¡Colores!; 904; More! Albuquerque: Places of the Heart

Hop a plane at the sun port. Ride the escalator at the Fedway. Jitterbug at Old Towns' Society Hall. And cheer the bulldogs at Old Albuquerque High. Celebrate more places of Albuquerque's heart. These are places of Albuquerque's heart, gone but not forgotten. They were unique.

They were ours and they are missed. But there were more places where friends and promises were made, where we had good times and good company, fun and freedom under the desert sun. They are gone or are forever changed, but sharing memories and photographs will let them live forever. This is the airport today, but once upon a time, it looked like this. It was light years from town. You parked your plane in America's only Adobe Hanger. Back then, everyone's wagon was hitched to aviation's stars, Charles Lindbergh and

Emilia Earhart landed here. So did Laura Ingalls, and the little sort of. You could eat, drink, tango and fendango at the Albuquerque Inn. In 1942, the Sunport opened its doors and captured our hearts. Watching the huge planes take off at land was magic. Yale Avenue went on past the airport heading south, and there was a low wall that ran that entire length of the airport boundaries. And people would go out on a summer evening, park the car and go sit on that wall and watch airplanes fly over their heads. Late at night, it was a popular place to go park and have a necking party. Um, which a lot of kids did. No, I'm not guilty, or I'm not innocent, I just not going to say.

You dressed up, suits, hats and gloves to travel and to visit the Sunport. It was a first-class experience. Drones had dinner and drinks in the Katina room. Teens drank coffee, smoked cigarettes, and acted sophisticated in the coffee shop until somebody told their mothers, and somebody always did it. Visitors were greeted by acres of blue sky, and the Native American artists like Helen Emerson and Mike Lowley, who made jewelry for the gift shop. Even sitting in the lobby was a trip, waiting for a flight, a friend, or even your luggage, which never got lost in the old days. The Sunport was a great place to go, and a greater place to come home to. The building may look empty, but it is full of memories. If you weren't into planes, how about cars?

Downtown was packed with dealers. New cars were surrounded by so many flowers. You wondered if they were to be bought or buried. Later, fabulous fins were all the rage. Remember the exciting edgel, or swimming in a sea of corvairs? You could park Dad's car here at Edith's Central. The library was built in 1925. It had a reading room, a room for children, where they told stories, and the mysterious stacks, which housed ancient magazines like from the 40s.

The library was your best friend when you needed to get out on a school night. But you really went somewhere else. Well, you know all the long lesson happens, given wise to you now you shouldn't lie. And since you took your set of keys, you've been thinking that your mother's all you should lie now you shouldn't lie now you shouldn't lie now you shouldn't lie now you shouldn't next to the library is old Albuquerque High When it was built in 1914, people said it's too big Albuquerque will never have that many students.

By 1940, there were five buildings who knew this place touched many hearts with parties problems and pioneer days. Pioneer days were in the spring and everybody in high school would dress up in western dress, cowboy boots, the whole thing, and they'd have a big dance and they'd say hey, right. And we all climb out in this wagon and drive around and that neighborhood around Ediths and in there with a horse-thrawn wagon. It was simple fun. We had a physics professor by the name of Elder Tarleton. Wonderful man. I mean, the best teacher I ever had in high school and he had a whole bunch of doctorate degrees and a bunch of masters degrees. But he was a little bit of a bachelor and he never owned a car. He owned a Harley Davidson motorcycle. And Eldred would be asked to chaperone and in that case he would bring a date.

Well, we had our winter formal and us boys were going down central in our car with our dates. And Eldred comes sailing by on a motorcycle with his date with a formal gown on, just flapping in the breeze. I mean, it's all she could do to keep her skirt down, but that's how he went. And that was Eldred Tarleton. The whole town turned out for Bulldog games. Competition between the Bulldogs and the Indian schools and all school and St. Mary's was fierce. In 1946, Albuquerque High had the tallest basketball team in the country. Albuquerque High got a new campus in 1974. But our hearts remember it the way it used to be. After school, you could stroll down to Walgreens to get a cherry coke or lemonade.

If you ever found a lemon seed in your drink, the drink was on the house. Remember Payless? It was the place to buy school supplies. Or you could hoof it down to the Red Ball Cafe. Grab a wimpy burger with green chili for 30 cents and see who was hanging out. Shuffle board, square dancing, costume parties. You could do all this and more at the Burralis and Heights Community Centers. Some kids worked after school. Yes, I got a job at the mission theater. What I would do is I break the tickets and say the stub. I would give them that stub at school so they could get a

fee. But I didn't know that the whole community was going to go. The whole school school. At the time they used to let them go. Community theater to the back door. Sometimes you just heard the movies and your imagination did the rest. Every time you got permission to go on Saturday morning, what the chemo for the cartoons. The one that I remember the best, though, was the sunshine. I used to stay with a friend of my father's. His name was Clayto Arceo and he had an apartment in the sunshine building above and behind the theater on the south side of the building. I have memories of going to sleep there at night listening to the soundtrack of the movie. It was incredible. It was like there was this special secret kind of place where you could have an experience that no one else had. And then you'd later be seeing a movie on the sunshine and you'd think, I know something

about this. Nobody else in the room knows. Here's the zoo today. Would you believe it started at the water works on Tihatus with three mountain lion cubs soon it moved down by the river. We loved it. Sunday was family day. To go see the exotic animals, picnic in the park and take a family photo. I remember how downtown brought the spirit of Christmas alive. Central glittered from end to end. Syria shopping could be done with a few bucks.

At the dime stores, you found perfect gifts, evening in Paris perfume to make your mom smile on Christmas morning. And at the end of the day, you could ride home on the bus safe and warm. My mother never has driven and we used to get on the bus and we used to go downtown shopping all the time. And as I remember, we used to wear white gloves. Sometimes we'd even wear hats. It's a completely different time. Shopping downtown was a big deal. The best part was window shopping because you could have anything you wanted for free. When you've got worries all the noise and the hurry seems to help I know. Downtown just listen to the music of the traffic in the city.

Linger on the sidewalk where the neon signs are for me. How can you lose the lights so much brighter than you can forget all your troubles. Forget all your care so go downtown. Things will regret when you're downtown. No final place for sure. Downtown. Everything's waiting for you. Corpus windows dressed in the latest styles like this streamlined Haywood Wakefield furniture. Inside was beautiful stuff from all over the world. And that fabulous fad way. It had everything. Including an escalator.

You parked on the roof for 10 cents an hour. Standard transmissions made negotiating the steep ramp a little tricky. Sears had a mezzanine, whatever that was, but for sure it was totally modern. From Pintan Matucci came to Albuquerque on a shoestrain and opened a shoebox-sized store, the popular Paris. Here's Rupis today. Seal the community favorite. Modern medicines are traditional herbs. If one won't fix you the other will. In the days of your Rupis was at second in central and was part of downtown's hoopla with its shelves of curious colorful bottles. All year round you could buy roses, hoses, fruits, suits, boots, shirts, skirts, shoes,

news, pews, belts, belts, lots, pots, dishes and wishes. Those stores were to die for. There were places to go all over the place. One of Albuquerque's favorite cures for the summertime blues was drive-in movies. The 66, the cactus, Duke City, sunset, star, Tassouki and the terrace,

whose amazing electric Amazon beckoned you with her flashing neon skirts. It was easy to sneak in this exit, but all the others used stuffed everyone in the trunk. You'd have to have all this discussion beforehand about who was going to ride the trunk and then figure out how you could get a person out of the trunk to scream without being seen. And we never got caught. Until today. The drive-ins are gone now. Albuquerque's last picture show stands silent in the south valley. Albuquerque also courted the finer things. The little theater was so little it didn't have a

theater until the 30s and sometimes performed at the chemo. See the blonde in the middle? She's our hometown bombshell Vivian Vance, Lucy's second banana. For a time, Old Town was nearly trampled by Thesbians and theaters. Being around writers and artists and theater people was it was a wonderful rich childhood. There was a certain kind of atmosphere and there was alternative kind of thinking and intellectual thinking and you know people discussing things and that was fun to be to see and be a part of and eat the oranges out of their old-fashioned glasses. How about a little night music? The Albuquerque Symphony Orchestra's first concert was in 1932.

Today, it's the new Mexico Symphony Orchestra. And the civic light opera presented popular pieces like Carousel. Today, the company has restored the Highland Theatre. We had great little big bands and hotspots from Old Town to Terrorist Canyon. Amalus, Albuquerque, Old Town Society Hall was everybody's dance hall. It was really the most beautiful place in Albuquerque. A beautiful place meaning that it was a place to have fun. A place to have fun,

that would be beautiful. There were dances there in Saturdays and Sunday usually but the hall was also used for political rallies, bridal showers, anniversary. You name it. And bingo, before a pound someday you played for ham and linen. By Thanksgiving, the stakes were raised to Turkey's. During the Minton period, the hall was closed except one day. March 17th, everyone became Irish. So we had a dance on March 17th and then the dance on the Holy Saturday, we read the Saturday before Easter. Or you could, you could, you packed, they were packed in there like sardines. And there was a tradition among the Spanish people that had El Baile and los Cascarones. Cascarones are the drawn eggs and colored but they were filled with confetti.

And they were sold and we're not giving away. And so everybody cracked one or two on their girlfriends. At that time girls didn't mind either that confetti on their hair. Now you wouldn't dare do that but at that time it was traditional to do those things. That was a beautiful, beautiful dance. The most beautiful thing that I can remember were the good orchestras like Mardi Balm, Don Lesmond, La Típica, and Santa Cecilia, those three orchestras. The Santa Cecilia's played there for quite a number of years. That was Ralph Romero, was the leader of that band. Then Mardi Balm had his own band. Gee, that was good. It would take a long time to beat Don Lesmond though. He had he played the jitterbug music. That jitterbug was really something. Can you dance in the mood, grandmothers in the mood, and all of the good music, a blend of other. Everybody had a heck of good time.

When we outgrew the old armory, the civic auditorium was built next door to St. Joseph Hospital right in the middle of town. The construction was so unique it was featured in Life magazine. First they poured a cement dome, then cleared out the dirt underneath and built the interior. The civic witnessed Albuquerque's expansion. The interstate brought stars right to the front door. And the first thing I ever remember really going and seeing, I was really into western music and I saw

Johnny Cash, my girlfriend I used to go and we used to see him quite a lot. For me it was where you went to go see rock concerts and I saw many concerts there. I think I remember seeing many concerts there. I got tear gas there. There were always vast swarms of people running this way and that. The cops are coming whatever. It was a pretty exciting time. And we got to see Jerry Lee Lewis. I saw ACDC, I saw Journey, I saw Rush, Eric Clapton, Joe Cocker, Muddy Waters. He danced around and he even put his heel up on the piano hit the lower keys and then for his uncle he got up there and he got the piano and it was a beautiful red it looked like a baby grand piano and he just like tore it to pieces and my girlfriend and I said, was that cool or why you know. Bricks flying, cops chasing, sirens blaring, tear gas,

smoking and that probably made it all the better but not for our parents. We had Coney Islands too. You could wheel around the roller drone or fall down at one of the ice rinks. My girlfriend and I went, I used to be black and blue on my side you know, fall constantly and then she'd fall. Oh she had weak ankles so she had trouble standing on her skates. Her ankles kept bending over. But the best was when you wind your parents into taking your horseback riding to playland, uncle cliffs or little beaver town. This bank was the heights first skyscraper. From the top on a clear day you could see forever. Before Cliff Hammond moved his amusement park from East Lomas, he climbed to the bank's roof

and saw albuquerque heading north. He had a hunch and started uncle cliffs in the middle of nowhere on San Mateo. We were approximately three quarters of a mile from any people at all. You'd see a snake down there and I recall we had a big turtle there at one time. I don't know where in the world it came from. We were open anytime that anybody would come along and want to have some fun fun fun with the rides that we provided. I was a gun fighter at Little Beaver Town. Little Beaver Town was a frontier town set up by originally by Fred Harmon who did the red rider at Little Beaver comic strips. One of the fun gun fights we had and we had a gun fight between the outlaws and the sheriffs and outlaws were all killed off. This guy comes out as a

judge Roy B. He tells everybody to take their head off the moan of silence for the red renegades. So then he takes him, has a boy stake down to the other end of the hat just kind of sitting on the back of his head like this with a hole in it. And he says I said take that hat off boy. Shoot it. The boy flips his hat and then the hat holds off and he puts his finger through that hole comes up. Judge you ruined my hat. Now I think you ought to pay me for a new hat. Then we'd blow them up in wheelbarrow to junk them out over the end of town. I'm really sorry that it's gone. I miss it a lot. I'd probably still be out there making it a fool myself, followed in the street, if it was still here because it was just a fun thing to do, put on the gun fights and be with all those great guys that I worked with. This is an Atoma plunge. In the olden days, swimming pools were called Natatoriums.

This one was downtown. Although it was full of water, the Atoma plunge fried in a fire. Tots and even adults like to splash in the enormous waiting pool at Highland Park. By and by, you could go to pools like the Acapulco, but you could always wet your whistle for free in the Rio Grande. If you didn't have money and you almost never did, Albuquerque was surrounded by a vast natural playground. Before all of the development in the Northeast Heights, the whole East Mesa was like every kid's backyard, hopped on your bicycle and had all of that space to run around him. We used to ride our bikes all over town, from the west side of the river to Wanda Bo picnic grounds. And you sort of felt like the whole town was part of your territory. Then in junior high school and in high school, before we could drive, riding bicycle became the

big thing. And when ten speeds came out, everybody did their best to get one. And again, there wasn't a lot of traffic, so you'd shoot up to the mountains. You'd go on vast adventures. Kids said, we're going to the Mesa, and nobody worried. That's where teens learned to drive and speed on Wanda Bo and tramway called Roller Coaster Road. I remember even going on the end of the U-bank that used to have drag races. I had a car, the fuel gauge, with broken. So I never knew if it had gas or didn't have gas. So I remember we all went over there to drag, and I was with this other car. We tried drag off. And of course, my car didn't go because I had just run out of gas. I still don't know that I know how to drive. Like a lot of New Mexico drivers. Yeah, I probably learned a little bit of driving out there.

I probably learned to drive trying to tear up the streets around high school. Even when as a little kid driving was a form of entertainment on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, we'd say, let's get in the car, let's go for a drive. A way we'd go. One of my favorite drives, we'd just go up to 9 Mile Hill and descend into the city. And the neon was wonderful. And the view was wonderful. And if we got very lucky, it would rain. And the streets being wet would just light up with the neon. And it just became this magical experience going past you. In the south valley, you could ride your horse, fish, ice skate on the river. Or hang out in the silent silver bus game.

A long time ago, like in the 60s, real grande boulevard looked like this. There were fields and orchards where you grabbed an apple or a peach on the way home from school. After school, I used to come home in the early spring and I used to pick sparingus and then I would sell him to Mr. Sickard. He ran up while he had a farm of his own but he had a truck and he would go out and he would sell produce. Along the ditch banks, the sparingus grew very well because of all the water. And that's where I used to pick them. And I think in the Catholic school, we used to get out about

half hour early. So I think I got to jump on everybody else. And so I really got some nice sparingus. To this day, I still eat them. I don't pick them because I don't think there's any growing anymore around here because the ditch system has pretty much gone by the wayside. Something else that we picked, our mother's always told us to go out to the ditch and pick up what we call calitas, spinach. But I think I think there were lamps quoted more or but now we of course we don't go pick them and that is now we will buy them at the store. But then we went to the ditch and found it. Where you find some good plants, you picked them up. I mean you could pick a whole gunny sack full of calitas or spinach and that was good. Watch this epic film. you

Elephant Rock was a landmark, a signpost. You knew exactly where you were when you spotted it into Harris Canyon. It's gone now. Legend says that one day it offended a local character, dynamite Ollie. So it blew it to bits. Once upon a time, getting up Sandia Crest was an adventure. About halfway up, the Madera ski area started with a few runs and a rustic lodge. Soon a 3,000-foot rope toe, the longest in the nation and the T-bar pulled skiers to new heights. Getting down was another story.

We saw this beautiful mountain up here and my wife said, gosh you know nobody's up there. Why do we going to do our winter? Why don't we get out and see what's up there in the mountain and I had seen some skis back east and never skied. So we got some old long wooden skis with toe straps and inner tubes for it to hold our heels in. So we went up to Doc Long's cabin. The road was cleared to Sandia Park and there was just a dirt road up to the crest at that time which was not kept open in the winter. So we went to Doc Long's cabin and walked up

and sort of carried our skis up up to the first curve in the road and skied down that road. It was so isolated you could stick your skis in the snow on Saturday and they'd wait for your return on Sunday. Ski hockey, winter carnivals and mass dissensions at the end of the day, first one to the bottom of the winter all made early skiing fabulous. Places come and go so quickly now remember the soda straw and the firehouse special

22 scoops of ice cream in one bowl and the extravagant elegant western skies cinema east the fox wind rock the albuquerque six bocus already gone. So hold on to yesterday's places of the heart and share them with tomorrow. To every day there is a season and the time to every day a time to feel the a time to break down a time to dance a time to walk a time to cast your stones a time to get the stones together to everything turned into

a period of season turned into and it's a time to every day a time to play a time to fall a time to hate a time to fall a time to peace a time to you may embrace a time to re-fraud and praise him to everything turned into

there is a season turned into and it's a time to every purpose a period of season a time to gain a time to lose a time to win a time to sow a time for a a time for hate a time for peace I swear it's not too late