A Breed Apart

One nice thing about attending New Mexico Tech, in Socorro, for two years in the mid-70's, was being a Techie: a breed apart among college students.

The hallmark of being a Techie was an independence of thought and manner. All college students are susceptible to herd-think, but the awkward placement of NM Tech far from major cities removed the herd, and served to provoke original thinking and adventurousness, whether that meant plunging into caves and abandoned mines on weekends, or scouting for Indian ruins, or hiking through the mountains and badlands of central NM (there were plenty of 'chemical' adventures as well, but I steered away from most of that).

Dyer just sent this scanned photo from one of several trips we took to the vicinity of San Antonio/San Marcial, NM, around 1975. Hanging from the sign is John Shortess: I'm there in the checked shirt, with Joel Weinfeld (with his beta version of photogray glasses) and Walt Kubilius (leaning on the pole). I'm not sure if this is the trip where we found the dessicated cow or not. It looks pretty chilly in this photo.

As I recall, the grand challenge of the location was trying to screw up the courage to cross the Santa Fe railway trestle on foot from San Marcial, over the Rio Grande river, to the remote, desolate east side. The trestle crossed the Rio Grande at an shallow angle, and thus was a couple of miles long. Had a train come down the tracks there would have been no alternative but to jump 30 feet into the shallow Rio Grande, or into the neighboring brush, miles from help. It would have been difficult, at best, to try to outrun the train over such a long distance on foot. Alternatively, we could have hung off the end of railroad ties as the train passed by a few feet away. Very scary. I don't think any of us ever attempted the grand challenge. A pity, really. Maybe we were more susceptible to herd-think than I thought! Maybe I can still do it! ("Confused Man, No Doubt On A Chemical Adventure, Swan-Dives Into Muddy Oblivion" will read the headline).

The world is a small place. The only time I've ever seen a Broadway play ('Dracula' in 1978), Walt and I bumped into John Shortess in the lobby of the Broadway theater, quite by accident, 2000 miles from Socorro. How strange!