A not-so-unexpected visit

Driving back to Artesia during my move from Denver to San Diego, I had stopped and spent the night at my Grandma Bend's. I got up the next morning on 10/30/91 and inspected the inside of the U-Haul. Everything was still fastened in place. I didn't have all my belongings out of the specially-marked boxes and scattered all over the place. I didn't have any more mountains to drive through so I wasn't going to have to worry about the Pinto becoming unhitched and smashing into something.

I decided to drive to Artesia by way of Clovis. I visited my old workplace at KZZO-FM. However, there was no one there that I used to work with, so I went down to Portales and saw Grandma Ogolon. I also visited the campus of ENMU, where I went to college. Nothing much had changed. All I had left to do was go to Roswell and see Chez.

I had called Chez a few days ahead and told her I was going to come down. She told me that the 30th was her due date, so there was a possibility that she wasn't going to be home. I did not try to call her before I left Ft. Sumner to see if she was there. I just wanted to show up at her house and see if, by chance, she hadn't given birth yet.

I arrived at her home and knocked on the door. She actually answered it. Yep, she was definitely pregnant. She didn't seem too happy to see me. We did talk, but she seemed a little irritated that I was there. I asked her if I could get her anything. A smile slowly formed on her face as she said she wanted ice cream and Dr. Pepper. I walked over to Allsup's to get some. I came back. I don't think she thought I was actually going to get it.

Her sister Pid came home from school. She also made herself a Dr. Pepper float. The whole time, Chez just seemed to be patronizing me. I guess she was dreading what was about to happen and probably felt like I was partly to blame for her situation. We didn't get to act like boyfriend/girlfriend. She just was not in the mood for that.

The rest of the time I spent trying to get a photo of her. She held a newspaper in front of her face and would peek out to see if I'd put the camera away. I got three photos. She completely covered her face in one of them. But I managed to snap her giving me the evil eye twice. This is one of those photos:

The other photo gave a clearer picture of her eyeball, but I will only post photos in which you cannot distinctly make out facial features (as I have done in other photos I've posted of Chez).

I decided it was time to leave so I could see my parents in Artesia. I asked Chez if I could give her a hug before I left. She said I could, but she wasn't going to get out of the chair. I kneeled, gave her a quick hug and left. I drove off and wondered if I would ever get to see her again.

A week after I had moved out to San Diego, I called Chez to see how she was doing. It turned out she went into labor about six hours after I'd left. She said that when she started getting the contractions, her father made her start washing the dishes, saying it would help speed up the delivery. I guess it worked, because she gave birth about an hour and a half after she arrived at the hospital, on 10/31/91. She had a boy and named him Joad.

I asked her for a photo of the baby. She said she couldn't afford enough photos from the portrait session to give me one. I told her I would send her $10 to get a larger package if she would send me one. She agreed and I mailed her the money, along with the one clear photo I got of her while she was pregnant. I did get the photo of her and Joad that I asked for.

Even though she was really mad at me for trying to take her picture, she later showed off that photo to everyone, bragging that had been taken the night she gave birth. One of her friends said she didn't realize she had gotten that big.

As you might expect, my epic tale with Chez does not end here. There will be more in the future.