When I was 18, like many of us , I deserted my
end of first semester at college, where all anyone did was smoke pot
and sit and stare- and we decamped to New Mexico, after a whirlwind tour
of the US, much like ' Make Way for Duckings', searching for a new better home , far from family and old habits.
We came upon New Mexico, Albuquerque, where Jon's friend Jaime Leonard had moved, and chose that over too-cool Boulder, and many other places, moving in with him and his soon-to-be-pregnant girlfriend . It was a gilded land in those heady days, the world there full of anti-war passion and belief in integrity and honesty .
We lived eventually in a dusty, poor Barrio, while he worked at a K-mart type place and I waited tables, he played his rented piano , fell in love with the 12 string Yamaha I have to this day and raised my children on, and we spent time on any 100• day at the very top of The Sandia Mountains, freezing cold, a reclined dragon affording you a VIEW of desert and Mesas for miles around .
A friend from school used to come visit us, while she lived over the hill in Prescott, AZ. One thought nothing of driving 8 hours to AZ or CO or LA or even Mexico, on a whim, everyone packed in the car, 8 track of Mitchell or Santana blazing. All cars went 100 mph, and someone always knew an excellent restaurant south of the border where the spiced food was so good you kept shoveling it in, while your eyes streamed with the heat.
We had two favorites hot springs. One was on a Native American Reservation, in a cement pool, walls and no ceiling- where you would go at night, and lay with the stars, as a thick mist swirled everywhere, and strangers moved slowly by.
The second we drove 1 1/2 hrs , parked, and hiked maybe a mile up into the mountains where there was a small pond ( kitchen floor size ) with a goldfish living in it... Water cooler farther away. but warmer near the source. Beneath pines . So peaceful. I can smell the pungent forest as I write.
In those days, everyone was a nudist and no one thought twice.
We came upon New Mexico, Albuquerque, where Jon's friend Jaime Leonard had moved, and chose that over too-cool Boulder, and many other places, moving in with him and his soon-to-be-pregnant girlfriend . It was a gilded land in those heady days, the world there full of anti-war passion and belief in integrity and honesty .
We lived eventually in a dusty, poor Barrio, while he worked at a K-mart type place and I waited tables, he played his rented piano , fell in love with the 12 string Yamaha I have to this day and raised my children on, and we spent time on any 100• day at the very top of The Sandia Mountains, freezing cold, a reclined dragon affording you a VIEW of desert and Mesas for miles around .
A friend from school used to come visit us, while she lived over the hill in Prescott, AZ. One thought nothing of driving 8 hours to AZ or CO or LA or even Mexico, on a whim, everyone packed in the car, 8 track of Mitchell or Santana blazing. All cars went 100 mph, and someone always knew an excellent restaurant south of the border where the spiced food was so good you kept shoveling it in, while your eyes streamed with the heat.
We had two favorites hot springs. One was on a Native American Reservation, in a cement pool, walls and no ceiling- where you would go at night, and lay with the stars, as a thick mist swirled everywhere, and strangers moved slowly by.
The second we drove 1 1/2 hrs , parked, and hiked maybe a mile up into the mountains where there was a small pond ( kitchen floor size ) with a goldfish living in it... Water cooler farther away. but warmer near the source. Beneath pines . So peaceful. I can smell the pungent forest as I write.
In those days, everyone was a nudist and no one thought twice.
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