Mar. 31, 2007 - 19:29 MDT

SOUTHWESTERN EDUCATION

When I was in my early teens, My Grandmother having married and left her job as head housekeeper of the Fransiscan Hotel in Albuquerque, New Mexico and gone to Questa, New Mexico to live with her hubby who was the assayer at the Moly Mine in Red River, New Mexico. I was then, I think, deemed to be grown enough in my early teens to be trusted to behave at Grandma's place in the summer.

First time I was taken by Mom and Dad. They stayed a few days and then back to their jobs in Denver.

Grandma and Grandpa lived in a house they had built of adobe, a bit around the bend toward Taos from the town. My first time having got used to going to the ditch along side the house for drinking and washing water early on, I had to accustom myself to kerosene mantle lamp light, which wasn't all that pleasant to a young guy used to incandescent light at home. But I'd pull over close to the lamp and read the latest Grit, while listening to the radio programs they would get there. There was a powerful station in Del Rio (Texas or Mexico) I don't remember which, that had great cowboy music to listen to, but along with that were the interminable commercials for Peruna one of those magic concoctions that was supposed to give a person vim, vigor and energy out the ears.

When night fell so did noise. Few cars passed by after dark. Occasionally there would be men on horses coming from Questa on their way home, singing songs as they rode and passed grandma's house. La Paloma and La Golandrina were two of them I would hear now and then, other songs I didn't recognize, but they were truly melodic and peace engendering.

I suffered hay fever out the ears as a kid, and did at Grandma's too. Russian Thistle was the bane of my existence and grew as well down there as in Denver. Second only, I guess, to sage brush.

Grandma had a nanny goat that she kept fresh and felt that my drinking goat milk would ease my hay fever. Unfortunately, having been raised on pasturized milk I had never been exposed to the taste of raw cow's milk. My first taste of goat's milk wring my insides out. So then Grandma would go to great trouble to pour the milk from pan to pan to aerate it, and put it in cold ditch water to cool it. But this tenderfoot just couldn't hack it.

I easily fell into consuming all the vegetable products she grew, and scarfed down all the fruit that came my way and was grudgingly allowed to drink coffee with condensed milk, Carnation by brand.

My first coffee was a few drops in a cup of milk when I was a wee codger, and the coffee content grew as I did. By the time I came to Grandma's I could drink coffee along with Grandpa.

He had fishing tackle and bought me flies to use up at the two ponds originating from the well he had drilled at the upper end of his property. He had stocked his two ponds with trout and would occasionally sell trout to the hotel in Red River.

Which led me into learning a bit about raising fish. Grandpa would take rabbit meat up to where he worked grind it up and mix it with some sort of grain product and used it to make fish food. I soon had the chore of feeding the fish, when Grandpa said they needed to be fed. I soon learned that on the quiet I could scant the feed for one pond and have hungry fish to catch.

Then warm evenings Grandpa and I would cruise through the laid out streets of a dreamed of town called Sunshine where once the New Deal folks projected bringing in Dust Bowl refugees to live. The town never got a population, but the graded streets remained. So, we'd slowly go up and down the streets and I'd have the 410 shotgun sticking out from under the windshield. Not many cars were made that way, I think his was a Ford, but the windshield was raised from the bottom. I'd spot a rabbit and take a shot, sometimes actually hitting one, jump out of the car and go get it and put it in the box in his trunk. I also carried his 410 with me when hiking around and shot a few rabbits on the upper end of his place.

I very happily learned all I could about hunting and fishing in the short times I was down there.

Red River ran into a box canyon and joined the Rio Grande there. I used to hike down there just for the fun of being where other folks weren't.

Grandma and Grandpa had friends who had a farm up along the road to Fort Garland. They had a boy my age so everyso often I would be dropped off there to enjoy his companionship. He was also grateful as all he had were sisters. Once in a while we would ride horses up into the mountains behind their place, with packed lunches and water and spend the day nosing around.

About every two weeks Grandpa would take Grandma and I to Taos to mill around and shop. We'd usually go by the Pueblos out there, sightseeing. I can't imagine anything better for a city kid to experience than what I did when I went to Grandma's place. I still remember with love my SOUTHWESTERN EDUCATION . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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