See you at the lake!

You've heard me mention that golden summer of 1973. This was a huge part of it. In the center of town of Santa Rosa, NM is the city park. Park Lake is a spring fed lake where all the kids go to swim. On The west side there were (and still are in some form) various amenities. Restrooms, kiddie pool (which was were the spring emerged and consequently too damn cold to swim in.. did I mention this was also in under a canopy of huge cottonwood trees where the sun never shown...brrrrrr! Good planning here city hall!). There was also a rusty old slide guaranteed to give you tetanus before the summer was over, a pier with a diving board where you could dive in and count the glass beer bottles on the bottom and a life guard. Ah..the life guard (its not what you think).

(Left to right: Dee Dee Encinias, behind her is Archie "Arch" Montano, Rudy "Roots" Salazar and in the foreground with the guitar is David "Sprew" Flores)

I will refrain from naming the life guard, we all know who he was but trust me, he wasn't a Bay Watch extra. He was big and mean and hated those of us who camped out on the east side of the lake with a passion.

I wish I could tell you how big this lake is but I don't know off hand. But its big enough that the city ran a rope with floats half way across the lake and made a rule that no one was to swim on the other side because it was unsafe do to the fact that the lifeguard could get to you in an emergency.

Now the life guard is an interesting character. I can't ever remember seeing him in the water. Never, not once. He was just big and mean and scared the hell out of all the little kids so in this manner he kept the horse play down to a minimum and theoretically made the lake safe.
And then there was us...




(The sweet little boy is my nephew Ted who was with me a lot that summer. He's talking to Arthur "Tutor" Baca. Next to him is the girl Tutor married, Anastacia "The little fox" and in the background is "Arch" and Darell.)

Back then the term was "heads". We were the "heads" as in "pot heads". We were the group of kids you mother warned you about. The riff raff, the boys who all live over there at the ranch, have that rock and roll band and grow dope and the promiscuous girls who sneak out of their bedroom windows at night to join them. (Pssst, I heard some of them take birth control pills.......)

We were young and defiant and daring the world to do something about it.

(Taking the plunge: Tutor. Dee Dee, Anastacia, Arch standing and Tommy "Hokey" Quintana sitting beyond him. I can't tell who the last person is but I bet its JG Baca)

Anyway, many of us worked that summer and the trick was to land a job as a waitress or cook on a morning shift in one of the many local tourist traps so you would be free all afternoon to go to the lake. By 2:00pm everybody who was anybody would end up on the "back side" of the lake. Those where wonderful days. Full of sun, friends, laughter, music, romance...ah romance...

Sooner or later we'd decide to take a dip to cool off and this brings me back to the life guard. It was always the same ritual. We'd dive in. The lifeguard would run (if you could call it that) to the end of the pier and blow his whistle at us and scream "Hey, you guys can't be swimming over there - get out." The girls would laugh and the guys would flip him the bird. He'd go back to his stand and we'd swim around until we cooled down enough to begin the sun tanning all over again. This cycle would continue over and over until the bells from the Catholic Church up the road would ring out 6:oopm. Then everyone would rush home to shower and pull on their best ragged jeans, grab a bite to eat, take to the street for some cruising and then head (no pun intended) out to the ranch to listen to the guys jam and practice for the next dance they had been hired to play for, drink endless cases of beer, smoke a little smoke, tell stories and flirt. The sound of music and laughter were a constant. The mating rituals were predictable and fun. The friendships were important and the the memories are precious.

By the way, one of the guys in the photographs turned out to be the unexpected romance of my life - the one I never stopped loving. We never ended up together but we should have. Can you guess which one?