Six old boys from the legendary 10th Mountain Division’s Company L buried one of their own in a hillside cemetery overlooking Steamboat Springs last week. Staff Sgt. Chuck Hogue lived and loved and was loved there, and it was time to say goodbye.
We looked at the Purple Heart, three Bronze Stars and a Gold Conduct Medal he earned in combat at Kiska and Mount Belvedere, and we filled the Bear River with tears.
Chuck came into town to ski and party with his buddies from Camp Hale during the war. When it was over he returned to marry the homecoming queen, raise five kids and use his big hands to squeeze a living from the land.
He dedicated his life to making things grow: cattle and family. Hay and children. Grain and values. And Chuck harvested Colorado’s finest crops: good kids, good friends, good stories and good times.
No one knows just how many lambs he slathered with garlic and lemon juice, or how many bonfires he shared with friends, from Pennsylvania, where he grew up, from Camp Hale, where he trained, from Lake Havasu, where he golfed, and with an extensive community he papa-ed on the Hogue Ranch on the banks of the Yampa River. He taught us to sing and cuss with the best of them.
Chuck said he lived by three principles: Keep your head down; always have a knife on the swather; and booze is the answer. His life was filled with hound dogs, funky old hats that looked like they had been sat on precisely because they had been, and lame ditties he loved to recite around the campfire.
He fought for liberty and bought American. He drank Dickel and Gatorade and ate his steak medium rare until his teeth gave out. He loved the sound of big bands, the songs of Willie Nelson and the humor of Baxter Black. He played poker, drove Pontiacs and read Engineering News Record. He survived the Depression, 16 presidents, five wars, war injuries and heart surgeries.
Chuck was humble, honest and generous. Like most ranchers, he was a man of faith. Faith equipped him to fight weather, whitetop and insects. Faith enabled him to cope with interest rates, market prices and government controls. He said a prayer before breakfast and at the family dinner table every night. In between he helped launch the co-op, the wool-growers association and three bowling leagues.
This big rough-hewn man found pretty, petite Babe Squire at a dance at the Mesa Schoolhouse. After only two dates, he showered her with poems and letters for three years, while he was away at war. And when he came back they joined hands, 58 years ago. Together they fought anything that threatened the harvest and danced up a storm on Saturday nights. She fed the hay crews, and he fixed the baler. They raised kids who knew how to juice cows, pull calves, shoot ducks, trap beaver and cut sagebrush out of fence lines.
Chuck fished King Solomon Creek and hunted the forest above Big Creek. He went fishing with nothing more than a skillet, butter and worms from the irrigation ditch. He hunted with a 30-40 Krag with open sights. The boys say he always walked the farthest and came back with the most.
They remember him screaming at them for forgetting to clean the chaff out of the back of the combine or failing to milk the cows when they were supposed to. “The older you get, the dumber you get,” he’d bellow. But it was always bark and never bite. The threatened boot in the seat of the pants was seldom delivered.
Fact is, Chuck’s School of Broken Knuckles created a work ethic that continues to serve his ranch, the valley and the future well. Chuck met the poet’s definition of success: “He lived well, laughed often and loved much. He enjoyed the trust of a pure woman, the respect of intelligent men and the love of little children. He left the world better than he found it.”
But his days on the swather are over. It was fitting that the town said its goodbyes in the church he plastered with his own hands. Chuck always said he wanted to live as long as John Doe and one day more. That day just passed.
The time has come for his departure and, as the Apostle Paul urged, he fought the good fight, finished the race and kept the faith.
Now, it’s tee time in heaven.
