Stripping History

El Jefe's cousin sent this picture. On a recent visit to their Panhandle hometown (yes, the very same location of last weekend's reunion), he was stripping wallpaper from the walls of his boyhood bedroom for his aging mother. Under the fourth layer was the one he remembered growing up.

Struck by the memory it evoked, he took several pictures of the partially removed papers and emailed them to several relatives.

"I was bound and determined to be a cowboy when I grew up," he wrote in his email. Not a surprising ambition for a boy growing up on the High Plains whose grandfather had been a real cowboy.



Peeling those layers of wallpaper off must have brought back many memories as well. The blue floral pattern that is on top of the cowboy scene suggests the room was redecorated with a more feminine theme after he left.

Removing wallpaper can be like an archeological dig, revealing layers of family history. I asked El Jefe if his aunt wanted the room painted or a new wallpaper hung on the walls of this room, but he didn't know. There may be a metaphor there, but I'll leave it to you, dear reader, to construct it.