the plane circled high over west texas plains and this guy next to me started in telling me about an interesting life in east texas and in various places where he works. i missed new mexico already, its soft mountains, clear sky and cacti. two stories from new mexico stuck with me; both were from world war two.

the first was that of the navajo code talkers. the navajo had joined from throughout the reservation so many were from arizona as well as new mexico, and also la and other places. it turns out that at that time navajo were forced to go to school away from home and were miserable, so many joined purely in order to get a better life or to get out of school. but the army found them useful since the navajo language had not borrowed a single word from english even in spite of having borrowed entire machines like cars which were of course full of parts. because the navajo had words for every single thing, their language became an impenetrable code. but because of that the navajo were spread out in different locations during the war; there was no place that had many of them; each regiment had maybe one or two.

unlike the navajo, the ranchers of deming had a much worse fate. they all happened to be in a single regiment, and they had the bad luck to be placed in bataan, philippines, home of the worst incident of the entire war. there weren't many ranchers around deming but every young man went and joined this particular regiment. so an entire area was totally destroyed by the bataan death march. the place was low on ranchers for an entire generation. and now, they still re-enact that death march out on the white sands every year. new mexico is the center of the 'remember the death march' movement.

the trip home was uneventful. i'm glad to be out of the airports tonight, at home, not needing to go anywhere in particular. i'm thinking about my parents a lot, out there under the organ mountains, where the sun shines so, and where it's so far away from the rest of us. they are happy, though; they are together, still getting around, and doing what they want. and for that i'm thankful, every minute.