming. I overwhelmed us right into the ditch. We had a devil of a time getting the truck out. I did most of the pushing as I had demonstrated I couldn’t handle a clutch and accelerator simultaneously.
When we got back to the house, I walked in righteously innocent as I knew Sid would never rat me out for bad driving, shooting at jackrabbits or smoking. But, from across the room, my diminutive mother seemed to leap across the room powered by springs. She grabbed up the tail of my favorite wine-colored shirt I was wearing and triumphantly pointed at the cigarette burn that had created a perfect hole. She had proof and something hit the fan!
The fact my mother and father both smoked like chimneys didn’t have any bearing on my case. What was good for Mother Goose and Daddy Gander wasn’t relevant for the gosling. I was threatened with all the future guilt and retribution a mother could muster if I took up smoking. Her scare tactics worked as I’ve never smoked. The fact my father and brother died of emphysema related causes means she probably lengthened my lifespan.
Uncle Buddy died before his time a couple of years later, while Sid and I were in high school. The main thing I remember about the funeral was Buck was able to fly in from California. He arrived on a puddle jumper by way of Dallas, and we picked him up at Brownwood airport. It was great to see him again and I was struck how he had not grown into the dire predictions my mother had envisioned for his future. He was more a Travis now than a Buck, studious, thinking about going to college to become a forest ranger. He seemed more emotional about his father’s passing than Sid.
Travis had tears at the funeral, but Sid had none. Me, the third wheel observer, shed some for the uncle who listened and talked in such a way that didn’t make you feel like an insignificant kid.
Looking back, I think Sid was just so lost with Buddy gone he was numb. Travis had a future waiting when we took him back to Brownwood to catch the puddle jumper. Sidney’s future was unsettled. Our Uncle Jack and Aunt Mildred offered to take him in and put him through college. Uncle Jack was the oldest of my mother’s siblings, well up in his 80s, and they had the financial resources to make that happen. Aunt Mildred was an old first-grade teacher, and I suspect there were more rules attached to that offer than Sidney was willing to follow. Instead, he joined the Air Force and eventually followed Travis to California.
The slogans say Texas is like a whole other country. I’ve always pledged allegiance to that idea, but California? For a Texas boy, California is like a whole other world, and it swallowed up my two cousins for 40 years.
I discovered how the digital age can shrink the physical world. I joined Facebook in 2010 and got a wonderful surprise. I got a friend request from Travis Witten and quickly accepted. The next thing I knew, Travis was coming to Nashville. He had retired after a career as a fire chief in California and had gone to New York to learn to be a chef. He was on his way back home but scheduled a stop at our house in Lebanon to have dinner and visit. It was great to see him, reminisce and catch up. Jan took a picture of us and remarked at the resemblance. We looked more like brothers than cousins, The best way to tell us apart was I still had hair on top and Travis did not, although whatever hat I was wearing erased the distinction in the photo.
Three years later, he was gone suddenly from a heart attack at 60. His son, J.J., let me know. This hit me hard since the two of us were only three weeks apart in age. It was my first taste of my own possible mortality. I hoped he had put his new-found culinary skills to satisfactory use and brightened some lives.
This left Sidney, and I badly dropped the ball. When Travis passed, and every once-in-a-while over the years, I told myself I needed to reach out to him. Travis would have made the call, as he was the extravert among the three cousins. Sid and I were both introverts, and I’m a procrastinator to boot.
There’s always seems to be an immeasurable amount of time…until there isn’t.
J.J. Witten posted on Facebook a posthumous 72nd birthday wish to his dad Travis on Dec. 13th. I knew I had my own 72nd coming up to coincide with Elvis’ 90th. I was dismayed when I counted the years Travis has been gone, and I still hadn’t reached out to Sidney. I resolved to get it done after the holidays.
Sometimes, the best laid plans of Mike and other men go astray.
Ten days after J.J. had posted the salutation to Travis, he posted about the passing of his uncle Sidney two days before Christmas. The timeless hourglass had run out of sand, and with it my chance to reconnect.
I turned 72 yesterday as the last cousin of the second-tier triumvirate in the Witten family. Since I missed going over all these memories with Sidney, I figured I would capture them for J.J. He can distribute as he sees fit.
If there is a moral to this story, I guess it would be: Procrastination, like Crime, doesn’t pay. If you want to reconnect with someone, do it now. There is no better time.
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