Bones From The Past

I must have been a budding urban planner or statesman as a kid. From ages 6 to 12 (1962 - 1968), growing up in Corrales, NM, the next-door neighbor kids and I divided our corresponding properties, and the properties in the immediate vicinity, into countries, which we named as we wished (as I recall, I think I called my acre Great Britain; Spain was up the road, The Desert was out back, etc.) We made maps of our empires and improvised national anthems.

We frequently made small cities (from lumber cuttings and and bricks and toy cars - the most glorious I named Merckensernf) or sometimes large cities, hoeing roads from the dirt and building cabins made of scrap lumber. We furnished and decorated these cabins, and created libraries and rock collections. We also cooked toast within the cabins, over open flames that vented out smokeholes in the daytime (the cabins were short-lived: there were inexplicable fires at night).

Anyway, the cow pasture next-door I named Holt, in honor of Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt, who disappeared while swimming at the beach one day in 1966.

Lo and behold, Harold Holt had some secrets....