The fourth of July is the official birthday of the United States.
The American fight for Independence was hatched in Boston pubs and undertaken by a cadre of locals. Over taxed and under represented was the big beef and secretive plotting led to a Declaration of Independence from merry old England who was licking wounds from European wars and needed raw materials and taxes from America to pay for debts incurred.
There was fighting, men died, a Constitution was written, leaders got elected.
These days the metaphor for America is an aging Uncle Sam who sports a long white beard, wears clothes made out of a flag , has a top hat of red, white, and blue, a firm grip on your American credit card, and a hand in the affairs of other countries all over the world.
This is an older group present tonight, a group with a collective history.
This wild bunch has seen the Civil Rights movement, Kennedy assassination, Moon Walk, World War 2, Vietnam, Watts, Desert Storm, 2008 Financial Collapse, Government Shutdowns, the fall of Russia, Castro, Cell phones , Computers, Multiple Recessions, Gay Marriage, Food Stamps, Medicaid, TARP, TSA , Sex changes, Drones, Watergate, LSD, Disneyland.
Birthdays are good, once a year. They give a chance to pause, look back, look ahead.
What America says it is, and what it is, is a growing enigma.
It makes moments of peace, like this, more poignant.
The Albuquerque Bio park is an oasis of water in the desert.
There is an aquarium, rose gardens, a gift shop and museum, a restaurant, and a little train that blows its whistle as it takes kids on a sedate ride through the grounds. The Park has been here over thirty years and is a result of private and public money pooled.
In the aquarium, Alma and I are below ground level, separated from fish by large glass panels that are the edge of their world and the beginning of ours.
In one tank, jelly fish float, almost transparent aliens with internal power plants lit up like Christmas ornaments.
Taking pictures for her Facebook pages, Alma returns to Marinduque in December. With family, a coconut farm, and the beginnings of a pig farm, she has reasons to be there. We humans have roots that keep us grounded. Jellyfish hold to nothing.
Recently an uncle who raised her and her brothers and sisters, after they were abandoned, passed. Working in Chicago, all she could do was wire money back to the Philippines and say a prayer for the man who took her in when no one else wanted her.
To have a hard life and still be enchanted speaks volumes about the human spirit.
There are plenty of left behinds at one of Alan’s rental properties, and, as a favor, I am working overtime to get things cleaned up for the next renter.
The last tenants, Section 8, left two weeks after they were supposed too, left food in the frig, a back yard full of refuse, stained carpet, damaged doors, leaky faucets, missing window screens and the smell of dereliction.
In the back yard are stuffed animals, clothes hangers, birthday cards, vacuum hoses, unused cleaning rags, baseballs, cardboard boxes and kitty litter. When tenants leave, they leave behind their don’t wants and seldom leave a place as it was when they moved in.
Utility bills pile up in the mailbox like unwanted holiday visitors.
Jackson Compaction has delivered a dumpster and into the dumpster has gone all the discards we can pack. Their motto is ” You Trash It; We Smash It. ”
Robert and I load the trash carefully, to save space, fill the container methodically, then lay carpet over the top to keep stuff from crawling back out.
There is no recourse. Ex-tenants, like ex husbands or wives, have already gone their way, found another nest to dirty, and don’t have money or resources to settle. Getting a hundred will cost two hundred.
There is painting to do, floors to be replaced, new kitchen cabinets to hang. When all is done, there will be another renter. My brother Alan says Section 8 will never happen again.
” That, ” he says, ” You can take to the bank. ”
The Sandia Peak Tram has been with us fifty years.
According to our tram operator there are 600,000 patrons each year and the only time the tram shuts down is when the wind blows over fifty miles per hour or threatening lightning storms are close.
The tram has been stuck in the middle of its run a few times when electric went out or a fuse blew, but the operator doesn’t say anything about an incident years ago that had people lowered by ropes from the tram car to the desert floor. In the summer, the ride makes mountain views and hiking easily accessible. In the winter, skiers can go directly to Sandia mountain ski lifts without having to drive the back side of the mountain up winding narrow snow packed mountain roads.
The idea for the tram came from a man named Robert Nordstrum, and his friend Ben Abruzzo. Mr. Nordstrum went to Europe and decided to bring a tram to Albuquerque. There were technical challenges but the tram has become a part of our community. Abruzzo started the Albuquerque Balloon Festival that maintains a world reputation and brings thousands to the city each fall.
This afternoon Robert, a friend, looks over the edge of the cliff. We are going to hike the trail that goes from the Tram to the top of Sandia Crest.
From up here, looking out, like ancient man, – my issues don’t look as important as I thought they were.
In all four corners of our state, as well as the middle, we have sovereign Indian nations who have land,an ancient culture, designer golf courses, hotels, and casinos.
The Pueblo of Cochiti is a thirty minute drive from Albuquerque along I- 25 to Santa Fe. Before you get to La Bajada Hill you turn off, skirt Cochiti Lake, and come to a Robert Trent Jones Architects designed golf course nestled in canyons in the heart of their reservation.
On Wednesday, the course isn’t crowded and Richard and I get on without a tee time.
This course requires straight drives, good putting, and a torrid short game. If you stray from fairways you lose your ball in snake country. When you are on the course you are lost in nature. Cell phones don’t work. The internet is inaccessible. Clouds pop up like snowflakes – no two alike.
This course seems made for heaven.
It doesn’t seem frivolous to believe angels play here regular, their bags in the back of carts and their wings tucked close to their bodies so they can maintain the proper swing plane. They play at night under the moon, watched by coyotes, and never use the Lord’s name in vain.
This Memorial Day weekend boatloads of city folk are out and about.
On a usual hike up the Embudo Canyon trail in the Sandia Mountains Alex the architect and I encounter only a few bipeds.
Today, two parking lots are full of cars and dogs scamper across the canyon with noses to the ground. From the second parking lot it is a mile hike up Heartbreak Hill past a city water reservoir to a rock dam built in the thirties by a rancher with thirsty livestock. At the dam there are cottonwoods and rock formations that peer down at you as if you were on trial at a Survivor Series tribal council. There is no council this morning but there are rock climbers testing themselves.
Two rope lines stretch from the trail, up the rock face, over the top of the spires. A man in yellow reveals in conversation that the lines are tied to pitons on top and are for safety. The climbers, young and old, climb the rock face freestyle, but remain tethered to the lines in case of slips or miscalculations. There are two adults and three kids on this outing. It is the first time I have seen climbers here and the cliffs, though appearing formidable, are nothing more than child’s play.
On the hike back down to the parking lot, it is cool, an untypical spring day.
I don’t take up their offer to climb.
When you get a few years under your belt you start to decline stuff you have no business declining.
The last gato celebrated in this blog was sleeping on a window sill in Montevideo on a warm afternoon.
Pickles is the newest feline to be celebrated.
He has come, from Flagstaff, to stay at the Albuquerque homestead on Martingale Street for a month and a half.
This move was unexpected but Pickles has decided, like most cats, that there is no use for worry. As long as food and water bowls are full, attention is available, and there are no dogs – all is good . He has become used to humankind and their peculiarities.
This evening, several days into our acquaintance, the two of us watch the evening news. There is nothing on the news that either of us cares about. Both of us know there is nothing we can do to change the narrative, or the events.
Pickles is a fine boy. It will be difficult for me to say good bye. Till then, he will brush against my legs, sleep curled up on a living room chair, and purr as I tell him fine things about himself that he already knows.
When something questionable is said on the news, his right ear dips.
He can spot phonies a mile away.
In July, my niece Calley takes Pickles back to his new home in Phoenix and cat sitting is done.
If only humans were as simple to understand as cats.
The N.A.U. auditorium is filled with parents, friends, graduates, speakers, security, and interested observers.
The event is graduation for the 2015 class of NAU Lumberjacks who have spent their last several years sharpening axes, learning to identify trees, and borrowing money to pay for the experience of reading, writing, attending lectures, doing group projects, and getting indoctrinated in a variety of subjects that might or might not lead to paying the rent. There are student loans to be paid, job interviews, moving, trips to Europe.
This is Calley’s Day and she receives, on a snowy day in spring, a Bachelor’s Degree in Business with a specialty in Accounting.
The speeches are dull but there is pomp and circumstance as participants march into the auditorium wearing gowns and caps with tassels and ballooning sleeves and dignitaries give themselves Honorary Degrees and remark on the importance of the occasion and how graduates should be committed to contribution, caring, and consensus. Once it is all over, all file outside to take photos and celebrate.
Graduating from college is still an achievement, even in 2015.
It is good to congratulate a niece, done with class and on her way to a backpack trip to Europe.
Uncle Scott will watch her cat Pickles.
Pickles, we all know, will have a better life, no matter what, and he never had to go to school to get it.
The real surprise is snow in Flagstaff in May.
As everyone we talk to says, with laughter, ” This is so Flagstaff.”
The Albuquerque Museum is in Albuquerque’s Old Town.
Old Town is not far from the Rio Grande river and train tracks that spurred growth in western communities in the nineteen hundreds. Old Town is a part of Albuquerque that is older than the city itself, originally a stopping point for Spanish explorers looking for their ” seven cities of gold. ”
Founded in the 1700’s and named after a Duke in Spain, Albuquerque is still a footnote to big brother Santa Fe that came of age in the 1500’s. We have a mix of Indians, Spanish, Europeans. We have cowboys, farmers, mad scientists. We are a melange of old, new, secular and spiritual, all explained by the state nickname ” Land of Enchantment. ”
The Museum is free today and filled with school kids. One room we enjoy features New Mexico artists. Another features the historical development of the ” Duke” city. Another is closed for construction with a sign apologizing for the inconvenience.
Neal and Joan, visiting from Colorado on their way to watch their daughter Calley graduate from college in Flagstaff, Arizona, make this time special.
One black and white framed photograph on an exhibit wall is of a solitary man wearing a hat and standing in the middle of an empty mesa by a sign saying” Nob Hill.”
Nob Hill was then the edge of town, fit only for jackrabbits, coyotes, rattlesnakes and buzzards. Now, it is trendy. There are shops and restaurants and the area is a playground for University of New Mexico students with live music, brew pubs, used book stores and boutiques.
New Mexico has turquoise and silver jewelry, beautiful hand thrown pots, the Kiva, cliff dwellings, the atomic bomb, Indian rugs, roadrunners, top secret research facilities, military bases and Indian reservations. We have Carlsbad Caverns, White Sands, Los Alamos National Labs, Chaco Canyon, and the Catwalk.
New Mexico holds to its past firmly as we barrel into the future.
It is like holding a horse blanket as you ride a rocket into space.
Hillsboro is a hard scrawny town on the way from Truth or Consequences, where I used to live, to Silver City, New Mexico..
In the old days Hillsboro was a gold and silver mining collage of wood shacks, shovels, dynamite, barbed wire but today it has lost its luster.
When its precious metals played out, there were copper mines left, but they were shut down too and moved overseas when costs and government regulations became too onerous.
Hillsboro used to have apple orchards and a popular annual Apple Festival that peddled apples, arts and crafts, food and live music but that disappeared after management stole money and absconded to Europe.
At one time, main street here had a biker bar that drew Harley Davidson enthusiasts from Albuquerque and Las Cruces but that attraction closed when the bar’s owner sold the liquor license for a ton of money.
A recent couple, trying to bring magic back to the town, have opened a winery on Main Street, the highway you take to Silver City, but this morning they are packing their belongings and have driven a For Sale sign in the front yard.
Today, becoming gold prospectors,my friend John and I use gold detectors instead of picks.
Working our way up hillsides, we wave our battery powered wands over rocky soil. We have tried the detectors around the house with loose change to practice before getting serious. We haven’t found gold yet but we have found barbed wire, nails, bottle caps, and rusty beer cans.
Tomorrow will be yet another gold hunting day. Expectations will be lower, but hope refuses to die.
Those yesteryear miners were tough S.O.B.’s and more stubborn than their donkey’s.
For every gold nugget, there is a trail of blood, sweat, and tears,
For every dream, there is heartache.
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