My daughter,
Isabella, loves to go for walks. Actually, she would prefer to be on her
scooter or her bike. But given the chance to be outside for any reason, she’ll
take it. I love outdoor walks, as well, but as Bella will point out, I now
prefer naps to exercise.
During the
recent holiday break, I tried to take time each day to at least take our dog,
Sophie, out for a walk around the neighborhood. Sometimes we went alone. I love
the opportunity to listen to music and breathe the crisp, fresh air. Other
times, Isabella went with me, and on a few occasions, Carin joined us. We live
in a great neighborhood with friendly neighbors, many of whom walk the paved
trails and sidewalks.
We’ve gone on
bike rides along the paved Bosque trail, and we’ve ventured as a family into
the foothills of the Sandia mountains. On New Year’s Day, I suggested taking a
very short drive into the North Valley to walk along the banks of the ditches,
which is where I spent a good part of my childhood. In the end, Bella
reluctantly joined Sophie and me. Bella had no idea what I meant by walking the
ditch banks. She kept asking if we were going to walk in the ditch. I couldn’t
comprehend how she didn’t understand.
We drove a few
miles to the townhouse where Yvette and I first lived when we were married. It
was a few miles south of where I grew up, but still in the heart of the North
Valley. I had great memories of walking along the banks of that particular
ditch which ran behind our home. I remember waking up to the sounds of
neighbors riding their horses along the ditch, or cadets from the police
academy taking their early-morning jogs. I also remember going for a walk down
that ditch bank one afternoon after learning that my editor at The Albuquerque
Tribune had lost her courageous fight against breast cancer.
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| Isabella and Sophie crossing the Gallegos Lateral in the North Valley |
This week, I
convinced Bella to trust me and go for a different kind of walk. She laughed,
and understood it meant a lot to me that she tag along with me down memory
lane.
A funny thing
happened along the way. Within a few minutes, Bella was hooked on the
experience. We probably walked a mile round-trip; the sun was out, but the sun
was setting and the wind was kicking up little dust devils. It was cold in the
shade. Still, we had a blast. When I suggested that we keep track of all the
different animals we would encounter, Bell had no idea what was in store. Of
course we saw several dogs – in back yards and walking with their owners. We
also saw chickens, a duck, horses, Shetland ponies, a goat, cranes, and a
rabbit. We also enjoyed peering into the long, narrow back yards of the homes
in the neighborhoods. Unlike our suburban-like neighborhood, no two yards area
alike in the valley.
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| Shetland Ponies getting some exercise in a backyard next to the Gallegos Lateral |
Bella got a kick
out of my stories about the ditch banks in my old neighborhood. My friends and
I would walk along one ditch bank on our way to Taft Middle School. There was
one yard that had a hole in the chain link fence. Sometimes, when we were late,
or adventurous, we would slip through that hole and run as fast as we could
through the long yard, which led directly to the front of the school. Bella
loved that story. When she discovered a hole in a fence at the end of our trek
on Wednesday, she just had to climb through and pretend she was sneaking
through somebody’s yard.
My brother and
friends from the neighborhood used to fish for crawdads in that same ditch; we
rode our bikes north where we jumped the fence and grabbed cherries and other
fruit; we even played football in the dry beds of a larger ditch that ran
adjacent to our friends’ house off Rio Grande. I didn’t tell this to Bella, but
“ditching” class at Valley High School sometimes meant literally walking along
the ditch bank on the north and east sides of the school to somebody’s house or
a waiting car. When we went to parties in neighborhoods where we potentially
needed an escape route out, we scouted nearby ditches and planned a meeting
spot in case we split up.
Ironically, the
ditch that Isabella and I walked this week, is called the Gallegos Lateral. It
runs through the original Elena Gallegos Land Grant. Maybe that’s a sign that
we need to move back to the North Valley. At the very least, I’m glad that
Bella got to experience, and appreciate, the same North Valley ditch banks I
roamed in the 1970s and 80s.
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