It’s a sale — and so much more
Iwouldn’t normally devote 21.9 column inches to a garage sale, but after three minutes with Anita Stalter, I realized this wasn’t about the ‘67 Land Rover, the ‘53 Ford Jubilee tractor or even the bunkhouse that might, might, fit on the back of a trailer — provided the trailer could negotiate the S curves on the pinstripe-thin roads of Cañada de Los Alamos. No, this isn’t about stuff. It’s about love. And legacy. So, here’s the wrapping: Stalter is selling some of the belongings she and her late husband, Ernest L. “Tap” Tapley, collected in their 32 years of marriage. She plans to put the proceeds to good use: distributing a portion to a scholarship fund in Tapley’s honor.
She’d love to get top dollar for that stuff. It’d be cool to see someone use them and be inspired by their history. And she thinks people in Santa Fe’s outdoors community would love to own a part of such history.
But as she meanders past the remnants of a life well-lived on a sunny Thursday, Stalter unveils another wish.
She wants to get the word out because she’s hoping a creative type in Santa Fe — the men and women who write screenplays, hold cameras, create documentaries — would get interested in her late husband. Doesn’t have to be Santa Fe, either. With the beauty of the internet, maybe someone in Seattle or Schenectady or São Paulo might see this story and become intrigued by Tap Tapley, who died in 2015 at the age of 91.
In Stalter’s eyes, Tapley was the kind of man they don’t make anymore — an hombre so tough and resolute he’d make another Ernest (last name Hemingway) blush in insignificance.
Tapley was an outdoorsman’s outdoorsman; a soldier’s soldier; a friend’s friend. Stalter says there’s a book about Tap, but it doesn’t sound like its pages could corral his experiences, his life.
He served in World War II in the U.S. Army’s famed 10th Mountain Division; fought wildfires for the U.S. Forest Service and National Park Service; and helped open the Outward Bound School, which teaches outdoors and survival skills — his bread and butter from the time he was a kid in Massachusetts and deep into his twilight.
And yet, Stalter remembers a gentle soul; someone loving and kind, always looking for a way to help someone find something special in themselves.
Tap and Stalter were named Santa Fe Living Treasures 20 years ago — Tapley for his work in outdoors education and teaching mountaineering at old Camp Stoney; Stalter for her efforts as head of horticulture for the Historic Santa Fe Foundation. (She’s pretty resilient herself; during a drought in the ’90s, she convinced people to donate water for the flora and fauna on city properties).
And so with all that as prologue, as introduction, there was Stalter, slowly guiding me through the 23 acres she and
Tap long called home.
In a cowgirl hat and black jeans, Stalter moved around the area with reverence. Or was it longing? She wasn’t saying goodbye, exactly, but it felt like that: In recent months, she’s moved to another part of the mountain, and at some point, says she’s ready to leave town.
“I’m thinking I’m headed where the rivers run deep,” she said.
Until then, though, there’s the mission: remembering Tap; preserving Tap; celebrating Tap. And if she can sell some of the stuff on Craigslist or find someone interested in learning more and maybe memorializing him in ways that hanging onto a tractor or a painting never could, she’ll just keep going.
“I’m 64,” Stalter said. “This ain’t gonna happen if I … if I’m not here.”
From a distance, maybe they seemed like an unlikely pairing. Tapley was 34 years his wife’s senior. But almost from the moment they met, there was this connection; a shared spirit; a love of adventure. She didn’t exactly say it this way, but men like Tap just don’t exist anymore. Not for her, at least.
The end was difficult. Stalter said Tap died in her arms after suffering a heart attack. And though she said she’s committed to moving on, it seems obvious that won’t be so easy to do. Tapley’s been gone seven years, but his life and love are right there, close enough to touch. It’s in the bunkhouse, the vehicles, the stuff, everything.
But she’s got to go on.
“If God sees me making the most of today, he just might trust me with tomorrow,” Stalter wrote in a follow-up email Friday. “I believe this was the way Tap lived his life.”
If that’s not a line from a movie, what is?