Bramble Days - Ties That Bind: Ties That Bind

By J Lee Cline

"Ties that bind" is the second book in a series called Bramble Days.

Set in the last half of the 1950's, it covers the higher school years and adventures of Alex Sonnes, his family and friends.

It was a time when much was changing, roads and towns were re-arranged and new dreams began.

It was an exciting time to be a young person, filled with music and high hopes for a better tomorrow for all.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 8, 2006
• ISBN: 9781465322869

J Lee Cline

The author was born at the beginning of the 40's in the South Platte Valley north of Denver, Colorado, near a remarkable and vibrant little town, Brighton. He enjoyed an idyllic childhood, living on a small acreage on the outskirts of town with horses, farm animals, great neighbors and friends. Named after his Godfather and given an initial as a first name he learned early on that explanations either caused ulcers or created pearls. Remembering the golden years of the '40's and '50's led to his writing The Bramble Days series of books.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

In the days before the white man came to the high plains, there was a river that ran north against the high plains.

Years of flooding had deposited a rich soil in the flood plain, as well as course gravel that filled the pits left by glaciers, this feature, with the help of beavers, made the flat area a home to much of life.

The Indians found the sand hills to the west to be wind barriers for shelter, and the fresh water of the ponds of river water to be sources of life for winter encampments.

When the white man came, the badger, beaver pelts made the area a source of riches; and when gold was discovered in the mountains, the area was the last stop before dreams were found in the hills far to the west, another three days by foot, but by looking they were just a short walk away.

One of the forts was just a short way north of the indian hill area, and with the wagons that came to serve the fort a natural crossing was found at the gravel ponds that the indians had long used.

This is were the first permanent house was built, it served as a farm house and a stage stop called Bramble Cross.

Bramble Road grew as the higher bluff east was more secure from the floods that came often as snow melted or rain fell.

It never became a developed area, those first one hundred years, the rail road came and the settlement moved three miles northeast to become a rail head.

Even then, when Colorado was finally a name, after being once thought to be a state named after Jefferson, the Kansas and Nebraska parts united with Mexican territory and became a square state, Colorado.

Now only a few families live on Bramble Road, and old times are changing.

Toto and Kansas are just a small breeze away.

The pioneers may have been happy to see the road finally, after 100 years, grow, but for those who lived there, the changes were going to be difficult, and mark their lives.

Like brambles catch us, so do changes in life.

. . . .

CHAPTER 1

Freshman, 1955

In the summer before our freshman year, I was still 13, and life was, indeed, a ball as we were old enough to ride our horses across the river and ride on the other side. This had always been a big taboo!

Sometimes I would saddle up Chief and just ride down to the river, cross over, and sit at the area between Indian Hill and the sand hills to the south and wonder what life would have been if the people who came had just merged together.

Would there still be an Indian village here? Or would there never have been a Bramble Cross?

It is something I will never know, but something that I think about.

Those invisible Indians that were there before.

Most people thought they had been savages, but I had learned that Chief Little Feather had spoken English to the first miners who came in 1858, advised them not to camp down by the wild cherry groves along that creek that now carries the name as it often flooded.

They didn’t listen.

He also joked when all the white people started to arrive at the site of the old Mexican Mine where gold had been ‘discovered’ (think the Mexican’s must have first, the mine was there?) that perhaps the Arapahoe should go East to fill the void left behind’

I think I would have liked Chief Little Feather.

I wondered if the new freeway was going to change our lane and our lives, and where we would all be in a few years and questions like that.

Dolores says that I am moody, and I guess she is right. She loves to come to this spot and celebrate, I seem to come and meditate?

Mom doesn’t like us to come here at all, she is so afraid that the sands will shift and the gravel pits will be filled with quick sand, for if sand fills the natural hollows you can sink and in moments be lost.

I guess we were lucky to survive?

Marcus was such a good cowboy now that he would ride along on his own horse, Yoko, a lovely brown filly that his proud father had bought him when he had overcome his fear of horses some years ago.

A few years ago, Marcus had almost drowned, had a sad meeting of the river with his first horse and we kids were all told to stay away.

This year, the river was running low, there was sort of a drought, and Mom had given me permission to ride down and cross at the old Bramble Cross, but if the water was to rise, I had to come back.

I think we all knew the fear, as it had been awful when Marcus almost lost his life, and also lost his horse.

Marcus was now so tall, almost 5’ 10, and I was still sort of short, only 5' 4.

He has also demanded, not requested, that we spell his name Marcus . . . not the Markus we once used.

Gees, Louise.

I felt so glad to have known the Fuji family, their influence and Japanese culture had really helped me over the years, I felt so akin to them with my own heritage of Greek Orthodox, albeit we were now Methodist-Episcopalian for all who knew.

Again, gees, Louise?

I felt a wee bit trapped at 13, people were growing and passing me by.

Gees, Louise, Dolores was a tad taller than I was!

Dolores and I were so happy to be finally going to the same school.

The small school down by the island where she had gone only went to the 8th grade, so FINALLY we were going to be at school together!

We had such plans.

We were all enrolled in a new College Prep course, as was Marcus and Jimmy Bergen.

Jimmy and Gary Bergen were only 9 months apart and were both going to be in our freshman class, but Gary insisted in signing up for the Future Farmers and didn’t see how College Prep would serve him at all.

Boy always did march to a different drummer!!!

My chores had changed over the years. About 3 years ago I had a bad strop throat and developed a mild case of rheumatic fever, when being checked out for it they found that I had been born with a heart murmur.

I guess that explained the energy gene that I always felt I had missed in the family gene pool?

Dad had not allowed me to help with lifting hay bales or heavy work since then, and Mom had insisted that I could not play football. My coach in Junior High had been kind of upset, I was short but well built for my age, and knew how to plan moves.

The freeway had been built in ’53 and we had lost almost half of our land in the process.

Old Baldy had just escaped being part of the loss, for which we were all grateful, but all of the eastern pasture was now gone.

Even the pump house had not been spared, the building was still there, but the concrete water tank was now half in our land, and half in the bar pit of the service road that ran through our old front yard.

Our house now seemed to sit on a street corner, one of our trees was actually outside the fence now . . . and we had lost the east part of our circle drive to the freeway, which was actually just a 4 lane highway as it had access crossings a true freeway didn’t have.

Life, it seemed, was changing, but we still had school, chores, and routines.

We loved it when Aunt Tilly would bake on Monday morning, and if she made her flat ‘pita’ bread we knew that we would have good times.

Oh, how we loved those pita flat bread sandwiches, filled with lettuce, tomato, and scraps of what ever meat had been left over from meals the day before, and maybe a touch of onion, pepper and hot sauce.

We kids all loved the hot sauce!!!

And often, Aunt Tilly would make special spreads of nuts, not just peanut butter, but almond and walnut that tasted so good on those pita sandwiches!

The loss of land had been a boom to Dad in a way, with the money from the sale of the land, he and the Studebaker Agency fellow had bought an old brick two storied school house west of town that was no longer being used, torn it down, cut the roof in half and rebuilt it in town as the first hospital to serve the community since it had been founded.

No longer were people to have to make the 35mph drive to the capital for attention; there was a place in town.

Dad also got some irrigation pipes for the lower pasture, so I did have my irrigation chores to still perform. We had also gotten a pulsating electric fence to keep the horses from leaning over the fence to eat the high hay in the next field. Seems the grass is always greener for horses, too.

The pipes were 14' long, but lightweight aluminum and easy for me to lift and move, and I thought it was good exercise for me as well.

I was enjoying the summer and got great news. My cousin in Nebraska wanted me to come and visit while their nephew from Cyprus was in the US.

I thought that would be great! And I was old enough, Mom and Dad decided, that I could take the train from our town to Nebraska on my own.

Gees, Louise! I was being treated like almost an adult!

The trip began in the middle of July, not exactly the best time to be going to Nebraska, but I was thrilled.

Going