Like a fragile little bird, he departed this earth gently, John Kennedy Hutchens, a poetic essence, a ray of light, a grace. He was as if from another age, an age of gentility and deep personal honor, a fineness of spirit to this quiet mischievous soul whose heart belonged to history and language.

He saw through the eyes of his childhood until his dying day, 18 days before his 90th birthday, the wondrous adventure of it all. Born Chicago, turn of the century, August 9, 1905, his father a tough and unregenerate newspaperman (managing editor, Chicago Journal, reporter, Charles A. Dana's New York Sun, Joseph Pulitzer's New York World, William Randolph Hearst's Journal).

The boy, seven or eight years of age, sitting impatiently on the office boy's bench on Saturday morning, his heart racing, waiting for his father to take him to lunch and on to Comiskey Park, home of the Chicago White Sox!

And the roar of the ballpark exploded in his mind as the White Sox took the field against the Detroit Tigers that hot summer day in July,1913, his first major league baseball game, his father by his side.

"That man there," said his father, "is as great as any player you'll ever see. His name's Ty Cobb."

His father, the most profound influence of his life who lived on vividly in his mind and spirit to the day he died, the dream of being a newspaperman born with his father.

The Great Move from Chicago to the Wilds of Montana came in the year 1917, John eleven years of age, and thus began his life-long romance with the Old West, its history, its characters, its lore forever ingrained in his secret rogue's heart, the breathtaking beauty of the American landscape indelible in his mind.

His father had made his first journey to the lawless terrain of Lewis and Clark's expeditions in November, 1889, having landed a job at the Helena Independent, arriving in Helena, Montana on the day before the Territory became a state, thus marking him officially, a pioneer, a fact young Johnny spoke of with special pride.

Missoula, Montana, what a place for a child with the fertile imagination of Johnny Hutchens to grow up in, the ghosts of Blackfoot warriors in his dreams at night. By day he would listen, listen to the voices, the voices of the old men, men who had crossed the plains by covered wagon and stagecoach, watched the open range come and go, seen the railroads arrive, men who'd fought under General George Armstrong Custer -- the endless recapitulation of his finale at the Battle of Little Big Horn River, Montana, on Bloody Sunday, June 25, 1876.

The voices, the voices that lived on in his mind, the boy at a respectful distance as the old men gathered on the old courthouse lawn, men in their 90's some of whom fought in the great Civil War, the old Northern Union Army men and Southern Confederates.

"I fought at Shiloh," cried out one old timer thick with emotion.

"I fought at Shiloh," cried another.

"I fought for the North," said the first.

"I fought for the South!"

Suddenly two old fierce men were rushing at one another, lunging with old fury, only at the last moment throwing their arms around each other embracing and weeping.