In the Platte Valley, where there is no shortage of colorful characters, there wasn’t anyone quite like John Lund. John, who lived to the age of 92, was proof that it was never too late to reinvent for someone to reinvent themselves again and again and again.
In his lifetime, John was a veteran, a University of Wyoming graduate, a civil engineer, a mountaineer and an archeologist. He was also a philosopher, a writer and a dear friend. He had a style all his own, usually wearing khaki-colored pants and a long-sleeve shirt with his long gray hair in a ponytail and a slight smile on his face. He reminded me of an Ent, a race of tree-like creatures from J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” because he didn’t rush anything he had to say.
I first met John in the early 2010s when I formed a writing group in Saratoga. He had already led a well accomplished life and had many stories to tell about his life during the group meetings. For most of the time he attended, his writing was autobiographical and recounted growing up in Wyoming in the early 1900s. All of it was handwritten, his penmanship clean and purposeful.
One of the stories from his childhood which remains with me to this day was when he was growing up near Cody, Wyoming during World War II. John grew up with none other than Alan Simpson, who went on to represent Wyoming in Washington, D.C., and Pete Simpson. On the morning of December 7, 1941 the Simpson brothers—who had heard about the bombing of Pearl Harbor on the family radio—ran through the streets of their neighborhood. Like modern-day Paul Revere, the two knocked on the doors of their neighbor’s houses and told them to turn on their radios.
The story also detailed the time John and Pete Simpson spent as altar boys at the Heart Mountain Relocation Center outside Cody.
I told this story to my mother, Elizabeth Wood, who was the general manager of the Saratoga Sun at the time. At the next meeting of our writing group, John told me about how my mom had contacted him wanting to print his story in the Sun. He agreed, but also seemed slightly embarrassed as he was often quite humble.
It was in this writing group, I also got a glimpse of John’s philosophy. I had started to introduce writing prompts to the group, which took John out of his comfort zone of non-fiction. One particular prompt was about two men falling to their death and to write about what they were thinking. John wrote about two men employed as window cleaners in the city: one religious and the other atheist. On a fateful day, their scaffold plummets from several stories up. The religious man prays to be saved while the atheist simply wonders “Who will feed my cat?”
He also had a rather dry sense of humor, especially when it came to his age. One evening, during a writing group, he told us “You know you’re old when you’ve been called as an archeological consultant on a building you were the architect for.”
This piqued the interest of everyone in the group, but especially mine. Whenever there is any construction or demolition at a site which uses federal funds—such as an airport—an archeologist must be called in on anything more than 50 years old. John had, at the time, received a phone call to consult on an outbuilding at the Rawlins Municipal Airport. When he arrived and was shown the building, he immediately recognized it as one of the first buildings he had planned after graduating from the University of Wyoming.
“How old are you, John?” I asked.
I don’t think he told me, but just smiled as if the story he just told should serve as evidence that he was old enough.
As the group continued to meet, John’s comfort with writing fiction grew and he began to write two different stories which dealt with time travel. The first centered around an archeologist who, at brief and unplanned moments, would be physically transported back in time. The second was set in the pioneer era of the West and followed a trio of travelers as they headed to a cave which would take them back in time. The latter almost felt as if John had created a new genre without even trying and I told him as much.
Eventually, life took me away from the writing group. Other members did their best to keep it going, but life also took them their separate ways as well. I would see John around town from time to time, usually in my capacity for the Saratoga Sun, but it seemed I never quite had the time to sit down and catch up. I regretted not taking the time, especially when he moved to Laramie. I regret it even more now.
As sad as I am at his passing, it’s hard not to be amazed at the long life he lived and the number of times he reinvented himself. I only hope I will be able to do that. When I grow up, I want to be like John Lund.
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