It Was As If


 

When I was in college at University of New Mexico in Albuquerque there was an incident at the Tierra Amarilla court house in Rio Arriba County, NM. The court house raid by Alianza Federal de Mercedes led by Reies Tijerina in 1967 attempted to make a citizen's arrest of the district attorney to "bring attention to the unscrupulous means by which government and Anglo settlers had usurped Hispanic land grant properties."

For reasons which escape me it made national news. And my Aunt Louise wrote me from Kansas City, Missouri and asked if I might want to come back to the United States until the revolution was resolved. I remember being shocked Aunt Louise had my address, and that the envelope had international postage on it.  

That is just one incident on the whole line of separation, which was military or location based. The Hildebrand and Binford families were Midwesterners. Dad came back from service in Guam during the Korean war and was based in Roswell, New Mexico. You know, the home of alien space craft. Mom closed down the family home in Missouri and packed up my brother and me, and we departed on an Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe train to join Dad in Roswell.

How we got to Union Station escapes me but there was no large family gathering to wave goodbye to us. Nor was there a welcoming party when we returned to Missouri. I certainly felt more like an alien back in damp and cold Missouri. I was elated when we moved to El Paso. Debbie was born shortly after our move to Albuquerque. It seemed like a complete and total divorce from my middle America roots. I had an anchor sister. I would never be forced to leave New Mexico.

But for the Missouri relatives it was as if we left the planet or at least the United States. One or two actually came for a visit but quickly left. I left New Mexico for work after college but was totally homesick the entire ten years. It wasn't just a different landscape but a different culture. The very air is different.

It is my cousin, William's birthday today. He still lives in Missouri. When I was working in Kansas City we met up at Uncle Ray's for family gatherings. And we met up in Pensacola in after I returned to New Mexico. There was this period of time when William would call and let me know of the passing of yet another relative I dimly remembered.

All the Uncles and Aunts all the cousins, but for William, have passed on. He did a Weber/Hildebrand family tree he sent to me. I am not sure where I stored it. It was as if they were not a part of me.

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