After leaving Chez in Roswell, I drove to Artesia. On my way down, I was saddened by what had just taken place and then I realized that I should have taken a picture. I got mad at myself for not thinking about that. I figured that what I could do was drive back up through Roswell, stop at her house and get the picture then.
I went home and saw my parents separately. My Grandma Ogolon was staying with Dad and his wife at the time. Loyd was also there with a friend of his from San Marcos. Dad asked us to drive Grandma Ogolon to the bus station in Roswell the next day. We agreed.
I know the rest of the day was spent driving around Artesia with Loyd and his friend. Before I had arrived, there was an accident at the Hermosa Church of Christ in which someone crashed into their metal sign and it hadn't been fixed yet. Loyd drove Dad's car up to the sign and we took a picture to make it look like he had run into it. I know we also drove to our old house in Cottonwood and took a photo of Loyd outside. But it was during this time that I found out my camera had been somewhat damaged from the heat the day before. The adhesive that held the viewfinder lens in place evaporated. I would have to rattle the camera around to get it to place itself in the proper position, but it wasn't always exact and I could never tell if I was fully in focus. Most of the time, the photos came out focused, but maybe one out of ten would come out really bad.
The next day, we drove Grandma Ogolon to the bus station and waited until she left. After she was gone, I told Loyd and his friend that I needed to go see someone in Roswell before we went home. I told them about Chez, Joad and Road. I told them that I was going to get their picture and there was a chance he was going to try to beat me up. They agreed to wait in the van while I talked to them. Chez had previously told me where she lived, but didn't give the exact address. However, she did tell me that she was two houses away from the beginning of the street. We parked the car across the street and I went up to the door. I knocked. Chez answered the door. Before she could say anything, I asked, "Is Road here?" Without saying anything, she opened the door to let me in and pointed over was Road was inside. He was standing right next to the door. I told him that with everything going on the day before, I had wanted to take a photograph of them, but forgot to do that before leaving. I asked if I could go ahead and take a photo right then. He agreed. Chez carried Joad and they all came outside. I took a couple of photos. After we were done, Road asked me where my car was. I guess he was impressed with the '75 Chevy Nova. All of a sudden someone called out, "Hey, Road!" It was Loyd being a smart-aleck.
After we started back home, Loyd told me that one of the scenarios we hadn't considered was that I was going to go into the house out of their view. They started freaking out in the van when this happened and Loyd said, "I know Dad's got a gun in here somewhere! We need to find it!" As they were scrambling to locate the gun, that's when I came out of the house.
We got to Artesia and went over to Furr's Supermarket to pay a surprise visit on Orld. He was surprised to see me. He asked if I was in town for the 10 year high school reunion (which was happening that weekend). I told him I wasn't. (At the time, I kind of considered that a moment of triumph for me, for blowing off the reunion even though I could have attended it if I'd wanted to. I wondered if Orld told everyone he saw me that week, but that I wasn't coming. I'm certain that would have been fodder for people to talk about behind my back, which they did all through high school anyway.) While I was there, he pointed out another former classmate of ours who had also been in Choir. He yelled at her, "Hey, it's Fayd!" She didn't really seem to care and just continued working. (I found out later that she didn't go to the reunion, either, but I wouldn't consider that a triumph.)
Then Loyd, his friend and I went to eat at Pizza Mill and Sub Factory. After that, we went to get banana splits at Dairy Queen. (Boy, was I stuffed!) Then I went over to Mom's around 8pm. When I got to her house, she was sitting in the living room and she looked furious. She was angry because I hadn't spent any time with her. I told her, "Well, I'm here now." Then she went off about Loyd and me taking Grandma Ogolon to the bus station, how that took time away from her and that Dad should have driven her. I told her I was sorry, but I was here now to spend time with her. She said, "Well, it's late! I'm going to bed." She then stormed off into the bedroom. I suddenly felt bad because I didn't realize that I hadn't really spent much time with her. But then I remembered that I had spent most of the previous evening with her and that I'd probably spent about the same amount of time with Dad.
A few minutes later, she came back out and felt bad about how she reacted and we were able to continue our visit for a couple of hours before going to bed. It wasn't too bad, but I later felt like it wasn't really my vacation to do what I wanted. I was looking more forward to the stuff I was going to do once I'd left Artesia the next day. I wanted to spend more time with the people I'd left behind in Denver and couldn't wait to get there.
However, Loyd and his friend decided they wanted to ride their bicycles all the say from Portales to Artesia and needed me to drive them. Ordinarily, I would have just driven to Ft. Sumner, visited with Grandma Bend and be on my way to Denver, but taking them to Portales was going to add about 90 minutes to my driving time. I was getting irritated that EVERYBODY seemed to be imposing on MY time during MY vacation. I was really getting stressed out.
To make matters worse, Loyd wanted to stop by and see one of Mom's uncles before we got to Portales. (This was the same uncle Mom and I stayed with the week she attended classes at ENMU in the summer of 1980.) Normally, if you go to visit a family member, you're supposed to be there for at least an hour. I told Loyd we were only going to be there for 15 minutes and that was it. I REALLY needed to be on the road to get to Denver and I wanted to get there before midnight rolled around. The uncle was suffering from early stages of dementia, but was able to take care of himself at the time and he knew who we were. But he must have been confounded when we were only there for 15 minutes. I did take some photographs, because I was aware that was probably going to be the last time I would ever see him, which it turned out to be. (I still do not regret not spending more time with him.)
I dropped Loyd and his friend off at Grandma Ogolon's. They tried to get me to stay for lunch, but I had just seen her the day before and I had to go see Grandma Bend so I could have lunch with her. I was not sticking around and getting stuffed before going to Denver. I drove to Ft. Sumner, ate and visited before leaving. I still had a seven-hour drive and it was already 2pm. I was glad I wasn't going to have to waste any more time seeing anyone else.
Yeah, I know that was a terrible attitude to have, but I was really mad at myself for trying to cram so much into one vacation and trying to please everybody. I recalled how Dad hated to make any unplanned stops when we took our family vacations when I was younger and I just seemed to turn into him.
I got into Denver without incident. I'll get into that tomorrow.
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