Let's Dance and Slim Blackford

Let's Dance

Anyone who missed seeing Byron and Annie Fairchild or Paul and Lola Lemke trip the light fantastic in Creede dance pavilions should feel slighted. Byron and Annie were smooth and graceful waltzers, while Paul and Lola were masters of ballroom dancing, fox trots, polkas, tangos, anything that required precise timing and footwork. It was a pleasure to sit on the sidelines and watch them capture everyone's attention.

It wasn't until the Barrett brothers, Ernie and Gene, came to Creede in 1937 that the new fad "Jitterbugging" was introduced to us. Gene loved to dance and taught anyone who was brave enough and agile enough to throw caution to the winds as you tried to throw your partner through the wall. Herb Hutchinson was a slick dancer and picked up Jitterbugging like a duck takes to water. He mastered all of Gene's moves and perfected many of his own, including rolling his partner over his back without a misstep.

When Creede's silver mines reopened in the mid-thirties and its population began to swell, the Derrick warehouse, near the railroad tracks, was utilized as a dance hall and ran for a short period under the management of Paul Lemke and my dad. It was cold, poorly lighted, and dust billowed up during a fast Fox Trot, but those were the depression years when minor inconveniences never interfered with a good time. The band was stationed in the north end and the only heat came from the south end where a large potbellied stove consumed enormous piles of Red Spruce wood. The band members wore coats until the combination of hard liquor, warm bodies, and the old potbellied stove could waft a little heat to the north end. Bill Swinehart, Jr. lost an eye during a 4th of July dance when a young fellow, quite drunk, threw a lighted firecracker among the dancers and it exploded near Bill's nose.

The last dance I remember in the "Bucket of Blood" so named because of the many disputes settled through fisticuffs outside, featured a Jitterbugging contest and first place was taken by Kenneth Snow and Edna Ruth Van Aken. Roy Autrey and his wife of the La Garita Ranch placed second. The finale was a wild frenzy of swinging and spinning over half the dance floor with a 50-year accumulation of soot and ash from passing trains plus coal and grain dust from warehouse days filtered both up and down to give it a surreal effect. It took the judges several minutes to select the Winners.

A few years after the Bucket of Blood dried up, Sam and Garnet Birdsey began holding square dances in their garage that were well received. They taught many of the youngsters of Creede during the 1950s to "Dosey Do and Swing their Partners."

Slim Blackford

I wouldn't describe it as a problem, more like an inconvenience, that people in small towns acquire nicknames that stick to them for life and their birth names may never be known, even by close friends. Such is the case with Slim Blackford.

Slim Blackford was a tall, slender man and his wife, Eloise, was short and plump which assured them of recognition in any circumstance or crowd. Slim was a butcher for the A. H. Major Grocery Store when they first moved from Bonanza to Creede, then became an operator of diesel engines in the ore reduction mill of Emperius Mining Company. Eloise was a talented piano player and opera singer who taught music as well as staging musicals with local students. Slim weighed my truck in and out when I was hauling ore from the Amethyst Mine and nearly always had a story to relate as we waited for the scale arm to settle. The mill had a couple of characters, one in the assay office and one on floats, who were gifted at pulling boneheaded stunts that Slim kept on file and kept us both laughing. He later hauled ore from several mines with Pete Walker and Charles Slaght which rounded out a memorable working career in Creede Colorado.

Slim and Eloise partially retired and moved to the Montrose area where they owned and operated a small cafe to a successful conclusion of both their working careers. On total retirement, Slim took a daily walk around the business section of Montrose where his route took him by a mortuary and a friendly mortician. The mortician liked to have Slim drop in for coffee and a visit when he wasn't picking up a corpse or preparing one. George was forever kidding Slim about being so tall and ask if it wasn't time to measure him up for a special length casket. Slim would laugh and decline. On one visit George had a handsome casket on display and told Slim "Take your hat and shoes off and crawl in, I want to show you that you just won't fit in a normal casket." Slim doffed his hat, kicked his shoes off, and George helped him stretch out. "Okay, get your arms out of the way, I'm going to close the bottom half, see, your head is off the pillow and over the edge. I'll get a yardstick and see how much we'll have to add." As he went for the yardstick, Mrs. McGregor entered from the sidewalk with tickets for a concert in her hand. Slim raised himself in the casket and said "Good morning Mrs. McGregor." The poor lady nearly fainted and tripped out backward. As Slim was slipping into his Oxfords he told George, "Mrs. McGregor wasn't very cordial this morning, was she?"