Two Gone Guys

You don't know what you don't know. You have to learn somehow.

As children, our parents teach us what we need to know to get older and smarter. We acquire necessary understanding and knowledge as time passes. We become curious and start asking questions. hose questions and answers, along with other acquired common knowledge and lessons help us to grow.

I was born in 1939 into the White River valley upriver from Meeker where I and my family have lived and worked since. My parents, brothers, and I worked most of our lives on ranches. Our parents never told us of the several places in the Buford area where we lived and the persons they worked for when we were little. Having good lives and no curiosity, we did not ask. Nobody told us.

As I grew older and worked with older persons, I frequently heard talk about, "I wonder what happened to those guys, Lester Burns and Hermie Park." Always the question was answered with "I'll be damed if I know." Nobody would talk about those disappearances.

At some point I realized a code of silence existed. "Don't ask. Don't tell. You are at risk. Keep your head down, your mind on work, and your mouth shut."

This one way dialogue continued, and the question "What happened to those guys?" was not answered. I decided a couple of years ago to try to tell the story, and this is the result of that investigation.