Pictures From Trip to NM

Here are some pictures from my recent trip to NM (June 11 - 13, 2005).


Sierra Nevada (background), Owens Valley (center), White Mountains (right foreground: where the ancient Bristlecone Pines live), southern reaches of Bishop, CA (right, at wing's leading edge), and Deep Springs Lake (lower left: Deep Springs hosts one of the most innovative, and arguably best, college programs in the entire nation). Friend Jerry and hiked in this region in August, 2000.


The heart of Death Valley: Badwater Basin and Dante's View.


Verde River Valley at Fort McDowell, AZ, just east of Phoenix.

On Monday, June 13th, my sister Michelle, her son Aaron, and I travelled to Corrales, NM, to see our old childhood haunts. So strange! Many changes there. The trees are all taller, for the most part, except for the really big cottonwoods, that are now dying out. Lots of new homes and shops, and fewer open fields.


I did not recognize our childhood home, on La Entrada Road! The people who now own the adobe house (purchased in 1990) have done many things with it, to the point where we could just walk past and not feel a sense of connection to it. In a way, my father's expansive vision for the place was eventually realized, by these new people. They are to be congratulated!


Sandoval Elementary School, where I started 1st grade (school remodeled shortly after I left, in about 1967).


A view from West Ella Drive, across Corrales and the Rio Grande Valley, towards Albuquerque's iconic Sandia Mountains.


Historic Old San Ysidro Church.

We visited the San Ysidro Cemetery, located just west of the Old Church, and chased a roadrunner and a jackrabbit around. My sister and I looked at numerous graves of our childhood friends and classmates. So many school chums already slammed six feet under, with deteriorating headstones and crosses on the ground above. And here we are, still walking around!


Ernest Martinez, a good friend of my dad and the family, before he was knifed in a bar brawl, allegedly by one of the Barros.


Rudy Gonzales, and his brother Clifford, were sitting in the Blake's Lota-Burger that was once at Rio Grande Blvd. and Corrales Rd. NW, when a car barreled over the sidewalk, came crashing through the plate glass windows, and killed them both.


Sammy Perea, former next door neighbor, and ambitious politician. He was a controversial Bernalillo County Treasurer (money alleged to have been misused during his tenure). Died very young.

Reminds me of a song: "People Who Died" from the Jim Carroll Band;

teddy sniffing glue he was 12 years old
fell from the roof on east two-nine
cathy was 11 when she pulled the plug
on 26 reds and a bottle of wine
bobby got leukemia, 14 years old
he looked like 65 when he died
he was a friend of mine

chorus:
those are people who died, died
those are people who died, died
those are people who died, died
those are people who died, died
they were all my friends, and they died

g-berg and georgie let their gimmicks go rotten
so they died of hepatitis in upper manhattan
sly in vietnam took a bullet in the head
bobby od'd on drano on the night that he was wed
they were two more friends of mine
two more friends that died / i miss 'em--they died

repeat chorus:

mary took a dry dive from a hotel room
bobby hung himself from a cell in the tombs
judy jumped in front of a subway train
eddie got slit in the jugular vein
and eddie, I miss you more than all the others,
and i salute you brother/ this song is for you my brother

repeat chorus:

herbie pushed tony from the boys' club roof
tony thought that his rage was just some goof
but herbie sure gave tony some bitchen proof
"hey," herbie said, "tony, can you fly?"
but tony couldn't fly . . . tony died

repeat chorus:

brian got busted on a narco rap
he beat the rap by rattin' on some bikers
he said, hey, i know it's dangerous,
but it sure beats riker's
but the next day he got offed
by the very same bikers

repeat chorus; repeat song to eddie