1987-12-24 – Lawton Luther DAMFINO Article – 1987 Version – Page 2 ⧉

An article written by Lawton Luther about his family's cabin at Idlewild known as DAMFINO. ⧉

“All went well until late at night when out of the dark came a blustering, rainy gale of wind that ripped down all our tents. The good reverend, after fumbling his way out from under his wet, clinging tent, looked around and suddenly gave went to his feelings by jumping up and down, thrashing his arms and shouting in the most forceful language his religion permitted, ‘Confound it, Heavens and Earth! Confound, it Heavens and Earth!”

Adult memory: “The most memorable day in the early 1920’s was when my mother received a phone call from a Nebraska preacher. He wanted to know if we ever rented our mountain cabin located at Idlewild up the Big Thompson Canyon. Her answer was, ‘Yes.’

“Upon hearing that, the preacher said he and his wife would like to rent the cabin for a week or two, and then plied Mother with questions such as how to get there and what to bring. Finally, he asked if we had a name for the cabin.”

“Mother answered all of his questions, right down to the name of the cabin- ‘DAM’FINO.’ After a short pause the preacher asked again, ‘What did you say the name was?’ ‘DAM’FINO,’ replied Mother. She told him why we gave the cabin such a name.

“A year or so before we built the cabin, our family had seen comedian Buster Keaton in a movie titled DAM’FINO. It was a tale of his troubles in a small boat lost in a tumbling sea. His boat was named DAM’FINO.

“His SOS calls to the Coast Guard gained him no help because all of their queries as to his location, name of boat, type of boat and so on were answered by the words DAM’FINO. A sailor he wasn’t. He even bored holes in the bottom of the boat to let the water out. We used the title because it described our feelings about the cabin as a place to go to get way from the everyday rat race.

“After mother’s death, Dad sold the cabin to Les Dauth, who remodeled the place and gave it a new name. It is now called The Little Brown Palace. The DAM’FINO sign Les hung in front of another of the cabin.”

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