Letter to Ed Whitfield (1914-1970) Circa 1940, Whitfield Transportation, Las Cruces
Dear Ed,
We see you frozen there in black and white
hands in pockets hat cocked forward shoulders back
striking a pose for the camera with all the confidence
of a movie star on a sparse set, patches of snow, the tiny house
you’ve left behind as you stepped out of the depression
into the driver’s seat of a three-quarter ton truck willing to haul
anything from blocks of ice to manure to Hal Cox’s cows for a fee.
That was the beginning. There you were—you
and your truck and the lines that stretch out
like spokes from the hub of Las Cruces
wheels all spinning from your conception
in the modest office beside the Amador Hotel that once
sheltered more than a few politicians with their pants down
on the main street that turned to dirt just past the neon Cork and Bottle
heading to Alamogordo. You were to come a long way—to Horatio
Alger a fleet of 900 semis, tankers, cement mixers—from that first bus
on the dirt road from town to A&M. How could you know deregulation
would bring independents running roughshod over your territory like
Billy the Kid? A modest man you wouldn’t stand to hear le jefe from your drivers
who showed the same solidarity when teamsters threatened. Now
your office is gone. Bank of America squats on the block. The terminal remains
as Whitfield Center next to the Community of Hope for those with none. El Paseo
is a generic sprawl of Wendy’s, Taco Bell, Mickey D’s, Burger King, where you can have it anyway but your way. Be happy with your dream there on the plain,
the snow shrinking around you. The picture you stepped out of now faded,
the world an empty frame. Be happy also we now sit atop the mesa overlooking
the valley where interstate runs along river, tiny trucks as steady
as the Rio Grande.
Elizabeth & Tim
