Sidetracked Charley

  After realizing how big a mess my house had fallen into I developed a schedule which totally deleted my days of in favor of furiously establishing order. Then I looked at Thicke dozing in the sun in the studio. He had the right idea. I am sure he was meditating. And given some of his poses obviously practicing cat yoga. I tossed my todo list away. Yesterday afternoon, after having to cut my shopping in Taos short due to power outage, I pulled out my copy of Last Second in Dallas,  on my reading list since Christmas, a paper book. And I settled into the other Santa Fe vintage chair and began reading. I even pulled over one of the chairs purchased to paint, put a pillow on the seat, and raised my feet. I spent three hours reading. Like really reading. Not speed reading which grad school trained me to do, but reading as in exploration of the subject and enjoyment of style and syntax.  When I would take a stretch break to get another cup of tea I would straighten something ...

I and 599 other students sat in complete silence in the largest University of New Mexico lecture room the afternoon of November 22, 1963. We had just heard that President John F. Kennedy was dead. Shot in Dallas, Texas. Most of us had spent our lunch break watching the live news on TV's in the dorms or the Student Union Building. We had come to Sociology 101 not just because it was the next class on our schedule but because it was something to do besides watch the horrid images. And we figured if anyone could say something to make it all go away it would be Professor Varley. He walked up on to the stage into the silence and wrote with chalk on the black board, Class Dismissed. And he walked off. We sat. Without words. As we rose to leave a student behind me loudly said, "At least the man who should be president will be now." I slugged her. I would probably have faced a week long suspension except that all classes were suspended for all of us so that we could obser...