NEW BEGINNINGS

ALBUQUERQUE...SANDIA MOUNTAINS

          ALBUQUERQUE....1952

 

          The sandy dirt covered the toes of my shoes as I left the school playground.  The pre-fab building sat behind me, it was serving its purpose until the new school building was finished.  Shuffling my books, I crossed Constitution Avenue and began the half-mile walk home.  The wind whipped across the mesa causing the sand to sting my legs.  Only the south side of the street had a sidewalk.  I looked across at the barren land.  Sand and sagebrush lay for miles in the distance.  Tumbleweed rolled from the mesa, across the pavement, and onto the green lawn before me.
      The new housing development was claiming the desert, turning it into structures and green grass.  Dad said the houses would someday be up to the mountains.  My eyes followed the mesa as it stretched for miles up to the base of the Sandia Mountains.  The Sandias' stood majestically against the blue New Mexico sky.  Shades of purple and browns enhanced their rugged beauty as they cast their royal gaze down upon Albuquerque, the civilization springing up in this once wilderness land.

          I still remembered my first impression of Albuquerque.  It had been overwhelming.  Bronco and I stared with fascinated wonder at the busy intersections, restaurants, stores, and pedestrians that passed by the windows of the 1949 ford, as it pulled the bulging U Haul down Central Avenue.

          We waited outside and “people watched” as Dad entered the large building bearing the name, “Public Service Company of New Mexico.”  It was close to an hour before Dad strolled back to the car.  His face was serious.

“Oh dear,” Mom said anxiously, as we watched him approach, “I wonder what happened.”

          “Well Wanda, what do you think we should do?” Dad asked solemnly.  His face was sober and under control, but his eyes twinkled.

          “Slim, don’t tease me at a time like this.  Did you get the job?”

          Dad’s face broke into the grin he had been suppressing.

          “Yep, I sure did,” he said with laughter in his voice, “See, I told you there wasn’t anything to worry about.”

          Celebration filled the interior of the black 1949 Ford.

          We rented an adobe house in the northeast side of Albuquerque.  We were living there when I started school.  I was scared when I entered the forth grade classroom.  I soon discovered I was only one of many new students.  The population explosion of Albuquerque was adding to the schools.

          One particular day, when I came home from school, Mom’s face was radiant.

          “The loan went through.  We’re going to have our own house,” she declared, “and a brand new one at that,” she added proudly.

          When Dad got home from work, we drove the four blocks to the new housing site.  We stood before the empty lot while Dad and Mom planned and dreamed.  The house would have an attached garage and we would plant a lawn and trees. 
         During the months that followed, in the cool of the evenings, amid the sounds of neighborhood dogs barking and young children playing on the sidewalks, we walked to the builder’s site.  The noises became distant as we entered the unoccupied street.  The builder’s tools had been put away for the day, and the houses stood half finished.  We watched with pride the building of our home.  Every part of the structure, from the foundation to the shingles on the roof, had been important to us.

          My thoughts returned to the present as I approached the familiar landscape.  The new signpost bore the name “Childers Drive.”  I quickened my steps as I turned the corner.  Manicured lawns and young-planted trees graced the front of the newly built homes.  At the end of the block the greenness ended and the barren mesa stretched into the distance until it reached the next development of houses.

          “Hi Gloria.”

          I turned in the direction of the voice and saw Jane waving as she walked up her driveway.

          “Hi Jane,” I answered and waved my one free hand.  I was adjusting to the move from Montana
back to New Mexico.
            Little did I know of the changes that would be taking place in all of our lives and the secrets I would soon learn.

                                        ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO AT NIGHT