Don Burgeron

My name is Don Burgeron. I live here. I moved outta here twice when I got married. Both times I moved to Bovine and stayed there. Once with Nancy for three years and once with Gretta. Gretta left after a couple days of married and I come back here.

My grandpa William come here in 1927 when we was right on the Pretty Wide River. He got the land dirt cheap and got a bunch of it. I guess the river was flowing by and it watered all the land for a mile around and there were good times. The big flood of 34 pushed the river into a new channel nearly a mile west toward Bovine and grandpa William’s crops went dry. That was the end of that.

My dad was born to grandpa William’s second wife. Her name was Margie. My dad’s name was Teddy and he went off to war and become a land engineer. When he come back he had it in his mind to get that damn Pretty River flowin back here near grandpa’s land. Back then the tractors was slow and it took him nearly three years to get the channel dug out.

The big flood of 57 came racing down from the mountains and right into my dad’s newly dug channel and it took his tractor about fourteen miles down toward Mexico. It also dug the channel out so close to the house that it took it right along with the tractor. But we had water again.

The flood of 58 took the river way back toward Bovine again and we been dryer than lint ever since. A fire in 63 burned grandpa’s old house.

Well, that was about it for dad. He bought this used up old house trailer we been in ever since.

Dad passed on about ten years back and now it’s just us. The Burgerons.