Hope the rain comes before we get there in mid December. I was in New Mexico for four years in the Sixties, and I don’t remember it ever snowing either in Albuquerque or Santa Fe at the one-mile elevation level, although it did snow in the mountains. Hope this year is similar. I experienced then only one fairly wet year out of four (and I’m defining a “wet ” year as one where the tumbleweed stays reasonably green and growing on the mesa throughout the summer), producing large, well-formed tumbling tumbleweed of movie fame. I believe this weather is fairly “normal” for New Mexico. Perhaps the current water crunch is caused by the increased human population and the increased water usage demanded by modern, suburban Americans. I am looking forward to a return trip to “The Land of Enchantment” after so many years. I realize that it won’t be the same. It appears that KAFB has changed from almost strictly an R&D base to a more of an active defense base although the Sandia National Lab and the laboratory directorates are still there. This is just an impression that I’ve gotten from the base website that seldom mentions the happenings at the research facilities. It may be because much of the research is classified; but, judging from Hillary Clinton’s emails, the information classification system obviously does not mean what it use to. More than likely it just means that very little is currently going on at the research facilities due to the Obama defense budget cuts.

I remember when my favorite teacher, Boyd Batchelor, at PCHS returned to the Philippines after his retirement from teaching. His tale of returning to the places around Manila where he worked during the war and seeing some of the people who worked for him during that time intrigued me to a great extent. I am looking forward to doing much the same particularly in southeast and northeast Albuquerque. I understand that my church on Hermosa Drive is no longer a church. Too bad! It did make my military experience much less “military” than it would have been if I had been confined to the base chaplaincy system. Hermosa Drive did make my military experience seem more “as usual”, as it was, in many respects, about the same size as Coal Fire Baptist and much the same in informality and friendliness. Just to sit down and chat with some of the people with whom and for whom I worked will be an experience of a lifetime, although most of them have either past or have moved away from the area. There are a few who are still there, although they are getting old now. I hope that the health of these few will permit, at least, a chat. Marina is looking forward to it too, but for totally different reasons. She is interested in seeing the quaint, historical City of Santa Fe at Christmas time, as she and her family are very Catholic and Santa Fe is historically a very old, catholic, and traditional city. I, on the other hand, is mostly interested in just seeing southeast Albuquerque and KAFB the way I remember it and to the extent that that is possible. I realize that it won’t be the same because I realize that I can not walk and bike over the mostly empty mesa (I understand that the mesa is mostly now filled with development.) as I once did and that driving over it midst the traffic of the 21st century will not be the same; but I hope that I will find enough of that which never changes to once again jog my memory cells.

I’m sorry! I was talking about snow in the city before Christmas. I know that most of the snow usually came in January. Oh Yeah! There is one thing I missed. I am looking forward to seeing the candalaria decorations at Christmas time. That is one thing that I haven’t experienced since my last Christmas there in 1968. Candalarias aren’t used much in the Philippines, and Marina is looking forward to that too.