Incidentally, the Reading Room, in Covington, New Mexico, sat next to the Masonic Temple on West Main. As Susan entered the Reading Room, Mr. Hillman, a fatherly gentleman, wearing a turquoise bolo, rose from his chair and greeted her.
“Susan, how are you today?” Mr. Hillman asked, as he left his books in a pile on the table, which, as much as anything, said he planned to return.
“Fine, thank you. Last night I read the Declaration of Independence,” Susan replied.
Mr. Hillman nodded and escorted her out the door and down the street. He had a steady gait, and the assured, attentive manner of someone that had a successful career and had earned the respect of the community. He was dressed, immaculately, in a freshly pressed white shirt with silver cufflinks and dark trousers. After a short walk, they entered a country dinner and sat at a front table next to a wide window. Mr. Hillman was somewhat formal, but Susan was used to that.
“It’s another beautiful day in God’s country,” Hillman said, in a deep voice that carried throughout the small café. ”I feel we’re blessed, but that’s why we all live here, because of the open skies and the clean air. So you completed your reading for today. I’m proud of you.”
“I had read it before. You know that.”
“It didn’t hurt you to read it again, did it?” Mr. Hillman said. ”As a reminder, I read it several times a year. It never gets old. Along with the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, it’s a great document.”
“I wouldn’t disagree with you.” Susan was used to agreeing with him. “My dad was a bit surprised that I was reading it. He sends his greetings.”
“You’re father is a good man. Once and while I see him driving around town,” Mr. Hillman said. The hurried waitress brought them water without them asking for it. She then took their order, though she knew what it would be. ”I’ve only spoken to him once, since he works out of town, but it’s your mother who’s the jewel. As you know, she has been very kind to me, visited me when I was sick and brought me cookies after I got well. Two of a kind, you and your mother. My own daughter, who lectures on politic science at the University of New Mexico, in Albuquerque, was smart and was like you in many ways.”
“For my graduation my parents are giving me a typewriter so that I won’t have to depend on anyone else when I go to college,” Susan said. ”I’ve been saving all my money so that I’ll have spending money when I go.”
To explain why Susan would go out to lunch with Mr. Hillman you have to understand that her mother encouraged her to be kind to him.
”It all started from my mother’s visits with Mr. Hillman in the hospital when he was very sick and I went with her,” Susan told me after she introduced me to him. “My mother and I both thought he was a very nice man. For him, God and country were supreme. From the beginning, he paid attention to me. I didn’t read anything into it. He was just nice…he would come into the library where I worked, but he spent most of his time in the reading room. He belonged to the John Birch Society and hated Communism. He saw conspiracies everywhere, and it was funny that the Reading Room was located next to Masonic Temple, which when I thought about it seemed like a conspiracy. He didn’t like Masons, or John D. Rockefeller Jr., though I never agreed with him…but he and I still hit it off.” (Before I met Susan, I knew nothing about the John Birch Society. Between working in a Safeway store and drag racing, I never had time to read the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, or the Bill of Rights. I also knew nothing about the John Birch Society and very little about communism and am the same age as Susan… …and Susan and I were both Americans, though we lived in neighboring states and weren’t to meet until we went to college. We were so different that it was strange that we were attracted to each other. As a result, we both had to compromise. I don’t know why she went out with me. For the answer perhaps you have to go back to why she would go to lunch with Mr. Hillman. Only then will it become clear why she could be attracted to someone who was as sensitive as a brick wall. But by the time we were married, however, enough of our values had rubbed off on each other to make us somewhat compatible, and, judging from all of the photographs taken at the time, we got along with each other beautifully.)
“Yes,” Susan said. ”When I first met Ted, he wasn’t aware of many things; he didn’t know what was going on with ‘liberalism’ and ‘Rockefellerism.’”
“And tell me what you knew about labor unions,” I asked. “I know she believed there was a conspiracy that pitted ‘Capitalism’ against ‘Communism,’ or it seemed that way to her.”
“How do you know what I thought?” Susan said. “I think we should step back.”
“When we were in college, we worked side by side in the library,” I said. “We used to express our points of view, and so on, and what she said didn’t mean anything to me. The labor movement did. My father always believed in the unions.”
“In any case, all I want to say is that I’ve changed and realize that I was greatly influenced by Mr. Hillman,” Susan said. “I now have only one thought: we need to take the middle road between the extremes. To help with that, I act as a sounding board and often counterbalance my husband.”
“Last year was the first time he didn’t vote for the Democrats,” Susan said. ”We were out of the country. But we kept up with everything and would’ve voted had we paid enough attention to find out how.” The election I missed for the first time was when Nixon won…all of those people who voted for him got what the deserved…which meant had I voted I would’ve been for his opponent. My loyalty to one party and one belief system has always been one of my strengths but that hardly explained my association with Nick, or explained why someone like Susan would hook up with me.
Soon after graduation, again in deference to what we believed, Susan and I were married.
Randy Ford
