My friend Michael got an eraser stuck in his nose. Later that year we burned a Zozobra

When I was in kindergarten, my friend Michael got a pencil eraser stuck up his nose. 

I'm not sure if he was my friend. Maybe a friend as a kindergartener looks at friends. In kindergarten, everyone in your class is "friend". As we get older, that's when we start to exclude people from our group. But in kindergarten... all the kids are friends. 

But Michael got an eraser stuck in his nose, and I was worried for him. I remember the room. It was bright. The windows were tall and the blinds were open. The room was flooded with sunshine. Sunshine, and the sobbing of Michael. 

I don't remember much of the details. I think the teacher (or one of the teachers, we had two) tried to retrieve the eraser. Now that I think about it, I wonder if them trying to get the eraser made it worse. I wouldn't know. Just seems like that would be the case. All I know is they couldn't get it, and a little later, Michael's mom came to pick him up. I don't remember the next day, I don't remember if I asked him if he was okay. He was okay, because I know he was in classes with me after that. 

A memory I'll never forget. Seared on my brain. 

This makes me think of other things within that class. I think that same year our class made an adobe house. Someone came to our school and taught us the techniques of making the bricks and stacking them. We got a little muddy, but it was very fun, as I recall. 

That same year also (and subsequent years) we burned a small Zozobra. It was so normal to me then, but now I look back and realize how strange this is. The janitor would construct it and do the burning. I don't remember any safety protocols in place. We were at a safe distance, I think. But there wasn't a firetruck close by in the event a stray ember caught our school on fire. 

It was awesome. I became very interested in the burning of Zozobra. I would draw Zozobra when I wasn't drawing dinosaurs. And then... I started to want to burn my own Zozobra. I started making them out of paper and popsicle sticks. One day, my wish came true. I found a lighter and went to the back of my house and burned my Zozobra. Wasn't the best idea. I remember getting in trouble for playing with a lighter. I could've burned my house down. Thankfully adobe houses don't seem to be very flammable from the outside. 

So yeah... no more home brewed Zozobras. We were close enough to Fort Marcy Park, though, that I could hear him moaning as he was burned every September. I think one year we even saw some of the flames in the distance. We definitely saw the fireworks after. 

Zozobra is coming up and I still enjoy it. Maybe I'll post some photos. Maybe not. Probably not. I'll forget. 

Here's some photos I took last year. 

TI-108

 Is it okay if I jump around a little bit? 

Not physically, even thought I have enough energy this morning it would probably do me well. 

I'm talking jump around chronologically. I know you knew. 

Fast forward to the 6th grade. They handed us all calculators in math class. I thought they were so cool. This little device could take the input I gave it by pressing on the buttons and that was then displayed on the little LCD display. Then I could tell it to add something, subtract, divide--even square root! I think kids were more easily amused, or impressed back then. Or maybe it was just me. 

Okay, memories are coming back even as I type this. I remember the squishyness of the keys. I remember thinking those keys were a solid, high quality plastic. They had little bumps on the keys. But, the thing I thought was the coolest feature about this little device, was the little black square in the upper left below the display. The little solar panel. Is it called a panel? Whatever. What I found out as I messed around with this calculator is that it didn't require a battery to operate. It worked off of the power of light. Not even sunlight, but the light from the lights above my head in the classroom. 

I remember placing my finger over the little solar panel and I would watch it dim. Then I would uncover the little panel and watch it come back to life. This was kind of mind-blowing to me. How on Earth does this work? How does an electronic device get electricity from light? Who cares about math! How does this thing work. (I bet that explanation involves some math).

Fast forward again to today. Surprise, I still think solar panels are super cool. When I see a house with solar panels, or a parking lot that has a shade canopy that also has solar panels on it, I am just pleased. 

I want to see rooftops of business and government buildings covered in solar panels. Parking lots. Parking lots are the worst. They are often empty. They exist for the possibility that someone may need to leave their car there for a moment.

I haven't researched this in depth. I mean, I want to. I might later. But for now, what I would venture to guess is that parking lots in Albuquerque generate a lot of heat. Would a parking lot with a shade canopy that has solar panels also generate... generate is the wrong term. Radiate. Would it radiate heat like a parking lot? It's black. It absorbs the heat. (I made a podcast about this.) I need to listen to my podcast again to find out. But, will it make a city hotter? Hotter than maybe a roof that is white and reflective? A lot of the buildings in downtown Albuquerque are white. 

Anyway, that's one question. But parking lots. They're already black mostly. Some are concrete, but the rest are asphalt. Imagine if your parking lot was shaded everywhere you go. It seems like a win-win to me. Cars are cooler. Electricity is generated. 

Did I remember this?

 Early memories. 

I've got a few memories from early childhood. Some I wonder are even real memories. I grew up in downtown Santa Fe. It doesn't rain much here. Still I have some memories of rain. I have a memory of saturated colors on top of a gloomy, gray background. I have memories of galoshes. It's even weird that I remember that name. Galoshes is not a word that many New Mexicans use, I don't think. I also don't think many New Mexicans own galoshes. They don't really need them. 

But I have a memory of them. (I should ask my mom, now that I'm thinking about it. I'll ask her if she remembers buying me some.) I remember putting them on. The color, I think was yellow. I remember vividly that they had metal latches. And I remember going outside in the rain. 

It's probably a real memory. It just feels maybe made up just because of where I grew up and what I was doing. What the weather was doing. 

As an adult, I now can pay more attention to weather patters. I do pay more attention. I think I pay attention because the weather affects me a great deal, and in New Mexico I know it doesn't rain that much. If I bought galoshes today, it would be a pretty silly purchase. It hasn't rained much at all this year. I wouldn't have used them at all this year. I suppose a child might find more use for galoshes. Children are looking for puddles to jump in. Most adults don't. 

That's my memory for today. Galoshes. 

Side note: I did end up eventually living in a place, very briefly, that did require galoshes. I realized it later, after the rainy season ended. That place is Portland, Oregon. I moved there in November 2020 and moved away in May of 2021. I wanted it to work out, it just didn't. Turns out family supports are super important when you have kids. 

But staying on track, galoshes would have been very useful. I remember taking a few hikes with the family in that fall and into the spring. I noticed a lot of people wore, what I can maybe call galoshes. The look like this: 

Yeah, who wouldn't thought you'd need rain boots in a city that receives 5-6 inches of rain per month in the winter. The answer to that question is "everyone but me". I wore my vans and running shoes and my feet suffered as a result. 

Here are some images I could find that kind of resemble my memory of the galoshes I had as a kid. Maybe they were yellow? I'm not sure. I do remember... or maybe I should say "remember" them having a metal latch, or actually a few metal straps in the front. I don't know, maybe I made it all up. 

For comparison, here's the weather chart from Wikipedia for both Santa Fe and Portland. (By the way, these weather charts, or climate chart I should say, are some of my favorite things. I absolutely love these charts.)

My Story

 I had this idea. I've updated this blog off and on for some time now. Mostly off in recent years. I think I want to be more consistent. Do people still read blogs? Probably not, but that's okay. I just like the physical feelings of tapping my fingers on my keyboard and the brain activity and emotional feelings I get of getting my thoughts out. Writing is fun. (especially on the keyboard of this 2016 MacBook Pro I picked up on eBay.)

So, my thought. My thought was to share some of my story. My story seems to be something that I only know. Sure there are some people that know bits and pieces of "my story". But for the most part I keep to myself. ... wait, is that true? ... I have a podcast or three. I write in this blog. I tweet and thread and insta and facebook. Maybe that's false. Anyway, there are some things I keep to myself, and there's other things -------- I'm getting into the weeds. 

I want to tell a story. I don't know who's going to read it. I kind of don't care if anyone reads it. That's been my philosophy with this blog since the start. 

So, here we go. 

I think I want to just get my memories down in writing. I'll start with childhood, but maybe I'll jump around in time. And maybe that memory will get me off on a tangent and I can share my opinion on something. Sound okay? Okay. Glad it sounds good to you. 

And because apparently I'm obsessed with weather data, here's a link I found with weather data in the city I was born in and in the year I was born. 

https://www.extremeweatherwatch.com/cities/santa-fe/year-1983

And here's a website that has aerial photos of Santa Fe. I might be in some of these photos. 

https://aerialarchives.photoshelter.com/gallery/Santa-Fe-Aerial-Photographs/G0000Ad.60CfEhnU/