Scott Thayer

12179 SR-10, 47.09155° N, 120.68340° W

I had waded a mile or so of the Yakima River that afternoon, tossing flies to rising trout before the spiked, felt sole of my left wading boot detached at the toe, meaning that each step forward from that point on, each attempted step in fast flowing water required a battle with the currents and rocky bottom several times more difficult than before my floppy boot sole became a rudder. Time for new wading boots.

So I got out of the water and flop-flop-flopped back down the railroad tracks to my rig, a mile or so distant, then drove to a fly shop in Ellensburg, there to exchange a chunk of savings for a new pair of boots.

Along the road toward town I could not help but notice, on the far side of the highway, between shoulder and pasture, an elegant, white cross adorned with blue roses. It spoke to me somehow, thumping me right between the eyes even while obsessing about getting into town before the fly shop closed and back onto the river before the evening hatch. But with a jacked-up, Ram pickup filling my rearview and riding my ass, and a car coming the other direction it didn’t feel safe to even slow down, let alone pull onto the gravel shoulder. I promised myself I’d pay a visit on my way back, time allowing.

Time did allow.

New boots on the back seat, a drive-in burger, fries and chocolate/banana shake hoovered down in the first few miles from town, the rest of my drive back out to the stretch of river I’d left a few hours earlier felt leisurely-ish. Sun was still too high and temps too warm for the fishing to have picked up much, and the water I wanted to be standing in for that hour before sunset was just a short scramble from the road, anyway. I had plenty of time.

Absent the tailgating ranch hand this time, I pulled off onto the wide, gravel shoulder and stopped fifty feet or so shy of the memorial so my rig wouldn’t interfere in any of my photos, then grabbed my camera and phone, and got out.

Walking up to a stranger’s roadside memorial always feels a little bit like stepping into a church. And stepping into church with a camera you intend to use can feel a bit disrespectful. Will someone take offense? You know you’re entering hallowed ground, whether you ever knew the departed or not. And there’s that sense of a threshold, which you must choose to step over as you approach. Someone’s enshrined death and someone else’s demonstrable sense of loss are two absolutes in every instance. You simply cannot pretend to not know exactly what you do know, standing there within that energetic swirl, peering into things, most religiously avoid even talking about.

And you’re going to make pictures. You’re going to try to capture some sense of all that. You chose to pull off the road, after all. You deliberately walked up to an ongoing memorial service whose only invitation is the fact that someone put it there in a public place and asked for it to be noticed. You are now one of the persons they must have hoped would stop by. Swirl.

So you whisper if you speak at all. And you pay careful attention to each clue that those left behind have chosen to offer up about the person who had to leave. Some offer so many clues. Others, not even a name.

For the pictures, you try to include the surrounding landscape. And the road, with maybe a car speeding past for context and scale. Was this memorial near a sharp curve? An intersection? On a long, lonely stretch of straightaway? What time of day is it when you’re there and what about the weather?

And nowadays, for sure, you shoot at least a few pictures with your iPhone, in addition to your other camera so you’ll have this memorial’s exact GPS coordinates, to help you find it, mark it …on a map.

It’s complicated.

It’s also beautiful.

Scott Patrick Thayer: from his obituary in the Ellensburg Daily Record:

“Scott was born in Ellensburg on July 4, 1975 to Patrick and Julie (Reid) Thayer. He grew up in Ellensburg and graduated from Ellensburg High School in 1994. After high school, Scott went on to work for Anderson Hay and Grain as a hay buck and truck driver and worked for other hay companies in the following years. He was working for Ellensburg Cement Products as a truck driver at the time of his death. Scott's family, friends and coworkers will tell you that he was a ‘Master’ at driving any kind of truck.”

“It is with great sadness that we share the unexpected passing of our beloved husband, father, son, brother, nephew and friend, Scott Patrick Thayer. The Lord called Scott home to be with Him in Heaven on Monday, April 15, 2019 at the age of 43.”

Scott Patrick Thayer; may his memory be a blessing.

---

When my mother died in a car wreck that almost took my sister, as well I needed to go and stand at that place where it happened. I needed to see it, walk that stretch of road, again and again, try to understand, get a sense of that place where she took her exit from the world that we continue to wake and sleep in.

I did not build her a memorial at the crash site. We didn't have that sort of relationship anymore. But even more so, because she was driving drunk and in a jealous rage at the moment of her departure. She did not leave those of us who loved her on good terms.

I crawled in through the broken window at the junkyard, in sweltering heat to sit there inside the crushed car she died in, needing to feel something more, understand better, but in the end, did not ache to leave some mark of loyalty in the world for her. Not there. Not like that.

Perhaps it’s no surprise then how acutely aware of others’ tributes, their very personal and heartfelt exit markers I have been, ever since. And so, as the spirit moves me, I pull over. I look for a safe place to stop. I stand with the departed and with those left behind trying to make sense of things, bowing at their alters, reading their notes of loss and gratitude, trying to honor their hints and often bumbling efforts to memorialize their loved ones' passages.

From time to time I'll add another of these memorials, here. It won't make a lick of sense to some, but perfect sense to others. I’m ok with that. There are no written rules for this sort of thing, as far as I know, and yet, each Roadside Memorial I've encountered, whether alongside some crumbling, two lane road in rural Thailand or a busy freeway in urban Illinois, each always has some elements in common, the most discernible of which is a profound need to express one's sense of grief and loss. After all these years I still find it worth the effort to pull over, get out …then to listen to whatever voices might be carried on the breeze, touch the edge of someone else’s tale of loss, say thank you to a world big enough and imaginative enough to allow this possibility, too..