Mountain Music

So Jemez Springs was lovely the year I met Jack. The mountains sang with it's own flavor of music and the Juke box at Los Ojos had all the most popular songs on it as well. I loved "Snowbird" by Anne Murray. All her songs spoke to me. I was able to attend some of the Jemez Indian Ceremonies which were open to the public and the drumming was earthy and full of expression. The waterfalls had a music all their own. I liked to play in the water and listen to the sound that drowned out all my troubles and spoke of future happiness to my ever yearning heart. I met lots of college students, hippies, mountain natives and locals. It was a relaxed party spirit in the town.

I remember one gal named  Lorraine that was very alluring and interesting.  She lived in rented cabin across the creek with her son Aeron and her mother was often there as well. Her mom was a kick~she told stories of the olden days and would throw up if you blew your nose. She taught me to make mexican spagetti with the coiled birds nest spagetti, catsup and garlic. Mike and Aeron played together at times but he was very worldly and I later learned Aeron's father was a major producer of porn back in Indiana where Lorraine was required to send the boy every summer for visits. Not a good atmosphere for a kid I think...but that is his story not mine. Lorraine was beautiful but had the beginning of rheumatoid arthritus. We, however, lived for the day and not in fear of tomorrow. We all partied and frolicked in those mountains. When Jack and I returned to the mountains to visit several years later we stopped and hung with Lorraine and found that her disease was progressing so it was harder for her to walk.

Jack and I were being drawn to one another but one day a gal with the most beautiful long hair came around, a friend of a friend and she was very plain but oh... that hair. It mesmerized Jack and he the more he drank the more he loved her hair. He just kept reaching out and touching it and saying how beautiful it was. I tired of this game and left the place with an irritated attitude. I suspected that perhaps I wanted to be the one he was reaching for. So I decided to stay away for awhile and see if I could re-focus.

Every day I would drop in to Los Ojos and ask if Jack had been in. The bartenders tired of my questions after a couple weeks and told me Jack and I could just come in at the same time if we were gonna ask about each other every day, that they were not the local matchmakers! So, at that I resolved to come to my friend Dutchies big 21st birthday celebration that weekend.

I dolled up the best I could for a wild child and made my way in to party. Jack came in a bit later and we gravitated to one another. I told him I had been asking about him and he admitted he had also been asking about me. The next short conversation sealed our fate. I told him I wasn't getting mixed up with a married man and he told me he was not married. I asked him..." then why the ring?" and he said they had been together awhile as they had a daughter together but he never loved her or wanted marry her. I told him to take off the blasted ring if he wanted to see me. He did on the spot and from that day forth we were inseperable. The days of Jack and Lynda had begun.