Ah yes, the Los Alamos vibe. The Jemez Mountains are super, super sacred--except for that area known as Los Alamos. I worked as a stone mason there for a few years. It was a good place to make money because most of the people at Los Alamos are at least quasi-rich. (It has one of the highest percentage of high income families per capita of any town under 100,000 people in the country.) One of the things that creeped me out about Los Alamos was all the rattlesnakes. I swear there are more rattlesnakes per square foot in Los Alamos than anywhere I've ever been. I don't know how many times I almost stepped on one.

As for that church in Las Trampas I have driven past that church countless hundreds of times. I lived just about 8 or 10 miles down the road from it. That church is located on the historic "High Road to Taos." It is one of the most beautiful scenic highways in America. And my home was also on that very same highway. So if you took the High Road to Taos anytime in the late 1980s or early 1990s then you drove past my home.

As for that church I never went inside it in all those years. That is because when I was 14 years old I made a pact with God. I promised God that I would never set foot in a church ever again as long as I lived in this life--a promise I have kept for over half a century. But every time I drove past it I looked at it.

Thanks for your reply, John. I'm glad that I am finally discovering your writing. I will now go read that Pancho Villa story.

Oh, and by the way, I never attended an opera at the Santa Fe Opera House even though I drove past it a hundred times, too. Buy every time I passed it I admired the architecture. One of my few regrets about having lived in New Mexico is that I never attended an opera there. The regret extends essentially to everything opera related. I used to be such an idiot.