2000-03-02 - 01:52:26 MST

THE WONDERING JEW

Summertime

What a grand time I had during summers as a pre-teen and teen ager. I would go down to Questa, New Mexico to my maternal grandparents spread. Wasn't crowded until out of staters built their vacation homes there after World War 2. It was still few and far between - anything - people - animals - buildings. Questa had one store, a garage which sold gasoline and a bee-keeper, the rest of the population consisted of people who either worked on the farms or at the molybdenum mine up in Red River. The dirt road came through Questa around the end of a foothill and came by in front of Grandma's house. The house was in between two foot hills, a stream running by the house went throught a culvert to the farm across the road. The stream came from Grandpa having a well drilled and dammed the flow to create three fish ponds (large) which he stocked with trout he would sell to the hotel up in Red River.

He let me use his fly rod to fish his ponds or I could go down to the river and fish there. Sometimes I would fish by the mill at the river, there was a bit of deep water beside it. The main reason for me to take the rod and head out was the sense of adventure it gave this city boy. I was still young enough to watch every lizard or other inhabitant of the country around there. I knew where the rattlesnakes hung out and avoided that area except for one high spot where I could overlook their den and watch them. I would smell the clean country air, the sage, the scent of cedar brush and small evergreen growth was as perfume to me. I would just bathe in that environment, enjoying every second of it. I would always be at the house by supper time, with enough time to get a bucket of water from the stream for dish washing. Grandma's food was clean, nourishing and plentiful and at days end I would have eaten a baked two by four - no butter with gusto.

Grandpa had a 410 gage shot gun and supplied me with the shells. I would hunt jack rabbits around his property and what I killed, the next morning he would take to the mine at Red River and have them ground up and mixed with some grain product. He used this mixture to feed the trout, and it seemed to work well. Sometimes in the evenings he would take the car and we would go out to a deserted area called Sunshine, once a place where the government attempted to settle needy victims of the depression, then, prairie with a few dusty roads criss-crossing each other. Grandpa would have the windshield open from the bottom far enough for me to stick the 410 out and sight it. Then we would cruise the roads out there and I would shoot jack rabbits destined for trout food.

About the only work expected of me was to roll rocks down from the hillside so that he could line the stream bed and banks. Jeepers, that was fun, no boss and a gentle grandpa who would note each day that I had done some work. He kept me well stocked with 410 shells and trout flies.

Their place was about 30 miles from Taos and about every other week end we would go to town. They would shop around while I wandered around to see the sights. The Indian pueblo was almost in town and I would observe the Indians there from a distance, as they didn't like to be a show for every one. We would eat and head home, on the dirt road back to Questa, sometimes deer would cross the road in front of us especially near dusk. There was always something to see out there.

I had a few friends down there, one was a boy who lived on a ranch out of town a bit. When I visited him I learned that ranching or farming was not for me. A turn or two with a hay knife on the stack was enough for me. Every once in a while we would saddle up a couple of horses and head into the mountains for the day, usually to a lake up there to catch fish and cook them over a camp fire. We roasted potatoes in the hot ashes and drank the pop we had managed to sneak out with us. I would play with some of the farm boys near there, but in their spare time they had to help out on the farms. One boy who lived on the farm across the road from Grandma would play when he had time and the real treat on a hot summer day would occur when I was invited to eat lunch there. I could see how thick the adobe walls were, memory tells me about three or three and a half feet thick, it was so cool in there and the parents and kin were so gracious that being there was a grand event for me.

Grandma kept a nanny goat and we would walk that fractious critter in the mornings to a spot up near the fish ponds and would stake her out in the grazing area. It was as hard to get her home in the evening as it was to get her to pasture in the morning. Grandma made sure the goat was fresh when I was there, hoping that goat's milk would be better than cows milk for my hay fever, she persisted in trying to make goats milk palatable for me, pouring it from pan to pan to aerate it, etc. ................. never worked, too much city boy in me, spoiled by drinking pastuerized cow's milk. On the farm across the road I had tried fresh cow's milk and that didn't tast good either. I think I had the idea that city milk came from glass cows, or that cows around town gave refrigerated milk right into the bottle. City kid, city ideas.

The time would arrive all to soon to go back home for school, sheesh, I hated to go back to town and confinement in a school. I wanted to be out in the open and having fun. Of course I never wintered there as I was in school. Grandma would write to Momma how deep the snow was and how cold it got and how hard the wind would blow. Grandpa would get to work every day, I don't know how though - - - the dirt road from Questa to Red River was iffy even in a rain storm ........ there were several areas where drivers would survey the scene and try to take the best path to pick up the road on the other side again.

It amazed me when I was down there, every one knew Steve, my Grandpa, every where I went with him it was, "Hi Steve, how ya doin' ?" Two cars headed toward each other the drivers would wave whether they knew each other or not - - - - it was that kind of country and those kind of times. I learned about natural courtesy from him. In later life it tickled me about him - - - he would never pass a Budweiser sign without stopping for a brew. Back then Budweiser signs were quite far apart. Grandma would sit and steam - wait about so long and then give me some change and tell me to go get some soda pop and peanuts for myself. I would go in and give my order and while it was being filled Grandpa would look at me and wink and say, "Well, I guess I better finish this up and go pacify your grandma." He was pretty good at it too, we wouldn't be far down the road before she would mellow out. I remember at night as I was settling down to sleep some of the neighboring men would come riding their horses from visiting in Questa and singing beautiful Spanish songs as they rode by. There was adventure and romance in every leaf of grass, every tree, each stone, and each drop of precious water. You could inhale it, you could see it in every one's glance. Life was exciting there. And it excited me and prodded me into deep thoughts. Gee Whiz, what's a boy like me doing in a place like this ? Because Doug, you can go back only in memory - - - - cleave unto your wife and cherish and play with your great grand children - life isn't so bad here, sit and visit a bit old man. It is good in New Mexico in the Summertime . . . . . .

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