Wow, what a life.  It started before I was even born.   In those days there were no hospitals.  Doctors were few and far between.  Mostly they assisted women at home.  Well at that time there were very few cars in those days, most people used horses and wagons.  Anyway my mom was expecting my 1st birthday.  Any way since then I guess I have been a rascal as my mom used to call me.

My mom and aunt had a harness and team and had to hitch them to a wagon and I didn’t even help – well I had not been born yet.  Off we went to Los Lunas to the doctors house.  My aunt decided to go there cause I was supposed to be an extra big baby.  When we got to the railroad track there was a train blocking the way, we had to wait – except I didn’t want to wait and when I decided to be born, it was right there by the tracks in a wagon.  Maybe that was the reason I was such a crazy kid, even now at 79 I’m still such a wild one.

One of the things I remember, I used to scare my sisters telling them that I was going to commit suicide by getting run over. I would grab a pillow so the gravel wouldn’t hurt my head, of course in those days there was no pavement just gravel.   A Model A & T would go by sometimes, even up to 5 times a month.  No danger of getting run over by one of them – and the wagons were no problem, the horses would go around on their own.  Those silly girls would still get scared and start begging me not to do it.  Of course I could get all kinds of promises from them like pumping water for the cow or carrying wood in for the kitchen stove and the heaters in the winter.  After that I would pick up my pillow and go do something else.  My Grandpa had a Model A or Model T and he used to refuse to learn to change gears so he used to play with the gear shift no matter if it was low or high.  Off he went to town no matter what.  We used to hear him coming and run to pump water for the cows that refused to go out in the llano.  We knew he would give us penny candy – if the cows looked happy and the tank was full.

Things have changed a lot in La Costancia from when I was growing up.  Highways 85 & 66 were the only ones paved 1 lane highways.  Horse & wagon were used for everything from getting wood to chasing cows.  The drain ditch was just east of the Rio Grande.  It was running clear pure water then.  There were no small ditches then and swim suits were unknown.  We went skinny dipping in the drain ditch.  I remember we were swimming when a neighbor was going after the horses in a meadow (between the Rio & drain ditch).  So he went in bare skin with just a little rope.  When they got to where we were that horse jumped in and out.  That is when my little brother should have jumped off.  Well they got to the village and ran around 2 – 3 times, him as naked as lady Godiva, all  the women came out and started screaming and it finally stopped when he jumped off.  See you later crocodile or alligator.   

Adios, Joty Baca

To be continued...