Tag Archives: AmeriCorps

Jun24

Purple Mountains (A New Mexico Story)

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It was my first time in New Mexico.

I was in an AmeriCorps program in Texas. I was offered the opportunity to go to New Mexico on Memorial Day weekend to work on a trail building project in the Gila National Forest. I was excited to go, to visit a new state, to get out of the Texas heat.

Our caravan made it as far as Las Cruces on the first day of our trip. I grew up in the flatlands of the Deep South, so this trip to New Mexico was one of my first experiences with mountains. Oh how I loved them! I’d barely been able to take my eyes off them since they’d come into view.

The plan was to spend the night at a state park outside Las Cruces. We arrived in the late evening, not very long before sunset. We began the business of settting up our tents.

At 29, I was the oldest person in my AmeriCorps program. (How impossibly young 29 seems now!) I was even older than the AmeriCorps boss on the trip, who was only 23. The other AmeriCorps folks on the trip ranged in age from 16(!) to  early 20s. Also, I really only knew two other people in the group, two guys who, like me, worked in the building program. The other people in our AmeriCorps group did trail building and maintence, and I hadn’t mingled much with any of them.

During my struggle with my tent, I glanced over at the mountains. They were purple, really purple, just like in the song! They were part of one of the most beautiful landscapes I’d ever seen.

I started jumping up and down. I was literally jumping up and down and shouting, The purple mountains majesty! The purple mountains majesty!

I’d been hearing and singing “America the Beautiful” for 20+ years, and I’ll be damned if I had any idea what “purple mountain majesties” was all about. How could mountains be purple? Here was my answer! Now I understood. These were the purple mountains majesties.

I looked over. It seemed as if all the young people had stopped assembling their tents and were staring at me. Who is this old woman, I imagined them thinking, jumping up and down and yelling about purple mountains?

I stopped jumping and shouting and went back to pitching my tent. I was a little embarrassed at my outburst, but mostly I felt grateful to have seen those purple mountains.

I first tell in love with New Mexico that evening, and I’ve been in love with the state ever since.

Unfortunately, I have no photos of those purple mountains near Las Cruces, but I did take this photo of Taos County mountains.

Mar23

If the World Ends Right Now…

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The other day, a long-time friend of mine, an author, updated her Facebook status to read,

Googled “if the world ends right now, I hope I die in your ample bosom,” looking for plagiarism in a second-hand memory.

Her second-hand memory sparked the smallest of recollections in my brain, but I didn’t exactly know what she was talking about until she followed up with

Blaize Sun, this is one of my favorite lines from a story I didn’t witness. It runs through my head sometimes, and it just struck me that maybe it was from a book. I don’t think so!

At that point I remembered I was privy to that “ample bosom” quote. I wrote

No! It was NOT from a book. It was from a state park camp-out in Texas in 2000. It was not my ample bosom in question. I was sleeping on a picnic table (dumb idea!) and the owner of the ample bosom and the admirer of the ample bosom were sleeping nearby. Can’t remember if they were in a tent and just loud or if they were camped out sans tent on the base of the picnic table. I don’t know if that was the exact quote but definitely the general sentiment.

What’s really funny to me is that while I witnessed the event (at least in an auditory fashion), I only think about this when you–and  I think Lou–mention it.

I will not name names in this public fashion since I never know who’s a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend and might see this. But I attest to the fact it that it really happened.

My friend the writer came back with

I remember that it was from one xxxxx, but I wondered if he’d read it or come up with it on the spot, bc [because]  that is some quick, brilliant thinking!

It is such a funny story. I think of it all the time. I’m glad I wasn’t there to witness first-hand, bc [because] I think your retelling definitely enhances it!

At that point Lou sent me a personal message that started like this:

Wait…who said what?!? Why is my memory fuzzy on this?

And I answered,

Oh, I thought you remembered this story. It must just be [our mutual friend] who remembers.

Lou said,

I remember the quote but not the who, what, when, where, why.

I asked,

Remember that trip to New Mexico I went on with AmeriCorps in 2000? The one [your boss] (boo! hiss!) wouldn’t let you go on?
Then Lou said,
Oh!! Now I remember more. It makes sense because I wasn’t there.

I was in AmeriCorps in 2000, and I got to go on a trip to New Mexico to break trail in the Gila National Forest. Half of the folks on the trip were part of an AmeriCorps program that mostly did trail building and maintenance, but a few folks from the (related) program I was in went on the trip too. One of the other people from my program who was allowed to go on the trip was a guy named Dee.

The non-AmeriCorps folks on the trip were part of a group I referred to as the

mostly old people who worked on trails.

While I was the oldest person in my AmeriCorps program (seven years older than my boss), the people in the trail group were even older than I was. Some of them were downright elderly, as in, in their 70s. But these elderly people were active and fit and proved to be as hardworking as any of the 20-somethings on the trip. Also, the older people had money. They provided the vans we rode in and the gas to power them, as well as all of the food we ate.

There was a woman in that group I’ll call Sally (to protect her identity and because I no longer have the faintest idea of what her name actually was). Although Sally was older than my 29 years, she was the absolute baby of the mostly old people group. I think she was about 36 and pretty, with long dark hair. As the only people on the trip in our age group, Sally and I became buddies for the duration. I would soon find out that I was not the only one who had grown to enjoy Sally’s…er…company.

I don’t know if Sally and Dee had hooked up while we were camping in the Gila National Forest. I don’t know if they had been sitting together, making eyes at each other on the van ride back to Texas. What I do know is that on our last night away from home, we camped at a state park.

At that point, I was tired of setting up my tent at night and breaking it down in the morning, so I decided to sleep on top of a picnic table. All I can say is that it seemed like a good idea at the time…I spent the night tossing and turning on the hard surface, trying not to fall off. To make matters worse, Sally and Dee had parked their budding romance just a little too close to me.

I can’t remember now if they were in a nearby tent or on the ground at the edge of the picnic table. (Lou says,

Probably in a tent. I feel like I’ve had that problem before when inside a tent you forget that your tent doesn’t have real walls and everyone can hear you. It feels so enclosed and private!)

In any case, I heard every breathless word they spoke to each other, and at some point Dee dropped the cringe-worthy line my writer friend has remembered all these years:

if the world ends right now, I hope I die in your ample bosom

or at least words of boob appreciation along those lines. And well, yeah, I repeated his words way back then, and I seem to be repeating them again today.

 Many thanks to Kel for this memory and to Kel and Lou for their words which are included in this story.