Hampton has lost another legend this year, Margaret Haraghey, in the   83^rd year of her life. Born and raised in Hartford’s north end, Margaret worked in a supervisory capacity for nearly thirty years at Southern New England Telephone Company, where she met and married Harold, the love of her life, who predeceased her. The couple came to Hampton in 1979. Margaret had no political ambitions prior to her retirement. One might say that politics found Margaret, and after discovering her, wouldn’t let her go.

Margaret filled many roles at Town Hall. She served in every capacity at the polling place, eventually becoming Assistant to the Registrar, Deputy Registrar and the Republican Registrar of Voters. She was appointed to the town’s original Board of Finance and served on its Personnel Committee. She clerked for the Inland Wetlands & Watercourses Agency for years, keeping residents apprised of applications and permits in the Hampton Gazette, and when First Selectman Walt Stone noticed her clerical competencies, and her service on the Republican Town Committee, which she was a member of for many years, he offered her the position of Administrative Assistant in 1993, which she held for eight years. In this role, she was the friendly face of the Board of Selectmen, wrote the First Selectman’s monthly column in the Gazette and learned the various responsibilities of the Town’s Chief Official. This experience gave her the knowledge, the skills, and the confidence that led to her legendary status: in 2001, Margaret was the first female to become First Selectwoman in Hampton’s history. She was re-elected to a second term, unopposed both times.

Much was accomplished during her tenure.  She spearheaded a comprehensive review of personnel policies, including items such as wages, pay schedules, procedures for raises, medical insurance, and work-place rules, eventually publishing the Town of Hampton Personnel Policies.  Ever respectful of town employees and officials, she also established a retirement program. She worked on coordinating Transfer Station needs with Scotland officials, searched for grant opportunities for town improvements which were subsequently realized, and started the monthly column “First Selecting”.

Margaret took office during very challenging financial times, when national, state and local economies were stressed due to the stock market crash of 2000 and the catastrophic consequences of September 11. Yet the General Government portion of the town budget was reduced during each of Margaret’s years as First Selectwoman, and upon her retirement, the bottom line was still lower than when she assumed the office.

Margaret also established a committee to research options when Parish Hill High School’s accreditation was threatened and tri-town residents were facing a $30 million proposal to build a new school. She steered us through this divisive, emotionally charged era with fairness and facts, and above all grace, and later was appointed to the Strategic Planning Group of local and state educational officials charged with resolving issues at the district school, which was, in the end, fully accredited.

Margaret’s contributions to the town extended beyond Town Hall. She served on the Gazette’s Editorial Board for twelve years, most of the time as Treasurer, on the Fletcher Memorial Library Board, and for many years as its Chairman, and as a member of the Senior’s Club, most recently as Chairman of their Board of Directors. She unfailingly volunteered to nearly every organization in town, providing homemade baked goods for fundraisers, assembling sandwiches for the Annual Grinder Sale, obtaining a license to supervise the Memorial Day Barbecue.

In 2017, Margaret and Harold were named Citizens of the Year, Harold, who Margaret referred to as “the wind beneath my wings”, for serving as Constable and Wetlands Enforcement Officer, assisting at the Transfer Station, and volunteering whenever a need arose; and Margaret for everything listed here. Her colleagues were eager to recommend her:

“Jim Rodriguez and I served as Selectmen with Margaret…a dedicated and hard-working woman who knew her town and was willing to put time and effort into improving it,” Tony Romano recalled. “Her organizational skills were outstanding. Margaret always did her homework, researching, sending surveys”, and soliciting public input.

“Margaret’s knowledge of the details of the Town’s finances was invaluable. I could not be more grateful for her experience and wise counsel,” said the Board of Finance’s first Chairman, Rheo Brouillard; and fellow board member Penny Newbury added, “Her professional experience in finance and budgeting was extremely useful in helping other members navigate the sometimes complex and interconnected fiscal reports and requirements of both the administration and the two education budgets.”

“What impressed me most was her knowledge of the workings of Hampton, knowing what needed to be done in order for the Town to operate properly. Margaret only provided information when needed, and it usually was when we were at an impasse,” former Gazette Chairman Jimmy Halloran said, characterizing her ideas as “just what we need.”

“She will focus on the library issues at hand, taking quite seriously whatever is up for discussion, offering many pragmatic suggestions,” said former Library Board Chairman Anne Christie.

That’s the thing with Margaret – which every organization she has ever served with has missed and will miss the most. She was an incredible problem-solver. Listened to the perspectives of everyone, summarized the issue, and then offered multiple, practical solutions.  And she was a wonderful neighbor. A dry sense of humor, a ready smile, she would always inquire after your family, genuinely listen, genuinely care, genuinely commiserate in troubling times, and genuinely celebrate in good ones.

Our condolences to Margaret’s family, and to her many, many friends.

Donations in Margaret’s honor may be made to the Hampton Fire Department.

Fletcher Memorial Library hosts The Hampton Harvest Festival, Saturday, September 27 from10AM – 3PM., on the lawn between the Community Center and the Town Hall. In case of rain, the event will move to the Hampton Elementary School.

The festival, which is the library’s main fundraiser, will feature a variety of vendors and many hand grown and handmade products from the Hampton area. Vendors include Rural Heritage Arts, Pebble Brook Farm, Full Moon Farm, Bright Acres Farm, Organic Roots Farm, Good Medicine Therapeutic Massage, Bedecked & Beadazzled, HC Woodturning, Flowers by Charity, The Hampton Historical & Antiquarian Society, The Hampton Gazette, and the Hampton Conservation Commission.

As always, the event will feature a line-up of treats and refreshments, complete with a bake sale. There will also be a lemonade stand; Our Lady of Lourdes will offer coffee and apple crisp, and The Hampton Fire Department will have the grill set up for burgers and hot dogs.

Other offerings will include fresh produce and other agricultural products, and local crafts and art work. Weather permitting, there will be face painting and games for the children, along with the traditional hay rides, corn hole game, and a display of farm goats. Music will be provided by trumpeter Joe Coombs (10AM –NOON) and by bagpipers Heather Nunn, Benjamin Elzertman and Emily Nunn. (12:30–1:30PM). All are members of the Manchester Pipe Band.

Admission is free and both sites offer plenty of free parking. For more information call: 860 455 1086.

Besides the main event on Saturday, the festival weekend offers other opportunities for family fun. The weekend kicks off with a Hampton Recreation Commission bonfire at the Town Hall Ball Field, Friday night from 5:30 – 9PM for Hampton residents. Also that weekend, Our Lady of Lourdes is sponsoring a Scarecrow contest with cash prizes for both the adult and junior divisions. The contest will be held on the Town Hall lawn from Friday the 26th through Sunday the 28th with judging on Saturday the 27th. Join in for a $10 donation and pre-register at the Fletcher Memorial Library during library opening hours.

Andrea Kaye

In 1763, Hampton established school districts, eventually numbering seven: the Center District or “Village”, Appaquag, Union or “Rawson”, North Bigelow, South Bigelow, Goshen, or “Clark’s Corner”, and Howard’s Valley. We started our exploration of each of these sections with the town’s center, the busiest section; with its storied residences, from colonial beginnings to a summer destination, and its multiple institutions — the meeting house, library, general store, firehouse, town hall — the history of the village required two years to complete. Conversely, the smallest section, Appaquag, should only take two.

Since September is “Back to School” month, we’ll start with information on the Appaquag School. Built in 1774, the Appaquag School’s original location was on the west side of Pomfret Road, set in one of Hampton’s most pastoral scenes, where horses are secure within white fences along gently rolling hills. Despite this seemingly idyllic location, there was no playground at the school, due to its proximity to the road and the fact that it was hemmed in with the fields of a neighboring farm. And though Appaquag was one of the smallest schoolhouses, and one of the first to close, Hampton Remembers — Alison Davis’ remarkable collection of interviews from the residents who were born here around the turn of the 20th century — has several personal accounts from several of its students, who remember their schoolhouse vividly and fondly.

Students at Hampton Elementary School might like to compare this schedule with their own:
From 1902 to 1908 I attended the Appaquag School in the north end of town…. The teacher rang a handbell at five minutes before nine and we had to be in our seats at nine o’clock. First the teacher checked the attendance, and then we all joined in the Lord’s Prayer. We didn’t pledge allegiance to the flag in those days as they do now. We were anywhere from fifteen to twenty children ranging in age from six to sixteen and graded strictly according to ability. A fourteen –year-old and a nine-year-old would often be using the same book.

I remember the long-bodied stove, the four rows of desks, made of wood with metal frames, the settee in front, the two aisles, the teacher’s desk and a small cupboard on the wall that held the school library. On the right of the stove was another settee for recitations. Near the stove it was usually too hot and in the back of the room you froze!

Every day we had assignments in reading, writing and arithmetic, history and geography and twice a week spelling and physiology. We had penmanship fifteen minutes every day. Each scholar had a writing book kept in the teacher’s desk. After we had practiced fifteen minutes with pen and ink on loose paper — an inkwell on each desk filled from the teacher’s bottle, we were allowed to copy one line in our book. We had a fifteen minute recess at 10:30 and another at 2:45. and generally one hour at lunchtime except on the shortest winter days when it was cut down to a half hour and we went home at 3:30 instead of 4. At the end of recess the handbell was rung because we played on the neighbors’ land and all up and down the road. There wasn’t much of a schoolyard, you see, the building being right on the road with the open fields coming up all around it. It was a nice little building.

In the wintertime it got so dark we couldn’t study and the way the teacher took care of that – she’d have a spellin’ match. She’d name two leaders and they’d pick their teams right down through and then one line would try to spell the other one down. A spelling match was always fun. You wanted to be the first one to be picked and the last one to spell down. We also had recitations, poetry and things like that on dark winter days. We used to learn a lot of poetry by heart those days.

Arthur Kimball

In small towns, a child’s relative sometimes taught in the school. This would necessitate a different standard of good behavior for the student. One might also attend school with a sibling, or possibly eight of them. One wonders how that dynamic might impact the “quarreling” mentioned here:

I went to Appaquag School when my sister Annie, later Annie Edmond, was the teacher there when she was only seventeen. I was in the oldest grades and taller than she was but I had to be good! The older children helped the younger children, and we studied while the other class was up in front. We just took our turns. The little ones could have a nap in the afternoon – there was an extra settee and if they wanted they could lie on the settee and sleep.

The desks were mostly double. Only the upper grade, the really elite, had desks to themselves. You had to have a partner at the double desks and you had to keep your books separate, and if you didn’t you quarreled.

Helen Matthews

Student population in a small town such as ours has always been an issue:
We lived up on Kenyon Road and all eight of us went to the Bell School and we always walked. There was one year that there was only two in our family – the rest was older and th’ others was younger that went to school down to this Bell School and there was no school. Because there was only two children! So the town had to hire my father to carry us over to what they called the Appaquag School. Yes, up theya’. For one year. Then the next year a family moved in down here and they had five children, so that brought us back into this district. So that’s the only time that I ever went – eyah, only just down to this school.

Helen Whitehouse

Despite the lack of a playground and equipment, students, then as now, found ways to entertain themselves: Our favorite game at Appaquag School was “Duck on the Rock.” Each player threw a small stone at a rock that was set up on a bigger roc k and we tried to knock it off. We had what we called a “duck tender” – he was “it” and he had to put that duck back on the rock after people had knocked it off and then try to catch somebody before they could go in and get their stone and get back. That was quite a lot of fun. It was kinda risky business—I know I got that finger smashed – I had put the thing on there and I hadn’t got my hand off when Everett Kimball threw a stone and caught me right there.

Harold Stone

Snow was another adventure. Where there was a hill, there was sledding; where there was a pond, skating. Here where there was neither, there were snowmen and forts to build, and a wintery version of tag. Inside recess, a version of the water game, “Marco-Polo”.
We played a game sometimes called “Fox and Geese” but we called it “Bushel”. We went out in the field in the deep snow and made a center and then we made paths and circles around it with connecting paths and put someone in the center and that one had to go out and catch someone. The first one he caught without stepping out of the paths had to go back in the center and be “it”. That was quite a game!

“Jacob and Rachel;” was a popular indoor game for older boys and girls. A boy, blindfolded, would be Jacob and stand in the center of a circle of boys and girls. One girl would disguise her voice and call out “Jacob!” The boy, if unable to identify the girl, would ask “Rachel?” and she would call out again “Jacob!” This would go on back and forth until the boy said her name.

Arthur Kimball

In spite of the legendary stories of walking miles to school through snow and ice, transportation was provided for students who lived a distance from the school:
When they closed Appaquag for lack of scholars and we had to be transported to Bell School we went in what was a two-seater wagon only there were seven of us altogether and the driver, that made eight, so they needed to accommodate more – they had the seats going along the sides front to back instead of sideways – you faced each other in the middle. In cold weather the blanket went over our knees – I’d put the blanket over my knees, tuck it in, and then it’d go up and over the next one. Of course the circulation was good all around in back of our knees. That was an early school bus!

Harold Stone

Four of the seven schools eventually closed due to decreases in student enrollment. Appaquag was one of them. It was later sold to the American Legion for the veterans’ use and was moved from its location on Pomfret Road to the corner of North Bigelow and Windy Hill, where it stands today as a residence. Owners Ellen and John Rodriguez have altered the small building, necessarily and beautifully, and there’s little that resembles the original structure. Unlike some of our one room schoolhouses, where the separate entrances and the black boards and the coat pegs were preserved, Ellen confirms that there was little evidence of it as a school house when they purchased it; all that remained were initials carved into a wall.

But it was built of sturdy stuff, as attested to by its survival, and remains in Hampton’s history texts as the Appaquag Schoolhouse, and in the recollections recorded in Hampton Remembers, where so many years later, the students who once sat at its rows of desks, stoked its woodstove, wrote from an ink well, recited poetry, and played in the fields surrounding it — recalled so many details of their beloved, little one room schoolhouse.

Dayna McDermott

The teachers those days, they were not encumbered with the laws that they have today that you couldn’t punish anyone – each one got his own deserts…I remember Daddy Potter was one of the teachers, it seems as though it was at Appaquag School. He was kinda rough. Of course, to start out with they’d ask the children what their name was. One fella spoke up kinda smart, he says “My name is      Tobacca Juice”. So he hauls him outa his seat, rubs him around on the floor. He says “That’s what they do with tobacco juice. What’s you name?” And he got it.

Harold Stone

Hampton Elementary School is excited to begin the 2025–26 school year with a strong team and a clear plan. In keeping with our school theme, Rooted in Tradition, Branching to the Future, we are investing in the people and programs that help every child grow. Please accept a sincere thank you to our town for supporting our budget this year. We are dedicated to the students and families in our community.

As principal of Hampton Elementary, I am proud of the strong tradition of community and care that defines our school. This year, I am especially excited about the ways we are expanding opportunities for students, focusing on the whole child — whether through targeted support in academics, new avenues for creative expression, or deeper connections with our town. I invite families, neighbors, and community members to be part of our work this year. We succeed best when we do it together.

I am excited to introduce our new staff members to the HES team. Our students and community benefit when caring adults and strong instruction come together! We are continuing our focused work in academics, climate and community, and enrichment.

Meet Our New Team Members:

Director of Special Education, Mary Jo Chretien, is coming to Hampton with extensive experience in special education, both as an administrator and a speech language pathologist. Mrs. Chretien has served as the director of pupil services in Pomfret and Eastford and  has experience providing professional development to other administrators in CT and experience at the University level as an adjunct professor and as a clinical supervisor. 

Speech-Language Pathologist: Laurissa Rodzen has recently worked in Killingly Public Schools and has worked with students from Preschool age through transition age students. Mrs. Rodzen has experience teaching other providers about Augmentative and Alternative Communication and background in advocating for students with disabilities for public policy.

Full-Time Interventionist: Mariann LaPointe, who many families will know as she served as our reading and math interventionist as our long term substitute last year. Mrs. Lapointe is a veteran teacher with experience at multiple grade levels as well as experience providing intervention in Killingly Public Schools.

Paraeducator: Madison Palmerino has a degree in music education and currently services at the Complex Performing and Creative Arts Center in Putnam. Hampton families can see Ms. Palmerino’s work at the end of October where she is producing the production of Rent at the Bradley Playhouse.

Paraeducator:  Louise Edwards is a new Hampton resident in the past year. We are lucky to also have her volunteering for the Fletcher Memorial Library as a member of the board. Mrs. Edwards has extensive experience in child development and is passionate about parent coaching. She works to support parents through coaching sessions to identify areas of need to improve parent and child relationships.

Physical Therapist:  Anne Marie Ferron has extensive school-based experience in northeastern CT.  We are fortunate to have her working with us through a contract with another local district, a practice encouraged by the state to provide quality services with fiscal responsibility. Besides her professional background, Dr. Ferron shares that she is a mother of two children, an 11-year-old boy and 8- year-old girl and that her interests include country music and her pet dog and bearded dragon.

Our Work This Year

We organize our improvement efforts around ACE—Academic achievement, Climate and community, and Enrichment and engagement, all of which we will detail in the next issue of The Hampton Gazette.

Victoria Smith, Principal, Hampton Elementary School

Ever since our grandson first started school, we’ve read a letter of appreciation at the end of each year. As he embarks on a new chapter of his educational life, our appreciation for the Hampton Elementary School staff over the last four years deserves a larger audience.

Our grandson started pre-school in January of 2022. Four months later he would endure the worst tragedy a child ever could. The staff was there for him, and for us, with personal calls, cards, providing meals for a month to our family, and most meaningfully, sharing memories of his mother, our daughter.

The following year, three staff volunteered to testify in court on our behalf – anyone who’s ever endured this will understand – it’s never an easy thing; true, the judge ignored every word of the credible testimony of all of the professionals — social workers, teachers, and therapists, but that helped form the basis of an appeal, and we were ultimately successful in righting a horrible wrong. Somewhere along the way, our grandson, through our family, his therapist, and the school, gained the strength to let his own voice be heard, whether the “authorities” liked it or not. He became the hero of his own story, and was finally sent where he belongs, home.

Throughout all of this, the school accommodated his emotional needs, understood and tended to the post-traumatic stress needlessly inflicted upon him, worked in concert with us for his academics; and he become a reader, a writer, most notably a poet, and a “word wizard”. In short, this school was just what our grandson needed during the most difficult years of his life. For this we will be forever grateful.

For his superb classroom teachers, the paraprofessionals, particularly Mrs. Penrod who was one of his mother’s dearest friends – we knew he was looked after and loved in this exceptional way, special teachers as well, particularly Mrs. Garrison who went to school with his mother – and shared stories with him of their growing up together, the nurse, Mrs. Danielson – could there be a warmer person on earth? — and Ms. Sorrel, who has always, and continues to be, there for him whenever he needs her to be. The administrators, too, went the extra mile for him and for his family, all three principals, and a superintendent who, meeting with us on another, non-related matter, spoke of our grandson’s kindness towards others. How good it is to know that a superintendent has personal knowledge of individual children. We can tell you from experience with school systems, this is not common.

The small size of the school has proven a liability of late in terms of things like grade configurations and budgets. It’s also the school’s strength, with the supportive, intimate environment it nurtures. Unfortunately, politics sometimes tears this fabric at its periphery, and it shouldn’t. In this small environment there’s no room for isolation, no room to exclude the minimal diversity we have.

It is our hope, for the sake of the school, its children and families, the example the staff sets encourages its community of families to preserve the supportiveness exemplified within the walls of the school – it’s what’s worth saving.

Juan and Dayna Arriola

To the Editor:

I write from our small town of Hampton, where the land is quiet and our relationships run deep. And while we may feel far from the flashpoints of current events, I believe our voices here still matter—perhaps especially so.

Recently, ICE agents conducted an arrest outside a Norwalk police station. The scene was disturbing—masked agents aggressively without due process taking a man away in public view. Many see this as standard procedure, but it raised deep questions for me: Is this what safety looks like? Who feels protected—and who feels targeted?

Even in towns like ours, where there may not be large immigrant populations, we are part of a larger moral fabric. The culture we shape here—what we say or don’t say—has ripple effects. What we normalize in silence becomes the air we all breathe.

I’m writing to speak to my own community, my neighbors, and to ask: Can we be a town that leads with dignity and care, not fear? Can we make clear that our public spaces—our libraries, schools, and emergency services—remain places of safety?

I’ve written to our Board of Selectmen to ask whether Hampton might join other towns in affirming this commitment. I’m also speaking with neighbors to explore how we can support those more directly impacted, in nearby places like Willimantic.

Sometimes, justice starts in quiet places.

With care,

Robin Thompson

Dear Auntie Mac,

My adult child is extremely unhappy. She doesn’t like her job, she has few friends, has no romantic relationship. When I suggest she get some counseling, career counseling, life counseling, she gets angry and doesn’t speak to me for a while. I worry, and would appreciate any advice you could give me.

Worried Mother

My Dear Neighbor:

One of the most heartbreaking things a parent must endure is a truly unhappy child, no matter their age. Auntie Mac assumes that your concern is newfound, and that your daughter did not glide from the womb in a pool of despair, but rather, recent (or relatively recent) circumstances have produced what you perceive to be a profound listlessness and melancholy. I mention your perception because there are indeed many who despise their jobs, have but few friends, and are not interested in romance, and they are for the most part happy and content—apart from at times expressing a fervent wish to win the lottery and be done with employment altogether. She wonders if you have asked your daughter to share what may be troubling her, or if you are merely relying on your own observation of a change in her behavior and her angry reactions to your offers of “assistance.” Auntie Mac often finds that most people, given the opportunity, will bare their existential crises, frustrations, and litany of ways in which they are indeed Fate’s special target, if they trust that the listener is doing just that—listening—and that no advice, suggestions, or attempts to “fix” the problem will be forthcoming. Unadulterated sympathy is what many of us long for and few of us receive, for we all, when on the receiving end of someone’s woes—especially those of a loved one—wish to leap in and be “helpful,” when what we are actually doing is belittling the person who’s sharing her state of mind with us. Unless the proffered advice is of an order of magnitude so divergent from what the sufferer would have come up with as a solution and then discarded (“I’ve always felt that a swim in a pond full of leeches followed by a bowl of 10-day-old bean soup just puts me to rights again”), offering unsolicited advice is insulting and, frankly, demeaning. A patient, kind, and non-judgmental ear, without giving in to the urge to repair what you feel is broken, will go a long way to providing at least some comfort to an adult daughter who, it appears, needs comforting now, especially from someone close to her. After she begins to trust that you are on her side (“Your supervisor sounds like the worst possible human being ever. That must be awful for you.” “I envy your skill at that single-player video game.” “I never liked Harold—he has the face of a mole. Such squinty little eyes; you’re well rid of him.”) she may begin to divulge more about this current emotional state, and actually request–and welcome–your help. And when that day comes, you’ll be more than ready.

Your Auntie Mac

You think that over the counter meds mean no trouble, no side effects.  Think again if you are elderly. This summer I got a head cold.  It’s been years since I had one.  I reached into the cabinet where I keep my vitamins and meds and found the head cold med I like. It was so old that the expiration date printed on the bottle had long passed.  So I got a new one and took it. It was good for clearing the sinuses of mucus, coughing, sinus headache, sore throat and more.  What was wrong?  My vision got blurry. I have wet macular degeneration, which some old people get. My eye chart from my eye doctor has a grid on it of many close vertical lines crossed by many horizontal lines. At the bottom it says call your eye doctor if the lines become wavy.  Well, they were wavy.  I called the doc’s office and was told to come right in.  Called a neighbor to drive me in.  She came over and drove me. Once there I had all kinds of eye tests, including pictures of inside of eye by retina. Doctor looked in my eye with instrument.  He dictated to clerk: no blood. He then asked me if I was taking any new meds. I said I had had a head cold and was taking the XXX cold medicine. That’s it he said. That med clears up the moisture in your sinuses, but also your eyes, so if you have wet macular degeneration, it makes things wavy.  Go home and put eye drops in your eye that lubricate or hydrate your eye for one day.  What a relief, I was not bleeding at the retina, I just dried out and could re-lubricate the eye. My neighbor and I walked out of the doctor’s office and Boom! A big lightening bolt and thunder clap, and the rain came down all of a sudden in buckets. We were parked 50 feet away. We were drenched by the time we got to the car.

When I got home, I got a call from a friend who recommended another over the counter cold med.  I got that and took it, and got an awful stomach ache from it. Turns out it was full of lemon.  I have acid reflux. I don’t drink orange juice anymore.  I can eat a small orange or small tomato with no problem, but orange juice or spaghetti sauce causes pain because of acid reflux. I challenge you to find an old person that does not have acid reflux. Maybe we need special over the counter meds for old people, or warnings in large print for the possible side effects for old people.

Angela H. Fichter

This summer, we started our grandson on his travels through the United States, lessons on geography, history, the beauty and the diversity of our nation, beginning with our country’s southwestern, native roots: New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and Texas, those that are arguably the most impressive, as the landscape is so very different than anything he’s seen on the east coast. Like his grandmother says, “It’s like landing on another planet!” For me, I was returning home to where I’m from: “the Land of Enchantment”, and I was able to share my friendly and beautiful state with my family. For our daughter, India reconnected with the roots of her heritage, which became apparent as soon as she stepped into the realm of her people.

After arriving in Albuquerque, we went to the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center where the dancers from Acoma entertained us. Called the “Gateway”, a small but informative museum of exhibits introduces visitors to the nineteen pueblos of New Mexico. On our way to the next destination, Felix had already noticed the following differences: “no trees, no clouds, lots of sand, lots of Indians.” At Petroglyph National Park, he became acclimated with the climate. Visitors must remain on the trails due to the destruction and theft of petroglyphs protected now by federal law, and the markings, drawings and inscriptions on huge boulders and lava rocks, left by the first people of Albuquerque, are easy to miss. So after walking almost a mile through the hot sand with no shade at a hundred degrees, we finally came across some, and were more than satisfied with our find. Felix, especially, was not eager to look for more. The City of Albuquerque has changed a lot – it’s grown! — since I left 30 years ago, and so has Old Town, but San Felipe de Neri Church is still at the heart of the plaza where musicians still entertain visitors on summer nights, and Albuquerque is still a vibrant and colorful blend of diverse cultures.

Felix noticed another enormous difference: enormous mountain ranges, Sandias and the Sangre de Cristos, on the way to our next destination, Chimayo, a Catholic Church built over 400 years ago on grounds that were sacred to the native people. Legend has it that a cross discovered in the dirt, and repeatedly brought to another Church, kept mysteriously returning until the Spanish decided to simply construct a Church on the site of the special soil for which it is now famous. Today people leave their crutches behind and leave with small containers of the healing soil, and Mass is held in front of the exquisitely carved altar.

Another hour north and we’re in Taos. It’s easy to see why it’s such a popular place. The scenery, the climate, the charming plaza filled with eclectic shops, and the skiing. We are here to visit Taos Pueblo, a UNESCO World Heritage Site which is over 1000 years old and remains occupied by members of the original families. One can purchase Native art, crafts, jewelry and pottery in some of the homes, as well as oven bread, baked daily in outdoor kilns. The Red Willow People are named for the creek which is still used, as the pueblos have neither running water nor electricity. The blue doors of the multi-family adobe buildings are meant to symbolize the southwest, protect against evil spirits, and repel insects. Our Native guide explained all of this, and the church ruins, reminding us that the first American Revolution was in New Mexico in 1680, when Pope’ united the Pueblos who revolted against the violence and persecution imposed by a European conqueror, successfully driving them from the region, not for long, but long enough for the Native people to reclaim and re-establish their own “ancient traditions, languages and homelands to this day.”

The next morning we embarked on one of our longest rides, to Chaco Culture. Long drives through large states, but that’s an important part of it — the beauty along the way. On our journey through ever-changing landscapes, Felix first saw the Rocky Mountains and the Rio Grande, not a big river, but a nurturing, life-giving one to all who live on its banks. The majority of the pueblos in New Mexico are located along the Rio Grande.

Located in Navajo land in New Mexico’s northwest, or “the middle of nowhere”, and driving on 20 miles of rough roads, half of which is washboard, Chaco is not easy to get to, but as a result, visitors have the place almost to themselves. The only life we saw along the way — prairie dogs, jack rabbits, and ravens. Chaco Culture, our second World Heritage Site, abandoned Pre-Colombian villages of granaries, kivas, home and ceremonial sites dating back to 850 A. D., line the nine-mile loop in the park. It is said at one time Chaco housed up to 10,000 inhabitants. They are all gone, and one marvels in amazement at the structures that remain. Visitors walk into the villages, touch the stones, listen to the wind, the crows and ravens who live there now. Felix and I found artifacts in one village — pottery shards, obsidian and an arrow head, and respecting the spirit, we left them in the desert where they belong.

People always ask – where are the ancient ones who lived here? Where are the Anasazi? What happened to them? Why did they disappear? The response now — at Taos, at Chaco, at Mesa Verde, at the Grand Canyon — we are still here. We are the Pueblo, the Navajo, the Ute, the Apache nations, and any and all indigenous people who live in the southwestern region of the United States. We never left. We are the original people of this country, and we are still here. I’m grateful that my family can walk in the sacred land of our ancestors, grateful to share it with others.

Juan Arriola
…to be continued. Please share your summer travels with us; our readers enjoy learning of their neighbors’ different adventures.