New Mexico ain't bad, Lord

And the people there they treat you fine. Is today the luckiest day of the year? Life just keeps changing and we are happy and healthy and sitting by Santa Cruz Lake- north east of Santa Fe. Cruz got the lake. Fe got the city. I wonder if there was any kind of rivalry or jealousy. Maybe Cruz thought "Fe got to be the exciting city and all I got to be is this dinky little lake!" but Fe thought- "I am so tired of this city. The poverty is awful but what's worse is the was they hastily cover it up. If only I could trade places with Cruz- just sit and listen to the wind and waves." but Cruz also had the problem of little pestering fishermen, like flies on a horse.

We left Taos and took 518 to 75 to 76. The scenic route. We got out and tried to walk round the lake. there were 2 fishermen in one spot- a quiet old man and a middleaged man in a yellow shirt. He talked a lot to us. I said- "What do you got in there?"- meaning what kind of fish are stocked in the lake. He thought I was asking what kind of bait he had. He answered- "PowerBait and Salmon Eggs. That's all I got." He said it apologetically. There was also a cute chubby little girl. She said "Hi!" to us in the middle of the middle aged man's sentence. He told us that the wind was ruining the day. Said he'd been here since 10. It was 3:30. Kris asked if the wind scared the fish away. Something like- "Do the fish hear the wind?" I watched him sip a beer and counted six empty beer bottles neatly lined up in front of him. "No," he replied to Kris, "the wind blows the rod too much and it moves the bait around."

 I thought you were supposed to move the bait around a little. That makes the fish think that the bait is some little creature- swimming about and having a perfectly merry frolic beneath the waves. That's when the fish decides to brutally murder the little being. But! to the ultimate chagrin of the fish, it's victim was not an innocent frolicking little being! It is actually a lump of chemicals stuck on a sharp barbed metal hook! the hook pierces through the sacred head of the cruel unwitting fish and he is yanked out of the universe, through a worm hole and slapped against the hot dry sand- squirming beneath the cheap Walmart pocket knife.

He envisions his past memories projecting on a movie screen. It's a Drive-In. All the fish are sitting in seashells. Some are eating the eggs of smaller fish the way we eat popcorn. He watched himself hatch- bursting forth into the wonderful shimmering underwater phenomena. He saw his first bicycle ride- his first day at school, his first kiss. He saw his first 'F', the first time he got fired, the first time he got dumped.  One fish in a seashell leaned over to another fish- feeling naively safe from the dangers projected on the screen before her- and whispered- "Who was fatter- Fats Waller or Fats Domino?"

The movie ended and life continued on as before. We got in the car and stepped on the gas- drove east, watching the desert turn into grass.