Drive-In Movie Theaters

Going to a drive-in movie theater was one of my favorite things to do as a child. Every once in a while, my mother would tell us to run, put on our pajamas, and grab our pillows, and we'd be off to see a movie at one of the various drive-ins in Albuquerque. I'm not sure now just why I enjoyed it so much -- it certainly wasn't the quality of the viewing experience, especially with the dime-sized speakers that one hung on his car window in order to get audio -- but I think there was a definite sense of adventure that went with seeing a movie and never having to leave the car. (Usually, there was a second feature that would last until well after midnight, during which we kids would invariably fall asleep, which in turn was Mom's cue to go home.)

The photo above shows the combined concession stand/projection room at the Terrace Drive-In, which was located on the south side of Central Ave. between Eubank Blvd. and Wyoming Blvd. (The Terrace had a very distinctive neon sign on the back of its screen, featuring a Flamenco dancer.) Adjacent to the Terrace was the Wyoming Drive-In, which was accessed from Wyoming Blvd. -- the structure of the old sign is still in place, at the entrance of what is now a mobile-home park. Other drive-in theaters that I remember going to when I was a kid were: (1) the Tesuque Drive-In, which was in a residential neighborhood west of Wyoming Blvd. and north of Central Ave. (a city park and community center are located there now); (2) the Duke City Drive-In, which was on Carlisle Blvd. north of Menaul Blvd. (a Wal-Mart store is located there now); and (3) the Silver Dollar Drive-In, which was on the east side of San Mateo Blvd. north of Montgomery Blvd. (There were other drive-ins in town, but they were further away and we rarely, if ever, went to them. Later on, someone had the idea to open a multi-screen drive-in, the Albuquerque 6, which was on the west frontage road of I-25 north of Montano Rd. I can remember going there as late as the mid-1980s, although eventually it, too, went under. I think it is now the location, more or less, of the Century 24 [walk-in] movie theater.)

The drive-in movie theater is a part of Americana that has, generally (and lamentably, from my point of view), gone the way of the dodo. Cable/satellite TV, combined with the advent of the VCR and DVD player -- not to mention changing public tastes with regard to video and audio fidelity -- pretty much killed it. However, I have lots of fond memories of the days when there were few things more fun to do than hop in the car and go see a movie.

[Update 4/12/10: I was just thinking about one of Cheech and Chong's old routines, called "Pedro and Man at the Drive-In." At one point, Chong [Man] is off at the snack bar, and Cheech [Pedro] starts watching the movie as the Charlie Chan character solves the murder: "Every-a-one een thees-a room have-a moteev for keeling Meesta Tayla. But Meesta Tayla only have-a one keela. And deh name of dat keela ees..." [~static~] "Ladies and gentlemen, snack bah remehn open nodder feefteen minutes -- after dat ees closed fah dee eevning." (And then, of course, the closing music plays, so we never find out who the killer was -- classic C&C!)]

[Update 10/17/12: Below is a photo from Google Earth, showing the erstwhile locations of three of the drive-in theaters mentioned above, as well as my parents' home, some of the schools I attended while growing up, and other landmarks in the area.]

My Limited Field of Vision

It feels strange not to feel much of a desire to write, when writing is one of the things I feel most comfortable doing. It's sort of like the feeling one gets when he has the urge to buy something but then realizes he's already bought everything he needs or wants, and that there is no point to spending more money. It's also like the feeling one gets when his mouth is "hungry" -- that is, he feels a desire to eat something -- but his stomach is already full. What can I write about that I haven't already discussed ad nauseum?

Perhaps it's a testament to my lack of curiosity and blinkered thinking that I only seem to have four or five philosophical riffs off which I can improvise. And, even within that limited framework, I seem to repeat myself endlessly, like some mid-60s garage-rock lead guitarist playing the same two or three minor-pentatonic licks in every solo. In that light, it's probably no wonder that even my closest loved ones don't seem to care much what I think (or, fittingly, to listen to my guitar-playing).

On the subject of guitar-playing, I recently got out the old black Squier II Stratocaster that I bought in 1992, which was the only electric guitar I owned for more than ten years (and which I rarely played until I bought my first Line-6 amplifier on eBay a number of years ago). It's a cheaply made Korean model, with a body made of some kind of porous, lightweight plywood, cheesy electronics, a tremolo unit that, when used, immediately throws the instrument completely out of tune, and (now) non-functional tone controls. However, it also has the best neck of any guitar I've ever owned, and the two "out of phase" pickup settings (out of five total) actually produce very pleasing tones. In the last few years, I've given away several guitars to family members, but I've held onto the Squier II for sentimental reasons. Now that I've re-discovered it as a playing instrument, however, I place it up there with my silver MIM "Classic 60s" Fender Stratocaster and my new Epiphone Les Paul Standard -- meaning I have three very kick-A guitars!

Cabin Trip, February 2010

These photos are from our trip to Pinegrove cabin on February 19-21.  We essentially invited everyone to come along, although Kiley had to stay home for a jazz festival and a cello audition.  We specifically encouraged Dorine's brother Don (and his wife Margarita and daughter Rosita) to come up, inasmuch as we'd volunteered to replace the baseboard heaters in the cabin -- and Don, an electrical engineer and a knowledgeable electrician, was needed in that regard.

I had good weather and clear roads when I drove up by myself in my truck during the day on Friday, which I did so that I could pick up all the new heaters and thermostats at the Ace Hardware store in Pagosa Springs.  However, by the time everyone else came up that evening, the weather and road conditions in the area had deteriorated dramatically.  Nonetheless, everyone got to the cabin safely, and we were able to have some fun over the weekend -- it's always a highlight for me to go into town and get ice cream at the Malt Shoppe.  Installing the heaters on Saturday took quite a bit of work, so I never really had a chance to play in the snow or take a walk with the kids along the frozen Rio Blanco.  It continued to snow on Saturday and Sunday morning, so we decided to leave a little early to come home.

Most of our cars had four-wheel drive, all-wheel drive, or at least front-wheel drive; however, Heidi's Kia Sorento has two-wheel/rear-wheel drive (and she didn't have chains for it).  I ended up driving it from the cabin to Española, and U.S. 84 to the state line was extremely snow-packed and icy.  Despite driving 20-25 mph most of the way to the New Mexico border, I must have started sliding sideways at least a half-dozen times, especially on the sharp curve at the bottom of "Confar Hill," where we almost slid off both sides of the road (and where at least one car had gone off the road into a snow drift).  Thankfully, the NMDOT had already started sanding and plowing the road, so things were better once we got back into New Mexico.  (As we were approaching Chama, I finally noticed that I'd been gripping the steering wheel so tightly that several of my fingers were numb!)

The "U"

This photograph shows the southern part of the Sandia Mountains, circa 1930. (It comes from a postcard that was published in a recent book on the history of Albuquerque.) It is significant to me because it contains the small peak that some people now call "U Mound" (but which my family always simply called the "U"). Evidence of the white-painted "U" (for "UNM") has now all but disappeared (or has been removed) from the western face of the "mound"; however, this is how I remember it looking when I was a child, when UNM students still repainted the "U" periodically. The photo also reflects the great amount of open space that once existed on the East Mesa of Albuquerque; the bridge crossing an arroyo at the left-center of the photo is interesting in that it is evidence of an early north-south road that traversed the mesa in a location east of present-day Tramway Blvd. The city has established open-space areas in the foothills, but almost all of the land shown here has been developed now. South Sandia Peak is visible to the left.

[Update 11/1/11: Here is a current-day view of the "U," taken on October 23, 2011 from the ridge to the south.  Note that there's still a hint of white paint on the upper part of the west face, probably stuck to big rocks.]

[Update 4/12/12: Here is a photo, taken from my high school's 1963 yearbook, looking in a southeasterly direction from the school's practice football field.  It doesn't show the "U," which was just out of the frame to the left, but it does reflect the broad expanse of undeveloped land that still existed on the East Mesa of Albuquerque in the early 1960s.  (It also shows the ugly blue gym uniforms that girls had to wear -- and still had to wear, when I was a student there over a decade later -- when dressing out for PE class.)]

[Update 11/27/12: I can't resist adding another photo.  This one, of members of my high school's girls' track team, comes from my senior annual published in 1977, and it reflects how the "U" looked at that point in time.  (This photo was probably shot within 50 feet of where the "1963" photo above was taken; note the apartment buildings in the background.)  The "U" probably hadn't been repainted in 8-10 years, but it was still very visible.]

Ah, Grandkids!

Here is a photo, taken today, of Dorine with our five youngest grandchildren (L-R: Hailee, Tyler, Mason, Maddison, and Kayla). Each of the kids has a very distinct personality, and it's a lot of fun to watch them all grow up. I sometimes wonder about people who, whether for philosophical or for selfish reasons, haven't had children; what a sense of loss many of them must feel when they reach a certain age and don't have grandchildren! (I must say, however, that with the trajectory the civilized world is following in the post-industrial age, I can't help but fear for my grandchildren's future.)

Kayla, now three, seems caught between wanting to play with her older cousins and her younger ones. In some ways, Maddison and Hailee (who will turn two next month) don't even look like sisters, much less twin sisters. Tyler, a very good-natured baby, looks extraordinarily like Heidi did in her baby pictures -- except there's no mistaking the fact that he has his dad's ears! Mason, who likewise has a sweet disposition (laughing and cooing much of the time), is a big kid who, at three and a half months, is already poised to overtake a very-petite Maddison in weight. They are all one of the greatest joys of my life!

Fifth Grade at McCollum Elementary

The "class photo" above is from my fifth-grade year at McCollum Elementary School, 1969-70. It obviously took some abuse at some point in time, undoubtedly from my younger sister in a fit of pique. I include my own picture -- taken sans glasses -- at the left in case anyone wonders what got scratched out.

My teacher in fifth grade was Miss Fifield, who was easily the youngest teacher (~25 years old at the time) I had in elementary school. She was also sufficiently pretty that I probably would have had a crush on her but for her somewhat conceited, off-putting manner. Her younger brother John was the star basketball player at Highland HS that year (he went on to play for UNM), and I remember she taped newspaper clippings of John's exploits on the wall behind her desk. (Which was of interest to me, as my brother Jeff played for his high school team that year and was actually assigned to guard John when they played Highland.)

The people pictured are: Top (L-R): Miss (Vera) Morrow (principal), Miss (Marilyn) Fifield (teacher), Patrick Sena, Cella Dewey, Stan Esquibel, Perri Stovall, Ricky Manes, Kaye Grass. Second Row: Tammy Massoth, Gerald S_____, Yvonne Cleland, Mark Brogdon. Third Row: Roxanna Davis, Danny Fox, Elisa Banda, Jeff Kainz, Brenda Burns, Rodney Nordstrom. Fourth Row: Debra Schwardt, Patricia Serna, Trina Stewart, Scott Felder, James Snider. Fifth Row: Duane Grammer, Tonya Farson, Howie Weimer, Laura Madrid, Kevin Kartchner, Cathy Ames, Kathleen Coombs, Toni Lopez.

That year was Miss Morrow's last year as principal of the school before she retired. I look back on her now only as a person to be avoided, if possible; however, I do remember being called into her office once that year. Some kid, whom I really didn't know, had gone around our neighborhood showing hard-core pornographic Polaroids (I still wonder where he got them) to other kids, including me. He must have been caught with those photographs at school, and apparently he told Miss Morrow the names of all the persons to whom he had shown them, whether on or off school grounds. Anyway, she called me in and asked me, "Who showed you The Pictures?" I honestly didn't know what she was talking about, so I replied, "What pictures?" which she took as evasion. Once I finally realized what she was referring to, I told her everything I knew in that regard (which wasn't much) and was forced to give her a graphic description of what the photos depicted, using a ten-year-old's limited (and crude) vocabulary. A very uncomfortable experience, notwithstanding the fact that I wasn't really in trouble for anything.

Brenda Burns was one of the cutest girls in my fifth-grade class; I had had crushes on her in first and third grades, and I think she actually liked me that year (or in sixth grade -- I don't really remember), but for some reason I shied away from her. She moved from the immediate area after sixth grade, and I later found out that she attended Del Norte HS. (I remember looking, in 1981, at my friend Ken Mantlo's 1977 Del Norte yearbook and seeing Brenda's picture; I commented to Ken that I had known Brenda in elementary school, and he told me that she had been the object of the lust of just about every guy at Del Norte.) Ironically, Brenda ended up marrying a member of the LDS church -- Tom Divett, brother of Dorine's good friend Ruth Divett -- and joining the church herself, although the marriage ultimately didn't last, and I doubt Brenda stayed active in church after she remarried. (I know she and Tom lived for years in the east mountain area in fairly primitive conditions.) One of Brenda's friends in the class was Kathleen Coombs, whom I saw a few years ago at Chuck E. Cheese's on Wyoming Blvd. here in Albuquerque. I decided not to intrude by speaking to her, but there was no mistaking who she was -- she looked almost exactly the same as she did in elementary school.

A sad case was Gerald S______, who was one of a mere handful of African-Americans at the school. Gerald was a bright kid and talented, but his life went off the rails in high school, probably due to drugs and drink. I understand he served two years in the juvenile detention center at Springer for his involvement in a killing that took place at my high school in 1976. And I remember sitting in the UNM law library, sometime while I was a student at the law school in the mid-to-late 1980s, reading the New Mexico Bar Bulletin. That particular issue contained the advance opinion from Gerald's appeal from a conviction of aggravated rape (which conviction was sustained). The facts of the case were pretty disgusting, leaving me to wonder what had happened to the promising kid whom I'd known years earlier.

Finally, I remember fifth grade as the year when The Brady Bunch first aired on TV. It quickly became my favorite show, and I watched it every week.

Treading Water

Now that the holiday season and our cruise are over, I'm struggling to find things to look forward to. It doesn't help that I came home from the cruise with a case of mild-but-constant vertigo, which hasn't even started to go away, despite our being back from the Caribbean now for over two weeks. (It's making me wonder if it isn't a symptom of some underlying ailment, as I don't remember having this problem, at least for this long, the last time we cruised in 1991 -- I really need to call the doctor to schedule a physical exam.) It's making everything, especially running at the gym, a little more difficult. I seem to be developing a tolerance for Temazepam, as it isn't keeping me out all night, even with a benadryl kicker. It's clear to me now that the psychological component of my sleep disorder, which I've never fully understood, has become the crux of the whole matter; in short, I simply can't sleep while my mind is "on," meaning I have to turn it "off" chemically. I'm supposed to see a practitioner at the UNM sleep-medicine clinic later this month, just to see if she has any ideas that my other doctors haven't thought of; however, at present I can't see my way clear of using both a breathing machine and prescription sleep meds for the rest of my life. That's a depressing thought, no matter how fully resigned to it I am.

What would I like to do? We'll probably be going to the cabin later this month for at least a couple of nights. I want to take my mother to Ruidoso (actually Ruidoso Downs) to see the Hubbard Museum of the American West. Dorine and I may be going to Colorado next month with the Albuquerque Youth Symphony on its spring tour of Colorado Springs and Denver. John Brewer and I have talked about doing the granddaddy of all hikes in the Sandia Mountains (after the snow melts): the entire Crest Trail (~28 miles, with loads of elevation changes) in a day. It would also be fun to visit Las Vegas after not having gone there in well over three years. Finally, I'd still like to go camping at at least a couple of state parks, something we managed not to do at all in 2009.

(The photo above was taken at Fort King George on the island of Tobago, which was my favorite of the islands we visited on our cruise.)

Cruising on the Bounding Main

Dorine and I have now gone on our 25th wedding-anniversary cruise in the Caribbean with my in-laws Judy and Mike P______. We had a good time -- we sailed on Celebrity Cruises' Summit cruise ship, embarking at San Juan, Puerto Rico on the evening of January 9 and spending seven nights aboard. We visited St. Maarten, Dominica (not to be confused with the Dominican Republic), Grenada, Tobago, and Barbados, ending with an entire day at sea before arriving back at San Juan on the morning of January 16. Taking a cruise provides a lot of bang for one's vacation buck. Where else can one get nice shipboard accommodations (including pampering from a cabin steward), a veranda overlooking the ocean, fine dining, top-notch live entertainment, exotic ports of call, access to pools, spas, and a gym, and shore excursions to snorkel, swim at the beach, and tour a tropical rain forest, all for about $1,000 per person (not counting airfare)? As Mike pointed out, buying all these things "a la carte" would undoubtedly cost ten times that much, which explains why Caribbean cruises are such a popular vacation get-away for middle-class folks. (Most of the more-affluent people I know probably wouldn't condescend to cruise in the Caribbean with the hoi-polloi.) As I write this, my inner ear and equilibrium are still out of whack from the movement of the ship on the sea, but that's a small price to pay to have created such great memories.

[Update 5/23/12: What irony! A small price to pay?  The cruise ruined my life, leaving me in a perpetual half-light of disequilibrium, physical disability, and cognitive impairment.]

Random Thoughts - Part 3

1. I've had to laugh at the recent revelations about the unethical scientific practices of the folks at the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia in the UK. The hacked/leaked e-mails demonstrate quite amply that the CRU and other, like-minded ideologues have reached certain conclusions about "climate change" and aren't about to let contrary evidence or heretical individuals (scientists or others) dissuade them or interfere with their political agenda. All I can say is: "Yeah -- like we didn't know that was going on!" As good an idea as renewable energy is in the abstract, carbon-based sources of energy are likely to be the only feasible alternative in the real world for some time yet. The good news is that the wind (metaphorically and otherwise) seems to be leaving the sails of those who would use carbon dioxide as a pretext for massive new energy taxes and unaccountable global governance -- as evidenced by the just-finished summit on "climate change" in Copenhagen, whence, predictably, came nothing of import except an excuse to do it again next year.

2. I'm also mildly amused by the Democrats' intense push to pass a health care bill -- any health care bill -- in Barack Obama's first year in office. The idea of government-run health care is extremely unpopular in the US, so why are the Dems doing it, especially on a strict party-line vote that will probably cause them to lose seats in both houses of Congress in the 2010 mid-term elections? Well, I happen to agree with conservative pundits who say that this is the last, best chance for the Left to set in motion what will eventually morph into what they've always wanted -- a single-payer national health service and all the control and bureaucratic bloat that implies -- and they're thinking that taking a short-term electoral hit is a small price to pay to move America's political culture permanently, and terminally, to some point left of center. And Obama can take credit for something, no matter how bad the bill is, and even if neither he nor the public knows what's in it.

3. At least President Obama's administration finally decided to change tack on the situation in Honduras, apparently deciding that Mel Zelaya, the ousted Honduran president, is a nutball who only makes his supporters look stupid by association. (I can only imagine how tired of Zelaya the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa is becoming; one wonders what he'll do after January -- when the newly elected president, Porfirio Lobo Sosa, will be sworn in -- and he no longer has any plausible claim on the office.) Recent elections in a few Latin American countries (Honduras, Argentina, and Chile, not to mention Colombia) have provided hope that the spread of el chavismo (i.e., populist neo-communism) has been stemmed in Latin America.

4. In my Sunday School lesson a couple of weeks ago, I discussed Doctrine and Covenants Section 134, which is a declaration of Mormon beliefs (dating to the Kirtland, Ohio era in 1835) on the topic of governments and laws. I found Verse 12 to be particularly intriguing:

We believe it just to preach the gospel to the nations of the earth, and warn the righteous to save themselves from the corruption of the world; but we do not believe it right to interfere with bond-servants, neither preach the gospel to, nor baptize them contrary to the will and wish of their masters, nor to meddle with or influence them in the least to cause them to be dissatisfied with their situations in this life, thereby jeopardizing the lives of men; such interference we believe to be unlawful and unjust, and dangerous to the peace of every government allowing human beings to be held in servitude.

When I first read this verse, I thought, "Well, that wasn't a very enlightened position to take on the institution of slavery, even in 1835." However, owning a copy of the Ken Burns film The Civil War and having watched it several times, I realize what the Civil War cost, in both blood and treasure, to keep the Union together while ridding it of slavery. I also know that legalized slavery in the United States could not have lasted another generation, as more and more light was cast upon it and its inherent evil became progressively apparent to all. Therefore, in hindsight the Civil War was fought, essentially, to cause abolition to occur a few decades earlier than it inevitably would have done otherwise. (I consider it instructive that slavery ended bloodlessly in Brazil in the 1880s.) It's often said that the war was the penance this country had to do for the "original sin" of slavery (and even that wasn't enough if you buy into the idea of reparations for descendants of slaves), but it's occurred to me to wonder just how necessary the war really was, and whether the church's statement on slavery in 1835 wasn't quite as benighted as it seems at first blush now.

5. Dorine and I have now been married for 25 years, which is a genuine milestone for a couple. However, I tend to look at next August as an even bigger milestone in my life, when we will have been married for as long as I was old when we got married. (The exact date will be July 31, 2010 if you go by the number of years [25], months [7] and days [13] of my age on our wedding day, or August 3, 2010 if you simply go by the number of days [9,359].) The passage of time is a funny thing, not that I'd care to slow it down or replay it.

6. Given my prolific journal-keeping, I've begun to wonder just what will come of the dozens of journals I've filled since I first started keeping a diary back in 1973. An awful lot of me is contained in those voluminous writings, and one would be able to come to know me pretty well, warts and all, by reading them after I've shuffled off this mortal coil. The question is just who, exactly, would care to come to know me enough to plow through my journals. Assuming they survive me, will they end up someday in a box in the back room of some university library, waiting for some researcher or historian to decide they are representative of, say, an American "anti-social" Mormon in the latter part of the 20th Century and the first part of the 21st? Or, will one of my descendants transcribe, edit, and publish them? Or, simply, will no one care what I thought and felt? It's difficult for me to guess....

The Women in My Life

I flew up to Utah last Thursday and helped Devery and Easton move out of their apartment in Provo and down to their new apartment in Albuquerque (bringing Darren down, also, for the holidays). Easton has now graduated from BYU in Construction Management and will be working for Bradbury Stamm Corporation in Albuquerque. (He, Devery, and Mason will be living near the intersection of Eagle Ranch Rd. and Paradise Blvd. on the west side.) This photo was taken in our living room on Sunday night and shows most of the women in my life (and the two new grandsons -- Nicole and the twins were there but didn't make it into the picture). L-R: Dorine, Heidi, Kiley, Kayla, Mom, Tyler, Devery, Mason, Kristy, Alexis.)

Christmas - Pieces of My Childhood

When I was a child, the Christmas season always seemed full of wonder and possibilities. Essential to that sense of wonder was a set of Christmas tree ornaments that my mother had, consisting of translucent-plastic animals, which have always brought back vivid, cherished memories of my early years. When I told Mom recently that I hoped she'd someday give me one of the ornaments as a memento of my childhood, of course she insisted on giving me two. Surprisingly, she still had five of the original set of six animals -- lambs, kittens, and pigs -- and I selected one of the pigs and one of the kittens (see photo). Just looking at them summons forth hazy memories of a dozen or more Christmas trees (including one that I remember had a bird's nest in its branches, and another, a piñón, whose seed pods kept bursting open in the warmth of our home), and hours upon hours of staring at the lights and decorations and marveling at the colors. Nowadays, Christmas comes and goes with my hardly anticipating it or noticing its passing, but there was a time when it meant the world to me and more.

[Update 2/2/10: My mother had this photo of Devery, taken at my parents' house on Christmas Day, 1992. You can see one of the ornaments in question, a pig, just to the left of Devery's head (on her right).]

Dorine, Then and Now

The photo on the left is Dorine's school picture from ninth grade, which dates to the fall of 1972 (age 14). This is the girl for whom I developed such a mad infatuation, commencing during a youth temple excursion (to Mesa, AZ) in March 1973 and continuing through that summer and beyond. The photo on the right is her "school picture" from this fall, some 37 years later, with her current hairstyle.

Summer 1973

These pictures were taken in early July 1973, in St. Johns, AZ, on the occasion of the funeral of my great-grandmother Mary Ann (Chapman) Richey, who had passed away a few days earlier at the age of 101 years. The event served as an impromptu family reunion -- I'm certain it was the first time in a number of years that our entire family was together in one place. The photo on the left shows my four brothers and me (L-R): Kelly (19 - two months before he started his church mission to Taiwan), Robin (23 - serving in the Air Force and stationed at Holloman AFB near Alamogordo, NM), Jeff (20 - also serving in the Air Force and stationed either at Kirtland AFB in Albuquerque or Cannon AFB near Clovis, NM), Roger (23 - going through his "hippie" stage), and me (14 - in between 8th and 9th grades, and, coincidentally, deep in the throes of an unrequited crush on Dorine). I had jettisoned the photo-gray plastic "aviator" glasses by then, although I still used them for basketball. I was already approaching 6'0" in height; I hoped to grow to 6'5", but it wasn't to be. The photo on the right includes Robin's wife Karolyn (in turquoise), their son Todd, Jeff's (first) wife Karen (lavender pants), and their daughter Pam.

Looking back, this would have been only a week or two before the tragedy at Yellowstone National Park that claimed the lives of four members of our ward (who perished from hypothermia after having their canoes swamped during a storm while on Yellowstone Lake -- only one person who actually went into the water survived). I remember going for an exhilarating motorcycle ride with my brother Jeff (with him on his Honda SL-350 and me on my Honda CL-70) out in the Four Hills subdivision, then coming home and having Kelly tell me what had happened. If I hadn't only recently turned 14, I might have gone to Yellowstone with the group of Explorers/Venturers who made the trip; needless to say, I'm still happy I didn't go.

Seventh Grade: My Year In Hell

This photo is my school picture from seventh grade at Kennedy Junior High School (1971-72), which still rates as the single worst year of my life. I've experienced many difficult periods at different times of my life -- my freshman year of college, my church mission (still the most difficult thing I've ever done), law school and graduate business school, adjusting to being married, being without work after graduation, nerve-rattling courtroom work, having a rebellious child, having monumental tasks to do at work with almost no management support -- but nothing else has compared with the hell that was seventh grade. The difference between my last year (sixth grade) of elementary school and my first year of junior high was similar to growing up in a zoo and then being set loose in the jungle with no survival skills and no support structure. The kids from my elementary school were generally naive and relatively innocent; however, then we were thrown together with kids from the other "feeder" schools, who were street-wise, prone to ganging up on loners, and seemingly into "adult" vices (sex, drinking, drugs, street-fighting, petty crime, etc.) that I could only imagine. It didn't help that the teachers at Kennedy didn't seem to give a rat's behind about their students in general, never mind an individual who was struggling socially (and, consequently, academically). My brother Kelly was in his senior year at the local high school and was a pretty big man on campus due to his being the starting point guard on the basketball team; I can remember thinking that some of that status should have percolated down to me, but it never did (not that it mattered to Kelly). My best friend at the time was my cousin Randy Baca, who, similarly, wanted nothing to do with me at school despite the fact that he was still at Kennedy that year. I wouldn't have wanted to run with the rough crowd that he hung out with (who really were into all the aforementioned vices), but I could have used a little of their "protection," if nothing else.

I remember that some of the girls in my math class started referring to me as "Goggles" on account of my glasses (the plastic "aviator" frames and photo-gray lenses were way ahead of their time in 1971). Many of those girls were probably at the apex of their lives in terms of physical attractiveness and popularity; I can say with some confidence that most of them ended up (to borrow a line from the Hitchcock film Rear Window) fat, alcoholic, and lonely. As for the guys at the school, well, I'm certain that many of them ended up dead or in prison; I can remember feeling more than a little schadenfreude when I found out some years later that one of my tormentors had committed suicide while still a teenager. I'm not sure how many times I missed school in seventh grade -- every day I was gone only compounded the woe I was feeling -- but I estimate I was absent for fully one-third of the school year. (It drove my parents crazy, especially my father, who used to make me drink Geritol -- nasty stuff! -- in an attempt to cure my ills.) That I was allowed to miss that much school, yet still advance to the eighth grade with passing grades, is a testament to what a sh-- heap the school was. (I ended up attending a private SpEd school in eighth grade after finally deciding I couldn't stand Kennedy anymore, and then I attended another public junior school in ninth grade, which represented a stark contrast to Kennedy, especially in that low-life scum fell pretty low in the social pecking-order there.)

Irony: My good friend Rod Williamson's wife Barbara is currently principal of Kennedy, which has now long been a grade 6-8 middle school, and I think his daughter Jenny teaches English there.

[Update: Another irony is that the only school annual that I still possess -- I threw out all my high school yearbooks shortly after my mission -- is the one from seventh grade. Here are a couple of photos from that yearbook. The first is of the kids who played in the seventh-grade basketball program; we played on cold Wednesday mornings before school, and we had an intramural tournament during the holiday break. I also remember that a select few of us played in two "real" games, against seventh-graders from Hoover Middle School. I'm on the far right of the back row. The second photo is of the seventh-grade boys chorus, a class I didn't really like, in large part because I didn't care for the teacher, Mrs. Coupland. (It didn't help that the class contained several of the creeps of whom I make mention above.) I wasn't as tall as I look in the picture -- Duane Dalby, on the far right of the back row, wasn't much shorter than I was -- and thus I think I must have been standing on some kind of box as well as the top riser.]

2009 AYS Luminaria Fundraiser

Well, we got through another Albuquerque Youth Symphony luminaria fundraiser. It was a trial for the workhouses this year due to the wet sand that was delivered to us (and all the effort we had to expend to try to dry it out in advance). Luckily, we had another conscientious, hard-working crew, and all our preparations on the front end paid off on "Luminaria Day," December 5. We weren't terribly enthused about being a workhouse again this year, but I felt we owed something to AYS after the organization "ate" a lot of the unanticipated expenses from the Australia trip last June (which expenses resulted from the fact that the kids had to stay extra nights in hotels after being barred from staying with Aussie families due to the "H1N1" flu scare). Given that the group's tour next spring will be "regional" (to Denver and Colorado Springs), it wouldn't have seemed fair for us not to shoulder the same burden we took on last year and thus help to replenish the group's coffers. However, Dorine and I are both relieved that Kiley is in her last year of the AYS program, meaning we won't be a workhouse next year!

The Fam at Thanksgiving

Here are a couple of photos from the Thanksgiving weekend. The top one contains our entire family. (Top, L-R: Nicole, Alexis, Maddison, Kristy, Chris, Hailee, Dorine, me, Darren, Kiley. Bottom, L-R: Zach, Tyler, Dion, Kayla, Heidi, Devery, Mason, Easton. The bottom shows our 3-years-old-and-under grandchildren. (Clockwise, from bottom: Hailee [20 months], Maddison [20 months], Mason [5 weeks], Tyler [6 weeks], Kayla [3 years].) It was very nice to have the entire family here for Thanksgiving; it was sad to see Devery, Easton, Mason, and Darren go back to Provo, although they'll all be back here soon. (Devery and Easton are moving here, after the latter graduates, in order to take a job with Bradbury Stamm Corporation, although they'll be spending Christmas in Tucson with his family.) This week we're scrambling around trying to get ready for another Albuquerque Youth Symphony luminaria fundraiser, for which we'll once again be a "workhouse." At present we're having to try to dry out a pile of damp sand on our driveway, and we don't yet have adequate supplies of folded paper bags, candles, etc.; however, we're hopeful it will all work out by Saturday.

"I'll take these axes, Ray"

I recently purchased what I expect to be the last electric guitar I ever buy, a "limited edition" Epiphone Les Paul Standard. (Epiphone, which originally sold a line of U.S.-made guitars, is now Gibson's foreign-made "budget" brand.) It's a pretty cool guitar, having a matte cherry finish, gold-color hardware (including Grover tuners), and supposedly hotter-than-normal humbucking pickups. I'm sure an "expert" could tell the difference between my "Epi" and an honest-to-goodness Gibson Les Paul, but to me it plays and sounds like a "real" one; in any case, I appreciate value, and getting 95% of a Les Paul for 25% of the price is a good deal by any measure.

After I bought the "Epi," I took it and my "Classic 60s" Fender "Mexi-Strat" to a local guitar tech for set-ups. He didn't do much to the "Epi" -- just lowered the action a little at the bridge -- but he went full-bore on the Strat, tweaking the truss rod, lowering the action, tuning the bridge, re-working the nut, trimming the excess wire from the pickups (which were replacements, installed before I bought the guitar), replacing the pickup height-adjustment screws with the correct ones, and finally adjusting the height of the pickups. I'm amazed at what all that did for the guitar's playability and sound!

In conversing with the tech, I learned a few things about buying vintage or vintage-replica guitars. Old Fenders had pickups with non-adjustable pole pieces (i.e., magnets) that were set up for heavy-gauge strings -- in particular, wound 3rd or G strings with small cores -- and using light-gauge strings often causes some notes to sound out-of-tune because the magnetic force is too strong for the core of the string being used. The only way to compensate for it is to lower the entire pickup, which then tends to compromise the overall signal going to the amplifier. Old Fenders also tended to have curved fretboards with small radiuses (radii?), inasmuch as few people in those days incorporated string-bending techniques in their playing. (Bending notes on a fretboard with a lot of curve to it evidently tends to "choke" the note.) At any rate, the tech wasn't real big on vintage Fenders or replicas, although I, not being a pro, am willing to sacrifice a little bit of sound for the coolness of the early-60s look of my "Mexi-Strat." The newer Fender "American Standard" Stratocasters may be better suited to playing modern rock and pop music, but I'll keep what I have!

(The caption to this post, in case anyone didn't know, is a reference to the 1980 Belushi/Aykroyd film The Blues Brothers.)

November Update

I'm still having great difficulty thinking of new topics about which to write, but a lot has been happening in our family lately. First, as should be obvious from previous posts, both Heidi and Devery have had their babies, and Dorine and I now have eight grandchildren (nine, counting Heidi's stepson Nolan). The two new boys are both adorable and welcome additions to a family composed predominantly of girls! Heidi had a relatively easy labor and delivery, whereas Devery's was anything but easy, given the latter's slight frame, this being her first child, and the fact that Mason weighed 9 lbs. 8 oz. at birth. (Reportedly, she came literally within one push of having to have an emergency c-section.)

After first being with Heidi for Tyler's birth, Dorine flew up to Utah to be with Devery as she had her baby. I drove up to Provo the following week and spent a couple of days there before driving Dorine home. I got to spend time with Devery and Easton (and Mason), and with Darren (see photo), but that was about it. (I've made the round-trip drive to Utah four times this year -- I'd swear it gets longer every time.)

Dorine is still working as a kindergarten EA at the local elementary school, and she now has a calling in the young women. I'm still working at the temple and have been assigned to be the "brother" veil coordinator every other week, which is a fairly nerve-wracking job. My sleep disorder is still having far-reaching effects on my life; I continue to use the VPAP Adapt SV machine, but I've also been taking Temazepam, diphenhydramine hydrochloride, and an antidepressant called Citalopram on a nightly basis. It's wonderful to feel sleepy at bedtime, but the pharmaceuticals take their toll over time in other ways. Darren seems to be doing well at BYU. Kiley is getting ready to apply to college and hopes to be accepted at BYU as well. She tried out for the New Mexico "All State" orchestra and became more than a little exercised when the powers-that-be initially omitted her name from the list of successful auditioners; they later corrected the oversight, menos mal.

Mason Hunt Hamblin, b. 10/23/2009

Tyler Evan Salazar, b. 10/16/09