There is much to be said for the characteristic known as "tenacity." It is demonstrated by the hard-won foothold by a small white birch in a thin, mossy crack bisecting a large boulder near our flagpole. The tiny tree has been returning to life, and getting a bit larger (up to about 14" now) and older, each of the last four summers it has remarkably returned to show its grit once again.

That term, and many other admiring adjectives, has been used by celebrities, news organizations worldwide, many others to describe a much admired businessman named Jack Weil in Denver, Col. who died at the age of 107 last year. I was saddened to hear the news on network television. Here was a very likeable gentleman with whom I struck up a conversation in his westernwear store in downtown Denver in 2005. Little did I know then that he was one of the most admired, and beloved, elders in the American West.

I was so taken by this gentleman, and the facts I later found out about him, that I decided to write a column about this chance meeting a few weeks later. That column, from another publication, that I include with this 2009 update can still be found under the heading "press clippings" among hundreds of others from CNN and the New York Times, to London's Daily Mail and others worldwide on his company's Web site www.rockmount. com.

I hope that my words in this column motivate you to go to that site and to read the stories about "Papa Jack" …they are a hoot. And you will also see the classic western shirts and bolo ties that Papa Jack created back in 1946 when he first opened his western wear business in what is now known as the stylish LoDo District of Denver. Back in '46 it was a run-down warehouse area with train tracks running down the middle of the street.

What got me back to this topic now, and thinking about this man, his legacy and our wonderful elders in general, is a book that I received from my Denver son and new daughter-in-law on Father's Day. It was a signed copy of an admiring book by Jack Weil's middleaged grandson who now runs the family business. It had just come out this spring, titled "Ask Papa Jack… Wisdom of the World's Oldest CEO." I just finished it and I can honestly say it is a gem. No surprise… Papa Jack was a gem of a man to the very end of his long and rich life.

Enough said for now. I encourage you to read that 2005 column I titled: "A Conversation with a 104 yearold Icon of the American West." I also include a picture of that book, and yours truly (circa about 1949 or 1950) when I was a little kid growing up in Montana. Clearly the western shirt I was wearing points out an early interest in the local cowboys, and the unique western shirts first made popular by Papa Jack three or four years earlier! Here's that 2005 account of my chance conversation with this western icon:

"You folks being looked after?" said the small, kindly shopkeeper approaching us as we sifted through a rack full of amazingly colorful and ornate western-style shirts. Thus began what would become an immensely enjoyable hour-long conversation I had last week with Mr. Jack A. Weil in downtown Denver, Col. Little did I know that he is one of the city's most beloved (and most likely the oldest) citizens.

Judy sensed after the first few minutes that this conversation was going to take a while, knowing my penchant for drawing stories, opinions, anecdotes and experience-based wisdom out of interesting elders. (I have long held that they are among our most valuable national treasures). She moseyed off exploring the store and ultimately finding the fascinating "museum" on the upper mezzanine filled with newspaper and magazine articles, autographs and artifacts that confirmed what I enthusiastically started telling her (an hour later) about this dignified, elderly shopkeeper wearing a leather "bolo" tie with a silver slide that graced a very handsome western-style shirt with "diamond snaps."

We were in Denver spending a wonderful week visiting our younger son, Chris, and exploring the mountains (and ski towns) that captured him almost a decade ago.

The morning after an enjoyable evening watching the struggling Colorado Rockies baseball team try to end another losing streak (they didn't) at beautiful Coors Field, we returned to that same revitalized downtown warehouse district to do some serious morning moseying. Little did I know that the morning would be dominated, and highlighted, by a conversation with a 104 year-old gentleman who is most assuredly the oldest active business owner (of the country's most revered western wear store) in America.

We got to talking about his early days and the job that brought him to the Rocky Mountain West from the cornfields of Indiana. He took a job as an elastic garter salesman (the kind used to hold up men's socks). His territory soon included every cowtown from El Paso, Texas to northern Montana.

I asked about his familiarity with Great Falls, Mont., my birthplace. That question somehow evolved into a recounting of the purchase of his first new car, a 1928 Chrysler… the 33rd car off the first Chrysler assembly line, mind you. The story involved some humorous "horse-trading" with a Montana car dealer. He said he was 27 years old when he bought the car. I started doing the math, and calculated that if what he was telling me was true, he had to be 104 years old instead of in the mid-eighties as I had initially suspected.

The wide-ranging stories went from impressing a barefoot rural Louisiana "country darkie" (without a hint of racism in his words, he was simply using the terminology of the times) hitchhiker in his shiny new motor car, to early business dealings with a bootmaker in Lewiston, Maine… the latter forthcoming when he found out where we had traveled from. All were told with a sharpness of wit, and an endearing sense of humor.

"Papa" Weil, as he is known locally and to some of the most famous celebrities in the world, started the Rockmount Ranch Wear Mfg. Co. in 1946 in that same location and building where, at the time, a sidetrack of the Union Pacific Railroad ran down the middle of the street.

I soon found that Mr. Weil was the creator of the first distinctively fancy western shirts with "diamond snaps" and "sawtooth" pockets. The snaps were created in the interest of early rodeo bull-riders so the pocket flap would pop open if the bull's horn hooked into it. Mr. Weil developed the first commercially produced "bolo" string ties that have become a western-wear signature over the years. He noted that he first called them "bola" ties, but a language-based misunderstanding on the part of a business associate resulted in the now-familiar term "bolo."

Unmistakably, the patriarch of three generations who have continued to grow the Rockmount Ranch Wear company, "Papa" Weil then recounted some of those who were, or are, his most loyal and devoted shirt customers… Elvis Presley, Ronald Reagan, Bob Dylan, Robert Redford, Bruce Springsteen, Nicholas Cage… I later found that the list truly does go on and on. Recently, they flew a rush order of shirts to London for Eric Clapton who needed them for a world tour that was starting in March.

It is all matter-offact to this interesting man of many years… whose classic western attire that he first innovated and marketed years ago reflect his view of his beloved west… "The West is not a place, it is a state of mind." It is clear that he has influenced that state of mind of many through his shirts, bolo ties, cowboy hats and his personality, to bring that affinity for his distinctive western wear to admiring customers from cowhands to musicians and movie stars… and to at least one U.S. president.

I would encourage you to go to www.rockmount.com to read more about this one-time garter salesman and his enduring business and to see the shirts that have become a western art-form and have inspired the coffee-table book co-created by his grandson, Western Shirts: A Classic American Fashion. It may not get many of us Mainers to forsake our wool plaid shirts for flowery diamond snapped, sawtooth-pocketed cowboy shirts… but I guarantee you will find Mr. Weil's story, and his enduring western-wear innovations, a fascinating read.

"We need to write, otherwise nobody will know who we are." —Garrison Keillor

Per usual, your thoughts and comments are welcome. Write them down and attach them to a genuine Rockmount diamond-snapped, sawtooth-pocketed, cowboy shirt (if possible, the blue and white plaid favored by Papa Jack), and set them inside the log door of our mudroom on the west shore of Gull Pond. Or simply launch an email to allenwicken@yahoo.com.