First Glance | Lee Davenport
Red Callahan Charles Haddox
I
ran into Lily Morton and Nieves Olague at “Red” Callahan's funeral.
They were standing in front of the cathedral, at the bottom of the stairs. None of us particularly liked Red, but he was a neighbor, and no one in El Paso will pass up a funeral. The obsession with paying one’s last respects to an unfamiliar cousin or remote acquaintance started as a way to get out of work, but now it’s a thing. An El Paso thing. If you hear about a memorial service or a burial or whatever, you feel compelled to go, even if you never really knew or liked the deceased. Poor Red Callahan was a neighbor, but hardly a friend. And I never understood his nickname. He didn’t have red hair. Callahan? He barely spoke a word of English. Red was born in Mexico, so maybe he was the great-great-grandson of one of the San 25
