Why Would Anyone Ever Move Here?

I’ve been telling little stories about my life in this blog. I’m not sure who will ever read these. Probably not very many. Who uses Blogger anymore? I’m actually surprised that Google hasn’t killed it like they have most of their other projects. 

Anyway, I’ve been focusing on my life in Santa Fe. Maybe I’ll jump back to it as those memories come back. Right now, I’d like to remember in writing my move from Santa Fe to the East Mountains. 

I shouldn’t say “East Mountains”. If you’re from Moriarty and someone asks you where you’re from, you say “East Mountains”. Moriarty was not a very glamorous town. Lots of poverty. Lots of vacant land. A few truck stops. The public schools where all of the East Mountain kids went to. 

I guess I should define “East Mountains”. East Mountains are the small communities east of the Sandia Mountains.

(google earth image)

I would consider Sandia Park, Cedar Crest, Tijeras, Edgewood…and Moriarty is a stretch. I think the only reason people would consider Moriarty “East Mountains” is because of the school system. All of the Edgewood and Tijeras kids (well, not all, some go to Manzano, but I digress), go to Moriarty High School. 

Okay. That’s that. 

Since I’m being honest, I’ll say that we moved to Moriarty. Okay. I lied again. We moved to Indian Hills. Nobody who lives in Indian Hills admits they live in Indian Hills. At least I don’t. Checkmate, I guess. I just did. 

The move. 

I didn’t really want to leave Santa Fe. My personality went with the flow, though. I don’t remember raising a ruckus about it. Santa Fe was great, as I remember it. My grandpa, who I loved, lived next door. I would spend hours at his house studying maps, watching him play his harp, or practicing his vocal exercises. Santa Fe reminds me of him. 

My parents felt they needed to move. My grandma and step-grandpa(?) were already living there. My aunt and uncle moved there. I had a few other aunts who also packed up and left Santa Fe and moved there. I imagine it was for the cheap housing and land. I wasn’t aware of the reason as a young kid. Looking back, I can’t imagine why anyone would choose to move to Moriarty. 

They did, though. 

My grandma lived in a house. An actual house. This is an important detail when you talk about homes in Moriarty. Many of the homes in Moriarty are of the mobile variety. I would venture to guess that the mobile homes outnumber the “actual” houses–especially in communities like Indian Hills. 

Moving on. Grandma and Grandpa lived in a house. My aunt and uncle lived in a doublewide off of the main stip next to my uncle’s auto body shop. (I will add, that the doublewides were considered sort of luxury.) My other aunt and uncle lived in an apartment in what I remember to be the only apartment complex in the town. My other aunt lived in a small doublewide, not as luxurious as my other aunt with the body shop. 

Yes, I’ve got a lot of aunts. Four aunts, and two uncles. Of those aunts and uncles, three aunts and one uncle moved to Moriarty about the same time. 

Forgot about my one uncle, he lived in an “actual” house in the town of Moriarty. 

It was a migration. One that I don’t understand to this day… home ownership and cheap land is all I can imagine. 

Life was different. No plaza walks with my grandpa. Much less walking, period. Santa Fe was very walkable. As a young kid, I’d walk to school, I’d walk to the community center, I’d walk to friends’ houses in the neighborhood. Moriarty wasn’t like this. There was much more dirt, a lot less pavement, and you needed a bike at minimum. Even then, you’d be on your bike for a long time to get to your friends’ houses. Oh, and you had to navigate dirt roads with no sidewalk. 

The school bus ride? Forget about it. My elementary school was sort of close, in Moriarty terms. Three and a half miles, as the crow flies. The bus had to pick up everyone in my “neighborhood”, and this meant lots of time spent on the bus. I remember the bus picking me up around 6:30 am, and we’d weave in and out of these rural dirt roads to then eventually drop us off at school to start our day. 

If it rained or snowed, we’d navigate the mud and snow. Most of the time it was just dusty. We got to see a lot of Indian Hills on the bus ride. 

Middle school was when the bus ride was really tough. I was picked up at 5:50 am (about). We would circle the Indian Hills dirt roads, then head down Martinez Road and make our way to Echo Ridge and pick up all the kids there. 

I was always tired. 

And talk about a depressing ride. Lots of dirt. Lots of mud if it rained. Lots of bumps. Lots of kids living in conditions that were just horrible. Poverty. It’s not a pleasant memory, to be honest. 

Well… I don’t know what else I can say about all this. I guess I’ll wrap up this memory with another memory. I’d miss the bus on occasion. Understandable since the dang thing arrived so early in the morning. If I missed the bus, I had another opportunity to catch the bus. It meant running across our two acres, into the field south of our property, and to the other bus stop on a rural dirt road. As the crow flies 🐦‍⬛, four tenths of a mile. I’d start my morning at 6:00 am with a nice sprint.