Aztec Address in Albuquerque

 Aztec Address
After about six months we found a house to rent where we could have the dog. It was a really nice three bedroom house on Aztec, NE. It was in a much better, very much better part of town but was on the corner of Aztec and Carlisle very near to the huge intersection of Carlisle and Comanche. Within an easy walk for me was the big Peoples Flower Shop store and with my little bit of experience at Accent Flowers I was able to get a job. Lee got an evening job at a warehouse, Southwest Distributors, which mostly loaded liqueur onto tucks to go to stores the next day. At the same time he was still going to TVI in the day. Some times it seemed as if he never slept, and I sometimes wondered if I had a husband because he was never home.
Sandy and the cats were my constant companions. Even thought the neighborhood was a lot nicer there were still several break ins nearby and we were living on a major thoroughfare. I wouldn’t have felt safe at all if it hadn’t have been for Sandy. She was a fantastic watchdog and I think she would have attached anyone that had tried to break in. Many times I would never have known that Lee came home in the middle of the night if Sandy hadn’t woke me and lots of times she even growled at Lee until she was sure of who he was.
It was while going to TVI that Lee met David Boggs who became one of our best friends. By now the Rader’s, Johnny and Glenda, had been transferred somewhere else in the Air Force and we didn’t see them again for several years. The guys that Lee was going to school with started coming to our house or another house once or twice a week to study. Other than Dave the only other one I can remember was a man named Sanderson and Tom Bryant. Turned out Tom and his wife lived just a few blocks from us But it was Dave we were best friends with and with his parents.
Dave drove a 4-wheel-drive truck and introduced us to the Jemez Mountains to the northwest of Albuquerque. The Jemez was to become like a second home to Lee and I. And it was Dave that took us to Grants, NM for the first time, and up Mount Taylor, that is known to the Indians as The Turquoise Mountain and is very special to them. Taylor is part of the Cibola National Forest Distract. After the guys graduated from TVI Lee got a job with the International Harvester dealership in Albuquerque and Dave got a job with the Caterpillar Company dealership. Dave was frequently sent to Grants, NM to work on equipment used by the uriumim mines there. I think all of those mines are now closed. Dave liked the area and we went with him just to explore several times.
Those mountains were special like the Indians say and could be very mysteryest. One evening we had been up on the top near the fire lookout tower and were headed back down. We were driving a new, black, Jeep wrangler that Lee and I had recently bought. It was almost dark. All of a sudden something streaked out of the air or sky or at least it seemed to and came down right in front of the Jeep. In fact it probably came close to hitting the hood of the Jeep. We all three saw it and the only thing we could figure out it could have been was what was left of a meteorite.
A few years later after Sarah married her long-time college friend Mike Hogaboon they were living in Grants. I can’t remember if Mike was teaching school there, as he was a music teacher or if he was working for the forest service then. We went with them one year up Mt. Taylor to cut our Christmas trees. Sarah and I saw a huge golden eagle sitting on the ground as we rounded one bend in the road. Lee and Mike didn’t see it and by the time we got back to where it was it was gone.
Years later it was Mt. Taylor that gave me the idea for my story ‘All My Hero’s’, or Spirits on the Mountain.
It was while we lived on Aztec that we lost Rowdy. He was hit by a car one evening when he didn’t want to come in when I called him. I hate keeping cats confined to the house but know it is so much safsafer and do recommend it to any one that has a cat in a high traffic area. I have lost too many cats to cars. I have been fairly successful at teaching my cats to come in at dark by feeding them when they come in. But it doesn’t always work. Before we lost Rowdy, Ginger managed to get bumped by a car and had a broken pelvis and tail bones at the base of her tail. She always had trouble with her tail and hind legs the rest of her life. Most of the time she couldn’t raise her tail up the way a normal cat does and it just drug behind her.
After losing Rowdy we found a white, longhaired kitten at a pet shop and adopted him. We named him Cotton. It took Sandy longer to except him than it had with Rowdy and Ginger. I think she really missed her friend Rowdy that she had played with so much when they were young. Ginger did except him and they became good friends. Cotton was all white when we got him except for a gray patch between his ears. The older he got the lighter that patch of gray got until at about five years the gray patch was completely gone and he was all white. Cotton’s personality was so different to any cat we had before and he was the first long hair. There were always clumps of very soft fur lying around. A lot of our cats had a habit of lying on our legs at night when we slept. Cotton seemed to like to sneak onto the bed and lay on Lee’s ankles and put them to sleep. He didn’t do it so much with me. Ginger would lay on my legs at about my knees when I was sleeping on my stomach but didn’t bother me so much. None of the cats we have now do that for which I am glad as I think now it would really bother me