BOB SUNDOWN: LIFE IN THE SLOW LANE

BOB SUNDOWN AND THE GOOD LIFE PHOTOGRAPHS BY DAN COOGAN

Unlike the migratory birds that winter in southern Arizona, Bob Sundown can't fly. If he could, he'd probably tell the other birds to slow down, smell the coffee. Sundown likes life in the slow lane. The very slow lane. He's often found on Arizona's secondary roads, poking along in a "covered wagon" pulled by a team of donkeys. At three miles an hour, he doesn't go far on any given day, which is just as well because he's not always sure where he's going. Sundown is 80. He's been on the road for 39 years, headed somewhere. What's the rush?

"I'm a poor hand for planning," he says. "Whenever I get ready to do, I just do. And when I go, I'm not in any hurry 'cause when I get there, I'm there."

On a warm afternoon in late April, I found Sundown sitting on a homemade bench in the shade of his wagon. His four donkeys, Cody, Curly, Judy, and Tammy, stood tethered to bare mesquites and watched over by a vigilant dog named Skeeter, who lay in the shade under the wagon.

Sundown was camped near a corral and windmill on the Ten Ranch, eight miles north of Interstate 10, just west of U.S. Route 191. Claude McNair, who owns the spread, is one of several ranchers around the state who admire Sundown and look forward to his seasonal visits. Sundown is not, strictly speaking, an employee of McNair's, but he keeps an eye out for cows that wander too close to the road, and he knows how to fix a windmill and repair fences. As the logo on his cap says, he's a "Genuine Antique Cowboy."

"He's been a friend of my husband for more than 20 years," Henrietta McNair observed, "and for as long as we've known him, he's beengetting around with his wagon and donkeys. A few years ago, I said to him, 'Bob, you're getting up in years now. Don't you think it's time you found yourself a little house and settled down?' He said, 'I would die.'"He's probably right. As a young man, Sundown covered the western states on horseback. Later, as a concession to age and convenience, he switched to a wagon and donkeys. Life in the slow lane and "self-efficiency," as he put it, are what he prefers.

"Life is real good if you kinda let other things bypass you," he told me. "I don't worry about anything. I'm not even drawing Social Security. I'm just livin' on my good looks. People come by and give me groceries they don't need, and Claude will give me some hay for my livestock. I don't drink any hard liquor. I don't smoke cigarettes. People stop and visit me. Visitin' me is like going to an amusement park. They like to visit my chickens and donkeys, and Skeeter, of course."

Sundown is a natural survivor. He often gets by on jackrabbits and native plants.

"I know every plant in this country that's good for you," he said, and then we went for a little walk. "Why, look here, this filaree [Erodium cicutarium] is just like spinach. And if I get a cold, I just chew up some of this horehound. They used to make cough drops out of it. Maybe still do. You probably find this stuff growing in your backyard in Tucson."

Sundown's diet and outdoor life don't seem to be doing him any harm. He is tall and appears solidly built. He walks like a man far younger, and he is strong. His fingers are longer and thicker than piano keys, the product, he says, "of a lifetime of dang hard work."

Sundown was born in Wyoming. His mother was Nez Perce, and his father was an Anglo. He left home when he was around 11 and has been on the road ever since.

In late April, he left the desert and before the end of June had reached a grassy meadow at Winona, on the outskirts of Flagstaff, where I caught up with him again. He had departed Arizona for a tour through western New Mexico before returing to Arizona via Alpine and Springerville. He then turned west to Show Low, north to Holbrook, and west to Winona. He clip-clopped along secondary roads, cars buzzing around him all day long.

Does the noise and speed of trucks and cars bother him?

"No," he said. "The nice thing is we can take this wonderful brain and control everything, so I can ride along, and I just block everything out, but I can still see a mouse running by the side of the road, even lizards. A human has to slow down, and eventually you don't even know you're going slow. He paused, smiling modestly. "This is a good life, and I am happy," he said. "It's hard to explain. It just feels so good to go slow."