There are certain places that, no matter how often we frequent them, no matter how familiar they become, they still evoke fond memories of earlier times. One such place for me is the Christopher Creek Landmark Cafe & Bar. Not only do they have Elk Burgers on their menu, (along with great outdoor patio dining!), but there is still that deep hole out back that Heber White and a band of hearty friends dug by hand back in the early 70's. Into that hole they threw a huge, inverted piece of metal culvert pipe, about four feet deep and two feet across, forming the biggest, deepest steel-lined, in-ground barbecue pit that folks in these parts had ever seen. This local phenomenon became the scene of many an outdoor deep pit barbecue over the coming years, most of them done to raise money for various local charitable events.

The meat featured at these occasions depended entirely on what had been donated by the local residents. Sometimes it was beef, other times elk or deer. Why, once there was even bear meat to be had. In the rare instance when there wasn't enough meat to make a meal, somehow the money was found and more was purchased to make sure there was plenty to feed the huge crowds that always turned out for these events. There was usually a large vat of savory spiced pinto beans cooked up along with the meat, and a veritable slew of other side dishes gladly brought in by all the guests.

Now, no matter who it was who was planning the next barbecue, and no matter what charity the event was for, anytime there was any serious outdoor cooking to be done, it was Jim Sumpter who was called in to do it. Jim just seemed to have a knack, a magical way of blending glowing charcoal with huge, sizzling slabs of tender meat. He also had an equally magical way of getting folks to help out.

I had an opportunity recently to sit and reminisce with Jim about those days gone by. Today, Jim is quick to point out that he learned everything he knows from Rim Country pioneers Howard Childers and Bill Morris back when they did the cooking for political functions in the "old days".

So as to start off the conversation on a high note, I asked Jim if there was one particular barbecue that stood out most in his mind. He frowned a bit and mildly protested that it was a pretty tough question, but declared after a moment's recollection that for sheer size and grandeur, he'd have to pick the one down in Gisela that they held back in '72 for George Wallace, then-Governor of Alabama who was running for President. Jim became quite animated as he beamed and bragged that they had cooked (and ate!) over a thousand pounds of prime Arizona beef for that one!

Since that had gone so well, I decided to jump right into the meat of the interview, so to speak. I asked him if he had any "secret recipes" that he would care to share with the more charcoal-challenged among us. Jim, noting my Parker T-Ball Jotter poised anxiously over a waiting pad, answered slyly that, unfortunately, he has never written anything down. Every barbecue and every batch of beans or tamales, he explained with seemingly genuine sadness, varies according to the supplies on hand and the kind of meat to be used. "Nice try!" I'm sure he thought.

Bruised but recovering from that stinging defeat, I decided to lighten it up a bit and asked Jim if he could share with me an overview of events that led to his becoming a resident of the Rim Country. "Of course!" he said, and smilingly obliged. He recalled how in the spring of 1957, he bought just over five acres acres at Bonita Creek from the developer who had purchased it from Floyd and Myrtle Pyle. The purchase price at that time was twenty thousand dollars, and that included the original ranch house with its hand-hewn logs. It had been recently restored by the caretaker who lived in a small cabin just up the creek. Also thrown into the deal were a "meat house" with a false panel leading to a secret door, two horse stalls, four horses, a tack room, a bunk house and an old carriage shed. There was even a pond out there in the front yard fed by the Pyle Diversion Ditch.

That ditch, Jim recalled, had been dug by the Ezells, who first homesteaded the property in the 1800's. Jim said he had grown tired of city life down in Phoenix, where he and his family had lived since 1936. These five acres on Bonita Creek reminded him a bit of this little place in Oklahoma where he was born and lived until his family moved to Phoenix. Jim says when he plunked down that $20,000 for the homestead, he thought it was all the money in the world!

I was astonished when Jim told me that he continued to work for the next 18 years as an ironworker, doing structural steel work for Allison Steel in Phoenix, and then for other companies in the Valley until his retirement in 1983! He was finally able to live on the Bonita Creek spread full time after twenty-six years of commuting between a weekday career in the Valley and a weekend paradise in the Rim Country!

Over the years, the family had acquired an assortment of livestock on the property, to include pigs, calves, chickens, ducks, geese and rabbits, and they always kept a large garden and had more fruit than they could possibly use from the crabapple, apple and pear tree orchard.

But, ranching just didn't seem to be enough for Jim. One spring day in the late 60's, he jumped out of bed with a fabulous idea... and he created Sumpter's Worm Farm!

Jim decided to use the rich soil there at the foot of the towering Mogollon Rim to raise worms. Not just any worms, though... he would raise "Rim Redskin Fishworms." And he did just that, up there in the orchard. He described the "worm farm" to me as consisting of twenty wooden boxes that measured 10 feet x 2 feet x 2 feet, each filled high with the soft, fertile soil.

Trying to picture this vast, squirming assemblage in my mind, I innocently asked Jim if the boxes had covers, to which he gently said no. I couldn't help but ask what seemed to me to be the obvious question, "But, didn't the worms try to crawl out?" Jim gave me that look that only a friend can get away with and answered patiently, "Well, Dean, if they had been plain old Night Crawlers, then they sure would have crawled out, but these were Red Worms."

"Oh", I replied, and wondered if I should change the subject again.

Apparently unfazed by my rather dense but genuine curiosity, Jim went on to tell me how he had fed his worms a combination of shredded newspaper, manure, and a little grain. He revealed that the real secret of a successful worm farm is in the water. "You have to have good water, not treated water like we drink, but pure water from a spring fed creek." And of course, Jim's place was right there on the creek.

He said a little wistfully that it was a really good business at first, but that it eventually began to take up too much of his time. He found himself away from home again except on weekends. He figures that he sold about a million worms a year for the two years he ran the worm farm. Since the going rate at that time was 50 cents for a box of 50 worms, by the time he figured in the packaging cost and the time it took to distribute to the Sportsman's Chalet way up in Strawberry, to J.D.'s Liquor Store and O'Daniels Service Station over in Payson, and finally to the Christopher Creek Store & Bar (now known as The Landmark), Jim figured he was barely breaking even, so he sadly decided to give up farming worms.

As I fought the urge to ask him if he actually had to touch the worms to count them, his face brightened as he told me that he believes there is still one of his famous "Rim Redskin Fishworms" containers at the Double D Saloon & Cafe over in Tonto Village. (After thirty years, there are no worms left in the container, of course!) The next time I'm over by the Double D, I must remember to ask Danny Caine or Ethel if I can get a look at Jim Sumpter's "Rim Redskin Fishworms " container. I mean, who knows... someday that container may end up in the Rim Country Museum Archives. After all, these were not plain old Night Crawlers!

We wrapped up our conversation on a serious note, touching briefly on an issue to which Jim is very sensative -- forest fires. Most everybody who knows Jim had heard at the time or has since learned that he and his family lost everything they owned up there on Bonita Creek in the Dude Fire of 1990. Everything except the chickens, he mused. What you may not know, and should be pleased to learn, is that Jim and his son, a general contractor, have re-built in the exact same spot where the old homestead cabin stood for all those years. Those who know Jim Sumpter and his love for that spread there on Bonita Creek would have expected nothing less.

It's a new house, with new walls and new floors, new windows and new doors. The tall pines, of course, are gone from the surrounding landscape, but there is brilliant green and vital growth all around, healing the now-muted scars. As evidence of the old cabin and its outbuildings fade into the past, the new house becomes familiar... it becomes home. In the quiet hours of the late afternoon, the deepening shadows creep slowly toward the east, a hawk soars effortlessly overhead on the fragrant breeze blowing gently up from the Great Tonto Basin, while off in the timbered distance, an elk bugles urgently, and the land itself evokes fond memories of earlier times.