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Each year around this time I am reminded of Claude Owens who died in a motorcycle wreck at the top of Sheep Creek Road in Phelan on the day of the All Star Game in 1984. I shouldn't say died---rather, he was killed by a drunk driver. It was a tragic loss the left me stunned for years.Claude was the big brother of Calvin, one of my best friends growing up in Phelan. He was about four or five years older than us and we really looked up to him. He was big, tough, and intimidating (to me at least), but we also had a lot of fun with hunting, swimming in the aqueduct, wrestling, shooting, and doing all that desert stuff.
Claude was always involved in things that seemed mysterious to me.
He lived in Hawaii with his mom for a long time doing who knows what.
He ran with a biker gang in the desert for a while and got in a big shoot out at the abandoned house down the road from us.
He rolled a water truck at a mine in Boron, or Trona, or some god-forsaken place like that.
He drove a nail right through his hand with a nail gun.
He showed up unexpectedly and saved us the night we saw a ghost at the Snowbird.
I drove Ron, Claude and Calvin's dad, to Claude's funeral. It was at Memorial Lawns or Forest Hills or one of those huge industrial graveyards outside of LA. The funeral was a strange mix of desert folk, stiff in their fancy clothes, and Claude's relatives from Tonga sitting under the trees on woven mats (Claude and Calvin are half Tongan).
Driving home, I tried to avoid the turn where Claude was killed when we arrived in Phelan, but it's almost impossible to do since there is only one road into town. Plus, I was following Calvin and didn't want him to think we veered off the side of the road or something.
As we got to the top of Sheep Creek where Claude died, everyone in the car got silent and I snuck a sideways glance at Ron with me in the front seat. Ron was a pretty tough guy too, but as we rounded the corner where he lost his eldest son, I saw one big tear slowly rolling down his cheek.
To me, it was the biggest tear in the world.
Wow! This brings back memories. I remember you calling me in Santa Cruz where I was working at the Food Stamp office. I too was devestated. Claude lived with us off and on and was pretty much a member of our "family". Aunt Beki had a different take on the whole thing. It was her friend who she spent the day and night drinking with at the Big Rock who hit Claude on that bend in the road. Beki defended her friend's drunkeness by saying Claude was probably drunk too, (?). Don't think anything ever happened to the guy who was in his 60s or 70s. Knowing Desert Justice at the time he probably just went on drinking away his days at the Big Rock. Ron though never recovered from this loss.
ReplyDeleteNo Claude wasn't drunk at the time. In fact, he had turned a corner in his life after his baby Joshua was born and wasn't drinking at that point. He had just spent the afternoon helping his grandmother (remember her?)at her mobile home in Wild Horse Canyon and was riding back home when he was hit. I'm actually surprised there wasn't more "Desert Justice" taken out against the drunk driver, but Calvin told me that he forgave him.
ReplyDeleteYeah, sometimes I think forgiveness is overrated. But Calvin was a good kid. So was Claude.
ReplyDeleteSeems to me Claude is still very much in the present at times.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing part of him here.
Claude was a good man with always a chuckle and a cautionary warning to Calvin as we exited to some mischief. Claude's death was an incomprehensible loss for my friend Calvin. We talk of Claude and mostly laugh, as Claude would want, I am sure.. Eric Lambdin.
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