Ya-Ta-Hey, James Gaston

Over the Easter weekend, his family and friends gathered to celebrate the life of James Gaston, who passed away last summer. I learned a lot about family, community and hospitality.

Welcome to another installment of Life Its Ownself. First, an apology: This is my first communication with you in about two months. My life was, as we used to say, overtaken by events. I will return to regular publication of Life Its Ownself soon. Thanks for your patience and support.

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Friday, April 12, 2024

         Over the Easter weekend, his family and friends celebrated the marvelous life of James Gaston. He passed away last summer on a camping trip in the San Juan National Forest in southwestern Colorado. He was 61.

         I wrote a tribute to him last summer (still my most popular Substack essay). A lot has happened since then. I bought his Marathon house I so often visited. I am in the process of selling my home in Austin moving out there full-time. And I’ve gotten to celebrate his life with his family and friends.

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I.               

         We all know the parable of the Blind Men and the Elephant. The parable dates back at least to the Tittha Sutta written at the time of the Buddha (563 to 483 B.C.E.)

A group of blind men heard that a strange animal, called an elephant, had been brought to the town, but none of them were aware of its shape and form. Out of curiosity, they said: "We must inspect and know it by touch, of which we are capable". So, they sought it out, and when they found it they groped about it. The first person, whose hand landed on the trunk, said, "This being is like a thick snake". For another one whose hand reached its ear, it seemed like a kind of fan. As for another person, whose hand was upon its leg, said, the elephant is a pillar like a tree-trunk. The blind man who placed his hand upon its side said the elephant, "is a wall". Another who felt its tail, described it as a rope. The last felt its tusk, stating the elephant is that which is hard, smooth and like a spear.

         The men, having such varied perceptions of the elephant, each insist their experience is the correct one. They argue among themselves, even accusing each other of falsehood and trickery.

         The parable teaches many lessons, but one of them is this: We each experience things from different perspectives at different times, all of which depend on factors unique to us in that and subsequent moments. This is a good thing. And so, our shared knowledge of a thing is enriched by sharing those experiences with each other.

         It is like this with people, too. Think of it: over the course of your life, you will have interacted with thousands of people. Hundreds of them will call you a friend. A few may travel through life with you to such an extent that they believe they truly know you. But still, in the accumulation of seconds, days and years we call our lives, no one is likely to know everything there is to know about any one of us.

         The point is, we can always learn more about a person, even one we’ve known for years. Which is why it is always rewarding to share stories about a beloved one among family and friends.

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II.            

         And thus it was with the 30 or so people who gathered to celebrate James Gaston Easter weekend. They brought a treasury of memories and stories that shared a common bond of love and affection for him.

         Most importantly, there was his family – his mother, Sue, matriarch of the Gaston clan. She was joined by all of his living siblings and their partners, and Sam, representing his several nieces and nephews.

(James’s mom and siblings: brother Robert, sister Nancy, mother Sue and sister Colene at Dead Horse Mountain Ranch. Photo credit: Barbara Schlief)

(The Gaston family members at Dead Horse Mountain Ranch. Photo credit: Barbara Schlief)

         In addition, there were about 20 friends from his days in Austin, where he served in a variety of legislative and political capacities from 1985 into the 2000s.

         And there were some friends and neighbors from Marathon, where he bought his house in 2009.

         Over the weekend, the Broken Wheel Bar at his (now my) house became Ground Zero for storytelling as James’s family and friends gathered around to share reminiscences.

        On Thursday evening, James’s friends Carleton and Cindy Turner prepared grilled hamburgers and fixings at the Broken Wheel Bar. After a good meal and some storytelling, we posed for a group picture:

(James Gaston’s family and friends gathered at the Broken Wheel Bar in Marathon to celebrate his life last weekend. Photo credit: Barbara Schlief) 

         Throughout the weekend family and friends, individually and in groups, returned to the Broken Wheel Bar to tell stories and absorb James’s presence. 

         The emotional high point of the weekend, though, was Saturday afternoon, when a caravan made its way to Lyn and Della Shackleford’s Dead Horse Mountain Ranch. It’s about a two-hour drive each way from Marathon, much of it over territory best crossed in a four-wheel drive vehicle. The ranch, tucked in between Big Bend National Park and the Black Gap Wildlife Management Area, commands an exhilarating view of rugged mountains leading down to the Rio Grande and, beyond, the Sierra del Carmen mountains of Mexico. 

(The view to the southeast from Dead Horse Mountain Ranch as it falls away to the Rio Grande, with the Sierra del Carmen mountains of Mexico in the distance. Photo credit: Barbara Schlief)

         James wished to have his ashes spread there. And so, after a brief prayer service and a moving rendition of “Amazing Grace,” his family reverently spread his ashes among the rocks and cactus in a quiet corner of the mountaintop.

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III.               

         Much of the weekend’s charm lay in exchanging tales about James. For many of us, it was the first time hearing those stories. For instance, his mother told me that when James was born, the last of her six children, he was known as “Baby James” or “Sweet Baby James.” You will not be surprised to know that James went to great lengths to conceal his infant nickname from his friends later in life.

         There were many stories told over the weekend, some even reprintable in a fine journal such as this one. However, it was the common themes of the stories that remain with me: James’s sweetness and kindness to all; his sense of humor; his genuine enjoyment in the presence of his family and friends; his effortless hospitality; his conviction that the people he was with were always more important than the things they were doing, whether working on the Texas Senate floor or river rafting through Santa Elena Canyon.

         These were the things James left with me, and with all of us.

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IV.         

         The Navajo have a phrase, “Ya-Ta-Hey.” The root of the phrase is the Navajo word for “to be good,” and the greeting means “all in the world is good.”

         Somewhere along the way, James embraced that greeting, most often with his Marathon neighbors Ray and Hildy Santos. When they returned from a day trip to Odessa, or he from a camping trip, he’d boom out his greeting to them, and they would respond in kind. For James, living in the big country of the Trans-Pecos or visiting his mother in Muskogee, close to the family and friends he loved, all in the world was good. 

         Ya-Ta-Hey, James Gaston.