Ms./Mrs. Black

In 1963, my stepfather brought my mother, my sister, and myself to America. I was all of five years old and was basically a city kid thrown into the world of ranching by a twist of fate and believe me! Not of my own choosing!

It was a whole different world from what I had been used to. We landed at a ranch in Socorro, NM and met some big galoot name of Red-and yes! He was red from the hair to the beard to the freckles that mottled his skin. Spoke perfect Spanish, and I was impressed because I was not understanding anything these people kept saying... you know, the sound of adults in Charlie Brown is all I heard. Except when Red spoke to us!

One of the funniest/scariest memories of that time was when my stepdad purchased a pig from Red to start raising our own stock. See, dad had a short, narrow truck with a car seat I imagined he scavenged from a car, which fit right about perfect with just enough room to squeeze behind it to see into the cab of the truck. The seat was pointed towards the rear of the truck and also sported a homemade camper shell, which was pretty damn sweet for being made of wood—hell, it had some sliding diagonal windows and all! Lol...

Anyway, me and my sister(she was seven at the time) had to ride with that HUUUUGE (at least at the time for two small kids that never seen anything like that) reddish pig! Dear lord, I was shittin' a brick cuz I had NEVER seen something so scary and humongous! So I and sis squeezed into the space between that car seat and the cab of the truck and we rode all the way home from there to home (we had just moved to a small ranching community called San Acacia, which was about 13 miles or so out of Socorro). I so look back on this laughing cuz of course, time and distance makes for good comedy!

San Acacia is where I learned to speak English. I hung around some incredibly white, tow-headed kids, that to this day I wonder if they weren't albino maybe? But kids being kids always find a way to speak to each other! Hell, I started making up my own words from Spanish that I thought sounded English...slight chuckle on my part remembering how dumb some of those words sound today..hehe.

Like they say though, I digress. The whole purpose of the story was to tell you of what an exciting journey I had to reach this point in my life to be able to tell my story regarding my love of reading. But every story has to have a little background, right?

So let's do go on! A couple of years later(my English was much improved by this time, thank God! lol) I begin my studies in public school at a place called Polvadera Elementary, a one square building in a small town surrounded by the community of Polvadera and Limitar that served a few outlying places like San Acacia and San something or other across the freeway from us. I mean, if you don't have an idea what rural means, just stop by these places on a road trip as they haven't changed a whole hell of a lot. I was out there for a visit in 2017. Believe me...

Now, to the purpose of this story: When I was in second grade, I had a teacher named Mrs. Black(I think she was married; back in the day I think they all were!). Anyway, I remember a picture we had of her all black and white cuz no color pics back then. I could read a little by this time but, being occupied by the horrible home life my sister, mother and I had, reading wasn't a big deal to me. Little did I realize that would soon change. Even in the midst of trauma, good things can happen.

Mrs. Black came in one day and we started doing the math, the spelling—all the little abc's you need to learn in school, ya know? We were all trying to finish our work to have a 'lil free time to goof off before lunch. Well, when the last kid(probably me) had put their pencil down, we still had a good amount of time to go before lunch, so Mrs. Black sat us around instead of letting us goof off cuz... well, cuz kids get out of hand, right?

Mrs. Black proceeds to tell us she's gonna read us a book for a little til the bell rings... and so she does! If you have ever heard that line "lions and tigers and bears... oh my!" then you have an idea where I was. She began to read this story, and all the kids disappeared... all I saw was the teacher's lips moving as I tried to catch every single word she was saying! I could not believe what was coming out of her mouth! I had never heard such a thing!!! Oh My Gawd! I was in heaven and I was traveling through the Land of Oz! I was enthralled, spellbound and under the spell of a most magical story and I never wanted her to stop! Ten minutes seemed like eternity, and then like not even a second when the bell rang. I was so disappointed.

So from that moment on, I began looking for books that had science fiction or science fantasy themes to them. I read soooo many books, and had the most wonderful dreams because of the books I read. I credit Mrs. Black for the love of reading she inspired in me. What a wonderful gift to give to a child who was reaching for a sense of normalcy in world turned upside down in a place that should have been home!

We lived in San Acacia til I was 14, then we moved to Albuquerque, NM, which is about 60 miles north of there. I had read hundreds of books by then, I'm sure, and I graduated from Rio Grande HS in 1976 and left for the Marines a week later. But I have never forgotten Mrs. Black!

In 1979, after my stint in the Marines, I was at a bookstore on Central across from the university (UNM) browsing, looking for something new to read! I like covers and they catch my eye and when they do, I will pick it up to read the synopsis or maybe a page or two to see if I like it. I love bookstores!

There was this one particular book I picked up and to this day, I wouldn't be able to tell you what really caught my attention. I read the back, sounded slightly interesting, so I opened to the first page and my eyes landed on the first line and as I began to read... all of a sudden, I start getting a rush and I feel the hairs start to raise up on my arms and the more I read the more excited I became!!!

YES!!! It was THE BOOK! It was the book that Mrs Black had read the first few paragraphs of and OMG I was so damn HAPPY!!!!

How, you may ask could a book elicit such excitement? Lol...Because I never knew what book it was she had read that made ME start my reading experiences, and that brought me to that moment and to this moment where I am now telling you of a love affair far beyond the corporeal. And I was able to finally read the story followed by three more fabulous books about this little creatures journey and his adventures!

Thank you Mrs Black and thank you J.R.R Tolkien for writing...

THE HOBBIT!