It is strange when I think about it-- I lived my first 18 years in Alamogordo, New Mexico, and yet for 47 years, I have never lived there. Oh, I guess you could count the three months after my first year at college, but never again after that except to visit for a week or two from time to time.
My younger son says I can't be so attached to a place, that it must be my childhood and memories of my parents that affects me so strongly. And those are factors, all right, but no. It really is the place, the mountains, the smell of it after a rain.
So I drove west from the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, as I have so many times before, on Interstate 10, turning north at Big Spring to La Mesa, then Seminole, then Hobbs, north again to Lovington, then west through Artesia, and then through the still sparsely populated land to the mountains, where I caught a short downpour as I entered the mountains, then around through Mayhill and finally Cloudcroft. The windows were down, the better to enjoy the chill air and smell the pines.
By 6 p.m., even on a weekday in September, the motels in Cloudcroft were pretty much chock-full. I found one place with two cabins left to rent--the owner/manager had left a phone number to call and a list of three cabins, with the numbers of each and instructions to erase the one you took and call, and they would be over to take care of the paperwork and payment. My eyebrows went up at that, but it apparently works well enough. One cabin number had been erased, so it was taken. I didn't need a two-bedroom cabin or two double beds, so I called ahead to Alamogordo to see if Motel 6, where I had a reservation for Friday and Saturday, could also accomodate me on Thursday. They could, and would hold the room. So I began the steep, steep grade down the mountain and through the tunnel in third gear. Almost slow enough to be spotted as a Texan after my lack of practice for a number of years. The road falls away into a gorge on the left for several miles, then the right, and then the left again. Two lane. It seemed so modern when it was finished in my childhood--it had been a winding dirt road. I remember when they blasted the rock to make the tunnel, they blasted into a hollow full of 200 or more rattlesnakes, which slowed down excavation for a day or two while they were cleared out....and so down the 16 miles to the valley below.
And I remember when I hurt my hand while staying with my best friend at their Cloudcroft summer home, and how her father, in his Lincoln, whipped down the mountain at 70 miles an hour to land me at the emergency room in something like 16 or 17 minutes--he wasn't speeding because my hand was hurt; that was the way he always drove.
So I picked my way down at a more sedate pace and realized that the town has grown out even beyond the highway. The highway through town has been gentrified, with blooming desert willows every 30 yards or so in the median, fresh clean shops on both sides. Nice improvement. Huh. There's an Appleby's and Chili's there now. Except for Tularosa on the north end of the Tularosa Basin, most cities are 70 miles or more away.
The next day, I drove around to look at "my mountains" from every angle possible. I would stop on the sides of the roads to drink my fill, and inevitably, someone would come along and start to stop and get out, in case I had car trouble. (Sigh) They were so NICE. I couldn't walk around far to explore because my knee was really grumbling after more than 600 miles in the car the day before. But I broke off some greasewood and sniffed, and I stopped at the pistachio farm for pistachios dipped in red chile, green chile, lemon lime and garlic. GRUNT. and they are starting to spell the sauce "chili" rather than "chile." (dadgum newcomers)
But when I went to breakfast and asked for huevos rancheros, the waitress asked, "green or red?" And when I went out for enchiladas that evening, they were New Mexico style, a stack dipped in chili sauce (I chose red) with onions and cheese between the corn tortillas and a fried egg on top. And mildly hot (sadly calmed down from the old fire-breathing heat of yore, but still, a bit of a bite.) And at another breakfast, fluffy eggs scrambled with green chiles and the most wonderful homemade salsa, again with a bite. No meat unless asked for, and no piles of shredded cheese, just salsa. I was a truly happy camper.
Summer is the rainy season there. Alamogordo and the whole region had been in varying degrees of drought for about a decade. No rain fell in Alamogordo between Thanksgiving and the end of June.Nada. Zilch. Not even one inch. Then Dolly came up from El Paso. Tropical depression Dolly I should say, hundreds of miles from landfall. Heavy flooding in Alamogordo, to be expected, but--heavy flooding in Ruidosa? (which means noisy water in Apache, I believe. Alamogordo means fat cottonwood in Spanish, and indeed there were stands of them when the railroad established the town in 1898.) Ruidosa is high in the mountains, but the creek flooded to the extent large boulders tumbled in the water, bridges were washed out, fences were destroyed and homes flooded. The quarterhorse race track there had part of the track washed out. Mind boggling. But after, the familiar daily afternoon rains, continuing the greening process throughout the summer.
Much erosion in the valley from flash floods trying to find somewhere to go. But oh, beautiful, everything green, even the desert foothills covered with what appeared from a distance to be green fuzz. People busy, going about their business, oblivious to the awesome mountains there each time they raised their eyes. Awesome mountains ALWAYS there, every day. And I was just there for a few days to soak it up. Alamogordo remains the only town I personally know of that has changed all its street lights to a low, golden glow that doesn't interfere with the observatory at Sac Peak 29 miles away as the crow flies--you can see it from town.
I dawdled through the mountains on the way back. The aspens were pale green, just beginning the yellow gold of later in the fall. Wildflowers were blooming. Even a campfire in one of the campgrounds, strictly forbidden during the preceding drought. I found my daughter-in-law's requested cherry cider, and an early apple stand where I loaded up on Jonathans,still a little green-tasting and so juicy each bite dripped juice down my chin. Also Winesaps and Golden Delicious, the latter smelling and tasting like ripe pears when tree-ripened.
Highway 82 goes straight through downtown Artesia, which has a series of larger than life statues of a frontier woman with two laughing children, a pot-bellied possible wildcatter (oilman) and lanky cowboy standing at a tall table cussing or discussing, a cowboy on horseback chasing a wily steer. And others. Hobbs is way slickered up with block after block of high end motels and hotels going in. Reason--a casino has been established there. Elsewhere,farm after farm of fluorishing pecan groves.
To be fair, Artesia, Lovington and Hobbs, clear to Seminole, Texas, are in oil and gas country. It stinks until you get kind of used to it. From the mountains to Artesia, enough people have moved in that I only passed 30 minutes at a time without sight of a car front or back. I'd forgotten the old-fashioned custom of flashing your lights as a friendly "hello" to an oncoming car. The grass was still straw-colored, but so thick I sometimes saw several cattle in an acre instead of just one.
And so I pressed east, back the way I had come. Subway has come to the truckstops, allowing a nice change from the ubiquitous fried food that was all I remember from only a few years back.
And back home again. What can I say? I find beauty in West Texas, too. And I love the concerts, the museums--some would cite the superior and plentiful shopping--of Dallas-Fort Worth and their surrounding cities. But to get away by car to realize again just how big this country actually is was a trip of its own. I covered 1500 miles in four days, and that was less than halfway across Texas and a third or less across New Mexico and back. I didn't take books or music--traffic was light enough to fiddle with the radio. How else would I have learned cotton futures had dropped three times in one day, or that futures for milo and corn are holding?
New Mexico has ALWAYS written signs in Spanish. In fact, until sometime in the 1970's, Spanish was the official state language. To my astonishment, I found myself understanding a great deal of the Spanish I heard. They speak more slowly, and yeah, some of it is Span-glish. It was refreshing to assume every Hispanic I met was an American citizen. But that's a topic for another day.
The chorus of the state song goes, "Oh, fair New Mexico, we love, we love you so--no matter where we go, New Mexico!" Says it for me.
Showing posts with label New Mexico. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New Mexico. Show all posts
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Friday, October 5, 2007
Never rolled down a sand dune? You've missed something!
You trudge up to the top of a tall, steep sand dune and lie down carefully, your body horizontal to the ground, squinch your eyes shut, and throw yourself, rolling, over the dune.
Whappity!Whapity-whap-whap-wha=wha-whap, faster and faster as you careen towards the foot. An historical thrill ride, at the least, maybe even prehistoric. And still a whale of a lot of fun. And you dust off the loose sand, trudge back up, and do it again.
The Tularosa Basin of New Mexico is a pretty good place to grow up. Alamogordo is on the east side of the valley, nestled at the base of the Sacramento Mountains. On the west is the Oregon Mountains, or more formally, the San Andres.These jagged, purple-blue spiky mountains are dry, and a pleasure to the eye.And below them is a long, white line on the horizon.
White Sands National Monument.
When I say that, I feel formal and pretentious, as if I'm making a formal introduction for our neighbor, Miss Caroline, who I have known for years, by her more formal name, Mrs. Woodrow Mcneil-Forrest.
The White Sands were simply where I played when I was growing up. We always got an annual pass, and we went several times every year. I don't think we ever went without a picnic packed. It's not like there are restaurants out there.
But the sands are special. For one thing, they aren't really sand. They are pure, white gypsum, which matters enormously in mid-summer. As A kid, I neither knew nor cared. All I knew was, when we got there I could pull off my shoes and socks and immediately run onto the dunes. But it is important, because gypsum, unlike sand, doesn't retain the heat. It might be warm on a 100-degree day, but it won't burn the feet.
Dig down a foot or two, and you may even find wet "sand", nice and cool. If it isn't wet, it will still be cool, pleasing on a hot summer day.
I'm not sure if its like exists anywhere else. Over millenia, the gypsum cystals have gathered until now 275 square miles of white gypsum are humped into dunes that are sometimes 80 feet. And you can stand on top and look as far as you can see, and not see a thing but white dunes with undulating wind ridges, with the mountains in the distance. It is beautiful.
But the real point is--it is fun.
The little museum up at the gate is interesting to visit, with its rodents,lizards, toads, rattlesnakes and some insects that have morphed over the centuries into albinos.
Back when my father was a boy in the early 1900s, he told me, a group from town would hitch up the horses to several wagons and they would head for the Sands on a Saturday morning. The dirt road wound 13 miles through the valley before reaching the dunes. It would take a couple of hours to reach the dunes and then travel some distance in--probably not too far, for concerns about getting lost, but far enough that the sand no longer had any plants here and there, and dunes were tall. Then the women and kids waited in the wagons while the men explored the site, killing off any snakes. Dad said one time, the men found 13 rattlers before the women and children got out. The men used pickaxes to dig troughs in the gypsum. The water table, about three feet down, would fill these with brackish, salty water the horses could drink. Boards and sawhorses had been brought along to set up a long, rough table. Remember, this was before paper products or plastic, so each family had to bring their plates, silverware and glasses. Jars wrapped in burlap bags to keep them cool were joined by jugs of fresh lemonade and tea. A watermelon transported with a block of ice was still cool when they arrived. The men played baseball. The women tossed their heads and a number "wickedly" took off their stockings and shoes to play in the sand with the kids. A few even rolled, and of course, the men did, too. And just as in my childhood, the kids climbed to the top of the highest dune and rolled and rolled and rolled. We dug caves in the side of the dunes, we walked "no more than two dunes over" I imagine their parents said, as they said to us. Two dunes over, and it was complete wilderness. No one in sight but us. Way cool.We played and we romped, and we got hungry.
White Sands National Monument was created in 1933. My father's memories are before any formal park was created. With the park came rules, and better roads into two major picnic ares, and concrete picnic tables with aluminum roofs, and small, durable barbecue grills on the sites. And park employes, and of course, a fee to enter. Not a very big fee, even today.
With the big groups, like a church or town group, came the fried chicken, meatloaf, pinto beans, ham, salads, green beans, breads, cookies, pies, cakes, and of course, the watermelon, which we could eat by the slice sitting on the dunes just spitting the seeds out. Familes on their own might bring hamburgers or hot dogs to grill or, gee, even steaks and chicken.
Our Fourth of July fireworks were always at the Sands. Why not? Great viewing, nothing to burn.
Thousands still visit every year. If you go, try to stay for a sunset. A New Mexico sunset seen from the top of a dune is very special.It is a good place to be with someone you love very much.
During the summers, the national science labs in the areas come out weekly and do a lecture on the dunes, using modern equipment to show pictures of some of their work. Astronomy is very big in the area. There's some neat stuff, no extra cost for the Ph.D. talking, and no need to move from your comfy seat in the sand in your cutoffs.
Who first explored the dunes or discovered the fun?
All I know is, there is a 400-year-old legend of a headstrong young bride from Spain who insisted on coming out to marry her sweetheart, who was part of Coronado's entourage as he explored the Southwest looking for treasure. She brought with her a beautiful wedding dress packed in its own trunk to wear when she was married, and being wealthy, had her own entourage to follow Coronado to where they were camped near the Sands.
Just days before she arrived, her sweetheart was sent out with three other men to explore the area. They were told to take a quck look at the dunes' interior. They never were seen again.
The headstrong young bride was beside herslef. No one could stop her in her grief. She donned her fine wedding dress, took her horse, and headed into the sands to find her love. She also was never seen again.
Such passion! such tragedy! the story has woven into the fabric of the Southwest for 400 years now. And it is said, if you are there just at twilight, when the wind may lift the sand just lightly into the air, you may hear her soft call for her lover, and see her form, slightly bent as she hurries over the next dune, still searching for her love. I have met several people who say they have seen---something. They can't swear it was just a gust of wind.
Is there a reason the legend still lives after 400 years?
I do not know.
Whappity!Whapity-whap-whap-wha=wha-whap, faster and faster as you careen towards the foot. An historical thrill ride, at the least, maybe even prehistoric. And still a whale of a lot of fun. And you dust off the loose sand, trudge back up, and do it again.
The Tularosa Basin of New Mexico is a pretty good place to grow up. Alamogordo is on the east side of the valley, nestled at the base of the Sacramento Mountains. On the west is the Oregon Mountains, or more formally, the San Andres.These jagged, purple-blue spiky mountains are dry, and a pleasure to the eye.And below them is a long, white line on the horizon.
White Sands National Monument.
When I say that, I feel formal and pretentious, as if I'm making a formal introduction for our neighbor, Miss Caroline, who I have known for years, by her more formal name, Mrs. Woodrow Mcneil-Forrest.
The White Sands were simply where I played when I was growing up. We always got an annual pass, and we went several times every year. I don't think we ever went without a picnic packed. It's not like there are restaurants out there.
But the sands are special. For one thing, they aren't really sand. They are pure, white gypsum, which matters enormously in mid-summer. As A kid, I neither knew nor cared. All I knew was, when we got there I could pull off my shoes and socks and immediately run onto the dunes. But it is important, because gypsum, unlike sand, doesn't retain the heat. It might be warm on a 100-degree day, but it won't burn the feet.
Dig down a foot or two, and you may even find wet "sand", nice and cool. If it isn't wet, it will still be cool, pleasing on a hot summer day.
I'm not sure if its like exists anywhere else. Over millenia, the gypsum cystals have gathered until now 275 square miles of white gypsum are humped into dunes that are sometimes 80 feet. And you can stand on top and look as far as you can see, and not see a thing but white dunes with undulating wind ridges, with the mountains in the distance. It is beautiful.
But the real point is--it is fun.
The little museum up at the gate is interesting to visit, with its rodents,lizards, toads, rattlesnakes and some insects that have morphed over the centuries into albinos.
Back when my father was a boy in the early 1900s, he told me, a group from town would hitch up the horses to several wagons and they would head for the Sands on a Saturday morning. The dirt road wound 13 miles through the valley before reaching the dunes. It would take a couple of hours to reach the dunes and then travel some distance in--probably not too far, for concerns about getting lost, but far enough that the sand no longer had any plants here and there, and dunes were tall. Then the women and kids waited in the wagons while the men explored the site, killing off any snakes. Dad said one time, the men found 13 rattlers before the women and children got out. The men used pickaxes to dig troughs in the gypsum. The water table, about three feet down, would fill these with brackish, salty water the horses could drink. Boards and sawhorses had been brought along to set up a long, rough table. Remember, this was before paper products or plastic, so each family had to bring their plates, silverware and glasses. Jars wrapped in burlap bags to keep them cool were joined by jugs of fresh lemonade and tea. A watermelon transported with a block of ice was still cool when they arrived. The men played baseball. The women tossed their heads and a number "wickedly" took off their stockings and shoes to play in the sand with the kids. A few even rolled, and of course, the men did, too. And just as in my childhood, the kids climbed to the top of the highest dune and rolled and rolled and rolled. We dug caves in the side of the dunes, we walked "no more than two dunes over" I imagine their parents said, as they said to us. Two dunes over, and it was complete wilderness. No one in sight but us. Way cool.We played and we romped, and we got hungry.
White Sands National Monument was created in 1933. My father's memories are before any formal park was created. With the park came rules, and better roads into two major picnic ares, and concrete picnic tables with aluminum roofs, and small, durable barbecue grills on the sites. And park employes, and of course, a fee to enter. Not a very big fee, even today.
With the big groups, like a church or town group, came the fried chicken, meatloaf, pinto beans, ham, salads, green beans, breads, cookies, pies, cakes, and of course, the watermelon, which we could eat by the slice sitting on the dunes just spitting the seeds out. Familes on their own might bring hamburgers or hot dogs to grill or, gee, even steaks and chicken.
Our Fourth of July fireworks were always at the Sands. Why not? Great viewing, nothing to burn.
Thousands still visit every year. If you go, try to stay for a sunset. A New Mexico sunset seen from the top of a dune is very special.It is a good place to be with someone you love very much.
During the summers, the national science labs in the areas come out weekly and do a lecture on the dunes, using modern equipment to show pictures of some of their work. Astronomy is very big in the area. There's some neat stuff, no extra cost for the Ph.D. talking, and no need to move from your comfy seat in the sand in your cutoffs.
Who first explored the dunes or discovered the fun?
All I know is, there is a 400-year-old legend of a headstrong young bride from Spain who insisted on coming out to marry her sweetheart, who was part of Coronado's entourage as he explored the Southwest looking for treasure. She brought with her a beautiful wedding dress packed in its own trunk to wear when she was married, and being wealthy, had her own entourage to follow Coronado to where they were camped near the Sands.
Just days before she arrived, her sweetheart was sent out with three other men to explore the area. They were told to take a quck look at the dunes' interior. They never were seen again.
The headstrong young bride was beside herslef. No one could stop her in her grief. She donned her fine wedding dress, took her horse, and headed into the sands to find her love. She also was never seen again.
Such passion! such tragedy! the story has woven into the fabric of the Southwest for 400 years now. And it is said, if you are there just at twilight, when the wind may lift the sand just lightly into the air, you may hear her soft call for her lover, and see her form, slightly bent as she hurries over the next dune, still searching for her love. I have met several people who say they have seen---something. They can't swear it was just a gust of wind.
Is there a reason the legend still lives after 400 years?
I do not know.
Thursday, July 5, 2007
Rainstorms wear many faces
We had another crash-bang-flash night Sunday. Earlier this year, these were kind of fun after about three years with very little rain at all. The anemic rains we did get in those years weren't accompanied by much strum und drang. Back in April, I think we had a full week of nighttime thunderstorms full of thunder and lightning.
Often, these storms would be a series of little storms, each equipped with its own thunder and lightning, and each of which apparently came directly over my roof. Generally they took an hour or two to pass, which I know full well because I couldn't sleep through that.
Neither could my dog. By the third night, she had had it. For years, she slept at my feet--under the covers--but for the last few years, she's been unable to jump onto the bed any more, so she has her own bed with a nice blankie to roll up in if she wishes. Thunderstorms have never bothered her before, but we haven't had many this loud. Particularly day after day after day.
After one particularly wall-shaking flash and boom, she pawed urgently at the side of the bed. She barked. Let me in! When I picked her up, she was actually trembling. She soon settled down, curling up beside me, and you know, the fellow creature comfort felt pretty good to me, too. She went to sleep. I lay, listening to the rain, the thunder, watching the lighting flashes reflected on the walls. The thunder faded to a grumble, then a murmer, then nothing. The rain stopped. The quiet woke her up, apparently, and she prepared to jump down. I lifted her instead, and she went back to her bed.
Sunday was another of those major crash boom flash storms. Again, it was 3 a.m. Chamomile stopped about 4 feet from the bed and gave an imperious, "BARK!" She jumped in my arms as soon as I leaned over. This time she wasn't trembling. She trudged on top of the covers to the foot of the bed, then came back to settle down. She was safe. She knew it. And again, we lay and listened to the storm rage. It lasted about 45 minutes to an hour, but major thunder was over in 45 minutes.
Monday was a different matter. About 6 p.m., I had lain down for a little nap when the rain began to fall, tentatively at first, then with a firm drumming of heavy rain on the roof. I could hear the steady splash as the rain slid off the roof and hit the patio concrete. Already drowsy, I snuggled under the duvet, pulling it up around my neck. I closed my eyes and drowsed, reveling in the softness, the coziness, the sound. Perfectly safe, perfectly comfortable, at peace, contented. The raintime made a wonderful day of a pleasant one, the way two weeks of daffodils star-bursting in the spring can make the whole season memorable.
As I dozed, I drifted, imagining the smell of New Mexico during and after a rain. The smell of wet greasewood is so fragrant, one simply stands in the doorway taking long, deep breaths that draw the smell deep inside. In August, the "rainy season", thunderheads would push and pile up on the east side of the mountains until they spilled over to the west side of the mountains and the valley below. A breeze pushing the cloulds would add the scents of mountain pine and pinon to the greasewood. Heavenly. And dozing, half-asleep, I imagined I could smell it again....
.
Often, these storms would be a series of little storms, each equipped with its own thunder and lightning, and each of which apparently came directly over my roof. Generally they took an hour or two to pass, which I know full well because I couldn't sleep through that.
Neither could my dog. By the third night, she had had it. For years, she slept at my feet--under the covers--but for the last few years, she's been unable to jump onto the bed any more, so she has her own bed with a nice blankie to roll up in if she wishes. Thunderstorms have never bothered her before, but we haven't had many this loud. Particularly day after day after day.
After one particularly wall-shaking flash and boom, she pawed urgently at the side of the bed. She barked. Let me in! When I picked her up, she was actually trembling. She soon settled down, curling up beside me, and you know, the fellow creature comfort felt pretty good to me, too. She went to sleep. I lay, listening to the rain, the thunder, watching the lighting flashes reflected on the walls. The thunder faded to a grumble, then a murmer, then nothing. The rain stopped. The quiet woke her up, apparently, and she prepared to jump down. I lifted her instead, and she went back to her bed.
Sunday was another of those major crash boom flash storms. Again, it was 3 a.m. Chamomile stopped about 4 feet from the bed and gave an imperious, "BARK!" She jumped in my arms as soon as I leaned over. This time she wasn't trembling. She trudged on top of the covers to the foot of the bed, then came back to settle down. She was safe. She knew it. And again, we lay and listened to the storm rage. It lasted about 45 minutes to an hour, but major thunder was over in 45 minutes.
Monday was a different matter. About 6 p.m., I had lain down for a little nap when the rain began to fall, tentatively at first, then with a firm drumming of heavy rain on the roof. I could hear the steady splash as the rain slid off the roof and hit the patio concrete. Already drowsy, I snuggled under the duvet, pulling it up around my neck. I closed my eyes and drowsed, reveling in the softness, the coziness, the sound. Perfectly safe, perfectly comfortable, at peace, contented. The raintime made a wonderful day of a pleasant one, the way two weeks of daffodils star-bursting in the spring can make the whole season memorable.
As I dozed, I drifted, imagining the smell of New Mexico during and after a rain. The smell of wet greasewood is so fragrant, one simply stands in the doorway taking long, deep breaths that draw the smell deep inside. In August, the "rainy season", thunderheads would push and pile up on the east side of the mountains until they spilled over to the west side of the mountains and the valley below. A breeze pushing the cloulds would add the scents of mountain pine and pinon to the greasewood. Heavenly. And dozing, half-asleep, I imagined I could smell it again....
.
Monday, March 19, 2007
Snakes and UFOs in New Mexico
During the late fall of my fourth year, I experienced two unusual events. I saw an officially recognized UFO, and I disturbed a sleeping rattlesnake under the front gate to my house.
The UFO, which even the Air Force couldn't explain, remains a wonder in my memory. It was dark, chilly, I recall, as we got out of the car at the house. I looked up and exclaimed, "Look, Daddy! Look at the Christmas tree." A huge Christmas tree shape filled the southern sky, emanating from a single white light high in the sky and reaching apparently to the earth. My recollection is that it was red. It looked exactly like the outline of a Christmas tree. It was distant from us, and looking back, to see it so clearly, even in the dry, clear air of New Mexico, it must have been high in the sky. At four, I was remembering pleasurably the Fourth of July fireworks I had seen the previous summer. I waited for more to come. My dad excitedly told my mother to look. We stood there, not too long, and the Christmas tree abruptly vanished. The light remained and was joined by a second light. The two lights moved swiftly across the sky. My dad loaded us into the car and drove to a higher vantage point. He speculated that the lights were somewhere over White Sands Missile Base. He exclaimed when the lights moved in what he said were 90-degree angles.
Most four-year-olds can't see 90-degree angles and will copy them as a curve. I couldn't discern the abrupt turns. I could see they moved wicked fast and changed direction. We watched for awhile, then my conscientious mother told my dad we had to go home to get me ready for bed. So we did.
UFO sightings in the Tularosa Basin of New Mexico were frequently reported in the late 1940s and early 1950s. A book, Project Blue Book, eventually came out to debunk most of the sightings with logical explanations. The incident I relate was included and simply listed as unexplained. There was no mention of the Christmas tree my family saw, only of the lights that indeed were over the Navy missile base. The author was extremely skeptical about the 90-degree turns.
We didn't have television, and would often sit out in the front yard at night, while my dad taught me constellations and let me look through his powerful binnoculars at the full moon. The Tularosa Basin is the site of the first atomic bomb test (more on that later), the White Sands Navy Missile Base which still tests missiles and conducts research, and Holloman Air Force Base, where a great deal of aerospace research was done. Theories and sightings abounded. We had a lot of eggheads in the community from all over the world in addition to the ordinary Hispanic, Anglo, Apache and black population.
What did we see that night? I will never know. I will never forget.
A few weeks later, I think, I was with my mother in the same parking spot in front of the house, probably about the same time of evening. My father had a horrible cold, and Mother had taken me with her to go to the drugstore for some medicine. What the medicine was, I haven't a clue.
In 1947, doctors had sulfa and penicillin available and nothing else. There probably were some cough medicines--my father was partial to Smith Brothers Cough Drops, which came in his favorite licorice (shudder) and cherry. No antihistimines. Stuff to gargle with, though. So we had been to town and come home (we lived about three miles outside on a dirt road). I hopped out of the car and reached the front gate before my mother. My dad had fenced the whole yard, poured a cement walk from the front porch to the fence, and hung a heavy wooden gate at the entrance.
As I reached for the latch, I heard a tell-tale and familiar sound--I had disturbed a rattler snoozing under the gate and it was now coiled and threatening. My parents allowed me quite a bit of freedom around the place, figuring rightly that most of the time, any iconoclastic rattlesnake would hear me coming and slither away. Over time, several snakes had coiled rather than slither, usually when my dad happened on them. Then my father would shoot them. We had probably a dozen rattles on the mantle over the fireplace. My parents drilled me on what to do in such a confrontation, even to the point of what to do if I were bitten. This was perfectly acceptable good parenting in the New Mexico desert in 1947.
So I turned around and ran back to the car even as my mother was saying,"Get in the car!" The rattler was very loud. Our two dogs ran up and made short charges at the snake. I was afraid they would be bitten. Mother yelled for my dad, inside with a stopped up head listening to the radio. I don't think he ever heard my mother, but he eventually came to the door to see why the dogs were barking. Mother told him about the rattler. He got his shotgun and came out. He lamented the shot, which was at such an angle he not only shot off the head but the tail, and this was a big rattler.
I climbed out of the car to look at the pulsating, writhing dead snake. Dad commented that at least with the head gone, the dogs were safe. He lifted the body with a stick and threw the snake on the other side of the road. It was gone the next morning. My mother was delighted I remembered my snake lessons so well. I took my bath, put on my pajamas and went to bed. Mama told me a story. I was very proud of myself for remembering what to do.
Rattlesnakes have such good manners. Now I live in copperhead country. They don't tell you they are there.
The UFO, which even the Air Force couldn't explain, remains a wonder in my memory. It was dark, chilly, I recall, as we got out of the car at the house. I looked up and exclaimed, "Look, Daddy! Look at the Christmas tree." A huge Christmas tree shape filled the southern sky, emanating from a single white light high in the sky and reaching apparently to the earth. My recollection is that it was red. It looked exactly like the outline of a Christmas tree. It was distant from us, and looking back, to see it so clearly, even in the dry, clear air of New Mexico, it must have been high in the sky. At four, I was remembering pleasurably the Fourth of July fireworks I had seen the previous summer. I waited for more to come. My dad excitedly told my mother to look. We stood there, not too long, and the Christmas tree abruptly vanished. The light remained and was joined by a second light. The two lights moved swiftly across the sky. My dad loaded us into the car and drove to a higher vantage point. He speculated that the lights were somewhere over White Sands Missile Base. He exclaimed when the lights moved in what he said were 90-degree angles.
Most four-year-olds can't see 90-degree angles and will copy them as a curve. I couldn't discern the abrupt turns. I could see they moved wicked fast and changed direction. We watched for awhile, then my conscientious mother told my dad we had to go home to get me ready for bed. So we did.
UFO sightings in the Tularosa Basin of New Mexico were frequently reported in the late 1940s and early 1950s. A book, Project Blue Book, eventually came out to debunk most of the sightings with logical explanations. The incident I relate was included and simply listed as unexplained. There was no mention of the Christmas tree my family saw, only of the lights that indeed were over the Navy missile base. The author was extremely skeptical about the 90-degree turns.
We didn't have television, and would often sit out in the front yard at night, while my dad taught me constellations and let me look through his powerful binnoculars at the full moon. The Tularosa Basin is the site of the first atomic bomb test (more on that later), the White Sands Navy Missile Base which still tests missiles and conducts research, and Holloman Air Force Base, where a great deal of aerospace research was done. Theories and sightings abounded. We had a lot of eggheads in the community from all over the world in addition to the ordinary Hispanic, Anglo, Apache and black population.
What did we see that night? I will never know. I will never forget.
A few weeks later, I think, I was with my mother in the same parking spot in front of the house, probably about the same time of evening. My father had a horrible cold, and Mother had taken me with her to go to the drugstore for some medicine. What the medicine was, I haven't a clue.
In 1947, doctors had sulfa and penicillin available and nothing else. There probably were some cough medicines--my father was partial to Smith Brothers Cough Drops, which came in his favorite licorice (shudder) and cherry. No antihistimines. Stuff to gargle with, though. So we had been to town and come home (we lived about three miles outside on a dirt road). I hopped out of the car and reached the front gate before my mother. My dad had fenced the whole yard, poured a cement walk from the front porch to the fence, and hung a heavy wooden gate at the entrance.
As I reached for the latch, I heard a tell-tale and familiar sound--I had disturbed a rattler snoozing under the gate and it was now coiled and threatening. My parents allowed me quite a bit of freedom around the place, figuring rightly that most of the time, any iconoclastic rattlesnake would hear me coming and slither away. Over time, several snakes had coiled rather than slither, usually when my dad happened on them. Then my father would shoot them. We had probably a dozen rattles on the mantle over the fireplace. My parents drilled me on what to do in such a confrontation, even to the point of what to do if I were bitten. This was perfectly acceptable good parenting in the New Mexico desert in 1947.
So I turned around and ran back to the car even as my mother was saying,"Get in the car!" The rattler was very loud. Our two dogs ran up and made short charges at the snake. I was afraid they would be bitten. Mother yelled for my dad, inside with a stopped up head listening to the radio. I don't think he ever heard my mother, but he eventually came to the door to see why the dogs were barking. Mother told him about the rattler. He got his shotgun and came out. He lamented the shot, which was at such an angle he not only shot off the head but the tail, and this was a big rattler.
I climbed out of the car to look at the pulsating, writhing dead snake. Dad commented that at least with the head gone, the dogs were safe. He lifted the body with a stick and threw the snake on the other side of the road. It was gone the next morning. My mother was delighted I remembered my snake lessons so well. I took my bath, put on my pajamas and went to bed. Mama told me a story. I was very proud of myself for remembering what to do.
Rattlesnakes have such good manners. Now I live in copperhead country. They don't tell you they are there.
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