Finding Our Way to Santa Fe ... We left L.A. in the spring of 1948 and after a couple weeks of wandering hither and yon we stumbled somewhat blearily into the fascinating little high-desert town of Santa Fe, New Mexico ...
The Santa Fe, New Mexico of 1948 was a small, dusty, old mission town whose main claim to fame was the fact that it competed with St. Augustine, Florida for the title of having the oldest city/church (even oldest 'house') in the USA (Santa Fe city/church 1607/1626, Saint Augustine 1565/1797 -- with considerable leeway for jockeying the numbers around depending on the meaning of the word "founding"). Santa Fe is located at the rather surprising elevation of 7,000 feet and draws a sometimes-eclectic population of tourists and truth-seekers from many parts of the world. In 1948 (when we arrived) it boasted a population of about 30,000 souls (now more like 70,000), even though it was then and still is the capitol of the entire State, far smaller than Albuquerque (almost 10 times Santa Fe's population) some 50 miles to the South. What appeal did it hold for the Craig family -- sophisticated escapees from the burgeoning economy of post-World-War-II Los Angeles!
Well, to start with, it was affordable, even cheap (although in AD 2000+ certainly no longer!). It was uncrowded, it possessed a considerable degree of charm, the weather was far more varied than in the hot and smoggy Los Angeles of 1948, and it offered a sort of resting place in the life journey of our parents, who had become both jaded and overwhelmed by the humbuggery of fast talkers who had conned them out of their paltry life savings. In the course of his 13 years of labor from 1924 to 1937 Jimmy had accumulated the not insignificant sum of almost $8,000 -- a sum that was squandered on their attempt at starting the dressmaking business (Kim's of California) that they struggled to bring to life between 1945 and 1948 (by comparison, the house they had purchased on Mavis Drive had cost a sum total of $2,400!). Ah, the fickleness of fate and flat feet ...
Our arrival in Santa Fe was actually preceded by a couple of weeks on the road stumbling about the Southwest looking for a hoped-for nirvana such as Santa Fe promised to be! Other candidate spots were Prescott, Arizona and Flagstaff, Arizona -- but Santa Fe seemed to have just the right combination of smallness and charm. Upon arrival we checked into a small budget motel (at that time right on the Santa Fe river!), Jimmy got out his pre-typed-up resume and headed downtown to look for work. By the end of the next day he had a job working for the New Mexico State Highway Department as a draftsman (Santa Fe is the state capitol!). The master plan, as hastily conceived, was for us to rent a slightly up-market furnished apartment at 222 Bower Street (long gone!) for one month while Tedi and I would take the train back to LA, pack up our furniture (on Chevy Chase in Glendale), and have Bekins put it on a truck to haul to Santa Fe. We would then return to Santa Fe, again via train (still an exciting prospect, as it would complete a round-trip for someone like myself who had never been on a train before). The town of Santa Fe, despite its 7,000' elevation is served by rail via a tiny little place called Lamy (population 218) which lies just south of town, although only slightly lower in elevation (about 6,500'). Since that time Santa Fe has built its Rail Runner service all the way to Albuquerque (bypassing Lamy because of multiple sharp curves), although Lamy still serves as a conduit for Amtrak's "Southwest Chief" service to Santa Fe, which back in 1948 (when we took it) was called the "El Capitan" -- heady times back then!
503 Calle Abeyta ... After the trip back to LA, it took a couple of weeks for the Bekins truck to arrive in Santa Fe, and during that period Tedi and Jimmy were able to locate an unfurnished house in the Eastside of town just off Acequia Madre at 503 Calle Abeyta -- a little winding dirt road that was quite picturesque. It was actually an almost new house -- two stories with a garage and yard for the grand sum of $100/month (actually not all that cheap back then!). The house had been built and was owned by one Jesus Rios, a well-known local figure who ran a small firewood yard (on Camino del Monte Sol -- see Jesus Rios ). Somehow the arrival of the Bekins van was coordinated with our transfer to the new digs, and we moved in one fine morning in approximately June of 1948! The bill for the Bekins van was a bit of a shock -- the estimate for the move had been for about $400, but the bill came to over $700 -- a real cruncher for Jimmy and Tedi.
Pins and Needles, "Tedi Barri Custom Wear", Santa Fe Derivatives (428 College Avenue) ... Tedi started out doing sewing work for a little shop in Santa Fe named "Pins and Needles" run by a lady named Agnes James, but after having become dissatisified with the way the place was run decided to start her own shop. The shop was originally called "Tedi Barri Custom Wear" and run out of a space at 428 College Avenue (the old Manderfield Plaza owned by local architect Bill Lumpkin and his wife Alice). At some point, the shop was renamed to "Santa Fe Derivitives" (a misspelling of 'Derivatives') and featured a handsome wooden sign made by Jimmy. Tedi ran this shop for a year or so, employing one or two different seamstresses (including a young Yugoslavian refugee woman who lived in the spare bedroom in our house for a period of time). She eventually found the expenses to be too high to afford keeping the shop open, but continued the same activity working out of our house on Calle Abeyta, something she did pretty much up until the time we left Santa Fe. It was probably not a terribly profitable activity, but it kept her busy, which was something she always needed to do! (Santa Fe Derivatives )
Santa Fe Schools (Carlos Gilbert + Manderfield + Gormley + Harrington) ... In the fall of 1948 (after only a couple of weeks attending a school called Carlos Gilbert near the apartment where we initially stayed) we continued on with 5th grade at Manderfield School -- a tiny little grade school on Canyon Road just past the intersection with E. Alameda Street and right next door to the Cristo Rey Catholic Church (renowned as the largest single-construction adobe structure in the Southwest with walls varying from two to nine feet thick in some areas). Manderfield was within walking distance (about 10 minutes) of our house -- a cold hike in the winter with temperatures down to 10 degrees or so, but a very pleasant walk in the fall and spring. We were two of perhaps a total of half a dozen "Anglos" in the school, with the rest of the kids being very poor Hispanics who had little interest in academic achievement. Many of them had already flunked several grades, and our fifth-grade class had several kids who had drivers' licenses (it was actually possible to get a license at age 14 at that time if the family had a demonstrated need for a wage earner). One day the kid behind me started tugging mischievously on my hair, so I jumped up, turned around and slapped him. I had no idea who was sitting there, and the kid I slapped turned out to be at least 3 years older (13 or 14 vs 10) and more than a half head taller than I was, which put me in a very awkward situation. He was too big for me to fight, so I got chased home afterwards and from then on was very careful about whom I insulted! Kim was constantly being invited to "go down into the arroyo" with one or the other of the older boys (one of whom once offered my a quarter if I would help him convince her!). In the end we pretty much kept our distance from the Hispanic kids at school, although the ones in our immediate neighborhood were much more of our age, and we got along with them just great, playing with them all the time. The neighborhood kids who were better off went to St. Francis School, a Catholic school close to downtown which was also within walking distance. They wore uniforms and dressed much more neatly and cleanly than the much less affluent Manderfield crowd. Tedi would, of course, never think of letting us go to a Catholic school, so the year at Manderfield was a very uneven one! The next year (1949-1950) we were able to switch to Gormley, a school close to Tedi's shop with a much more Anglo population of kids (about half and half), and the situation improved greatly. At the start of our third year (1950-1951) we went to Harrington Junior High, right across the street from Gormley -- but only for a couple of months, as we were soon getting ready to transition to Lubbock, Texas (in that very same fall of 1950)!
Social Life (Kids, that is) ... Santa Fe was actually a great place for kids our age (roughly 10). There were lots of kids on the street for us to play with. Two girls (Martha and Cristina), who lived right across the street, had bicycles that they let us try out (neither of us had never been on a bike before!), and soon we could both ride a bike! Calle Abeyta was at that time almost on the edge of the city, and by walking a couple of blocks we were in the open countryside where we could hike around (and practice starting fires by rubbing sticks together in the arroyos -- a terribly dangerous thing to do, but we were left on our own so much that we would easily get bored -- fortunately, it's very hard to start a fire that way!). During the winter we would sled down the hill in front of our house, which was actually a pretty steep incline that could get the sled really moving! Kim had several good friends (Jan, Pat, and Cornelia, all with parents who had moved to Santa Fe from back East), and they were big into horseback riding, with Pat's even owning a good-sized horse named "Salty." One time, while Kim was riding Salty down Upper Canyon Road, Salty suddenly started galloping and threw Kim off onto the hard roadbed. She got pretty banged up, including a very serious concussion, but of course the only treatment she got was a little CS work (which she managed to survive!).
El Paseo + Burro Alley ... Most Saturday mornings Kim and I would go to the El Paseo theater where they had a free kiddie event, featuring cartoons, a short newsreel, a movie, and live entertainment. There would be a comedian act or something else similar, and a lot of kids would show up for it. In the afternoon we would frequently go to the Burro Alley Theater right across the street (priced under a dime) and take in a Western, along with some kind of serial like Zorro. It was all pure junk, but we loved it ...
Art Museum Evening Doings ... One evening Tedi and Jimmy went to an opening of modern works at the New Mexico Museum of Art, a big adobe-style building right off the Plaza. For some reason we went along, and unexpectedly it turned out that Kim's friends Jan and Pat were there as well (probably accompanying their folks, just like we were!). We were there about half an hour before the show actually opened, and the four of us kids were wandering around looking at the modern art works. On one of the walls in an interior room was a huge panel installation with a lot of gears and wheels, for which you were supposed to push a button to make the whole thing start turning and meshing in odd ways, as well as making funny sounds. We were by ourselves in the room and none of the others dared to push the button, so I pushed it. The whole thing groaned and whined away for about 10 or 15 seconds while all the pieces on the panel turned and meshed with each other, then the whole thing just stopped. We were laughing really hard at its antics, and when it stopped we just kind of looked at it for a while, then I walked up to it and pushed the button again. This time the whole huge panel dropped straight off the wall onto the floor with a terrible crash and, after staring at it for few seconds, we all ran out of the room before anyone could come and find us there. We never found out what happened to it. We had sort of run into another room which was a small lecture hall, so we sat down on the benches and started telling each other jokes. Pat, who was a year or two older than the rest of us, said to me, "I'll bet you a quarter I can pull a hair out of your arm without your feeling it!" I said, "No way!" So she said, "Roll up your sleeve and count to three!" I rolled up my sleeve, she got hold of one small hair on my arm, I counted to three, and she pulled on the hair with one hand while slapping me as hard as she could on the face with the other hand! I was so stunned I couldn't believe it, but I was furious of course. She took off running and I ran after her with Kim and Jan running after me, and laughing as hard as they could the whole time! I don't remember what happened after that, but I remember it as being very embarrassing and wounding to my male ego (even if it was a very young one!). I do know I never got my quarter (which was a lot of money back then!).
JEYPs ... One activity we really enjoyed was square dancing. While we were there a local caller named Pat Pattison started up a kids' square-dance group as part of a youth program at a local church (JEYP -- Junior Episcopal Youth Program), and Tedi signed us up! We did it for about a year and hoped to go on to the seniors' group (called the 'Fireflies' because they danced in the dark with little battery-powered lights on their clothes, which made for good spectator watching), but we ended up moving away before that was possible!
The JEYP group also had other activities (which for the most part Tedi wouldn't let us participate in because she was afraid we might get drawn into the church), but one of them she did let us do was to participate in horseback-riding outings -- a group of a dozen or so kids would go to a local stable, rent horses along with a guide who would take us on a ride to a local campground, where we would cook hotdogs and marshmallows over a fire, after which we would ride back in the twilight (very romantic, even at age 10-11!). Kim's friend, Pat (of Salty fame) was a year or two older than the rest of us and would occasionally hold "parties" in the evening at their rather nice house on Upper Canyon Road, where I believe both Kim and I were introduced to the game of "Post Office" (whoa, heady stuff!). Other social events included occasional kids' parties at the house behind ours ("Bibi's house"), where several casitas were arranged in courtyard fashion and occupied by related members of the same family. The kids would set candles around the courtyard and serve snacks while we all sat around and giggled while some of the kids sneaked in and out of the various little casitas. There was also a little path that ran behind the houses parallel to Acequia Madre all the way to Garcia Street, where right on the corner was a little place called the Garcia Street Club. It was run by a couple of local Hispanic mothers who supervised various craft activities, and there would be an occasional Friday night party where the girls would dress up and sit around waiting to be asked to dance to music on a record player (Guy Lombardo, Vaughan Monroe, Bing Crosby, Ink Spots, and other heavies of the day!).
Saturday Safeway Outings ... Once a week (on Saturdays) Kim and I would walk downtown to the big Safeway store with a shopping list and fill up a shopping cart with stuff. We would then hand the cashier a signed blank check, and she would fill in the amount. We would then wheel the cart out to the parking lot where Tedi would meet us to take the groceries home. The various Spanish cashiers had never seen anything like that before (nor had anyone else!), but seemed to think it was rather cute ...
Dewey in Town ... Probably the biggest event to happen in Santa Fe while we were there was the arrival (by train) of the 1948 presidential candidate Thomas Dewey, who gave a speech that all the school kids had to march downtown to listen to. It gave us most of the afternoon off from school, since after the speech was over we were allowed to go home early -- hurrah for Dewey! (Afterwards my father told one of his favorite jokes, "A politician went to an Indian reservation to make a campaign speech, and after each sentence the Indians would cheer wildly and shout something that sounded like, "Ungawa!" The politician had no idea what it meant, but was pleased by the enthusiastic reception. As they were walking back towards the politician's motorcade, the Indian chief pointed to a pile of cow droppings and said solemnly, "Be careful not step in Ungawa!"
Neighborhood Folk ... There were a variety of interesting folks in our little neighborhood on Calle Abeyta. An older teenager across the street named Ramon ran a little bike repair business out of the back of his mother's casita. I used to be fascinated watching him take bikes apart and do all sorts of things that seemed quite advanced, although in reality in looking back I think a lot of it was just seat-of-the-pants type stuff! It was probably the only way he had of making a living, and the income was undoubtedly rather modest. Right next door to him (and right after we had moved in) a young Spanish couple with a small baby decided to open a little store selling stuff like soft drinks, milk, sandwiches, potato chips, candy, etc, and it was a popular place to go and waste a hard-earned nickel or dime when Tedi wasn't looking. Like most of the houses the Spaniards lived in, it was more accurately a "casita" -- a small one- or two-room house with an outhouse (a john in a small enclosure in the back yard away from the house) and water which more often than not came straight from an outdoor faucet. Most, if not all, of these have long since been torn down as the area became very gentrified (and soaring prices led to most of the Spaniards taking what looked to be big money and moving out of the neighborhood -- in the long run a very, very bad move!).
Another neighbor was a young Spaniard who lived with his parents across the street and who a year or two before had married and produced a baby (perhaps not in that order!), making it very crowded in his parents' little casita. One day he had someone dump a load of dirt along with some straw in their yard, and he started in to build a little casita of his own. Every night when he came home from work he would mix up a little mud and straw and shovel it into a small set of forms which held something like 8 adobe blocks. The blocks would dry enough overnight for him to remove the form and refill it each night. When the weekend came he would take a trowel and, using the freshly made blocks from that week's output along with some mud mortar, would add the blocks to the walls of the house, which grew at a very measured, but noticeable rate! Over the course of one summer he had actually built the entire house (admittedly a very modest structure) adding home-made wood frames for windows and doors as the walls grew to the appropriate height. We left before he got around to the roof, so I never got to see it completed. When I return now, I can't really identify where it would have been and suspect that at some point someone bought the property and demolished it to put up a larger structure.
Jacques Cartier ... Every Sunday Tedi would make sure we got dressed up and walked downtown to CS Sunday School in the basement of the local library (the group was called a CS Org and was not an actual church). My Sunday school teacher was a man named Jacques Cartier, who was a descendant of the famous Frenchman who had been an early North American explorer. He was a dancer in the style of Marcel Marceau, a mime well-known as 'Bip the Clown,' and one of his specialties was miming a guy chasing a fly around the room and leaping to try and catch it. I remember he always pulled out a crisp 10-dollar bill from his leather billfold and slipped it into the collection envelope in a manner all of us at his Sunday School table could see -- very impressive! He was also the dancer at the Zozobra celebrations each fall and performed right before they lit up the big 50-foot Zozobra figure to let it burn. One morning after we had sung one of the hymns at the church service and were starting to sit down, I had this insane urge to pull the chair out from under the little girl in the row in front of me who always dressed up in a flouncy skirt with a crisp crinoline petticoat, Mary Janes, and a bonnet. She went plop right onto the floor to the great amusement of my Sunday School buddies, but to the great anger of the Sunday School superintendent, an older man (Mr. Bernheiser(?)) with somewhat unruly hair and wire-rimmed glasses and an intense look who took his duties very seriously. I was threatened with immediate expulsion from the Sunday School, but the fact that there were only 3 or 4 young lads total in the Sunday School perhaps made him think better of things after he had cooled down (a day or two later!). I was not at all opposed to his impulse and was considerably disappointed when I heard of my reprieve ...
Boy Scouts ... There were Scout programs in Santa Fe, and I joined a local troop, vaulting past the rank of "Tenderfoot" to achieve the exalted rank of "Second Class" (the height of my achievement, it turned out!) before we moved away. The main thing I remember about the meetings was going out on the street afterwards and playing "kick the can." As part of my Boy Scouting activities, we had a camera outing where we all took pictures using cameras we had learned to operate. Jimmy was a big camera buff and give me an older camera he no longer used. I took it on the outing and snapped a bunch of pictures, but not a single one came out! The guy in the camera shop who developed the film told me to show him how I used it. It turns out you had to give the lens mechanism a half twist to let a spring extend the lens out from the body of the camera to allow for proper focus -- something Jimmy had undoubtedly told me about, but I had forgotten amidst the maze of detail about light meters and tables to use for looking up exposure settings. It was the end of my camera activities and my first and last attempt at photography for many years ...
Old Broken Dam ... One of the places we used to go with Jimmy and Tedi on weekend afternoons in the summertime was an old broken dam with a small creek that flowed out of it. I remember we would start driving from Tedi's shop straight out Old Santa Fe Trail (the street her shop was on) right to where the creek ran under the road (?), then stop and park right on the road and hike down to the creek bed. (It's possible, of course, that the road changed to Old Pecos Road, but it was a long time ago!) We would spread out a picnic and play in the creek, then Jimmy would get out his surveyor's gear and have us practice doing surveying! Kim actually did more of it than I did, but she was a year older as well. I retraced the path to it several years ago and showed Kathy, but on our last trip I couldn't find it to show Julie. Right now, it's a bit of a mystery! (Possibly, even probably, it's at the junction of Old Pecos Lane and Old Pecos Trail,where Google Maps shows a large dry creek bed).
Getting in Trouble ... One night on a religious holiday sometime in the Spring, Tedi and Jimmy walked into town to go to a movie, and we were left by ourselves (to get into trouble, of course!). I was out on the street with several of the neighborhood kids, and Ramon (the bicycle-repair guy) dared me to climb an apple tree hanging over a fence into the road and get everyone an apple. I had to take the dare, of course, but while I was up in the tree the property owner came out, grabbed me by the leg, pulled me down, and dragged me into their house! I was terrified because the house was on a large piece of walled property (something of an estate) and had a reputation as being the "castle" of the neighborhood. I pleaded innocence, concocting a made-up story that Ramon had forced me to go up in the tree (he was several years older than the rest of us), and the man's wife told her husband she knew about Ramon and that she had heard he was a neighborhood trouble-maker! The man let me go, but gave me a stern warning about never coming back on their property again and to tell the other kids the same thing. Well, as soon as I got back with the other kids we started to get into more mischief and started peering into the windows of people who had lit candles to celebrate whatever religious holiday it was. Some of them saw us and came outside to yell and chase us away. We were just being kids, but we were being a pain in the neck, no doubt about it! When Tedi and Jimmy finally got home from the movie, they somehow found out about it, and the next evening Jimmy made me go with him to each house where we had been and apologize to each family, including the big estate with the apple tree. The apple-tree property owner was very surprised to see us, but of course since he and Jimmy were both Anglos in a Hispanic neighborhood they immediately formed a sort of "gentlemanly" bond, and everything was magically OK!
And Yet More Trouble ... Ramon, being much more senior than any of the remainder of us, was, of course, quite an influence on us young lads of the neighborhood. One afternoon he took it upon himself to initiate one or two of us into the art of rolling a "cigarette" using newspaper as a wrapper (The Santa Fe New Mexican, no less) and bark from the fence posts which lined Calle Abeyta as "tobacco." Up to this point I had been clueless in such arts, but I enthusiastically partook of Ramon's knowledge and soon had rolled myself quite a sizable newspaper-cum-bark smoke and proceeded to light it up (with the aid of Ramon's lighter, of course). I had never inhaled cigarette smoke before, however, and so was also initiated into this art as well, although admittedly with somewhat disastrous results! After one or two tries at this, I was persuaded by some of my young mischievous cohorts to buy a pack of somewhat less toxic Camel cigarettes at the local market at the corner of Acequia Madre and Garcia Street. This I did several times, each time being applauded for my audacity by my fellow schemers. One afternoon while several of us were busy lighting up on the roof of our house at 503 Calle Abeyta, my father unexpectedly arrived home! He was furious, of course, running the other kids off and telling them never to return to the house again (my only comrades on the street!). He also made me go into the same market and buy a pack of Camels while he waited outside, then went inside and told the owners that if they ever sold cigarettes to a minor again he would turn them into the police! Needless to say I was persona non grata in that market from then on!
A Real Spanking ... My father was at heart a non-disciplinarian, but Tedi would often insist he force us to toe the line (a dark closet adjacent to the living room was a frequent destination for me, the chief perpetrator of mischievous schemes). One Saturday afternoon after some particularly egregious infraction on my part, Tedi insisted that Jimmy administer a real spanking. She stood in the dining room while Jimmy took me over his knee in the living room (immediately adjacent) and proceeded to administer the "beating" -- only instead of striking me on the bottom he laid his open left hand on the top of me and struck it with his right hand as though he were really spanking me. Unfortunately, as soon as I realized what he was doing I burst out in laughter, something that even Tedi was forced to do for a brief moment before she insisted on a real "beating." Jimmy was a kind-hearted soul who found it difficult to be the martinet that Tedi thought he should be when it came to disciplining us young'uns.
Poca and Tita ... One Friday evening, Tedi and Jimmy decided to walk downtown and take in a movie (probably their way of getting a little peace and quiet)! While they were in the theater it started snowing rather heavily, and when they came out there were several inches of snow on the ground. They said it was so beautiful that they decided to walk back along the river (the Santa Fe River, more of a creek actually, runs almost right through the middle of downtown!). As they were walking along, they suddenly realized they were being accompanied -- by a very friendly, small black-and-white polka-dot dog with large ears. They petted it a little, then tried to shoo it away, but it didn't seem to have anywhere to go. After a minute or two, they realized that the dog was quite pregnant, had no collar, and had probably been dropped off alongside the road (sob!). It followed them all the way home, so they let it in the house and locked it in the kitchen overnight until they could post a message next day and try to find its owner. Needless to say, no owner ever showed up to claim the dog, and so we had a new family member -- 'Poca' (named by my Spanish-speaking father as 'Poca Pichelita Pichella', meaning, according to him, 'little pitcher with big ears' -- he was fairly fluent, I am not, so there may be some loss in translation!). Poca remained a member of our family for many years and, of course, very soon gifted us with a small white bundle named 'Tita' (again short for 'Pocatita'), who also remained with us for many years. One day while walking to school along Canyon Road a car came along at a fair clip and hit Poca, breaking one of her back legs. Not realizing how badly hurt she was, I picked her up to carry her home and she bit me very hard on the ear -- probably from the excruciating pain I was subjecting her to. I almost dropped her back on the ground, but managed to sort of kneel down and put her back down. We eventually got her home and to a vet who put a splint on her leg, which she had to drag around for several weeks, but everything finally got straightened out (including Poca's leg!). They were both great pets which we had for many years and we never regretted Poca's having picked us as her choice of a family to live with!
A Real Vacation ... Although we took many weekend jaunts in the area around Santa Fe (including trips to the pueblos and to the apple and nut orchards in Espaņola just North of Santa Fe), we rarely ventured very far away, both because of limited finances and due to our aging 1937 Chevy. We did, however, take one extended trip -- to Ciudad Juarez in Mexico, with stops at Elephant Butte Dam, Carlsbad Caverns, and El Paso. Carlsbad Caverns is a spectacular sight, but, because of its remoteness in the southern New Mexican desert, few people ever visit it. Juarez was an attraction to Tedi because she had always wanted to get some Mexican pottery (which turned out to be such low-fire junk that it was dangerous to eat on!), a few pieces of silver jewelry, as well as an Indian blanket (all things which were much cheaper in Mexico than in the US and all of which we still have!). The trip was taken around Christmas and was great fun for all of us, even if the motel was a particularly cheap one in a very marginal part of El Paso (all we could afford!). Hey, it provided us with great memories ...
Onwards(?) ...After almost two years of working for the Highway Department, Jimmy had become frustrated with the career possibilities in Santa Fe, partially because of his lack of an appropriate education, but also because of a lack of opportunity. Like any system dominated by a particular ethnic group, the New Mexico political system leaned heavily towards favoring Hispanics, even though the governor at that time was an Anglo (a Clovis politico named Mabry). Even more so was the fact that the system had a great deal of petty corruption -- giving jobs and contracts to friends and family, a very normal inclination, but one which pretty much excluded someone like my father. It appeared to be time to start looking around ...
503 Calle Abeyta ... After the trip back to LA, it took a couple of weeks for the Bekins truck to arrive in Santa Fe, and during that period Tedi and Jimmy were able to locate an unfurnished house in the Eastside of town just off Acequia Madre at 503 Calle Abeyta -- a little winding dirt road that was quite picturesque. It was actually an almost new house -- two stories with a garage and yard for the grand sum of $100/month (actually not all that cheap back then!). The house had been built and was owned by one Jesus Rios, a well-known local figure who ran a small firewood yard (on Camino del Monte Sol -- see Jesus Rios ). Somehow the arrival of the Bekins van was coordinated with our transfer to the new digs, and we moved in one fine morning in approximately June of 1948! The bill for the Bekins van was a bit of a shock -- the estimate for the move had been for about $400, but the bill came to over $700 -- a real cruncher for Jimmy and Tedi.
In the fall of 1948 (after only a couple of weeks attending a school called Carlos Gilbert near the apartment where we initially stayed) we continued on with 5th grade at Manderfield School -- a tiny little grade school on Canyon Road just past the intersection with E. Alameda Street and right next door to the Cristo Rey Catholic Church (renowned as the largest single-construction adobe structure in the Southwest with walls varying from two to nine feet thick in some areas). Manderfield was within walking distance (about 10 minutes) of our house -- a cold hike in the winter with temperatures down to 10 degrees or so, but a very pleasant walk in the fall and spring. We were two of perhaps a total of half a dozen "Anglos" in the school, with the rest of the kids being very poor Hispanics who had little interest in academic achievement. Many of them had already flunked several grades, and our fifth-grade class had several kids who had drivers' licenses (it was actually possible to get a license at age 14 at that time if the family had a demonstrated need for a wage earner). One day the kid behind me started tugging mischievously on my hair, so I jumped up, turned around and slapped him. I had no idea who was sitting there, and the kid I slapped turned out to be at least 3 years older (13 or 14 vs 10) and more than a half head taller than I was, which put me in a very awkward situation. He was too big for me to fight, so I got chased home afterwards and from then on was very careful about whom I insulted! Kim was constantly being invited to "go down into the arroyo" with one or the other of the older boys (one of whom once offered my a quarter if I would help him convince her!). In the end we pretty much kept our distance from the Hispanic kids at school, although the ones in our immediate neighborhood were much more of our age, and we got along with them just great, playing with them all the time. The neighborhood kids who were better off went to St. Francis School, a Catholic school close to downtown which was also within walking distance. They wore uniforms and dressed much more neatly and cleanly than the much less affluent Manderfield crowd. Tedi would, of course, never think of letting us go to a Catholic school, so the year at Manderfield was a very uneven one! The next year (1949-1950) we were able to switch to Gormley, a school close to Tedi's shop with a much more Anglo population of kids (about half and half), and the situation improved greatly. At the start of our third year (1950-1951) we went to Harrington Junior High, right across the street from Gormley -- but only for a couple of months, as we were soon getting ready to transition to Lubbock, Texas (in that very same fall of 1950)!
El Paseo + Burro Alley ... Most Saturday mornings Kim and I would go to the El Paseo theater where they had a free kiddie event, featuring cartoons, a short newsreel, a movie, and live entertainment. There would be a comedian act or something else similar, and a lot of kids would show up for it. In the afternoon we would frequently go to the Burro Alley Theater right across the street (priced under a dime) and take in a Western, along with some kind of serial like Zorro. It was all pure junk, but we loved it ...
JEYPs ... One activity we really enjoyed was square dancing. While we were there a local caller named Pat Pattison started up a kids' square-dance group as part of a youth program at a local church (JEYP -- Junior Episcopal Youth Program), and Tedi signed us up! We did it for about a year and hoped to go on to the seniors' group (called the 'Fireflies' because they danced in the dark with little battery-powered lights on their clothes, which made for good spectator watching), but we ended up moving away before that was possible!
Jacques Cartier ... Every Sunday Tedi would make sure we got dressed up and walked downtown to CS Sunday School in the basement of the local library (the group was called a CS Org and was not an actual church). My Sunday school teacher was a man named Jacques Cartier, who was a descendant of the famous Frenchman who had been an early North American explorer. He was a dancer in the style of Marcel Marceau, a mime well-known as 'Bip the Clown,' and one of his specialties was miming a guy chasing a fly around the room and leaping to try and catch it. I remember he always pulled out a crisp 10-dollar bill from his leather billfold and slipped it into the collection envelope in a manner all of us at his Sunday School table could see -- very impressive! He was also the dancer at the Zozobra celebrations each fall and performed right before they lit up the big 50-foot Zozobra figure to let it burn. One morning after we had sung one of the hymns at the church service and were starting to sit down, I had this insane urge to pull the chair out from under the little girl in the row in front of me who always dressed up in a flouncy skirt with a crisp crinoline petticoat, Mary Janes, and a bonnet. She went plop right onto the floor to the great amusement of my Sunday School buddies, but to the great anger of the Sunday School superintendent, an older man (Mr. Bernheiser(?)) with somewhat unruly hair and wire-rimmed glasses and an intense look who took his duties very seriously. I was threatened with immediate expulsion from the Sunday School, but the fact that there were only 3 or 4 young lads total in the Sunday School perhaps made him think better of things after he had cooled down (a day or two later!). I was not at all opposed to his impulse and was considerably disappointed when I heard of my reprieve ...
Old Broken Dam ... One of the places we used to go with Jimmy and Tedi on weekend afternoons in the summertime was an old broken dam with a small creek that flowed out of it. I remember we would start driving from Tedi's shop straight out Old Santa Fe Trail (the street her shop was on) right to where the creek ran under the road (?), then stop and park right on the road and hike down to the creek bed. (It's possible, of course, that the road changed to Old Pecos Road, but it was a long time ago!) We would spread out a picnic and play in the creek, then Jimmy would get out his surveyor's gear and have us practice doing surveying! Kim actually did more of it than I did, but she was a year older as well. I retraced the path to it several years ago and showed Kathy, but on our last trip I couldn't find it to show Julie. Right now, it's a bit of a mystery! (Possibly, even probably, it's at the junction of Old Pecos Lane and Old Pecos Trail,where Google Maps shows a large dry creek bed).
And Yet More Trouble ... Ramon, being much more senior than any of the remainder of us, was, of course, quite an influence on us young lads of the neighborhood. One afternoon he took it upon himself to initiate one or two of us into the art of rolling a "cigarette" using newspaper as a wrapper (The Santa Fe New Mexican, no less) and bark from the fence posts which lined Calle Abeyta as "tobacco." Up to this point I had been clueless in such arts, but I enthusiastically partook of Ramon's knowledge and soon had rolled myself quite a sizable newspaper-cum-bark smoke and proceeded to light it up (with the aid of Ramon's lighter, of course). I had never inhaled cigarette smoke before, however, and so was also initiated into this art as well, although admittedly with somewhat disastrous results! After one or two tries at this, I was persuaded by some of my young mischievous cohorts to buy a pack of somewhat less toxic Camel cigarettes at the local market at the corner of Acequia Madre and Garcia Street. This I did several times, each time being applauded for my audacity by my fellow schemers. One afternoon while several of us were busy lighting up on the roof of our house at 503 Calle Abeyta, my father unexpectedly arrived home! He was furious, of course, running the other kids off and telling them never to return to the house again (my only comrades on the street!). He also made me go into the same market and buy a pack of Camels while he waited outside, then went inside and told the owners that if they ever sold cigarettes to a minor again he would turn them into the police! Needless to say I was persona non grata in that market from then on!
Poca and Tita ... One Friday evening, Tedi and Jimmy decided to walk downtown and take in a movie (probably their way of getting a little peace and quiet)! While they were in the theater it started snowing rather heavily, and when they came out there were several inches of snow on the ground. They said it was so beautiful that they decided to walk back along the river (the Santa Fe River, more of a creek actually, runs almost right through the middle of downtown!). As they were walking along, they suddenly realized they were being accompanied -- by a very friendly, small black-and-white polka-dot dog with large ears. They petted it a little, then tried to shoo it away, but it didn't seem to have anywhere to go. After a minute or two, they realized that the dog was quite pregnant, had no collar, and had probably been dropped off alongside the road (sob!). It followed them all the way home, so they let it in the house and locked it in the kitchen overnight until they could post a message next day and try to find its owner. Needless to say, no owner ever showed up to claim the dog, and so we had a new family member -- 'Poca' (named by my Spanish-speaking father as 'Poca Pichelita Pichella', meaning, according to him, 'little pitcher with big ears' -- he was fairly fluent, I am not, so there may be some loss in translation!). Poca remained a member of our family for many years and, of course, very soon gifted us with a small white bundle named 'Tita' (again short for 'Pocatita'), who also remained with us for many years. One day while walking to school along Canyon Road a car came along at a fair clip and hit Poca, breaking one of her back legs. Not realizing how badly hurt she was, I picked her up to carry her home and she bit me very hard on the ear -- probably from the excruciating pain I was subjecting her to. I almost dropped her back on the ground, but managed to sort of kneel down and put her back down. We eventually got her home and to a vet who put a splint on her leg, which she had to drag around for several weeks, but everything finally got straightened out (including Poca's leg!). They were both great pets which we had for many years and we never regretted Poca's having picked us as her choice of a family to live with!
A Real Vacation ... Although we took many weekend jaunts in the area around Santa Fe (including trips to the pueblos and to the apple and nut orchards in Espaņola just North of Santa Fe), we rarely ventured very far away, both because of limited finances and due to our aging 1937 Chevy. We did, however, take one extended trip -- to Ciudad Juarez in Mexico, with stops at Elephant Butte Dam, Carlsbad Caverns, and El Paso. Carlsbad Caverns is a spectacular sight, but, because of its remoteness in the southern New Mexican desert, few people ever visit it. Juarez was an attraction to Tedi because she had always wanted to get some Mexican pottery (which turned out to be such low-fire junk that it was dangerous to eat on!), a few pieces of silver jewelry, as well as an Indian blanket (all things which were much cheaper in Mexico than in the US and all of which we still have!). The trip was taken around Christmas and was great fun for all of us, even if the motel was a particularly cheap one in a very marginal part of El Paso (all we could afford!). Hey, it provided us with great memories ...