Yesterday I Met a Man Named Charley Silverwater

Yesterday I Met a Man Named Charley Silverwater

In this small community of Boulevard, just off Interstate 8 at the highest point before the road dives down to the Anza-Borrego desert, there is a small candy factory, The Wisteria Cottage that has been operating without interruption since 1921. Yesterday I drove there to buy a box of candy as a Christmas gift for a family member, only to find it is regularly closed on Tuesdays. You would think they would make an exception the week before Christmas. I wanted to buy the gift that day, and stood by my pickup looking around.

Across the road are several new businesses started up when the property was sold last summer. One appeared to be an Indian novelty store called the Beaver Creek Trading Post, not a very appropriate name since I doubt there is a wild beaver south of the Tehapechi mountains.. There were Indian rugs displayed on the porch of the old wooden building.

I drove over and discovered what I thought was a wooden Indian was a very live man! As I was standing on the porch, I was startled by a voice on my left saying, “Yeah, they always close on Tuesdays.”  He introduced himself as Charlie Silverwater. He was dark with long braids, and wore a red-checkered woolen jacket over a plain grey collarless shirt, and he had a leather pouch hanging around his neck, containing his fetish, I suppose. He looked as much an Indian as a man can without a feathered headdress, but he was not of a local tribe. I asked him what was his tribe, and he told me he was part Apache and part Yaqui, both native to Arizona and Northern Mexico. He told me he had once had a shop at Knott’s Berry Farm in Orange County near Disneyland. He was very articulate, and soon showed me many fine clay pots, some 1,000 years old from the Anazazi people who have long since disappeared. His ‘stuff ‘ was high quality merchandise. Unfortunately, I couldn’t afford much of it and ended up buying Leanin’ Tree Christmas cards and a beautiful tote bag for my Indian friend, Carmen. The blankets started at $49 for the small ones displayed outside, and up to several thousand dollars for the big ones inside. He had one made by someone in the Navaho tribe more than 150 years ago, and it was still soft and beautiful. The person who made it would have raised and shorn the sheep for the wool, spun the yarn and dyed it with native plants in the beautiful muted tones I saw. I felt of it and it was still soft as a baby’s blanket. A smaller, more modern blanket, woven by a Navaho woman in muted red, grey, ivory, and black, was priced a $900. There was also a display of beautiful silver and turquoise jewelry in a glass case. There were clay pots, baskets, dream catchers, knives, hatchets, and beaded items, along with leather western style purses and clothes.

 I never would have expected to find such beautiful and good quality things for sale across the road and down a short distance from Boulevard’s welcome sign that proclaims: “Welcome to Boulevard, Home of the good life. Commodities distributed on the last Tuesday of the month,”