The Journey

Recovering from the cold winter of ’78, Ohio became a bitter place to be. Frozen pipes in our basement already lined with extra insulation to keep the walls and floors warm, the idea of suffering though another winter entered my head. January of one978 will go down as the worst winter storm that ever hit Ohio as the snow and freezing rain caused the roads to close down, schools and businesses to close up for business and heating bills go through the roof. Starting as a light rain and foggy morning, the weatherman the night before, had no idea what type of storm was brewing and coming up from the Gulf of Mexico until it was too late. The morning sun, hidden by the dark grey clouds, barely shined. As the snow fell, accumulating up to two0 foot high drifts in some areas of our city, Carlos my brother, and I eagerly jumped into the ’67 Willy four wheel drive Jeep and headed for the Interstate where we pulled stranded strangers out of their snowbound vehicles, lodged in huge wind created snow drifts that strangled city streets and freeways. Driving in hurricane force wind helping others, we watched the National Guard trucks and helicopters handle our state’s worst emergency. Semi-trucks, fully loaded but helplessly stuck along the state’s freeways, were halted in their attempts to delivered food and other commodities to the store shelves as people rushed to stock up for the bad weather that snuck up on us like a thief in the night and eventually killing at least twenty two people.

The wind, gusting and shaking our Jeep side to side, as we traveled in risky miserable weather making a buck or two for doing the Good Samaritan deed of helping stranded strangers to the designated sanctuaries, drilled a chill through my spine as I thought of better days and warmer weather. Postcards from my parents in New Mexico came to mind and a dream was born. Picturing the deserts of White Sands in my mind, I thought about moving my family to a warmer and better climate. Disrupting my thoughts of the desert heat, I chilled as I parked the Jeep for another night without power and heat as the sun, never showing its face for two days now, set in the West where my thoughts have begun to wander. Unemployment at a high 5.8 percent and rising, the cost of gasoline and the alleged oil shortages that created long waiting lines at the pumps a couple of years ago, prompted me to look for another place to live for my family and me. Working part time as the community college put a paycheck in our pocket but it barely paid the house and the necessities. Being a rent-a-cop making six fifty an hour, I was working as many hours as possible to stretch the check. Seeking a better way of living, my mind was yearning for a change and as the thoughts laid heavy on my brain, I searched my ethics for what was best for me to follow, my heart or my mind, regardless, it was clear I had to get out of here if life was going to be better.

Looking at the map, I carved a route with a red crayon to lead me to the way convincing my wife and our three year old son, Neil, this would be the best thing we could do in order to give us a better life. Overcoming prescription drug abuse and dealing with a severe drinking problem, my days of searching for a job had come to an end as had pretty much exhausted every employer in the Franklin County area for a job and then throwing the chance away by not showing up due to a heavy hang over
or drunken curse.

For years, I blamed my personal problems on my Vietnam War days and how the government had screwed up my mind. Angry, with no social conscience of right or wrong, I acted out in a pattern of self-harm and destroyed both people’s lives and massacred their feelings. Grasping with the living and ever existing mind-influencing elements of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), I slowly began to understand my own behaviors as the events unfolded before me with much more clarity now than ever before. Hiding behind my war related emotions for almost ten years, it was time I took responsibility of what I had done and what I had said to my family and my friends.

Striving hard to make a significant impression on my family and myself, I wanted to better myself to ensure survival and better care of my loved ones. Reminiscing and reflecting its meaning, those words from the Yardbirds as they sang their song, “We gotta get out of this place” struck a nerve that set me on track to make a move, after a brief discussion at the dinner table with the wife I packed my gear into my nylon backpack and strapped it tightly on my re-painted fire engine red nineteen seventy five Kawasaki 500 cc Triple motorcycle. A racer and not designed for over the road traveling, I felt comfortable it would take me thirteen hundred miles west into the hot and sandy deserts of New Mexico if I didn’t push it too hard. A two stroke three cylinder engine with a top speed of one hundred and twenty two miles per hours, the three carburetors provided plenty of power down the road. The Mach III was the first real superbike in production as it weight seemed to just right for the power it provided.

The morning air was vigorous that April day in April, 1978. Wrapping a woolen scarf around my head and muffling the front of my face, I started the bike and headed south to Cincinnati. The chosen route would be all interstate via the Interstate 71, to the I-64 and these head west to the I-40 westbound into Missouri and Oklahoma arriving an estimated thirty four hours later in Albuquerque New Mexico. The bike was well tuned and it sounded smooth. The backpack strapped to provide me something to lean on when tired, I waved goodbye to my family and spectators who rose up early to see me off. Streaking down the interstate, I weaved in and out of the highway to make the best time I could. The bike, although fast, was light weighted and suffered slightly with the passing of every semi trailer I passed at neck breaking speeds. The visor was tinted to shade my eyes from the blinding winter sun and the helmet was a shiny black globe with gold thunderbolt stripes. Wearing my favorite and only brown comfy duck down feathered jacket, I streaked across the state line without incident with thoughts of prosperity when I arrive in New Mexico. Avoiding any slick areas from the left over April rain, I stopped for gas to continue my trek to the west. Spotting a small puddle of hot brown oil near the crankcase of the bike, I hurriedly inspected to assess the damage. Fearing a major oil leak, I pulled the bike over to a stall near the owner’s garage and asked the attendant for a couple of tools. The tool kit I took with me under the seat, did not fit the bolts I needed to tighten before heading down the road again. I suspected the constant vibration of the motor resulted in the wear and tear of the engine where the oil leak originated and my fear of going any further was amplified by the distant thunder as dark clouds gathered near the Louisville, Kentucky city limits. What seemed to be a half a day of time riding on the bike, it had only been a little over three hours on the road while traveling only a couple of hundred miles towards my destination. My arms weary and my ass sore, I debated whether or not the ride west would best be reconsidered while eating a meal at the local truck stop at the next exit.

Sitting at the counter, drinking a warm cup of cocoa and a mini breakfast tray, I eavesdropped on the waitress and the truckers as they laughed loudly amongst themselves. Suddenly, it became very clear to me the bike ride west would impose a significant beating on my body. The ride back to Columbus was uneventful and somewhat boring. Perhaps about an hour from my mother’s house I noticed my chain began to chatter and a slight wobble in the rear wheel as I slowed it down to a crawl to inspect the damage. Somewhere, in the last hour, the adjusters worn loose and wheel had become unsteady due to the slack in the chain and the axle where the wheel hub was secured. The dark clouds that hovered over Kentucky had followed me back to Ohio and sure enough, I felt the sprinkles fall out of the sky as I approached the city limits of Columbus Ohio. Shaking off the nightmare of my last journey, I sold the motorcycle to a young fanatic who wanted to race it on the drag strip. Calling my parents in Belen New Mexico, I explained to them my obstacles and told them of my plans to take a flight out there after earning some traveling money. The ticket would be cheaper than what my bike repairs would have cost and it would be so much faster as my ass was still sore. Raising the funds to fly out there would take awhile and during this phone call, my mother expressed to me some good news where she had the opportunity to talk to a fellow Mormon Church member who would be willing to hire me for a security guard position if I could get there before the end of April. She said he would help me find a place to live once I bring the family down here to live. Tempted by this offer for to have a steady full time job, I sat down with the wife and discussed our plans as the reality of moving west appeared to be a little bit closer than before. The thought of working full time with a full paycheck determined the decision to get there as fast as I could since I had been only able to gain part time employment on and off in the past two years. A ticket to ride the Greyhound bus would be bought the next day with a departure time of late in the afternoon making the plans complete.

Boarding the silver and blue bus, I immediately detected the stinking smell of the unkempt and filthy port a potty of a toilet as the door was hinged open. Flashback of bad memories drifted back in my mind to those days when I traveled via the bus while in the Army. Begrudged to the world, I slung my travel bag on the overhead rack and closed my eyes to catch a nap. Situating myself into a more comfortable position, I shared the bench seat with an old man and his wife of Asian decent and the ethnic smell of the foods and incense they use to cover up their body odor brought back memories of the time I spend living in those hootches made of semi wooden, semi thatched huts in Quang Ngai province, South Vietnam and where I spent almost a year waiting to return back to the real world. No doubt, this trek was going to be a smorgasbord of aromas, where the stench of marijuana smoke, BO and the filthy baby diapers were going to drive me insane before I get to my destination.

Sleeping was difficult enough to say the least when traveling with sixty other strangers. Dressed warm for the cold weather east of the Mississippi, it because obvious I was overdressed for the weather west of the state of Missouri. Snoring loudly and ignoring the loud intrusive rock and roll music of Jimmy Hendrix and his band, I kept my cool and stayed away from controversy and confrontation as most persons on the bus were in very similar situation of just wanting to reach a destination. I remember an angry man boarding the bus looking for his wife and children as he yelled that it seemed they had ran away from him and never told him where they had gone. I saw the police as they arrived and talk to the man who was now waving a large knife in his hand demanded to see his wife and children. At an instant, we all heard gunshots and saw the man fall to the pavement as the bus drove away separating it from the violence and confusion. Arriving in Muskogee, Oklahoma, we all got out for a dinner break and as we stretched our legs and washed our faces, I realized I was down to my last fifteen bucks to eat and drink the rest of the way. Eating a local dish, I realized life in eastern Oklahoma near the Arkansas River was as laid back as described in a country song as this town seemed normal and a quiet place flooded with large official green and white highway signs indicating it to be the home of the “Five civilized Tribes” in America. A thirty-two hour drive across this beautiful country, the trip was well worth the sixty six dollars spending on the ticket.

Stopping and refueling in every one of the more than a million locations nationwide, I clearly remember our stops in Nashville, Little Rock, and Amarillo and finally, crossing the state line into Tucumcari, New Mexico. Multiple souvenir shops filled with Route 66 paraphernalia, I kept my sparse funds inside my Levi pockets spending only a dollar or two for a cold drink or hamburger. Vendors, selling everything from lucky pennies to rattlesnake hat bands, the colorful Indian beads and feathered dream catchers designed by weavers to reflect their tribe’s believe of instilling good health and good luck charms into someone’s life. Scattered and displayed over all the counters inside every truck stop west of the Mississippi, the Native American culture was well advertised and well accepted by most persons who rode with me on that bus. Never realizing the amount of beggars who ride the Greyhound bus across country, I felt threatened only a few times in the past three days, especially in one instance when I turned a scraggly looking fellow down on his luck asking me for cash to get some smokes. The problem was he demanded the money in such a manner, I could not help but feel threatened thus his conduct warranted a physical response from me as I tried hard to avoid conflict and walk away from him.

You might ay this trip put me in submission or perhaps remission to my propensity to be angry within all my personal feelings and allowed me to reduce my own stress and I saw and watched others stress within their own personal problems and situations. Never wanting to ride the Greyhound bus again, I focused on my arrival in Albuquerque sometime the next night. Perhaps a good night sleep would refresh my ability to enjoy the rest of the journey with those surrounding me. I closed my eyes to the music of Simon and Garfunkel as they sang their song “Bridge over Troubled Waters”. Getting close to Albuquerque, I saw the landscape change from rolling green hills to jagged red rocks.

Driving into Tucumcari, I noticed the Route 66 landscape with cowboy hats donned on many a young person or man. Pick up trucks had replaced the four door sedans and roads were wider but no street lights were in place to light them up at night. The bus stop was smack in the middle of this one horse town and as the driver had demonstrated in a steady pattern before during this trip, he stopped every forty miles or so in the past two and a half days, stopped again just outside of Cline’s Corner, remote stagecoach relay station in the Old West and no revamped as a Greyhound bus stop where the décor and setting was the most interesting part of the tour. Here, live rattlesnakes were being sold to anyone crazy enough to buy them. Belt buckles with cowboy rodeo designs made out of silver and dotted with a natural gem called turquoise, the jewelry was plentiful and popular with everybody on the bus. The bus, refueled and loaded with new passengers, headed west onto the interstate when the bus driver announced we were an hour away from Albuquerque. The sky ahead of us had a strange illumination that showed the presence of civilization in the middle of the desert. The sky, lit up with a golden reflection of the millions of bright city lights was clear and filled with several thousand stars.

As the silver bus headed down the twisted Sandia Mountain asphalt laid roads leading into the city, a sense of relief came over me as I could see the lights of Albuquerque while still many miles away but close enough to feel the trip is over now. The chance to begin a new life has become an actuality and the opportunity to get back on my own two feet and support a wife and a son would no longer be a senseless ideology. The bus glided to a slow crawl as I breathed my first real breath of fresh air at fifty three hundred feet above sea level. Never been down this way before, I immediately went for the restroom and sought a clean stall and toilet place to sit and reflect back to the last thirty two hours of hell with nothing but total strangers clinging on to their last and only personal possessions halfway across America, the most beautiful country in the world. Resting reclined and reading the graffiti on the stall, I laughed out loudly and decided to go into the lobby and call my mom to let her know I made it. Geez that was a long trip and my ass is still sore from sitting on the bus so long.

Albuquerque is most definitely a cowboy town where pick up trucks and cowboy hats sets the fashion trend down main street. The town split between the Dallas Cowboys and the Denver Broncos love their sports and every weekend sports bars are filled with fans that go crazy during their tailgate parties. The phone call was sort and sweet, it’s a little after one in the morning and my parents were on their way to pick me up. Living approximately thirty one miles away, I figured they should be here about one hour. Again, taking advantage of the break, I sat calmly in the lobby listening to the bus schedule as departures and arrivals continued to cycle what seemed like every fifteen minutes. Listening to the music in between the announcements, I began to sense this town was going to be one of my favorite places to be at night.

Two o’clock in the morning and I know my mom and father had agreed to pick up but it was late and I really didn’t want them out there driving so late. I wasn’t aware of the fact there was thirty one miles of desolate highway between Belen and Albuquerque and I didn’t realize someone could disappear from the fact of the earth if a criminal wanted it to be that way. Someone would later say to me, while always joke around, about how you could bury a body in the desert and not find it for many years. The intercom announced the arrival of the two thirty bus as my parents walked through the double doors of the bus station. Looking weary and but happy, they came over and greeted me with hugs and kisses. My mom hugged and kissed me; my father shook my hand and asked me if I was ready to go. I grabbed by bag and headed out to the parking lot with them and let out a sigh of relief. Now, it was officially over and I was headed to my new home in New Mexico.

The drive home was a real experience; the car was a seventy five Buick Rivera two door sedan with a loud muffler that hit the road every time it hit a bump in the road. The first thing I noticed was the auto’s air conditioning was off and the windows were down as my mom tried to explain the weather here in New Mexico. Leaving the cold Midwest weather and falling into to warmth of the southwest was beginning to clear my head somewhat.The winter weather was made up of very cold evenings with warm days during the spring and warm evenings and hot days in the summer.

On the other side of this desert landscape were mild rains during the spring and mean monsoon wind and rain during the late summer days. Thinking the windows were open on the car cause the weather was nice soon led me to realize the power windows in the Buick no longer worked and had to be rolled up manually, something my mom had no interest in doing thus they stayed down. The drive was uneventful except for my need to use the restroom along the dark two lanes roadside somewhere between Albuquerque and Belen. Never an interstate or freeway driver, my father took the side roads wherever he went and to say he obeyed the local traffic laws would be a lie. We arrived at the house and were greeted by a herd of small mixed breed dogs and a Chihuahua.

The house was enormous and the yard was landscaped southwest with native plants and cacti. Although still dark, I could see the beautiful effort put into the yard and the circular driveway as the bright yellow light from the sodium security light came on with the motion detector installed for safety and convenience. The house, built with traditional slump rock painted white and traditional wrought iron framed windows with full arches and Spanish wooden doors, felt comfortable as I laid my head down to catch a full nights sleep. Always an early riser, my mom was up at sunrise to feed her animals and prepare the breakfast meal. A heavy sleeper, I was in a comatose stage when a strange noise awakened me and found me reaching and stretching my arms out to turn off an old fashioned alarm clock with a loud bell like ring put there earlier in the morning before my mom went to bed. This unwanted intrusion was followed up with a yell from outside the room telling me I have to get and shower to meet some people for an interview in about an hour and a half from now. Having no idea what she was talking about and being of foot with no ride of my own, I staggered into the kitchen and asked her what this was all about. She said calmly, you have an interview today with the Mormon business man who is interested in hiring you as a security guard at a campus twenty five miles from here.

Lacking formal dress clothing and dress shoes, I felt like I needed at least another day to look good enough for an interview. The interview was smooth and short. The man, dressed in a business suit and tie combo sitting across the desk from me asked me for some of my personal qualifications and decided I was the right man for the job. He was exactly what I didn’t expect him to be, as he was a well educated Native American who spoke three languages very fluently. What a surprise as that decision appeared to have been made a week or so ago. The job was better than expected, as the pay went up every 6 months with satisfactory or improved performance and as the wages went up, so did my position in the company as I gained supervisory status in hardly no time due to my boss quitting to start a propane company on his own as he sold propane part time as he worked at the campus.

A lucky break for me, it was time to show the boss what I could do to make the program better. Seeking better applicants and screening for intelligence versus brawn, the team became solid as we provided a 24/7 security program for the campus during regular school, summer school and festivities. After spending a couple of years working for the Bureau of Indian Affairs as a Chief of Security on a 60 acre technical vocational school in Albuquerque, the security program had successfully attained the quality of a sound campus security program well within the satisfaction of the school president who was never keen on having contract workers on this campus. A contract employee, we are at beckoned call and subject to termination or dismissal for either contract deficiencies or termination of contract. Supervising two4 men and women, we attained a well respected status among the county deputy sheriff’s who backed us up during our disturbances or misdemeanor arrests allowable under the commission provided by the county. The contract, running seven years in a row now, was finally terminated and the entire crew was laid off.

Seeking a job with the county as a deputy sheriff, it was clear my intentions were driven towards the long arm of the law. Learning the state statutes and those applicable to the role we performed in, we went to magistrate court to testify in serious cases and learned the more intricate aspects of law enforcement in the development of search warrants, arrest warrants, criminal complaints and citations of a minor level not considered felony but serious enough to impose a fine or jail sentence if the defendant was a no show for the case. My brother, Carlos, now a permanent resident of New Mexico, as he came out here right behind me, and now holding the rank of a lieutenant in the corrections structure suggested I apply for the job as a correctional officer in lieu of trying to become a deputy sheriff since the possibility to be hired were four times better due to a severe shortage within the prisons. Being candid with me at home and as we talked, he sharing his concern of my notorious bad temper. Ironically, I argued with him to drive home the point I had demonstrated a responsible behavioral record while working security and had no complaints filed on my behavior, conduct or performance. Still not convinced, he told me to chill out and not take the situations at hand too serious as to normalize the need to use force was not always necessary to control the situation. He lacked confidence in my ability of self control and believed he saw my temper as it was back a few years ago when I was still very angry and confused about my role as a soldier and how I handled myself in a most self-destructive manner due to my maladjustment from the Vietnam.