Some More of Silver City

Silver City, NM from March 1973 to Dec. 1976
We spent a couple of years in Silver City. Lee worked at Birchfield Motors as a mechanic. At first we got a tiny apartment on 6th Street. A few months later we got into one of the apartments in the duplex just to the west of Mother and Daddy’s house where we lived until we moved to Albuquerque in 1976.
I decided to go to college on my GI Bill benefits and went to Western New Mexico University for two and a half years. I was supposedly majoring in history and business. It was only six blocks from where we lived to the college so I walked up there and back everyday to classes. I never felt like I learned that much but maybe I did. Anyway it looked good on job résumés.
In about May of 1976 when we got into the D St apartment we started looking for a kitten. We both missed Nuisance and Tiggy. The first one that came along was a tiny black and white kitten that was only about three weeks old that someone had found. Of course we took him. He was so tiny and I was afraid he wouldn’t survive but he was strong and within a couple of weeks had taken over our lives and house. We named him Rowdy.
We made friends with Timmy Rader who worked with Lee and then with Timmy’s brother, Johnny and his wife Glenda. Within a few weeks of getting Rowdy Glenda found a kitten in the same area where Rowdy had been found. Her kitten looked very muck like Rowdy but with just enough brown on her to be a calico and was named Popcorn. Popcorn had a litter of kitten six months or so later and there was a male calico born. Male calicos are extremely rare, with some people saying they never happen but we knew better. Unforchenly he didn’t live very long.
Johnny and Glenda had an older white, German Shepherd named Sheba which influranced mine and Lee’s choice of a puppy. We chose a black and silver Shepherd we named Sandy. Sandy was about the same age as Rowdy and the kitten and puppy became life long friends. They played and played together, terrorizing the house. I remember Sandy ate almost all of a chocolate cake with chocolate icing on it that I had made. I was so mad at her and hoped it had made her have a belly ache. At that time I didn’t know chocolate was so bad for dogs and I guess we were really lucky that she didn’t die from eating that cake. Another time she chewed on Lee’s high school graduation diploma and I had to order him a new one. There were a lot of skunks living in the area where we were and Sandy got sprayed several times.
We spent a lot of our time off from work and school exploring the Gila National Forest with and without our dog, Sandy. We bought our first 4-wheel-drive truck, an old blue pickup-style International Scout. There was nothing I more than those long, drives on all those narrow, dirt roads and trails through the mountains. We say deer, elk, coyotes, bobcats, and lots of squirrels and birds. I didn’t take many photos as I only had a little 110 camera at that time. I do wish I had more photos or a chance to go back and get some now. Some of our favorite places were Meadow Creek, Signal Peak, Trout Creek, and Sheep Corral Canyon. I wonder if you can still get into them now. Bear Mountain Road was another favorite to go that was in a different area of country around Silver City. There is a well known birdwatching lodge there now. We frequently would go out into the Burro Mountains to the southwest of Silver City. This was the area where my granddad, Boyd Green had his turquoise mine and where he had worked a gold mine with his partner at one time. All of the Silver City area had been explored by Gram and Granddad, Mother and her sisters when they had lived in Silver City in the early 1940’s.
We walked a few miles down into the Gila Wilderness a couple of times, and walked up to the Gila Cliff Dwellings. Mother told her told us her story of going to the Cliff Dwellings before it was a national monument. She was about 16 and went in with some friends. They went in a wagon pulled by a tractor as the road then was all narrow, rough dirt trails. They spent several days camped by the Gila River and explored the cliff dwellings. She said one morning she got up early and climbed up to the old Anazai homes to see a mountain lion track in her track from the day before. She said she found a tiny white arrowhead in one of the ancient Indian dwellings.
Lee did a lot of deer hunting while we lived here. Sometimes I went with him. Sometimes he went with Daddy.
It was in Silver that I started learning to drive. I would drive the Duster that we got in Illinois some when Lee was with me.
In the summer of 1975 we were given a female Siamese kitten that we named Ginger. We all fell in love with her, especially Rowdy. She was our first purebred Siamese and let us know what a fantastic breed of cat they are. I would still recommend them for anyone that loves cats but they are a talkative breed. Their voice can be irritating to some people, like my parents, but I love the way they will talk to their people.
In the fall of 1975 Lee decided he would use his GI Bill benefits to go to TVI (Technical Vocational Institute) in Albuquerque to get a certificate as a diesel mechanic since he had so much experience with diesel engines while in the Navy.
We moved to Albuquerque on January 1, 1976 so he could start the spring semester.